Surprisingly red

Today was a photo day in the garden. You saw the two buds yesterday, and since the light was better today I was out trying again. I'm still working on developing. Stay tuned tomorrow for surprisingly hairy.

And lots more of todays were in focus, and the ones that weren't were only ever so slightly out of focus, except for a only a couple.

Linda is still working on the finishing touches for the outdoor displays.

We went and saw Arrival with buddies this afternoon, and chatted about it after. All of us liked it, with only one saying it wasn't quite what he had expected. I loved it right from the opening moments with the shot from inside the house out towards the lake. I wanted to freeze that frame and study the composition. The movie is a must see for science fiction fans. It's easily one of the best movies I've seen recently. There is no red in the movie.

Forerunner 25 zones revisited

First thing is to understand where the story left off. If you don't know what happened during my first run with the Forerunner 25, you'll be kind of lost here.

I tweaked the zones, and think I over did it. Last time they were reading too high, or so I thought. Today I got on the bike with a pencil and paper handy. After getting warmed up, I set up to produce a specific amount of watts, and recorded some info. The goal watt numbers are derived from a Functional Threshold Test done over the winter.

The idea here is to put out the maximum power you can maintain for 20 minutes. At first it's easy, then gets harder. My number was 225 watts, and using Training and Racing with a Power Meter 2nd edition by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan I had previously determined my watt ranges. That's the top list in the photo. They've lined up pretty well with what I feel during spin sessions.

The bottom list was based on max heart rate percentages by Karvonen method. If I'd thought about it at the time, I'd have know right off that something was wonky. 50% of 163 is not 105. It's 81.5. Except there's something else in the calculation too, the heart rate reserve. Here's the screen shot.

So today this is what I got pedaling for 10 minutes in each zone, with a break in between:
158 watts (nearly top of Endurance pace) 108/109 BPM, zone 1.2 per watch, or 66% of max heart rate by calculation. Breathing was deep and easy.
190 watts (top of Tempo pace) 118/119 BPM or zone 1.9/2.0 by watch, or 71% of max heart rate by calculation. Breathing was harder, but still regular and deep. Beginning to get a bit of a sweat on.
225 watts (Lactate Threshold) 129/130 BPM or zone 3.0 by watch, or 80% of max heart rate by calculation. Breathing really hard and deep, but not panting. The fan is on high. I think I could have gone another 10 minutes to repeat the threshold test, but I wasn't in the mood for that.

Running at the average of 125 BPM yesterday was chat pace. I'm not sure why the same heart rate has me breathing so much harder on the bike. Something isn't adding up. Then I found this chart here to compare % of Max heart rate, to the Karvonen which is Max heart rate minus resting.

If I look at the left most column, it lines up really well with my spin numbers today. But at least so far, the Karvonen numbers seem to work for running. I'll have to track this a bit more. Fortunately, the Garmin app offers 3 screens, a default, cycling, and running. Looks like I'll have to go through and set each. I know it knows when I'm running, I hope it's smart enough to figure out when I'm biking. I don't remember a way to select the activity on the watch. Maybe I missed it.

Overall it worked out to 1.25 hr on the bike. One last little factoid. My heart rate dropped by 15 beats per minute in one minute from a 130 beats per minute effort level.

The big amusement here this morning was giving the cats a hit of catnip. Linda loves doing this. It's quite the show, but this is the first time I've caught it on video.

Look Ma, no feet!

As my long time readers know, I've often referred to my running style as "T Rex caught in a tar pit, poor thing." Maybe I need to stop doing that.

When Michelle and I ran indoors at Talisman the other day we were talking about running, and I'd mentioned that image. She totally got it. Well, no, she didn't. Said it looked fine, both feet off the ground and everything. I was gobsmacked. By then it was too late, but we agreed that next time we'd shoot some video.

By golly, she was right! Here's a couple screen shots from the slo-mo video.

The movie was enough of an ordeal today that I won't try to embed it here. Maybe tomorrow. For a company that is supposed to make things easy, this was remarkably difficult. Michelle held the iphone 6 while I ran, and I held her 5S while she ran. That much was easy. Our mistake was shooting in slow-mo.

We were so eager to see the video on the big screen we rousted Ken and fired up theirs. Well. We got Michelle's up on screen pretty easy. No video flicker. We eventually, eventually, got mine up on screen, and winced at the flickering lights and clock. Really bad.

Once home I tried to Airplay it from the phone to the tv. Nope. Other videos played, but it's like it timed out waiting for the slow mo video. But I was determined. I synched the phone to the iMac, which was overdue anyway for a backup. Watched the video on the iMac and it was dreadful. But that iMac can't do airplay. (The poor thing is 7 years old, cut it some slack!)

Put the video into dropbox, and after it synched, I downloaded it onto the the Macbook. Watching it on the Macbook wasn't much better, but at least I could airplay it and get screen shots. Still really bad flicker, but watchable.

All the while through this Curtis is trying to help, because this task clearly had to be done quicker to get on with the important task. Feeding him. He came THAT close to being stepped on. Watching him, watching a movie of him, was funny, as I was trying to troubleshoot things. I think he realized it was another cat, but I'm wondering if he knew it was him, through some human deviltry.

And Michelle was right! I am getting both feet off the ground! Yay! At my long slow run pace the float time is a tiny fraction of a second, but when I'm running faster it's easy to see, as evidenced by the screen shots above. I'm seriously thinking of running the video back and forth to get a really good one, and maybe that will become my new profile shot. I need to look at it more carefully, and see what I can learn.

Now that we talked about the video, the actual run was just under 5 K, in 36:30. I'm a bit more confident of that number, and Sunday's number. We looked more carefully at the phone maps, and Michelle's is a bit weird in places, it's like the phone was missing a few points at the south end of the track.

That was all after a swim. 1K for me, 18:30 nice and relaxed. A few intervals, but didn't want to overdo them. 100 m HARD, 87 seconds. Tried a 50 m golf, 41 seconds, 37 strokes for a score of 78. Tried for a low number of strokes for 25 m, and ended up with 11.

