On the first day of my vacation the weather was sunny and warm, just like summer is supposed to be, so hooray for that.
I spent the day sweeping, doing laundry and buying toothpaste. I also went for a walk, which ended with buying toothpaste. You may think this is not the most exciting way to spend a vacation and you would be correct. In fact, what I did was follow my usual Saturday routine (my Saturdays are not very exciting, though I should point out I don’t buy toothpaste every Saturday because I would have a closet filled with toothpaste by now if I did).
To cap off the day, I chose once again to not go to the annual fireworks display at English Bay. Every time I’ve gone I’ve enjoyed the actual show and quietly hated everything else, especially the large crowds and the incredible (slow) journey getting home on a transit system that is completely overtaxed. I can imagine pretty fireworks in my head or install a fireworks screensaver or watch lousy YouTube videos from 1999 and that’s good enough for me.
And that concludes the zany adventure that was my first day of vacation.
Run 442 Average pace: 5:48/km
Location: Brunette River trail and Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 7.03 km
Time: 40:47
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 27-24ºC
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 154
Stride: n/a
Weight: 159.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 3528
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6
I skipped my usual Thursday run so to keep on track I ran today instead. It was sunny and quite warm, so I expected to be slower and was duly rewarded with a pace of 5:48/km. On the plus side my BPM was down from 160 to 154. On the snake side, I had my first snake of summer slither across the trail in front of me. It’s funny because I had just been thinking about how I hadn’t seen any snakes this year. On my next run I’m going to think about how I haven’t seen a pot of gold this year.
My right calf was stiff and a little sore heading out but I don’t think this affected my pace as much as the heat and copious sweating as I worked to maintain a respectable pace. I never struggled, exactly, but much of the run felt labored. Did I mention the sweat? I sweated a lot.
The calf was sore even before the run, so I think I had one of those weird night things where your body contorts unnaturally while you’re sleeping (yes, sleeping). It doesn’t feel bad now so I’m not overly concerned.
The trail was sparsely populated tonight, possibly due to the people having vacated for the long weekend or maybe just the “it’s finally hot, let’s stay inside and bask in the AC” effect.
I’m now on my summer vacation so I’m switching my run time and days to mornings and Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The first run of last year’s vacation resulted in an injury that ended my running for the rest of the year. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen again this year. Or ever again. I’ll even trade a pot of gold to make sure it doesn’t.
Overall, not a bad run given the conditions, but I’m looking forward to running mornings when the temperatures are more temperate.
Run 441 Average pace: 5:37/km
Location: Brunette River trail and Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 7.04 km
Time: 39:34
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 20-22ºC
Wind: light
BPM: 160
Stride: n/a
Weight: 159.3 pounds
Total distance to date: 3521
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6
I changed things up a little today, running another 7K but starting at the river trail and carrying over to the lake. I also started earlier, with the run beginning around 9 a.m. (I had a commitment later that meant I had to take the day off of work, so chose to use the time for a run, though the pull to watch cat videos instead was strong).
The early start meant I successfully dodged the hottest part of the day, with it being warm but still comfortable. I also dramatically improved my pace over the previous 7K, lending credence to the idea that something about the river is either really easy or something about the lake is really hard, though the last km at the lake matched my general performance at the river. I slowed in the middle, as has usually been the case this past month. The overall pace of 5:37/km was an 11 second improvement over Sunday’s.
The right leg felt slightly stiff to start but was fine otherwise.
My entrance into Burnaby Lake Park was memorable in that the sewer (there is a sewer that parallels the course of the Brunette River and at certain key points you can often catch a whiff of it–it smells just like you’d expect a sewer to) was producing a barf-inducing stench not unlike a metric tonne or two of rotten eggs. Keep in mind that at this point I am nearly 2.5 km into the run as I go by and am sucking in air greedily, except now the air is foul beyond description. Once I passed the dam the odor disappeared but it was literally gag-inducing at the time. I’m not even using “literally” in the bizarre new opposite sense where I actually mean “figuratively.” I did actually feel my gag reflex kick in. It doesn’t seem it should ever smell that bad when you’re outside of the actual sewer but I’m no sewerologist.
