Today’s forecast is light showers and a high of 18, which is a bit cooler than normal. Tuesday they claim a high of 25 (not a record, but 5 degrees warmer than average) and mostly sunny. The point is we have reached the season of variable weather, where it could be sunny and almost summer-like (good fall) or wet and cool (not Fonzie cool, the other kind), which is bad fall. But the seasons are relentless and there’s no avoiding them, so instead I will look forward to drinking tea, keeping warm and enjoying runs where I don’t have to worry about Dry Mouth Syndrome. See? Positive!
We made good time heading out, though ominously a few light showers began as we travelled the highway. They didn’t last long and it ended up being mostly sunny for the rest of the day, which was also the last day of summer. Goodbye, summer, I’ll miss you!
It was a fair bit cooler at Reifel than last time, but still warm enough by the end to doff our jackets and hoodies.
Unlike our last visit, we got to see the Sandhill cranes, both on the ground and in the air. Also right up front was a healthy mix of shorebirds, including Greater Yellowlegs, some dowitchers and maybe a few others tucked in. Nic got some great shots of the yellowlegs flying (they were often flying in little spurts across the pond) and may post some of the photos in his store. BUY THEM ALL AND MAKE HIM RICH.
Chickadees were present, but elusive, while the first juncos, fox sparrows and golden crowns of the season made appearances. Yellow-rumped warblers were in numbers plentiful enough that even I got a few respectable shots.
Blackbirds did not seem as numerous as usual, so they may have gone off to wherever it is they go off to (it doesn’t seem to be far, because they always come back). In their place were a lot of house sparrows.
The geese were honking, but drama was on low. I got approached by several geese with mouths agape, but I think they were hoping I’d toss seed into their maws. I feel kind of bad when they do this, because I never have seed. I’m hoping they don’t have good memories.
After Reifel, we went to Blackie Spit in surrey, only to find a rowing event in progress and no parking. I suggested Boundary Bay, so we headed off there, and lo, there was parking.
Boundary Bay Dyke Trail
Have a seat and take in the bay.
The downside for me with Boundary Bay is the birds we see are usually never close. The upside is I can shoot prop planes up close basically forever. And I did.
We also saw some robins, which have been pretty rare in the places we’ve visited over the summer, plus a few remaining Savannah sparrows. We also saw a cute li’l bunny just as we started out, which I was not expecting, although if I think about it, I’m never really expecting bunnies.
Nic got weird and took a photo of people golfing. People! Like, humans, not birds. He rejected all of my suggestions for captions:
People with tiny balls
Swingers
The Last Putter
Foreplay
I mean, one of them wasn’t even dirty.
I also opted to put on sunblock here, which I think was both the right call, as well as my own final salute to summer. Tomorrow, I put on my parka.
In all, a good day for birbs, with multiple migrants returning, pleasant weather, and some good shotss all around.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare, rarely-seen or recently returned birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American robin
Anna’s hummingbird
Bewick’s wren (heard, not seen)
Black-capped chickadee
Cedar waxwing
Dark-eyed junco (returned!)
Fox sparrow (returned!)
Golden-crowned sparrow (returned!)
House sparrow
Red-winged blackbird
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee
White-crowned sparrow
Yellow warbler
Yellow-rumped warbler
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
American coot
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Greater yellowlegs
Hooded merganser (returned, though they allegedly don’t migrate)
UPDATE: Real and yummy red velvet cake came two days later. Worth the wait.
A poor substitute, but it’s hard to screw up peanut butter and chocolate. Not impossible, but hard.
Also, I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point the Canadian version of these went from Reese to Reese’s, aligning itself with the American version. I always thought Reese sounded a bit funny.
These cups, which of course seem tiny in my adult hands, are about 76 calories each. Do not scarf.
Yep, it happened just as the prophecy and my birth certificate foretold: I have turned 60 today.
In most demographic divisions, I am now in the last group, the group where no further division is necessary, because someone who is 60 acts, reacts and lives in the exact manner as someone who is 90. Or 100. (I riffed on this last year when turning 59, but now IT’S HAPPENING. Will start listening to country music tomorrow.)