Yesterday was an easy spin on the bike, about 45 minutes with some core after. Then a walk to the vet to get more cat food, discovering my neighbours suck at shoveling their sidewalks. Glad I'm running indoors. But along the way one of my characters started telling me about this fancy calligraphed invitation she got for a formal diplomatic reception. 3100 and some words later, I've got up a bit of a head of steam.

If this is retirement, maybe I won't go back to work in January after all. This is awesome! I'm sleeping better, I'm productive in several ways. Workouts are fun, (both feet off the ground running!) and I'm feeling strong. Anytime the words are flowing for writing is a good time. (Edit later, write now!) Plus I'm puttering around the house getting stuff done. Life is good.

Plus I've had some good news, but the details aren't filled in yet. More news when that happens.

Swim video commentary

I hadn't known Michelle brought her phone onto the pool deck. Here's one of the resulting videos. There's another, done in slo-mo for 50 m, and that's much longer, but you can actually see what's happening. If there is sufficient demand I'll post that one too.

So you've watched. If you want to see it on youtube direct, go here. I must admit it doesn't look as clear there, as it does on my own screen. There's some good and not so good. Lets begin at the beginning.

First 3 or 4 seconds, note that I was looking at the clock. You can't see it, but when you're trying to improve, the clock is your friend. When you swim faster you will know, and then you can think about what you were doing right, or what you've stopped doing wrong.

I slide down into the water and tuck onto my feet against the wall. As I push off I'm well below the surface. Many people push off by leaving their head out of the water, bring their feet up to the surface, and poke their butt out. This makes a horrible wake and slows you down right from the start.

At 5 seconds I'm nice and streamlined off the wall, already beginning to kick.

At 6 seconds I've just about completed my first stroke with my right arm. I could push off stronger and glide further with a dolphin kick. I think I'm about under the flags, but can't tell. Note that my head is still completely underwater. When your head is down, your hips and feet can be higher.

At 7 seconds, my right arm has recovered and my left is just beginning to stroke. My shoulder is still slightly out of the water because I haven't completely rolled more onto my right side. My upper arm is still slightly out of the water, but my hand has speared into the water. There is a complete lack of bubbles around my hand. My butt is right up at water level.

At 7 seconds and a bit, my left elbow is pointed at the ceiling. My right is just beginning to start the catch, you can see there is still a complete lack of bubbles. My head is tilted ever so slightly up, and should be flat in the water.

At 8 seconds, you can see my left hand is just about to enter the water, and my right has just begun the stroke. No bubbles, but my elbow is not as high as it could be. My head is flatter in the water, and I've just finished sucking in air. My left hip is at the surface.

At 8 and a bit seconds you can see my left hand has entered the water and my elbow is still out. No bubbles. I sound like I'm harping on it, but until you are swimming clean, every bubble is evidence of a sloppy stroke.

At 8 and a fraction more seconds I'm wincing at where my right elbow is. Way too low, and looks like it's leading my hand. I know better. You can see a little splash where my left elbow is in the water.

Still not quite 9 seconds, my right elbow is emerging from the water. My left hand is still out in front, reaching forward, preparing to catch. It might be hard to tell, but I'm looking straight down at the bottom of the pool.

Still not quite 9 seconds, right hand is just coming out of the water, although my wrist is bent too much. Left hand still hasn't started the catch, I'm looking straight down, hips at the surface.

Still (STILL!) not 9 seconds my right elbow is up and I'm bring my hand forward. My forearm is relaxed. Left hand still out in front, still looking down.

Still pre-9 seconds, I've rolled onto my left side a bit, and my right hand is preparing to spear the water. The left is just begun the catch. My hips are at the surface.

At 9 seconds (at last!) my right hand is straight out in front, no bubbles, and my left has disappeared. I'm looking straight down, you can see a tiny bow wave over my head. My shoulders are out of the water.

At 9 and a bit you can see my left elbow most of the way through the stroke, but not quite emerging. You can see a bit of a bow wave around my right hand, so it's just below the surface. The higher it is in the water, and the further forward when you start your catch, the more water you'll anchor yourself onto.

At 9 seconds and a bit more you can see the left elbow straight up and my right hand just starting the catch. There's a subtle shoulder thing happening here. As I've been stretched out, reaching forward with the one hand, I'm starting to recover with the other. As the recovering shoulder starts to catch up to the arm, the catch happens, and your shoulders swap positions one forward the other back. This helps drive power to the stroke, in conjunction with the roll.

You'd need a fast finger on the stop watch to time how long a stroke takes from say, entry around to entry again, but it's under 2 seconds.  When I time the strokes on my right hand, it's 16 seconds from the time the first right stroke starts, to the end of the 9th, is 15.5 seconds or so. You don't have time to think about it.

Skipping forward to about 10 seconds you can see me breathing to my right side. My elbow is just out of the water, my hand still in. My left eye is in the water, and my head is flat this time. The bow wave creates a bit of a dip in the water where my mouth is. This is one of the great challenges of swimming, in that you have to breath at very specific times, and for a very brief time. You need to power those lungs to SUCK IN air. The flatter you are in the water, with your shoulders back, the more your lungs can expand. I'm told good swimmer breath out slightly between breathing in, but I'm still working on that.

At about 13 seconds you can see my feet, and it looks like a big kick, but my left heel is up near the surface. An underwater shot would be better, but you can see I'm pretty flat in the water.

At 21 seconds I'm getting ready for a flip turn. At 22 seconds my head is curling down, and all you can see is my butt, just barely, then it is up and out of the water. Fast now, my heels come up out of the water, and I reach around with my toes, looking for the wall. This happens with my hips flipping open so I'm flat on my back in the water, just under the surface. If you stay turtled up it takes longer to get around and you'll sink like a stone, and your feet will end up on the wall much too high and you're likely to push off pointing down. At just on 24 seconds you see between the ripples that I've pushed off the wall, and I'm just beginning to roll onto my right side.

At about 24 seconds you can see me just breaking out of streamline. I'm on my right side, and I'm just about to stroke with my left hand. It's almost a sideways stroke, with my entire upper arm out of the water, and my forearm pointed straight down. My head is under water, and my hips are just coming to the surface.

By 27 seconds I'm back in the groove, left hand finishing another stroke. I'm breathing, one eye in the water, head point forward, not up, with my mouth in the little depression from the bow wave.

