Yes, it looks bad, like I’ve been secretly eating donuts. But I have remained donut-free.
What happened is: Bodies are weird, and I gained two pounds in the last two days. Has my diet (as in eating regime, not a fad diet) gone off the rails? No, but these things happen, anyway.
Bad: Body fat is over 25% again (I have not remained 100% snack-free)
Good: Muscle mass is up! Probably entirely in my calves, my very sexy calves.
I think I can still get below 160 pounds before the end of the year. I won’t have long to find out!
January 1, 2025: 166.8 pounds
Current: 165.8 pounds Year to date: Down 1.0 pounds
October 1: 162.7 pounds October 31: 165.8 pounds (up 3.1 pounds)
Body fat: October 1: 24.5% October 31: 25.3% (up 0.8%)
Skeletal muscle mass: October 1: 29.2 kg October 31: 29.5 kg (up 0.3 kg)
I tried waiting to see if the rain would ease up, but finally came to the realization that it would not, and headed out around 12:30 p.m. I wore two layers, the second being my running jacket, which I figured would keep me from getting completely soaked all the way through. It worked, barely.
The best thing I can say is that it was relatively mild at 10C, though the rain added a fun layer of chill (I checked after and they “upgraded” today’s weather to an official Rainfall Warning).
As usual, the hood would not stay on, so I just let it flop around. I kept my phone in the belt, which was a better place than a jacket pocket, as it would have gotten a lot more wet there.
It was an Omega Man run–I did not see anyone else over the course of the entire 5 km, a good illustration of how unpleasant the weather was. Even the dog owners were turning to their pugs and saying, “You can go pee on the front lawn today.”
I did have to dodge a salmon, which laid conspicuously in my path around the 4.5 km mark. It as curiously intact, which makes me further wonder how it got onto the trail. But dead salmon tell no tales.
The wayward salmon, now an ex-salmon.
Surprisingly, despite the yucky conditions, I finished with a nearly-identical pace to Wednesday’s run, only one second off at 5:42/km. I lagged on the second km, so if I had maintained there, I would have actually been faster than the previous run. My BPM was also 144. Maybe it gets lower when I resign myself to the conditions.
In any case, I’m glad I kept to the schedule and ran, but it would be nice if the next run was a bit more on the dry side. And with fewer salmon.
Stats:
Run 981 Average pace: 5:42/km Training status: Maintaining Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 12:58 p.m. Distance: 5.02 km Time: 28:37 Weather: Steady rain Temp: 10°C Humidity: 86% Wind: light BPM: 144 Weight: 165.8 pounds Total distance to date: 6,735 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (330/690/1,020)
The urge to update apps on my phone has pretty much vanished. I’ll only update now if something breaks.
There was a spike in the last day or so. I’m guessing a lot of apps have received updates recently to deal with various iOS 26 shenanigans (I am still on iOS 18). I’ll probably at least look at the updates soon, because it’s a good way to remind myself of apps I may not even use anymore and can uninstall.
And the quote from that article, made by a user named Pallenberg:
I’m going back to the Fediverse. Back to Mastodon. To the nerds, the hobbyists, the idealists. The people who don’t talk about reach, but about relevance. To those who understand that decentralization isn’t nostalgic, it’s the future. That digital sovereignty isn’t a gimmick, it’s a survival strategy.
Yes, the Fediverse is sometimes clunky, nerdy, uncomfortable. But it belongs to us. It’s not over-regulated, not driven by capital, not buggered up by algorithms. It’s what social media once aspired to be: A network of people, not brands.
Shot over the past few days using my 150-year-old iPhone 12.
The river, today, with some rare sun on it!Reflective pond.Topdown view of a hydrant, making my feet look tiny (yes, I need new trail runners).Neighbours getting ready for Halloween.A large leaf screaming, “It’s fall, baby!”
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: A smidgen of blue sky!
After missing Monday’s run due to vaccine-related recovery, I was unsure how I’d feel going out today. My pace was not quite as brisk as it’s been recently, but I turned in a respectable 5:41/km overall, and my BPM was 151. I didn’t experience any issues, so in all, it was fine.
The Garmin watch declared me “maintaining”, which is an improvement from the recent “strained” it was slapping on my efforts.
