Unconventional

Yes. For example. I'm not hindered by preconceived notions of suitability of what might make a good gardening tool.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day started very well. This was my view, while sipping coffee and nibbling a tasty bun.

Later on was more unconventional core workout. Thatching the side lawn. Deforesting the patio. If I had a big shop vac, I'd use that too. There is a lot of fine silt and dust captured around the plants. Here's a before and after.

Then digging out one of the front flower boxes. A before and after, with an intermediary shot of me holding nearly 5 feet of roots that went from one end to the other.

There were times my legs were a bit crany if I stayed in one position too long, but overall they were feeling pretty good. There are several more boxes to go, I hope they hold up. I hope my hands hold up.

I was a bit jealous of my buddy in the cul de sac behind us. He rode out to Bragg Creek today and back, for 84 K or so in perfect bike weather. With any luck that will be me in a few weeks.

Oh, and I've got a prezzie to myself ordered. Pure indulgence. Amazon says its been shipped, and will arrive sometime between the 8th and 22nd. I'm guessing sometime next week, and I'll blog when it happens. In other upcoming events, I'll soon be 20000 days old. Imagine that! My blog will be 1500 posts old soon, and later this year it will be 6. I never dreamed I'd like it this much, or have met the people I have. It's been a year since I started at Penn West, and that has gone by so fast!

I'm thinking maybe tomorrow will be the Stampede food post, and given that topic, I think a rant on politics might be in order.

First run in a month

But first I swam. A 50 m pool all to myself is nice. Some of you might be a bit choked at the cost, though. It meant waking up at 4 am. Yes really, but I was already awake so it was no big deal.

The water felt a bit thick today and my stroke just a bit off, but other than that it was a solid 30 minute swim. Working with the paddles is interesting. I'll alternate between long slow strokes and somewhat shorter faster ones trying to get my arm vertical faster.

It's a beautiful warm afternoon here today. The therapist cleared me for "easing back into running." For some of you, I know that means a 60 minute 10 K, just to get back into it. Not me, the T Rex in a tar pit of running. I was out 15 minutes, just over 2 K, and I walked part of that.

My right leg was fine, with only the slightest of twinges and niggles. I'm not sure how to describe the left leg. It didn't hurt, and it didn't feel all loosey goosey unstable. It had some spring, but it wasn't feeling right either. There was a bit of an ache on the outside, and it felt a bit stiff. Then again, the first time in a while is always hard. So nice to be out again! It's going to be interesting balancing the full recovery back to normal for my legs, and trying to build some stamina and endurance in them. I see lots of pre run warm up, and post run stretching.

Stretched and rollered much longer than I had run. I might try the bike tomorrow and see that feels. Still on the trainer till I get a grip on how strong it really is. Plus the roads still have lots of gravel and crap along the edges. I have the sneaking suspicion that my crash last year that locked up my low back is part of the problem.




This is the last bottle of the Bush Vine Grenache. It was bottled nov 2007. It's been a very reliable go to wine for a variety of purposes. It goes well with lots of food, and can hold its own with all but the spiciest. It's a bit tart in a blackberry plum sort of way, but lots of other flavour to roll around on your tongue.

Upcoming. The new "foods" for this years stampede. Get your horrified all warmed up.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

gonzo swimmer, zenny yoga

I've never seen anything like it. Me and another guy were looking at the swim lanes open to us at Talisman. What a mix of slow and fast. I wanted to play swim nazi and arrange people neatly. Preferably with a big shepherd's hook. A little organization would make life so much better.

There was a pair of lanes open. A woman swimming on the right was already swimming up the rope and down the middle, and was doing drill. She said she wasn't a fast swimmer and was happy to fit into whatever we wanted to do, and watch out for that other swimmer. So the other guy went there. He'd got there first.

I waited for the guy on my side to get back. He was wobbling up and back on the line, sort of. I asked if he wanted to circle swim, up the rope and down the middle. Sure he said, and headed off diagonally toward the far end of the pool. He got all the way over to the line on the other lane, and came back on the rope. I asked again, and he said that's what he had done and if I didn't like it too bad, he was going to keep going that way. Bah! I didn't need to be worried about a collision so I moved over to the other pair of lanes and joined a guy that was really, really slow, but was happy to share the lane. He was both predictable and lapped a lot, which didn't seem to bother either of us.