Unlike last year, when I altered my run schedule specifically to run on my birthday (because I wanted to make a statement), this year I preferred to stick to the schedule, which meant I ran yesterday, will run tomorrow and take today off. Conveniently, my Garmin Forerunner, after wishing me a happy birthday, told me it was a Rest Day. I will not disobey my watch.
And that’s about all I have to say. It will be a slightly mellower day for me, but otherwise typical. I may vacuum, which is probably in the Top Five for least exciting birthday activities.
Here is a celebratory birthday GIF. I may add a drawing of my own later, I have an idea.
But (a little) more seriously, I’ve been looking at novel-writing software and there are a few trends I’ve noticed:
A lot of software has moved to the browser (kind of yucko).
Most software has a monthly or yearly subscription attached (definitely yucko).
No one really recommends Microsoft Word, but a few recommend Google Docs (??).
Most non-browser software seems to run on Windows or Mac, but rarely both.
Scrivener is the unicorn because it supports Windows, Mac and has a one-time purchase price. It even works on Linux if you are willing to fiddle a bit (no actual fiddle skills required).
There seems to be a split between software that is pretty and modern, and One Dude Who Knows How to Code But Uses UI by Caveman Design.
None of the “best of” lists I looked at offered anything for Linux. Sorry, Tux! This is mildly surprising, because novelWriter is open source software that runs on all three desktop platforms: Windows, macOS and Linux. I’m trying it out now and will have more on it soon™.
In reality, I probably have the best option already, the aforementioned unicorn of Scrivener. But I am still traumatized by how it munged my work, and it does not play nice with network drives or cloud services, and I’m not yet certain if I want to restrict my writing to one platform. Maybe I should.
Also, this is my way of saying I may start writing fiction again. Woo. Or at least woo-ish.
I realized I hadn’t used my LinkedIn account for many years, and rarely at all.
I came to this realization because news began spreading today that Microsoft decided to use everyone’s LinkedIn accounts to train generative AI–by opting people in without telling them.
So with a few seconds of reflection (all that was merited), I closed my account. In two weeks it will be permanently gone, or perhaps “gone” because I have zero trust that these big tech companies actually purge data or honour the requests made by users.
More leaves are self-explanatory. There are a lot of leaves that ain’t waiting till fall officially gets underway. Fortunately, the worst spots seemed to be on the post-run parts of the trail, but it did make me wonder if fallen leaves were on my list of worst trail running weather conditions. They are not! Probably because the hazard has been more potential than realized.
I had another nutty idea on starting the run. I originally planned a short loop and my idea was to go CCW, but start rough 1 km further back, so that by the time I cleared the Piper Mill Trail, I could just immediately circle back on the regular part of the trail. But as I neared the 0 km marker (the “official” beginning of the lake loop), I realized I was dumb, because I had assumed there was a one km gap between the 10K and 0K markers1My brain tries to be logical to a fault, sometimes.. There is not! It is more like 0.38 km. With this realization, and the weather being pleasant, I decided to just go all the way around the lake (but still only a 5K run).
The results were nearly identical to Monday, just a tad faster. I am good with that.
Again, there were a fair number of people out, a mix of walkers, joggers and people with dogs, but no issues encountered. Plus, I got a chance to feel “fast” when I eventually caught up and passed someone on the Cottonwood Trail. If he had been a little farther ahead, I would have probably finished my run before catching up to him. I take these victories where I can.
Finally, the last of the 50s: My birthday is tomorrow, so this is the last run I’ll do as a 50-something. The fact that I am still running is reason enough to celebrate, as far as I’m concerned. Go me!
Still Creek, post-run.
Stats:
Run 887 Average pace: 5:41/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 11:01 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:34 Weather: Sunny, some cloud Temp: 17°C Humidity: 78-75% Wind: light BPM: 151 Weight: 165.9 Total distance to date: 6,295 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 6 (80/174/254)
To the uninitiated, the title may make no sense. To me, it’s two of the preset display modes for my Asus monitors. The one that sits to the left has also seemed brighter and the whites whiter (now I sound like a laundry detergent ad) and for a long while I just left it all alone because both monitors were using DisplayPort and had the exact same settings.