The weather was fine–humid, but relatively mild at 10-11C, with little wind (despite a warning of gusts). I wore two layers and for the run, one probably would have sufficed, but this, too, was fine. For a change, there was no rain and the sun even poked out–after I’d finished my run. But still.
I got out a little bit later than intended and apparently hit field trip time, encountering three groups of (mostly) well-behaved kids on the trail. I did not bowl over any wee ones. I saw Hang Dog and his running partner just as I arrived.
As for the turtles, the fence around the turtle nesting area is down.
Turtle Nesting Area: now fence-free!
I assume it’s going to be rebuilt, but who knows. Maybe the turtles have fled (slowly) to some other place. I’ll know more soon.
Change of pace: View of the Cariboo Dam, post-run.
Stats:
Run 980 Average pace: 5:41/km Training status: Maintaining Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 10:35 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:36 Weather: Cloudy Temp: 10-11°C Humidity: 87% Wind: light BPM: 151 Weight: 165.0 pounds Total distance to date: 6,730 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (325/686/1,011)
I’ve finally added an RSS link on the sidebar of the site. It should work in your favourite (or even most-hated) RSS reader, making it easier than ever to keep up with whatever rolls around in my noggin and ends up on this site. It’s like the Year 2000 all over again!
This coincides with me trying to find another RSS reader myself and maybe stick to it. It could happen!
Also, this seems like a good random post to update on how I was looking into other options for my blog after all the WordPress drama of the past year or so. It turns out that trying to break out of a 20-year habit is hard (I started this blog on WordPress in 2005). And I always found something I didn’t like in the alternatives. But I am still looking in a casual kind of way, part of it being driven by the curiosity of what else is out there now for blogging.
A floppy disk. Kids, ask your parents! I graduated from 5.25″ floppies to DVDs over the years.
In the weird old days when you wanted software for your computer (because software for a portable phone was not a thing yet), you had to go to a physical store, buy a box with a disc in it, take it home, install the software, then hope (especially if it was a game) that the copy protection didn’t screw things up. If you didn’t want to insert the disc every time you ran a game like some kind of savage, you’d have to go to some skeevy-looking website and grab a no-CD fix.
Sometimes the no-CD fix worked flawlessly, sometimes it required the tech equivalent of arcane magic to work, sometimes it did nothing (or put malware on your PC).
I don’t look back fondly on any of the stuff I just described…except for the actual experience of looking for new software/games in stores. Back in the timeframe I’m describing, roughly the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, I would learn about new games through magazines like Computer Gaming World or PC Gamer. Or sometimes I would learn about them by actually finding the new games sitting on the shelves of a software store. It seems absolutely quaint now that this was how you could discover a game, but it’s true!
Some random memories:
Convincing a store clerk to sell me the Not For Sale version of the Commodore 64 game The Castles of Dr. Creep, circa 1984. A friend and I played it co-op in the store and I had to have it. I can’t recall what store I bought it from, other than somewhere just outside of Victoria.
Going to the Eaton’s store in Duncan and buying some generically-packaged versions of old Infocom games for cheap, back around 1985 (think Zork and a few others). To this day, I have no idea if these were legit copies. They were about $20 each, which was very cheap back then.
Buying OS/2 4.0 on floppy disk at Egghead Software. I don’t remember how many disks it came on, but more than a few! It was also surprisingly cheap, around $50 or $60 because IBM was trying to undercut Windows upgrade pricing. I never made much headway with it, and IBM abandoned OS/2 not too long after.
I want to say I bought my Windows 95 upgrade (on CD ROM!) at Computer City, where I worked during the launch of Windows 95 (at the Coquitlam store), but I’m not 100% sure. It seems like the logical place to have picked it up, and I know I grabbed it right away. I worked at Computer City for six weeks before quitting. The chain collapsed and vanished the following year.
Going to Super Software in Richmond and splurging one day by buying two games at the same time, each costing $50. I picked up Populous and SimCity, both for my Amiga 500. Probably the best 1-2 gaming purchase I ever made on physical media. Super software was also relatively gigantic and catered to every major platform back in the day: Apple II, IBM, Commodore 64 and Amiga, Atari ST, Atari 8-bit (and probably others I’m leaving out). It seems nutty how many different systems existed back then. There’s actually a 1989 commercial for Super Software on YouTube.
