I stared at myself while eating gelato today

At the conclusion of our afternoon of walking a whole lot, Nic became quietly obsessed with having some gelato for dessert. After fruitlessly searching along Davie Street, he turned to technology (Google) to save us and we made our way to a place near Robson and Bute. They have a row of seats along a counter and on the wall in front of the counter is a large mirror. This means you get to stare at yourself while eating your gelato. I found it mildly unnerving. Then I took a picture of myself in the mirror, with my eyebrows slightly raised, because this is apparently a thing I do nearly every time I take a picture of myself. I don’t know why.

It’s gelato, not poo, I swear.

The perspective is kind of weird in the shot, because my right hand looks to be about the same size as my head, which it is not.Also, I am not a goth despite all the black I’m wearing. Not to my knowledge, anyway (I do own three albums by The Cure.)

I walked 33,164 steps today

That’s 26.44 km. The number will actually go higher before I got to bed, unless I magically teleport around the condo for the rest of the evening.

Nic and I went for a walk around the Stanley Park seawall. As it was a beautiful, sunny day it was packed with people the way a Snickers is allegedly packed with peanuts. We delighted in the scenery, even as we had to avert our eyes from the men who had taken their shirts off to expose their extremely white flesh. It’s definitely early summer.

In a rare turn of events, I did not get sunburned, but Nic did get some red on the back of his neck. [Nelson laugh here]

I’ll slap together some of the better photos, but for now here’s one I like of the underside of the Lions Gate bridge.

Weight loss report, June 2019: No weight loss

The seemingly bad news of not losing any weight is a bit deceptive. While it’s true that my weight was exactly the same on both June 1 and June 30, suggesting no progress in weight loss, there was, in fact, progress!

First, the year to date figure has me down 0.6 pounds. A trivial amount, sure, but still in the right direction.

The telling stat, however, is body fat. Over the course of the month it went from 19.8% to 18.5%, a dip of 2.2 pounds. This is a very good sign, and it reflects how I began to curb my snacking and exercise more in the latter half of the month.

Just in the past week I did my first set of three weekly runs in a long time and, despite eyeing it covetously, I passed on a free Boston Cream donut.

So while more actual weight loss would have been nice, I’m pleased with how things went for the month. Here’s to continuing the trend in July, but with more actual weight loss mixed in.

The stats:

June 1: 166.9 pounds
June 30: 166.9 pounds (no change)

Year to date: From 167.5 to 166.9 pounds (down 0.6 pounds)

And the body fat:

June 1: 19.8% (33.1 pounds of fat)
June 30: 18.5% (30.9 pounds of fat) (down 2.2 pounds)

Run 612: What goes up…

Run 612
Average pace: 6:01/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 6:15 pm
Distance: 5:04 km
Time: 30:21
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 20ºC
Humidity: 57%
Wind: light
BPM: 157
Weight: 166.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 4640 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8

Today’s run was both a disappointment and perfectly fine, even quite good in some respects.

It was just a few degrees cooler than Tuesday and cloudy. Showers earlier in the day meant it was more humid, which meant I sweated more, but that’s all.

A cramp threatened near my right shoulder for a bit, but I focused on staying loose and after a few minutes it went away without fully materializing. I had no other issues otherwise.

Because this was my third run in a week, something I haven’t done in about two hundred years, I deliberately set a slower pace. This led to the one real disappointment, though hardly unexpected: I was, in fact, slower. But I was a full nine seconds off Tuesday’s pace, which surprised me.

Another surprise, albeit a pleasant one, was my heart rate. It was down again, to 157, which is very nice. The surprise was in the heart rate chart. Usually I see a spike near the beginning and end of a run, then a jagged series of small ups and downs through the run. Today’s run was close to a straight line. While my pace per km fluctuated, my BPM remained very steady. Kind of weird.

Other than that, the run was fine. I’d have been happier to have stayed under a pace of 6:00/km, but I still felt good, so I’ll call this a victory, especially since it is the first time in quite awhile that I’ve done three runs within the same week. Onward to the weekend!