Both used Racing Mode, which provided the least objectionable selection of gaudy, oversaturated colours. Or so I thought. On a whim, I selected Cinema Mode on the more yellowish monitor on the right and lo, the whites now look like they’ve been bleached to heck and back, just the way I like! I made a few other tweaks and now both monitors, using different settings, look roughly the same.
The real issue is likely either some fault in the right monitor, either something ultimately unfixable, or something not easily fixable, like the calibration being off. But for now, both monitors look the same(ish) and that’s good enough for me!
As a bonus (?), colours in Cinema Mode are a lot more…intense. Not necessarily oversaturated, but let’s say they pop a lot more. And I kind of like it. Maybe I’m becoming a more colourful person.
Conditions were slightly warmer and slightly sunnier today (though high cloud blocked the sun most of the time), but not enough to make a difference compared to the last few runs.
What did make a difference was my spontaneous decision to veer off the usual course taking me down the Southshore Trail and to continue straight ahead instead down the Freeway Trail. I’m not sure why I did this, but it may have been that I was planning a short loop and realized this was one way to make it more of an actual loop, instead of simply backtracking the way I’d come. Variety, and all that.
It would also have the effect of slowing me down, which I wanted to do, so I don’t push my legs/knees/miscellaneous organs too hard as I get back into a regular run routine. The Freeway trail is more uneven and hilly than the lake trail, so it would either slow me down (yes) or I’d have to push extra hard to compensate (haha, no). I probably ran around 2 km or so on it before diverting back to the regular trail.
The diversion also had the added benefit of getting me away from the crowds, because it felt unusually busy for a Monday morning. I don’t know if it was my slightly later start or people panicking and trying to get in activity before summer ends, but after the weird absence of people last Wednesday, it’s been People++ since then. No issues, though, which is nice.
The Freeway Trail did indeed slow me down, as my pace was 5:49/km along that stretch, which brought my overall pace to 5:42/km, which is still perfectly fine. The legs and knees held up, with no pain or discomfort. The shins are still adjusting, but again, no real issues.
Overall, a perfectly cromulent start to the week.
P.S. There was a BDI1Bad Dog Incident post-run and I was going to detail it, but I’ve decided to just let it go. No one got hurt, so I’m not going to dwell on it.
Turtle nesting area, poat-run. No turtles, no nest, but more cloud.
Stats:
Run 886 Average pace: 5:42/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop) Start: 10:42 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:39 Weather: Sun with high cloud Temp: 17-18°C Humidity: 71-69% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 151 Weight: 165.9 Total distance to date: 6,290 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 6 (75/161/236)
From a techbro billionaire, of course. In this case, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison:
“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on,” Ellison said, describing what he sees as the benefits from automated oversight from AI and automated alerts for when crime takes place. “We’re going to have supervision,” he continued. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate person.”
Because there’s no way a 24/7 surveillance state wouldn’t be abused by those in power. No way at all!
When a bunch of people make the effort to email a reply, that’s properly old-school and gratifying all at once.
— Craig Grannell, writer
Email is old-school. I’m sure people said the same thing about physical letters written with feather quills plucked from the carcasses of the dinosaurs they hunted for sustenance after a time, too. And it’s also true email has been around since (checks Wikipedia) the early 1980s (though for most people it was more like the mid 1990s, which still makes it around 30 years old).
But there is that tricky passage of time effect and how a year once felt like forever, and now it feels like a blip and that makes email old-school, something The Kids regard as quaint as they invent new slang on a daily basis on TikTok or whatever the next social media platform will be (the old people will stay on Facebook, which will eventually have more accounts from the dead than the living and will not result in a materially different experience).
BTW, I now use email mostly to get a few select newsletters, because it’s easier than having to go through a bunch of bookmarks. It’s relatively uncommon for me to write an actual email message. That would be old-school.