28 seconds the right arm is recovering, but look at my head, you see the back of my head is almost under water. Remember head down means hips up, means flatter and faster in the water. Michelle sometimes visualizes being pulled along by her hair in a pony tail.

During the mid 30 seconds, look at my feet. The kick is much tighter, and it's up near the surface.

At the very end I cruise it into the wall, where a competitive swimmer would take another stroke. You  might not notice, but I looked at the clock. Then I did a lot of heavy breathing.

19 strokes on the way out, 21 on the way back if I've counted right, for a golf score of 79. Not bad, but not terribly good either. I was getting sloppy.

My learnings from this, and especially from the slo-mo version? I need to work on keeping my elbows up. Always. A competitive swim coach would talk about my weak and feeble kick, and they'd be right. Being a triathlete swimmer gives me slightly different priorities. The biggest piece there is that my stroke is not smooth in the water. It jerks around, partly because I'm pulling hard, but also I'm not doing it as well as I could be. Really, you don't grab a handful of water, and throw it backwards. You anchor your forearm and hand vertically in the water, and slide your body past it. Think of it as a Jedi mind trick. I need to work on this. I already know when I slow my stroke down slightly and really focus on anchoring it, I swim faster. But then when I try to swim faster I get sloppy.

Just to put my time (39 seconds for 50 m) into perspective, that is 78 seconds for 100 m (my best time for that ever is 83 seconds and best recently is 87 seconds), and 780 seconds (13 minutes) for a Km. (My best recent 1K time is 18:04 or so) For a real fantasy trip, that's 2964 seconds for Ironman distance, 3.8 K. That's 49.4 minutes. That's Ironman male pro territory! Then they get on their bikes for 180 K, and then run a marathon. That just shows you how good they are at what they do.

The swim club kids will routinely go sub 60 seconds for 100 m freestyle in a 25 m pool, and the Olympian men will do it in about 45 seconds.

Back to the swim video. Watch what my head does throughout. It rolls side to side, but stays pointed straight down the pool. My body follows my head, and stays straight, or mostly straight in the water. Twisting and turning will slow you down. I think I can be more rhythmical, and that will help my stroke.

So, there you go. If you want the slo-mo, you have to ask. You can see exactly what my hands are doing, and see better what my stroke is doing underwater. Questions? Comments? Any pro swimmers have any suggestions?

Bricks and stuff

I bailed on the ride today, but I played with bricks. It was the right choice. My inviting buddy had a great ride, and I only would have slowed her down, I think.

As you might know, Penn West closes the office before the long weekends of summer, so I've got today and tomorrow off, as well as the stat yesterday. I'm deliberately trying to relax and take it easy. I even slept in till 7:15 today, imagine that! Working lots on the first novel, and actually making some real progress.

The domestic day included washing windows. If you get the right cloth, this is a snap. Spray a water mist, swab with the cloth. Done. Next window. Linda was pleased I didn't fall off the ladder.

Our little composter is finally full and I emptied it out into one of the old Burnco bags. Linda can now use it as she needs. Once empty I sprayed it out and moved it a bit closer to the chimney where I can hide it a bit better. This is the first composter we've had that actually works. Then lawn stuff. You know.

When I was a child living in Ontario, we periodically drove past a brickyard just outside of Brampton. Bricks, bricks, and more bricks. At the time it was the place that had the largest number of identical manufactured items that I knew of. Bricks get used a lot for house construction in Ontario, and from looking at the maps, there's been a lot of houses built since I was last there. Brampton used to be it's own town, and there used to be lots of space between Snelgrove and Brampton. Not anymore. I'm sure I'd get lost if I tried driving in that area now.

Once upon a time we somehow got a bunch of bricks. Mostly they've sat beside the house. Some of the newer ones got used in a vain attempt to keep grass out of the raised beds. Then I started the project to raise the level of the walk between our house and the neighbours. You can read about how that project destroyed my boots here. There is even a photo of the bricks I'm discussing. (I'm so good to you guys!)

Today I finally got around to putting the bricks on top of the gravel. I figured this wouldn't be too hard on me, and so it was. The number of bricks was almost exactly right. The only thing now is to buy a few bags of crushed brick, and fill in some of the gaps. The nice thing about working on this project is that it's in the shade, and there's a nice breeze. Here's some photos, in blogger order, of course.

There was a nice sunset last night, but was was annoying is that I couldn't see the good part. This is where I'd like a drone. If I could have got 20 feet higher I think it would have been spectacular.

Here the before, with the nice gravel.

Flowers! This is one of the roses in the front bed. It wins the blooming championship, roses division, this year.

More yellow lilies. It's such a happy cheerful colour.

Back to the bricks, here it is done.

Lastly, a bit of an arty shot while I was waiting for the BBQ chicken to need turning. With a special Linda marinade, on Yum buns, with some nice cheese and condiments. So yummy, and such a perfect temperature to sit outside and write.

The quiet part of the day was racking some wine from one carboy to another. Then rack and stabalize another kit. The timelapse movie below isn't quite what I'd hoped for, but shows things settling out really well. The shifting light is me moving around cleaning stuff. Then started another Meglioli kit. Three kits on the go now, 2 more waiting.

Spin? Run? Election???

I don't like to change the titles of my blog. I'm a make up your mind and get on with it kind of guy. So when I started today, I hadn't decided if I was going to do a spin session, or go for a run, or knew if our Premier was going to call an election or not.

After my run, I find out we now have a criminal Premier. That's what we call people that break the law, right? There is a law on the books, passed by this very government, saying the election would be next year. He didn't even go to the trouble of rescinding it, which he could have done quite easily with the massive majority he currently holds, and then call a legal, if unnecessary election. But no. This is a guy that wants what he wants, when he wants it. Sure, he'll say this and that gives him a loop hole. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what they all say. Talk to the hand. We're done here.

Even though he says we are in a fiscal hole to the tune of billions, he's quite happy to splash around taxpayer money on advertising and (re-re-re-)announcements. Then after the election, just you watch, the taps will be shut off, and the screws put even worse to the ordinary Albertans. I will take bets that the Calgary Cancer Center gets cancelled again. Or "put off" or "delayed", or whatever euphemism takes the place of "we aren't going to build it." They've done it twice before, maybe third time is the charm, but I doubt it.