Important Michael Jackson update: Still dead

It’s been 10 years since Michael Jackson died (June 25, 2009, to be precise). His estate still rakes in loads of cash. An HBO documentary with two alleged abuse victims of his released this year and is HBO’s third most-watched documentary of all time.

Some radio stations in Canada will not play his music, but Cirque du Soleil still does a Jackson-themed show in Vegas. The Simpsons no longer airs the episode where he voices a character, but his music still generates income in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Real dollars, too–the U.S. kind.

So his post-life is seeing great commercial success, though the creepy days of yore–with fresh new lurid stories–present the classic dilemma of separating the art from the artist. Can you enjoy “Beat It” knowing he almost certainly abused young children? Also, “Beat It”, is that a totally coded message or what? (It’s probably a coincidence.) For myself, I can appreciate his musical legacy, but no longer seek out or listen to his music. There’s just no way to separate it from the creepy kinda guy he was. People can probably do this in a hundred years when they are listening to his songs with their $500/month Apple Music subscription, but for now and for me, Michael Jackson is simply still dead.

Using my smartphone for good, not evil

Actually it would be more fair to say I’ve been using my smartphone (currently an iPhone 8) for harmless nonsense, which is still better than using it for evil.

I’ve made a few recent posts to the blog during my morning commute, using the Ulysses app to slowly tap out a post and then upload it directly to my blog. I marvel at the technology, even as I lament how few will see my carefully-considered nonsense. I even just recently had a two-day stretch of zero visits on June 21 and 22. This is bad even by my own sad standards. I clearly need to work on the SEO and other acronyms to boost hits. More clickbait! More gossip! More whatever it is people want. Maybe just a redirect to Facebook.

It feels like the writing muscles are finally starting to halt their atrophy, as I am using more little blocks of time to write errant thoughts down, moving ever-so-slightly closer to perhaps engaging in some fiction writing again.

Mainly, though, I am not using my phone for social media, except for using Slack at work, which is not really in any way fun, so doesn’t count. There’s hardly any clickbait.

What do I use my phone for? Here’s a list. I like lists.

What I use my smartphone for, in order of most to least

  1. Listening to music
  2. Sending and receiving text messages with my partner. A lot of this includes Bitmoji nonsense, which I love and adore.
  3. Logging food/water in the MyFitnessPal app
  4. Adding or removing stuff in the Reminders app
  5. Checking stats in the Activity app
  6. Occasionally checking email, either personal (Gmail) or work (Outlook)
  7. Checking calendar appointments (almost exclusively work-related)
  8. Adding errant thoughts using the Drafts 4 app
  9. Adding errant and less-errant thoughts using the OneNote app
  10. Sometimes checking the weather or news
  11. Using the flashlight function
  12. Making or receiving an actual phone call
  13. Playing a game
  14. Writing a blog post (this one may move up the list over time)

What I never use my smartphone for

  1. Making the world a worse place (to my knowledge)
  2. To smash open walnuts
  3. As a level
  4. To play music without earbuds or earphones. Seriously, why do people do this? Do you do this? Don’t do this.
  5. To plug in a nice set of headphones (zing!)

Book review: Keep Going

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a delight. Austin Kleon not only has an awesome name, his art is a fun and quirky mix of collage, cartoons and wordplay. This is someone who sees art all around him, then dives in to make even more.

The focus on the book is primarily aimed at creative types, specifically writers and visual artists, but most people can glean useful stuff from the sensible, thoughtful ideas he shares. Many may seem common sense, like finding a “bliss station”–a space where you can focus on your creativity, whether it’s a physical spot or just time you carve out of the day–but Kleon presents them as a piece with his own thoughts, creating a unified, accessible whole.

Kleon emphasizes experimentation, not getting hung up on the pursuit of perfection, and focusing on making art that makes others–and yourself–happy. He is big on gifts, less so on selling your stuff on Etsy, or somehow trying to make money from your creativity (he is not opposed, as he does it himself, obviously, but warns of the danger in trying to commercialize something you love and are passionate about).

He urges the reader to take social media in small doses, to turn your day to day life over to a virtual “airplane mode” from time to time, to not focus on doing things just to generate likes or clicks.