As expected, getting out in the morning on a weekday meant I encountered far fewer people, only a couple of other joggers and the rest mostly people with their dogs, many off-leash but strangely well-behaved. The trail definitely had a different vibe.
Speaking of the trail, they started work on another section of the Southshore trail. In fact the li’l earth mover was still there, idling at the side of the trail as I scooted past it. A lot of the new gravel had been dumped but not spread out, making for semi-tricky navigation that would have been a lot trickier had I still been running at that point. The section of the trail that splits off Avalon and was closed for a few weeks a couple of years back was again closed, apparently for replacement of the surface and a bridge. The same bridge they replaced a few years ago? That would seem odd, given how new the current bridge is. Either way, I was forced to detour onto the Freeway trail, just like back in 2012. I got impatient with the unexpected extension of my walk back and ended up jogging most of it. This meant my total walk back came in at just over 10 km, which is a pretty decent hike on its own. By the end I was definitely ready for a refreshment and the option of sitting/laying down/napping.
And the rabbit? Along the same stretch of trail as Sunday, although possibly a little farther along, I again encountered a brown rabbit sitting on the trail. Was it the same rabbit? Was I constantly invading his favorite spot to sit and contemplate bunny thoughts? This time the rabbit was more decisive and immediately peeled off into the brush.
I definitely felt I had more energy at the end of today’s run. I’m undecided on what to do for Thursday’s but it is interesting to see more verification that the river trail is apparently a lot easier to run than the lake. With the work on the Southshore trail, I know I will probably stick to running counter-clockwise for the next couple of weeks at least because the idea of running the Freeway trail under the glare of the summer sun does not make my socks roll up and down in delight.
Here’s a list of six more things I like. The original six can be found here.
Pizza. It can be sweet, savory, crunchy, hot, cold. You can have it delivered to your door. It’s the perfect food.
Chai tea
Lazing in the grass on a warm summer day
Reading a page-turner (defined as “I can’t wait to stop [name of activity] so I can get back to this book!”)
Mechanical keyboards, especially with blue switches. Clack clack clack!
Low travel keyboards because sometimes I prefer the immediate feedback and not waking the dead with my typing
New pillows
The list is seven items since I mentioned keyboards twice. I could probably make a list entirely of keyboards I like. It’s a little weird (as I look around I can see five keyboards for two computers. There’s a sixth keyboard in another room).
Run 440 Average pace: 5:48/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 7.03 km
Time: 40:49
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 21-24ºC
Wind: light
BPM: 165
Stride: n/a
Weight: 159 pounds
Total distance to date: 3514
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6
Although it was actually slightly cooler for today’s run vs. Wednesday’s, it felt warmer and I had sweat trickling down my face a little over a km in. After a fairly brisk walk to the lake, I saw the same weird shift in pace that has happened the last three times I’ve run at the lake, where my time is significantly slower, even when running the same distance.
Today I at least had the excuse that I was not running the same distance, as this was my first post-recovery run where I went beyond 5K, choosing to do a 7K run. The good news is I finished with no pain or discomfort (the right leg was a little stiff, especially to start but fine after and on the walk back). The less good is by about the 6 km mark I was beginning to feel the extra distance. I never quite fell to plodding along but the last two km were markedly slower than the rest. I slumped on the second km, too, though that was more by design as I was trying to conserve energy for the longer distance. The third to fifth km my pace actually improved and stayed fairly steady.
Oh, and in all the time I have run at Burnaby Lake I have never seen a rabbit, until today. A cute brown bunny was sitting out on the Spruce Loop trail, soaking up the sun. My approach sent it into a panic and it initially hopped down the trail, then, perhaps realizing I was catching up, began to dart back and forth, as if unable to decide what to do. It finally pelted left into the bush, just safely out of reach. I can now add rabbits to the list of wildlife encountered while running at the lake, which also includes snakes, turtles, coyotes and possibly a bear. And maybe Bigfoot, who knows.
While I’m not thrilled with my pace of 5:48/km, I realize I am still a ways off from getting back into peak form and finishing the run intact should be enough. And it is. Mostly.