There is only one solution for this nonsense. Vote for someone else. The PC's might be the party of your parents, or your grand-parents, but it's time for a change. At this point I don't really care who else you vote for. Last time, the Redford PC's rooked in a lot of people that were nervous about the Wildrose forming a lake of fire government. We saw how that turned out. Don't get fooled again. If everybody votes for someone else, the vote splitting doesn't matter. But look around, see who's strong in your riding, that isn't a PC, and vote for them.

So, on to the important stuff. Did I do a spin, or a run today? I should make you wait for it.

Anticipation... (sung to the tune of that old ketchup commercial.)

Fooled you! I did both. Dusted off my bike, checked the tires and trainer, and settled in for 30 minutes of easy spin. Very easy by my old standards, but that's ok. No knee or hip crankiness.

While on the bike Celina the little sweat pervert showed up to indulge.

Then, off the bike, quick change, and outside for a run. So nice out! I didn't have an plan for the run since it was the first brick in ages. Ran easy and stopped when my legs were getting heavy.

A good bad movie

It's been a heck of a work week. Way too many hours. Probably the most stressful deadline week on this job. My poor boss. I'm reasonably certain we saved her from being fired. That's what work is these days, right? Working like a dog, stressing over an artificial deadline that you had no input or control over.

I could explain the structural details of the Maximo database that were the real hurdle for us, but I won't. You can thank me later with dark chocolate.

When I got home Thursday night after the longest work day in several years, I was in no mood. I poured a big glass of wine, got some cheese and crackers, and settled in for a good bad movie. There are times when that's exactly what you need, and the one Linda picked out was perfect.

Sharknado. Need I say more?

We happily chortled our way through it and I was feeling much better when it was over. Bedtime right after, sleeping like a log.

The plan was to go for a swim on Friday, but I didn't. For the first time in a long time I didn't want to. I rolled over and slept in a bit more.

Now I'm home again, sipping wine, writing this blog. There will be a bit more wine, and I'll sleep in tomorrow. There is wine stuff to do. I'm sure I'll be busy, but I hope not too busy.

Curtis has done something to his left paw, and is favoring it. But he wouldn't limp for the vet, so he asked for some video footage. Given people love photos of him, you ought to be falling all over yourselves to watch a short video of him. I confidently expect there to be a zillion views by morning.

You can totally understand how well he blends into the floor, and how he's nearly been stepped on a few times. Not that the cat judge will believe it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOyaGSlPZDA

Not the throughput blog yet, but swim video!

I'm still working on that throughput blog. Let's just say it grew in the telling, and it will need to be a two episode blog. We're talking a serious wall o'text there. I hadn't quite realized it was such a big subject, or I'd have so much to say about it.

In the meantime I'm distracted by the antics of our politicians. This time it's Harper and his new anti-terrorism bill. Considering he's labelled environmentalists as terrorists, and there is essentially no oversight to the new and improved CSIS (that's sarcasm there, for those that think I've gone soft!) I don't have any doubt it will become a secret police dedicated to serving our Dear Leader's needs. His enemies can confidently expect a knock on the door. They've even said they'll do that. That's the first step towards disappearing people in the night.

Lèse-majesté hasn't been a crime in Canada, but I wouldn't be surprised if Harper has included that in the small print of the terrorism bill that nobody has got to yet. Not that I think he's noticed me, but the professional paranoids that find their way into secret police organizations could well consider some of the things I've said in this blog to be worthy of professional notice.

After all, I openly say that Harper is incompetent at governing, though I admit he possesses more cunning than usual about becoming and staying the government. I fully urge people to vote against him and his cronies. I am looking forward to putting an x beside someone else's name, when Harper's name appears on the ballot, which it will for me. If he calls another election.

In other news I took a break from the pool Monday and Tuesday. Michelle had taken some video of me swimming on Sunday and I finally got a chance to look it over carefully. I had not realize my arms were doing something completely different during recovery. See if you can see it. Youtube link here.

My right arm has a faster, higher, and more fluid return than the left. The left skims the water and is a hair slower. I'm not entirely sure why. I just wish I could swim further at that pace.

Saturday is looking nice and I'm hoping for a run.

Thank you everyone for your condolences about Bernard. Our two current cats are coming up on 3 years living here now, and seem to be doing fine, amid the usual complaints about inadequate attention.

No sympathy, I expect

We are home. The cats are pleased with us. It's snowing and cold out. I'm feeling a bit of weather whiplash. Good thing I don't have to run today. Our last morning in Bermuda I woke up to this. No filtering or editing here. Just the photo.

While we were waiting in Toronto for our delayed flight, a buddy reminded me of Air Canada's motto, "We're not happy till you're not happy." Though I do have to say they got us home eventually, even if the baggage delivery here was even slower than Vancouver. The extra carry on bag, the one with fragile stickers all over it, was about the third item off the belt with the regular stuff. So much for going and collecting it with the over sized. At least everything survived. Now to experiment on making Rum Swizzles.

I ended up taking 470 photos in Bermuda. Some of them look really nice on screen, much nicer than how Blog Press shows them in Blogger. So I may be redoing some of them. Pardon me if you think you've seen them before, but some are really good, and haven't been done justice. Most of the ones I put up will probably have some tweaking done.

What follows should be a video I shot in Horseshoe Bay. Let's find out if this works via Flikr. If not I can go back to You Tube, I guess.

While on vacation I discovered some spam comments actually sneaking onto my blog. I've tweaked some settings that should prevent anonymous posters. I hope that doesn't block anyone from actually posting. It shouldn't, since all anonymous was spam, and all the real comments were from people I know, or recognize their names. If there is a problem please let me know somehow, via the twitter button, Facebook, or plain old email. If I must I'll go back, and turn on comment moderation for all posts, not just the older ones. I take pride in my blog, and have some of the finest commenters around, so I don't want to dilute their efforts. I've already made a bit of a round catching up on comments on other people's blogs. I've missed doing that.