Keep Going is a short book, all the better to get through it and start applying what Kleon advocates. I read this on an iPad Pro and definitely advocate reading it in a format large enough to appreciate the numerous sketches, cartoons and notes, whether it be through tablet or even quaint old paper. The illustrations are all black and white, so a larger e-reader should work, too.

A solid thumbs up for creative types seeking easily-acted on inspiration and tips, and still recommended to others for the positive approach to life.

View all my reviews

Touch a tree

When was the last time you touched a tree? I know, it seems weird. Why would you touch a tree? What if you put your finger smack in the middle of some sap? You can’t just wipe that stuff off on your pants. You’ll need to find somewhere to wash your hands. A bother.

But you should touch a tree anyway. Why? Because if you are touching a tree, you are in a tiny way communing with nature and more importantly, unlikely to be staring into the screen of your smartphone, because staring at that risks finger-in-sap.

Plus, touching a tree means you are outside, where most trees are, and enjoying the outdoors and maybe on the way to or from the tree you will see and experience other outdoor things that are pleasant or inspiring.

There are worse things you could do.

Touch a cactus, for example. If you are touching a cactus, you are likely in the desert and it’s hot and dry and cacti are very prickly, so why are you touching one, anyway?

Trees, though—find one, touch it. You won’t be sorry.

Run 611: Faster with no raccoons

Run 611
Average pace: 5:52/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 6:26 pm
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 29:29
Weather: Partly sunny
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 36%
Wind: light
BPM: 160
Weight: 168.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 4635 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8

For the first time since 1907–when wearing athletic shorts outdoors could get you arrested–I did two runs in three days.

Even better, I proved Sunday was no fluke, improving my average pace by another six seconds (though the river trail is more forgiving, as I’ve noted before). Even better than that, my average heart rate was drastically lower, from 177 previously to 160 today.

I started out trying to not go too fast and burn out quickly, but still managed an opening pace of 5:31/km, positively zippy compared to recent runs. The second km it caught up to me as I slid back to 6:06/km.The fourth km was my fastest, which is unusual, at 5:28/km. I don’t have any real explanation for why the pace was like the proverbial roller coaster, except that I may have been automatically putting on the brakes when it felt like I was going too fast.

With no issues–no cramps, knees there but not a problem–this was about as good a follow-up to Sunday as I could have gotten. The weather was much warmer at 22ºC and it was a lot less humid, but with the sun mostly tucked behind high cloud, it actually felt fine. If I continue on a regular run schedule moving forward, my next run would be Thursday, where it is forecast to be 17ºC (good) with light rain (not so good). Motivation will be tricky, but we’ll see if I can build on the smidgen of momentum I’ve built up, instead of buying a giant bag of potato chips and snarfing them on the couch.

I sat beside Mitchell on the SkyTrain today

I don’t know Mitchell, but I do know he was sitting next to me on the SkyTrain this morning. I know this without having spoken to him and without interacting with him in any way at all.

How did I know his name? Was he wearing a name tag? Did someone nearby shout out to him, “Yo Mitchell dawg, what’s up?”

The answer to these questions is no.

I found out his name because I was writing a blog post on my phone. Yes, it was the magic (and menace) of technology.

The Ulysses app allows me to compose WordPress posts and send them magically to my blog to be published. On the iPhone this is done through the export function. But the first time you use it, the default is to open the share sheet. One of the options that appears here is AirDrop, Apple’s way of allowing iPhone users to easily share files.

And lo, there was Mitchell’s iPhone. He was indeed using his iPhone. I thought about sharing my blog post just to see how he’d react, but opted not to. But it also made me think how people could use AirDrop to creep on others.

Scenario: Unrelated man and woman sit beside each other on train, both have AirDrop enabled. Man opens up Photos app and goes to the share sheet after selecting a particularly appalling example of his manhood. He then opts to AirDrop it to the woman sitting next to him. She puts his phone in a place one might have considered physically impossible.

She could just choose not to accept, but you still get a preview of the image, so Unwitting Commuter is still going to see something grossbuckets before declining. I should test this sometime to see just how it works with someone you theoretically don’t know. With a picture of a kitten, you pervs.

Anyway, now I’m kind of wondering how Mitchell’s day is going.