I’m going to try to stick to a regular schedule now, with the next run on Tuesday. I am undecided on 5K or 7K. I’ll probably ask my watch to flip a coin, because it’s the future and my watch can totally do that.
If you’ve used a USB device over the last twenty years, the following may seem familiar to you:
When it was introduced, the USB port was a major improvement over other means of connecting devices to computers, such as serial and parallel ports. It was smaller, faster and offered support for a much broader array of peripherals.
It did share one aspect with serial and parallel ports, though: it was not reversible. That is, you could only insert a USB cable one way. The right way. Which way was the right way? Looking again at the animation above you might logically think that the right way is the one where the USB symbol is facing up. And you’d be correct–sometimes. Because there was no standard for how ports were oriented. The front-facing ports on my PC, in fact, require the label-side to be facing down. You can tell which way is the right way by examining the port closely but you need to be quite close and most ports are on the back of the computer or are otherwise not easy to eyeball. You could throw out your back trying to figure out how to insert a $10 flash drive.
But even if you know which way is the right way there is something subtly terrible about the way USB plugs works that makes it feel like it’s not going in correctly even when it is. This leads to the triple attempt:
Insert correct way, feel resistance, remove USB cable
Insert wrong way, feel resistance, remove USB cable
Insert correct way again, feel resistance, determine that this is either the actual correct way or you’ve gone mad, decide it is correct and wiggle/push until the USB cable is finally and firmly plugged in
Have a stiff drink at the thought of having to go through this every time you connect a USB device
The newest USB standard, USB-C, is fully reversible. There is the correct way and the other correct way to insert a USB-C cable. I suppose you could try to insert a USB-C cable sideways and that would be incorrect but you would in fact need to be mad or have had too many stiff drinks to think this might work.
Why did the USB spec go through multiple revisions over the course of 20+ years before some clever person said, “Let’s make it reversible”? I do not know. But at least this bad design is now a better one.
See also: every other non-reversible cable in the history of the world.
A few weeks ago I moved a notch higher on the “yep, gay” scale when I bought Barbra Streisand’s album Guilty. Actually, it was more like I had gone up a notch back in 1980 when the album originally debuted (I had it on 8-track, of course), then dipped when I got rid of my 8-track tapes because it was a horrible crime of a music playback medium. So really, I’ve just returned to my 1980 level. As befits someone getting older, I’ve recently gone trolling through the music of my youth, buying a clutch of albums from the olden days when CDs were new and novel (or yet to exist). Here are a few quickie reviews of each in this modern and scary year of 2016 (all albums save Guilty I had not owned previously):
Guilty (Barbra Streisand), 1980. Collaborating with Barry Gibb and his brothers, at times this album sounds exactly like what you’d expect–a Bee Gees album fronted by Streisand. Some of the musical flourishes are very much of their time but in the end Streisand’s vocals elevate the production. “Woman in Love” is the highlight here. The lyrics are merely serviceable, the music, apart from a dramatic organ chord, is nothing special, but Streisand’s singing is powerful.
Boston (Boston), 1976. There’s a lot more organ on this album than I expected. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing. This is arena-friendly rock, its power chords anchored by Brad Delp’s dexterous, soaring vocals (which turned “More Than a Feeling” into a massive hit). The music flirts with a more prog rock sound at times but never strays far from being manly man rock and roll. It’s fun and a bit silly.
Reckless (Bryan Adams), 1984. The album is appropriately described on its iTunes page as “so overstuffed with classic-rock-radio perennials, it practically qualifies as a greatest-hits collection.” This is Adams refining his sound and style and getting everything right. The album barrels along, with a pause for the ballad “Heaven” so you can catch your breath before it speeds off again. It’s all catchy as hell and Adams rough-edged vocals add just the right amount of grit to this rollicking effort. It’s an album whose ambition is to be nothing more than solid rock and roll and it delivers big time.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John), 1973. Amazingly, this was already John’s seventh album, a sprawling double disc (remember “discs”?) that shifts musical styles throughout, effortlessly switching from prog rock to reggae and on to simple ballads and arena rockers. Some of the subject matter is a bit odd (Roy Rogers?) but the sheer variety and the way John confidently blazes through every song holds it all together. As with Guilty, it is often John’s vocal work that lifts the material to a higher level.