Back to regular blogging, whatever that is. First there was the month of one word blogs in February. Then a bunch of vacation blogs. Now back to the regular world. I was thinking a lot about vacations and my working life. My buddy Alan once said, "I strive to schedule my work the way most people schedule their vacation." We are already thinking about our next vacation, though quite a bit depends on exactly how this project goes, and if I get renewed or not. Linda is researching Copenhagen, I'm looking at Iceland, and plan on feeding my buddies Mike and Julie tea and cookies while interrogating them about Cozumel. 

For a few crunchies more

Amelia was on a steady diet of crunchies. When we got her she had bad teeth, and they suspected she would need some (expensive) dental work done. We had her on a special crunchy diet designed for tartar buildup. At least they were good for her teeth. We never did have to do any dental work on her.

She liked them quite well enough, but didn't make a pig of herself, unlike some we could name. However the problem was that she was a messy eater. She would pick out a crunchy, hold it away from the dish, crunch it and nibble, while many crumbs fell out of her mouth. She wouldn't touch those. Sometimes she played with her crunchies.

We discovered this the first time we had the heat ducts vacuumed out. As the guy was shoving the hose towards that bit of ducting, it sounded like gravel being slowly dumped into a truck. It's a good thing we weren't on a strict budget for cat food because it was expensive stuff, and she probably actually only ate about 3/4 of the bag.

Curtis knows the bag of crunchies is kept in a big green bin near the cat dishes. Occasionally he will rattle the lid, but he hasn't quite got to the point of knocking it off. For a while we had a big stuffed toy sitting on there to discourage him. If he ever does get it off he's going to think he's in cat heaven, and we'll come home to an exploded cat.

For a face that is covered in fur, he can be very expressive. He makes it perfectly clear what he wants, more crunchies, and wonders how we could be so stupid as to not get it. What more do I have to do, you can see him wondering.

Here's a video of Curtis reaching under the bedroom door. This is the first video I've done to Flickr, I have no idea how slowly or quickly it will load. It is a little dark, and there is no sound till almost the end.

In other news, I was in the pool again for the first time since about Christmas. It was really full and I had to wait till a swim club cleared out. I wasn't expecting anything special in terms of times, so wasn't disappointed. The water feel wasn't as clunky as I had feared it would be, it's just that my arms were weak and feeble. The first 100 m was about where I normally am, then it slowed down. At least it never got slower than a 60 second 50. Then some dolphin kick and pull, and one fast 50 in 44 seconds not working too hard. In the water for 30 minutes. At the end of the day I can feel it in my shoulders a bit.

I'm still musing about races this coming year. I'm trying to picture myself going out to Banff or Canmore, and getting into the freezing cold water. Or Chinook where I'm really familiar with the course. Somehow, the picture isn't quite coming into focus.

After the pool I was walking briskly from the car to the office, and wondering why I'm beginning to sweat. It was actually warm out! There was a huge line up for coffee, so I went upstairs. On the days I swim I like to have coffee with my granola.

followup from yesterday

Boy did Youtube ever piss me off last night. It didn't like the movie file of the fireworks I was trying to upload, and got all pissy with me. The Vimeo upload is working quite well as I type these very words thank you very much. Any luck by the time I get there I'll have video to embed. Well, that is taking longer than I thought. Not sure if I want to ante up for the plus service.

I was wondering why the video was so clear and why the photos mostly sucked. One of the guys at work suspects that the focus on the video has a chance to lock in and stay there, where with the photos it probably focused on infinity, and by the time it sees the fireworks it's too late. This is about the best of the photos.

Here's the video, about 4 minutes worth of the finale, done to live music, including singers, an orchestra, and bagpipes. I think my basic account doesn't do embedding, so there is just this link.


There was also a photo I took only because it amused me, and I've had a bit of a thing going with window washers.

I was feeling a bit creaky, but feeling very self satisfied I'd had the wit to arrange another massage only a week from the last one. I used the car2go to get from the office to her house, left it there, and Linda came to get me. When I looked at the website a little later, that car had been picked up and taken somewhere else. This is a neat service. Even if the turn by turn driving instructions would have had me turning right onto 9th Ave (NOT!) and taking the scenic route in one particular place. Not sure if I like the turn by turn instruction. At one point it got in the way of something I was listening to on the radio.

The massage was very good. Darryl, unless you find someone as good (good luck with that buddy!) you might want to reconsider. It isn't THAT far. And she gushed about how you did at IMC. The 90 minutes was great.

Oh, and I was in the pool this morning, but no water feel at all. None. So it was a bit slow and thrashy.

I realized today that my running shoes were bought last October, so they are more than 10 months old now. No idea how many K on them, but there are 2 half marathons. No wonder my feet were feeling a little tired and I got a blister on my little toe on Sunday! That's the first blister ever in these shoes. So this weekend I'm up for shoe shopping! (There, I've just given most of my readership a bit of an adrenaline rush.)

In other news I'm starting my list of things to do on the long weekend. We've scoped out plan tix, and we might be going away after Christmas. Still need to get plans flanged up, make sure the people we would like to visit, who have been very insistent we come to visit, actually, in the nicest way possible, will for sure be there. There's a bit of money math to do. Oh, not the plane tickets. It's buying the Vita-Mix after that has me worried.

How are your wine eyes?

The weather here lately is not giving the bike love. At least not when I've been able to ride. I think I've been on my bike once since the May long weekend. Even though the forecast was not good, the sun was shining when I got up this morning. Lots of clouds when I looked out. When I went out I could see my breath on the air. Not a good sign for wanting to ride. While eating a bit of breakfast and slurping coffee I noticed a couple runners go by. That seemed like a great idea, to get a run done while it at least wasn't raining.

I was dressed and off fairly quickly. Once I got going it wasn't so cold. At the bottom of 24 St in the Fish Creek parking lot there was a huge herd of people milling around. Then just after I turned around I saw this mob heading for me. At first I searched my conscience to see what I had done to enrage so many people, but there were no pitchforks or burning torches. Just about 50 people coincidently out for a morning run. With a bike leader, and a herder/encourager in the rear. No idea what that was all about.

The run went pretty well, with a short period where I was channeling SUAR. At least Fish Creek has bathrooms, if you know where to look. I was back in almost exactly the time it took to go out, once I accounted for the involuntary seated rest. It was all at a nice steady pace, not working too hard. It rained just a little on the way back.