The swim ended up being about 30 minutes of pretty goodness. I was a long way from the clock so I don't know when I started.

Yoga was very nice tonight. I was feeling very in tune with it. Lots of good moves. I'm told I snored during savasana. My legs are feeling stronger and more stable so that was all to the good. Back to the therapist tomorrow. I'm hoping to run on the weekend when it will be 20 C or warmer!

As we finished up yoga I got this view, and driving home stopped to get the next. Neither are modified in Snapseed. A few weeks ago, the reflections in the window were such that I wanted to take a photo in the middle of class.

The mind bending thing today

This is just one side of the fine print.

The other side is essentially similar. We got new credit cards today, and this is the fine print. I was actually reading it to see what it says about insurance and what we heard about the other day with a new high tech way of skimming.

In the bad old days, people worried about "the internet" stealing your credit card data. I took the position it was much easier to plant a skimming machine in a busy bar or restaurant, or a gas station. Now people put their credit card info onto the internet to buy stuff and don't think twice about it.

What I was thinking twice about is a report on the radio last week. Supposedly there is an app that lets a smart phone read one of these RFID or Near Field enabled credit cards while its still in your wallet in your pocket. I didn't really believe it at the time, and after a bit of research (snopes and a few others) it seems that it's one of those things that is technically possible, in a limited sense.

The newer chips are encrypted and don't "broadcast" the card info needed to create a new card or conduct another transaction. Each transaction is unique. And besides, you aren't liable for any unauthorized transactions.

It turns out the credit card I've been carrying around for the last 3 years has had this technology. So for me, nothing has changed. I don't think I'll being going to buy a Kevlar wallet embedded with silver oxide, or even wrapping the card in tinfoil.

Why is it always tinfoil?

I did not run. Though I'm thinking about it.
I did not bike. I wasn't thinking about it.
I did not swim. That was yesterday, and maybe tomorrow.
I did not core. I'm feeling lazy.

The snazzy flip flops

There was actually discussion at the pool as I was finishing up and getting out. Several people commented on my flip flops.

The one lifeguard had seen them several times, and was dying to know where I got them. Tri It. The website indicates they are in stock. I've been using them a few weeks now and they are settling onto my   feet. I'm not much of a sandals or flip flop wearer so I'm still getting used to them.

Before all that chat, I had a solid 40 minute swim. My fitness is coming back so even in the 50 m pool I'm not slowing down so much. I'm easily 30 seconds faster over 500 m than I was even a couple weeks ago. Water ran after, even though there was no Katie.

My legs are much less cranky. My mobility is better, and my left knee is much happier. Even dance class tonight, Swing, Quick Step, and Waltz didn't bother them much, and that's a killer combo for knees.

That photo app I tried is lots of fun. It's called Fotopedia.  It's sort of a cross between a blog and photo journalism, and it's tied into wikipedia somehow. There are some stunning photos. You can see my experiment with putting up some photos I had of The Bow and a few other buildings downtown.  I got part way through before realizing that it's much better to pick out the photos I want on the iPad, tweak them in Snapseed, save them to the local camera roll, then select them from there in Fotopedia.

A process mess, revisited

What's wrong with this picture? It's at an aid station for the Police Half.

First, you might want to read this little rant about aid stations, from last year's race. Nothing really has changed. This year might have been worse in a couple respects. Look at that photo above again.

There were lots of people trying to be helpful, wanting to throw their cups in the garbage. That's nice. I heard many apologies for missing. That's nice too. People were almost tripping over the curbs to get close enough to hit the targets. That's not so nice. I'm just happy nobody tripped. Several people missed, then went back against the flow of traffic to get it and put it in the garbage, even though a volunteer was standing right there, dealing with it.