Run 439 Average pace: 5:28/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 27:32
Weather: Sunny, humid
Temp: 26ºC
Wind: light
BPM: 158
Stride: n/a
Weight: 160.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 3507
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6
Back to the river trail and my pace was almost identical to the previous river run, coming in at 5:28/km vs. 5:27/km previously. Conditions were warm and humid, though not as humid as Sunday’s run. My right calf was a little stiff before the run but oddly enough it limbered up and actually felt better after the run.
As I write this later in the evening the effect of a day of walking and the warm run have left me pretty tired. I think it’s a good tired.
There was a fair amount of activity on the trail, with a mix of other runners, cyclists, people walking dogs and people walking themselves. All were well-behaved, even friendly. It was weird but pleasant.
I felt no discomfort during the run, save for it being warm but it stayed tolerable, probably in large part to the sun not shining directly down on me for most of the run. I am pleased to see a bounce back to a better performance and now I’m curious as all get-out how the next run at the lake will be.
I don’t read a lot of fantasy. Sure, I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. That’s about 95% of it right there, the remainder being short stories or books I’m not recalling at the moment. I’ve seen more fantasy movies–they’re quicker to consume–but generally while I am aware of most of the cliches, stereotypes, tropes and such of fantasy, I am not well-read on the genre.
This is my way of saying my opinion of A Darker Shade of Magic may come across as naive, or uninformed or kind of dumb. Because when it comes to fantasy I am kind of dumb.
Still, I’ll start by saying my strongest criticism of the book was its occasional lapse into twee language, passages where the author’s voice intrudes by phrasing something in a way that draws attention to the narrator. This can work if the entire novel is presented as a story being told by an unseen narrator (Mr. Norell and Jonathan Strange comes to mind in this regard–and hey, that’s another fantasy novel I read) but here it pops up only a few times, so it draws unnecessary attention. This is a very minor criticism, though.
Another mild criticism is how it feels like some of the character development happens very slowly, perhaps because this is the first book of a series, so by the end of the book it only feels like some parts of the story are getting started. The character of Lila is the best example of this, a cutpurse with grand plans for adventure and little care for anyone else who only just starts to show a more human side by the end of the story.
The story itself presents a plot with far-reaching implications–the fates of three parallel versions of Victorian-era London are at stake–but feels intimate because it focuses on a small number of characters, primarily the two Antari (powerful wielders of magic), the good-but-somewhat-naughty Kell of Red London, and Holland, the bad and beholden servant to the throne of the amoral White London, along with the aforementioned Lila Bard and assorted kings, queens and a royal brother.
The world building is likely to draw in a lot of readers, as Schwab does a fine job of laying out the different versions of London and how they and the magic within each, operates. Into this comes Kell, whose habit of trading trinkets from the different Londons, using blood magic that allow him as an Antari, to slip between the worlds while few if any others can, ends up with him coming into possession of something Very Bad from Black London. Black London, as you might guess, is also Very Bad and is sealed off from the other Londons to prevent its corrupt magic from spreading and possibly destroying the other three versions of the city.
There is a lot of vicious magic, swinging of swords and the occasional report of gunfire at play as things speed toward an increasingly bloody conclusion. While the story does achieve a certain level of closure, it’s still obvious by the end that there is more to come.
Why do I keep swearing off series and then find myself reading them? I’m not yet sure if I will read the follow-up to A Darker Shade of Magic, but I’m reasonably certain that anyone not entirely tired of stories set in Victorian London will find the story here a brisk and entertaining read. While there are few surprises, there are many small pleasures to be had, whether it be the exchanges between characters who won’t dare admit they like each other, to the showy displays of mages fighting, using wits and, sometimes, anything they can get their hands on.
Today I did something I had never done before. Admittedly this could be one of billions of possible things, but in this case I am referring to using my Surface Pro 3 as an actual laptop.