We were out at the Kingsland Farmer's Market to pick up a few things, and there were two food trucks there. The first, with the big lineup, was the Naaco truck. It's neo-retro Indian food. I love Indian food, but I have no idea what this means. Since we didn't want to stand in line, and Linda felt like yam fries, we went over to this one. What's funny is that seconds after he told us our order would be up in a few minutes, he waved at someone, and put some clamshells on the counter. Linda tried to take them. The guy they belonged to was looking at her with the most peculiar expression.

So here is one of the white wines I'm doing, the lighter one. This is before racking. The light is one of those little carbide wind up lights with 3 really bright LED lenses.

Can you see the difference? The second one is after racking. My eye can see a bit of haze in the carboy, so I'm going to let it sit and see if it settles out. These two wines have taken forever. Good thing I'm not in a rush.

The next pair is a darker white, almost an amber colour. Same situation, before and after racking. Oddly enough, even though it's much darker, there was much less sediment at the bottom, and it looks clearer. I'm still going to give it until tomorrow at least and see what it looks like. Bottling cloudy wine is a waste of time and wine.

This is a bit of an experiment. The movies I've put up so far have been on youtube. This one is trying a different system to see if its easier or what. This is a cloud time lapse, showing these neat bands of clouds rolling across the sky. I'd appreciate any feedback about how long it took before you could watch the movie, or if you had any problems. Not sure if it's going to give me a thumbnail. Click here, and you should get a movie. Hmm, it took a long time to upload, and seems to be taking a while to download. That's not so good.

News photos video stuff.

It's a weird Friday in March. I was hoping to sleep in today, but no. I slept well, but was awake and up by 4:30. I was not packed for the pool, and did not feel like being packed. The pain and suffering from my ART appointment was the worst pain at his hands ever. I nearly cried, and probably would have if I'd had more time to think about it. Something with the inside of my right heel is very tender. Iced it after. Better now.

One of the things I did was watch the moon emerge from the clouds this morning. Very pretty. Only later I thought of trying to take a time lapse of it, but by then it was too late. However, the clouds obscuring the sunrise were pretty good. About 51 seconds long. It is nicer than I thought it would be.

The workout of the day ended up being about 1.5 hour on the bike, mostly easy spin, trying to wake up my legs. They weren't stiff and sore, more tired and wanting more rest. After the bike was a good stretching and core session. Iced the heel more.

Later in the day I was down working on the great vapour barrier sealing project. I'm now done all the windows, and making good progress on the other parts. The Tuck Tape is great stuff. I wish I'd started with it. However I'm getting to the point where I'm going to start to have to move stuff. And do we ever have lots of stuff that will need to be moved. That isn't going to be any fun. I'm also thinking about painting the concrete floor while the stuff is moved. Anyone have any experience with that? Here's the window, which is pretty well my view when I'm on my bike these days.

Earlier this week I was out to Lazy Loaf and Kettle for lunch with a buddy. They had these fruit flans, and as soon as I saw them, I knew I had to bring home one for Linda. One for me too, of course. They were very good, though just not quite as good as the flans from Yum bakery.

Speaking of flans from Yum bakery, look what Linda found to go with the BBQ bison burgers for supper tonight! It's just as yummy as it looks.

This was supper a week ago, and I hadn't got around to posting this photo. Organic chicken and duck. The small drinking glass next to the bottle of wine is my favourite because I made it. From scratch. I had been hoping for a beer glass, and it's more of a juice glass.

When I was walking through downtown yesterday I saw these gardening decorations, and in spite of having 36 Spolumbo sausages over my shoulder, I had to get the photo.

 It used to be that taking photos was a real chore. We always forgot to take the camera. When it was full (film, you remember film. Oh wait, some of my younger readers might not. Google it.) we would take it in to be developed and it was always a surprise to see what was there. Now I have a camera with me all the time, and I'm getting into the habit of taking photos just because.

Like these. There is a ship in the Canadian Navy named after Calgary. This model is in City Hall. Don't be afraid to scroll down, more stuff below.

Even though it's only 7:30, I'm feeling beat and tired, and thinking seriously about going to bed. But then I'd be up really early again, and I don't want to do that. I need to think of something to do for a few hours to keep me both out of bed, and out of mischief.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The boobs rant is still moving up in the ranks, now solidly in 5th place. Long way to go till 4th.

I'm starting to research a rant about salaries. Pro athletes, I'm looking at you. I've already done CEO's. Anyone want to suggest other groups that are perceived as having excessive salaries?

Brick, video, and a boob followup

In just over 48 hours my rant about boobs has cracked the top 10 list for most read posts. It's pretty clear my readers love boobs. I will not be surprised if it makes it's way into the number 2 spot fairly soon, even surpassing the SUAR love. (Minds out of the gutter SUAR fans!) By far most of the readers came from Beth's blog. More than Facebook. More than Google. I feel the love. Thanks readers, don't be afraid to comment. Here's the list for your delight and edification.

I know why Stock is the number one post. Anyone care to take any guesses why?

Saturday I had planned on going for a swim first thing. But sleep happened instead. Yay! Later on I got my own form of core by working on more of the vapour barrier repairs. This is to properly seal up the areas between the joists that were badly done when the house was built. I had started with this mono acoustical goop that you're supposed to use. Holy Hannah is that stuff messy! It's much harder than I thought it would be to maneuver the business end of the tube to where it needs to go. (TWSS!)

I was looking to see how to deal with wires, and piping and ducts and stuff, and found a reference to Tuck Tape. No, not duct tape, the single most essential tool needed for bringing up children. This is a very sticky red tape. Once I got the hang of it, and fully grasped what "work with small pieces" means, I got on pretty well.

Standing on a ladder, reaching overhead, stretching, pulling, pushing, twisting, and balancing for several hours all added up to a pretty good workout.

Sunday is nice out. Very nice. How nice? Think about this. I was on the bike inside for 3 hours, riding hard for most of it. I was completely wet at the end, as if I'd just climbed out of a pool. I changed shoes, put on a hat, and headed out for a run. In Calgary, in early March, shorts and tech shirt soaking wet, and was comfortable. The weather channel said 12 C (53 F) and windy. It was nice. Ran 3K, no idea how fast, working on keeping turnover up. I found a stride quite quickly and enjoyed the run. If there wasn't so much crap on the side of the roads I'd have wanted to ride outside.