Buying the last copy of Age of Empires II (1999) at a Future Shop location on the day of release. It came in a gigantic box and had a relatively thick manual.
A few years later, I bought Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002), one of the first games to come in a mini box, with little to no documentation. Steam was only two years from launching and the end of physical media was nigh, though you’d be able to buy games on disc for some years after.
Two years ago, I got a combo flu/COVID-19 shot (two separate shots, just given at the same appointment). It went without incident, and I had an extra layer of protection through the flu season. Nice, I thought.
Last year I kept rescheduling the shots for reasons, then I got an infection (that wandered) and that distracted me, so I never did get vaccinated for that flu season.
We move forward to May 21st of this year, when I apparently caught a bug from my partner, resulting in me barfing copiously one memorable evening. I wondered afterward how I would have been hit if I had been properly vaccinated.
This month, when I got the reminder to get vaccinated from the provincial government, I booked an appointment as soon as I could and as I type this now I have two little round band-aids on my left arm from the shots.
I like to think I will never stop learning, even if I live to be 150 or a head in a jar, whichever comes first. And today, I demonstrated that all it takes for me is a gentle reminder in the form of remembering what it was like to spend a night violently emptying the contents of my stomach.
I got vaccinated. You should, too!
Also, this gives me another chance to show one of my favourite ill-conceived ads for flu prevention:
Last night, when I should have been getting ready for bed, I instead decided to fix my grub bootloader, which was displaying Linux Mint as Ubuntu. Easy to do in Linux Mint itself, as I already had previously installed a grub customizer.
I rebooted from Windows 11 and the grub menu came up, showing Ubuntu, as expected. I selected it and Mint loaded…but something was wrong. My second monitor stayed off and when the desktop loaded, it was locked to a resolution of 1920×1080 instead of the native 2560×1440.
Before diving into troubleshooting, I opted to just restart again first. This time, the grub menu correctly listed Linux Mint 22.2, which I was not expecting. But the one monitor issue persisted. The second monitor had just been working in Windows 11, so I didn’t think this was a hardware issue.
Again, I avoided troubleshooting (it was late, as mentioned, and I didn’t want to start going down rabbit holes), and instead went into the Driver Manager and did a very Windows thing in these types of situations–I updated the drivers, specifically the Nvidia drivers for my RTX 2070, sticking with the newer (and recommended) set. I rebooted again. The grub menu still said Linux Mint 22.2 and the monitors worked correctly when the desktop loaded. I had to tweak a few settings, like refresh rate, but everything was otherwise back to normal.
Then I went to bed, forgot about technology, and had a good sleep.
This morning, everything is still working as expected.
Hopefully this is the last of my PC drama for a while. I’m going to start speccing out a new system again. This one is closing in on seven years old, and I think it’s trying to tell me something, the computer equivalent of “duct tape can’t fix everything” or something like that.
Brunette River, pre-run: A bit damp, a bit cool. But not Fonzie cool.
As per the weather app on my phone when I started the run:
That said, the wind actually settled down shortly after, though the real temperature never budged. I wore two layers and was wise to do so.
I skipped my usual Friday run because it was very stormy (high wind and heavy rain) and knew I’d have time today because The Rains would preclude birding.
Layered up, I headed out and en route opted for the river trail, as it was already raining.
Luckily, the rain remained fairly light and actually stopped about halfway or so through the run. I’m dry as I type this!
My plan was to just run without any particular plan, and I surprised myself when my opening lap was 5:37/km. I averaged 5:36/km and a BPM of 149, so overall a very decent effort. I seem to be getting in the 5:30ish range regularly now. My max. heart rate also improved, but my Training Status remains Strained, which still seems strange to me, but whatevs, as the kids say.
Still, I’m happy with the effort–and for not choosing to just skip the run altogether, which would have been easy from sitting inside my warm, dry condo.
The river, post-run.
Stats:
Run 979 Average pace: 5:36/km Training status: Strained Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 12:26 p.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:09 Weather: Cloudy, light showers Temp: 10°C Humidity: 78% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 149 Weight: 163.9 pounds Total distance to date: 6,725 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (320/678/998)