By this, I mean that I propped myself up on the bed with some pillows so I was sitting fully upright and placed the SP3 on my lap and started typing (I wrote the previous running update this way). The experience went better than expected but was still unsatisfying for a few reasons.
First, the good news: the SP3 was far more stable than I expected with it resting on my legs. I suspect this was largely due to my legs being laid out perfectly straight on the bed, creating the flattest possible surface (pun not intended). Though there was some slight bounce with the keyboard (I normally lay it flat on desks/tables but on the lap it really needs to be kept up so the magnetic strip can better stabilize it) but it was perfectly manageable, if a bit odd-feeling.
The less-good news: The DPI scaling is such that the text was just slightly on the small side from where I was sitting in relation to the screen. This could be corrected a couple of ways: magnifying the Firefox window (obviously this only works in Firefox or other browsers) or by increasing the DPI scaling (not a great option as inevitably some things end up cartoonishly big and changing DPI obnoxiously requires a reboot) or putting on my glasses. The text wasn’t fuzzy or anything like that, it was just small enough to be annoying and unpleasant to work with.
The bad news: I tested with the lights off, to see how the keyboard’s backlight would fare. Unfortunately, the backlight would switch off after only a short period of inactivity, leaving the keyboard in darkness. This entirely defeats the point of having the backlight. Also, the light bled through sufficiently that it actually made the keys more difficult to see.
Overall the Surface Pro 3 worked better than expected but I can honestly say that typing out a blog post using the onscreen keyboard of my iPad Air is a more pleasant experience when blogging from bed. Granted I don’t often blog from bed–I prefer using the bed for more traditional purposes, such as sleeping and “I’m not sleeping, I’m just resting my eyes!”–but still, I am left with the feeling that an actual laptop would be notably superior, to a degree that I would switch over to one were I to suddenly blog from bed regularly.
The DPI scaling is an ongoing concern in general for Windows laptops as more of them are now shipping with beyond-HD displays (see the Surface Book and its otherwise gorgeous 13.5″ 3,000 x 2,000 screen), so if I do get another laptop, it may be a MacBook of some flavor. I’ll test drive a few possible options before making a final decision. Conveniently, Metrotown has both an Apple store and a Microsoft store near to each other. Plus a food court so I can get a taco when all the test driving leaves me hungry.
Run 438 Average pace: 5:44/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 5.04 km
Time: 28:58
Weather: Sun and cloud, humid
Temp: 23-25ºC
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 166
Stride: n/a
Weight: 158.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 3502
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6
After complaining about the lack of summer-like weather this summer, the weather today was a lot more summer-like. There was a mix of sun and cloud and it was pleasantly warm. This made for conditions slightly less than ideal for running but otherwise fine.
Except it was humid as all get-out. When running in the sun the air felt like it was baked. I felt like I was baked.
I started slower. flagged a bit through the first half then picked up the pace in the last couple of km, finishing with a pokey 5:44/km average. I’m not concerned because the legs felt fine (the right calf and knee were a bit stiff midway though but loosened u in the latter half) and judging from the amount of sweating, I was clearly working against the elements. In short, it felt like I was putting in more effort to do the same stuff.
Still, I’m not unhappy with the result. I expect the next run will see an improved pace again unless we get back to Africa Hot weather, which the forecast does not seem to be suggesting is likely. But it will be nice and that’s all I need.
No writing on Days 10-16. I am now a little over 20,000 words behind the required pace.
This does not bode well. If it was a suspense story, it would be one of the “where exactly is the suspense?” variety. We know how it’s going to end. In failure. [sad trombone sound]
And yet I am not sad nor am I discouraged. Is it because I am drunk? No. Is it because I have succumbed to despair and no longer care? No. Is it because I’ve become suddenly obsessed with adult coloring books? No. (What’s up with those, anyway? What a weird yet ultimately harmless fad.)
It is because while this version of Weirdsmith currently languishes (turns out third time is not always the charm) I am still confident that the latter half of the month will be a productive one writing-wise. How? I shall discuss this soon.