Today's spin goal was to go 3 hours, pushing moderately hard, with a mix of fast easy spin, hill work, endurance work, and by accident did some hard fast spin.  Here's a video of the second attempt. Sorry about the shaky view, but you bikers will know how hard it is to stay steady holding on with one hand while working hard. I even did some one leg drill.

I particularly liked the noise the trainer made, and wish I could make it do that all the time.

Stretched after and ate. Relaxing now. Thinking about a busy week ahead.

Under a minute to decorate the tree

This was a nice Christmas Eve. For once I had no shopping to do. It was weird, and relaxing to have started and finished my shopping nearly a week ago.

We had a very leisurely start to the day, reading papers, drinking coffee, and cuddling the furry mammal of the house. Once that was done I was on the bike for 1.5 hrs, doing a variety of stuff, sweating hard. No pool smell, though, I think my run yesterday got it out of my skin.

Today is tree day, as I think of it. In our house we decorate the tree on Christmas Eve. There are times in the past I have thought of this as a chore, but this year the grinch in me is a bit subdued. I was looking forward to it, though I'm not sure why. It's something we do together, and I was planning to take a time lapse movie of it. Some of you might remember I did video last year and chopped it down to a reasonable length. This is about 50 seconds. The amusing part is watching Amelia watching us for the first little bit. Hmmm, you might need to widen your screen to see it all.



Here's the other side of the tree when we were done, showing the little diorama that Linda likes to make.

We don't have big plans for the day. Essentially we're going to open our presents, and hang out for the day. I'll probably watch some video. It will be a rest day, so no workout for me. It's supposed to be nice so maybe we'll take a walk down in Fish Creek.

Tonight we're going to work on another glass of wine and watch Love Actually.

I had hoped for a much more dramatic sunrise

Appliance repair people. Can't live with them, can't live without them. It turns out our oven needed a new igniter. We had called earlier in the week, and were assured, confirmation number and everything, that a repair person would be out Friday afternoon. On Friday they called to say they had overbooked and the repair person would not be appearing, but maybe Saturday. Then they said Saturday afternoon. Then Saturday about 5.

In the mean time some friends called. They were picking up their little boat from Glenmore Landing, and asked if we wanted to go out to dinner. Sure! They arrived. No repair person, and by now it was 5:30. We had phoned and complained, and tried to reschedule. Just everybody had their shoes and jackets on the repair guy arrived.

Our buddies played with their kid in the park for a bit. Then as the repairs were finishing up I sent them off to the British Chippy, and stayed behind to pay and see the guy out. That took a little longer than anticipated, but I got to the restaurant just as the food arrived on the table. I mean just. The waiter was in the process of putting plates of fish and chips on the table. They were pretty good too. I suspect we'll be back, though I won't have the canned Guiness again.

Something about the seating made my back feel wonky, and then I had a dreadful sleep. Though I can't really call it sleep, since I didn't really. Even the night before I was up early, then snoozed in my chair with a cat, only to be awoken from a sound sleep by a phone call. When I finally got out of bed this morning, I was an achey creaky grumpy mess. On Friday I had managed to bang my wrist at work hard enough that I was icing it that evening. That's one of the things that contributed to the poor sleep.

The sunrise was looking quite promising, with a gap in the clouds that I thought might under light them in a very pretty way. However, it didn't work out. This isn't the best time lapse movie in the world, but it does show today's dawn. I suppose I should have had it tilted up a bit, and facing a bit more south.



Here's the direct link.

I slowly got it together and decided not to inflict myself on my friends at spin class. Just because my day didn't start well is no reason to inflict it on anyone else. A little later in the morning I went down and did some careful stretching and twisting. There was no great and shuddering SNICK of my back going back where it belong, but things did feel better.

A little after that I climbed on my bike and got stuck in. Good warmup with some fast spin once I was ready. A little bit of standing, and a few minutes of hard effort. Then 20 minutes at what I think is mid zone 3. Breathing easy, sweating lots, legs happy. Easy spin. 15 minutes at a bit harder, up at the top of zone 3. Heart rate was stable and breathing was still good, sweating more. Easy spin. Then 5 minutes hard, up around 200 watts. Sweating a ton, breathing really hard, legs beginning to feel it.

So it appears that at 90 rpm, about 160 to 170 watts is sustainable till my butt gets tired, 180 to 190 watts is sustainable for a little while anyways, but 200 is not sustainable for much over 5 minutes. This gives me a nice baseline for training efforts.

I was on the bike 1.75 hrs altogether, then did more stretching afterward. This felt really quite good. Rollered my legs. There is a tight spot on each quad. And I was right, this was not as much fun as KBRCC, though I am getting caught up on DVD television. I've still got another season of Sanctuary, the last few episodes of Dollhouse, and a season of Leverage to go. Anyone seen Boardwalk Empire, is that any good? What else is good for television on DVD?

The longest netball game

Once again I learn the limits of what I know. A few days ago I had never even heard of Netball. Not even heard of it as a game, let alone anything about it. Quick, how many of you know about it?

Some of you will remember that last year Martin Parnell ran 250 marathons in one year. Yes, you read that right, he ran 250 marathons within 12 months. That averages out to a marathon every day and a half, and still boggles my mind. Now he's part of a group that is trying for the longest Netball game. Barefoot Neil put a volunteer request notice up on his Facebook page, and I thought, what the heck?

So this morning at 5am I was at the South Fish Creek something or other to act as an official witness. I got a T shirt and everything. My job was to record player substitutions. Normally Netball is a pretty fast paced game, since it lasts only an hour, and there are breaks between the quarters. This particular one was not what you'd call fast paced. They play for several hours without a break, though there are periodic substitutions. Several of the players were limping, with one girl not sure which leg should be the favoured one. Almost all the players had the Kona shuffle going.

But then, they had already been at it for 37 hours already. There were two rallying cries during my shift. One was "Only 24 hours to go!", and the other was, "Let's get rolling, we're only 800 points behind!" The whole thing was more fun than I thought it would be. There's an interesting dynamic to the game. Mostly they were chugging along, but there were a few bursts of higher energy. They were doing pretty good. My fellow witness was Julia S, who used to play Netball, and she explained the finer points to me.