Even worse, people congregated around the containers. Serially. In parallel. Groups, even. Taking up running space. Just off to the right is a pole in the middle of the path. One guy nearly left his family jewels on it, trying to dodge around someone, who was trying to dodge around people just standing there. Lots of people were running with (apparently) no idea there was anyone else around them.

I'm glad I wasn't racing through there. There was a nasty cold wind much of the time I was there. At least I got a nice photo of the reservoir.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. Playing with a new photo app, meaning I'm waiting for nearly 5000 photos to load onto the iPad.  45 minutes on the bike feeling pretty good. Core and stretching after. My legs are beginning to feel much better. BBQ some tenderloin in a Linda marinade. As always, very yummy.

Front yard frenzy

There was a teaser a few weeks ago about the upcoming activities in our front yard. Today was the first of what will likely be several days. At least. Maybe more. Just in the front. The back yard is a whole other world. The use of motorized equipment is being seriously contemplated.

Mostly these are before and after photos. I knew this would be tough, but I was in the mood for it. I was out there at 8:30. By the numbers:

• 2 cups of coffee, with a good breakfast before starting
• 2 slivers (an amazingly low total)
• 1 blister
• 2 cat supervisors
• 5 bags of yard waste, only 3 of which fit into our black garbage bin
• 2 more bags containing cedar chips to be recycled and reused, along with other gunge
• 20 photos taken during the day, some of which were tweaked in Snapseed and appear below
• 2 litres of water consumed, and 1 snack, over a 4 hour period
• 2 chats with neighbours

This photo does not do justice to how bad it looked. 

You can see some of the bits of wood that used to be that left hand set of boxes. A long time ago they used to be 2x14. The widest piece of wood left un-rotted is about 3 inches.

Of course I couldn't be trusted to do such an important job on my own. I had two volunteer supervisors.  Curtis in the front window, and Celina in the side basement window as I was doing that part of the yard.

You might remember this photo from a couple weeks ago, showing another view of how bad the front was. From a different angle, here is some of the thatch after being scraped off.

This is our mint plant. Although they are supposed to spread, this one seems happy here. I trim it from this

To this every year.

The front beds have some plants left at the end closest to me, but they are pretty well choked out by grass and weeds. The rest of the beds had a nice layer of cedar chips at one time, but the weeds have been getting the upper hand.

All I've done is taken out the chips to be washed and reused, and taken off the top layer of loose stuff. Later will come the actual digging and removal of unwanted plant material. Much later will come the addition of some fresh soil and new plants. In the corner of the box, inside the rounded stone border, lives a day lily. It's pretty happy there, but it's under siege from the weeds as well.

I double raked the entire front lawn, first with a garden rake to get the loose stuff, then the toothy rake, as I think of it, to deal with the thatch. By the time I started the side yard, the wind had begun to gust so I didn't get to the thatch raking there. It ended up being a pretty windy day so I'm glad I got an early start.

Overall this is a really good workout. The raking is a cardio, muscular, and stretching workout. Lots of kneeling and squats to work on the boxes. Bends to pick up garbage. My legs feel pretty good out of this.

Dealing with loose plant material in the wind wasn't much fun anymore. I changed tack, and started on the barbecue. Normally I clean it every time I fill the tank, but I missed last time. It was really, really cold then, and being outside working on cold metal was not to be thought of. So it was pretty gucky. It's a small price to pay for rack of lamb, bison burgers, lamb burgers, various cuts of chicken, many in specialty Linda-made marinades.

A remarkably short time later it was looking like this. Much better.

The secret? 

Stupid photo rotation issues. These are a special fibre that for all intents and purposes sucks the guck right off the barbecue. Rinse a few times and it keeps on working. Afterward a wash in some dish soap and it's good to go for the next time. A clean barbecue is a happy barbecue. An added benefit to washing the cloth is that the micro fibers also wash everything out of the creases in your hands. Other than a few chipped nails and a blister, you'd never know I'd been doing yard work today.

During the afternoon quiet period I signed up for fotopedia. I've browsed some of the stories and enjoyed some amazing photos. Maybe next week I'll try my hand at a story of my own. Of course I'll tell you about it.

In a little while we leave to have dinner with friends. Looking forward!