Two, two kinds of video for you here. This is the live internet feed. This will be good only until Monday morning sometime. They've got a good video camera dumping the footage to a hard drive, but they couldn't hook up the internet feet do that. So the feed is actually from a web cam. And some footage I shot. Any jitter can be attributed to the whole thermos of coffee I drank during my shift. And yes, you can see Martin during the video.



Now, what should I do for the rest of the day? It's still a bit cool for a bike ride, and I'm not feeling the running love after all that coffee. Decisions, decisions.

Crazy clouds

Here's a time lapse video from earlier this evening. I confess I was hoping for a huge thunderhead, but this is more interesting, what with the clouds going all kinds of directions at once. This kind of thing happens all the time here.



I definitely overdid it on the run yesterday. Either that or walking around on higher heels than I've ever worn before is taking a toll on me. Or a combination of them. You see, I think of myself as slightly taller than average, but not unusually so. I've never had any desire to be any taller, or to wear anything thicker soled than normal dress shoes. But that's the way cowboy boots come, and if you're going to do something...

In the end I could have gone for a bike ride, but it could have got more adventurous than I'd like. And I'm feeling like doing a nice stretch session tonight before bed.

Chinook stuff and a great run

I have this relationship with Chinook. It was the very first race I did, way back in June 2008. I've done that Half IM twice now, and neither have been what you'd call good days. I finished both, and that's about all that can be said for them. I expected the first one to hurt and be slow. It did, and it was. It wiped me out for about a month.

Then in 2009 I had hopes for a much faster race. Not. I bonked coming out of the water, so the bike and run were a long nightmare. I didn't do it in 2010 because the timing was awkward leading up to IMC. I'd thought of going back this year and try to get the monkey off my back and have a good day. My knee took a lot longer to feel strong than I thought it would. About a month ago I decided there was no use pushing it. I wouldn't be ready to have a good day, and the last thing I needed was another bad day, and possibly re-injure my knee doing it.

So yesterday I showed up to cheer on some buddies. It was a cool windy day. The thermometer said 10 but it felt colder than that, especially down at the water. In that sense I'm glad I wasn't in the race. Neither were a couple of buddies, Leaha and Deb had to drop out. Lorraine totally kicked ass in the half! She was the first girl out of the water. I saw her starting the run, and at the 10 K mark, and she looked so strong. I saw Todd from spin class, and he was looking good too. My buddy Kelly R saw me at the same time as I saw her, but she got the first hello in. I saw her in T2, looking good, and after the race. I hadn't seen Tessa's name on the race list, but she was there.

I was mainly there to cheer on my buddy Lori in the Oly distance. You can see her in the video below of the Oly start. She seemed pretty pleased with the result but I haven't seen her results. I'm not sure what time the finish clock was displaying, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with the start time of either race. By the end of the day I was actually pretty tired, even though I wasn't jumping around cheering, like some people I know. Afterward we went to a BBQ at a buddy of Linda's, and holy cow! So much food. It was good that I went in hungry.

Today it was nice out in the morning so I decide to go while the going was good. Half hour of leg exercises and a bit of core, then out for a run. I ended up running 11 K in 1:20, almost perfectly even split, and what's best about it is that my heart rate averaged 136 bpm. That is getting to be a more reasonable number for the pace I was going, and it was pretty consistent throughout the run.

I can feel my legs getting stronger and more comfortable with running again. It was only in the last 10 minutes of the run that I could feel my stride getting sloppy, and having to work a bit harder on my form. So it's coming along well. I've already begun to work in some strides or accelerations into my runs, and I'll be working on that a bit more in the runs to come.

It was very nice to finish the run, stretch after, shower, and eat a second breakfast all by 10am.

I beat the time lapse rain

The forecast looked like rain all weekend, so I gave up on the thought of going for a bike ride. I still had hopes of getting out for a run. Other than my leg exercises I've been a slug since Wed yoga.

This morning started cloudy and then gradually got nicer. But at some point I noticed clouds were building off to the west, and figured I'd better get off my butt and run if I was going to. So I did. Stretched and did my leg exercises in a sort of perfunctory way, since I was thinking of the run.

Out and it felt great! I ended up running an hour, but no idea how far I ran. The first 5.5 K was 39:40 running fairly easy, breathing in control but not singing an opera or anything. My legs felt good. My heart rate was consistently higher than I'd have liked, and didn't recover even when I slowed down for the last 10 minutes. That was sort of depressing, actually, barely plodding along, hardly breathing, and yet my heart was pounding away. With any luck that will improve as I get more regular about running.

My buddy Cath had a great result at the Boise 70.3, going about 5:17, which is good for a trip to the 70.3 Championships. And my buddy David, in what I think is his first half IM, went 6:15 or so, which is a super result! He was actually my manager a few years ago at a company that neither of work for anymore. I take my hat off to him for the changes he's made in his life, what with dropping a ton of weight, and taking up triathlon, while maintaining a family, work, and social life balance.

Often we hear about the people that win their age group, (hi Katie doing Escape from Alcatraz!) but I think it's equally important to celebrate the accomplishments of the people in the pack, and at the back of the pack. And not just because that's where I am. All of these people have put in the hours training, and hope to have a good day on the race course. Some have mechanical or other failures, and that's too bad.

What's important to remember is that everybody is out there trying, and most are pushing themselves into uncharted territory. They are trying to balance all the conditions of the day while meeting the needs of their body for an extremely strenuous day. They are all champs, and deserve to have their achievements recognized.

While I was out for the run I set up my iPhone with a new toy. I've always liked time-lapse photography, and recently downloaded an app that does that. It's called iTimelapse, and it's free at the moment. I wish I'd had it when I did my decorating the Christmas tree video last year. Here's what the clouds were doing on my run. Oh, ignore the couple seconds of me making coffee at the beginning, I hadn't figured things out. This is a photo every 10 seconds.



That set of clouds passed with barely a spatter of rain, and now another set of clouds are building. I've got the camera running again. This is fun! If it's good I'll post that too.