It has begun!
I’ve started biking to work! 22km and 65 minutes later, I had cold toes (from not wearing booties), rosy cheeks, and an attitude of superiority.
It was extremely fresh when I left this morning, -3C outside and -8 with the wind, which as always was in my face the entire ride. My usual route is still under a bit of snow, so I decided to stay on the road the entire trip. I should have, but didn’t end up doing any route finding before I left, and ended up taking a bit of a roundabout way of getting to Baseline. I’ve now looked it up, and I will be cutting about 1.5 km from my return leg. I’m hoping that unlike later in the year, the wind doesn’t change direction in the afternoon, as I would like a nice push home.
Another thing that I did differently on this ride is ditch my headphones. I don’t mind wearing them on the paths, but I do not feel comfortable with them in on Baseline. My solution? A handy battery-powered speaker that plugs into my player’s headphone jack. I could listen to my music and still be situationally aware.
Note to Dan: I also solved the scarf problem. I have a beard.
Truth in Cycling
I’ve worked out a formula based on speed, weight and time to get a rough estimate of calorie burn for my cycling trips. Interestingly, it hits a bit of a plateau in the middle speed ranges, as shown below. If my calculations are correct, then, I can take it a bit easier going in without hitting a calorie penalty (or, hopefully, needing a shower). On the way home I can boot it, make up the time from the morning, and hop straight into the pool to refresh myself. Win/Win/Win/Win. 
| dist (km) | 20 | ||||||
| spd(km/h) | 15 | 17 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 32 | 35 |
| Calories | 556.81 | 737 | 835.49 | 835.21 | 835.17 | 913.5 | 954.46 |
| hours | 1.33 | 1.18 | 1 | 0.8 | 0.67 | 0.63 | 0.57 |
Note that I have correlated these calculations with my heart rate monitor (which is probably using a variation of the same formula, since I worked mine out from plotting various responses from different “Calorie counting” Web sites). Bonus points if you can tell me how much I weighed when I made this graph!
Oop! A week almost passed! Quick! Brain dump!
It happens. I had a lot to do, and little time to do it in, so the social aspects of the Internets had to suffer for a while. I’ve taken care of some things that I’ve let slip by the wayside; and had some good times with family and friends.
The Kanata United Church Book Fair is coming up in a couple of weeks. I didn’t go last time for sundry reasons, But I’m ready for a triumphant return! Honestly, my reading fell off the rails the last few years thanks to other commitments, but I’m back in the game, having read as many books so far this year as I did last. Oop. One thing that hung over my head: I hadn’t input any new books into my LibraryThing account for nearly two years! This is fundamentally important to have up to date before going to such a fair, so I don’t end up with triples of books. I am looking for books that I really enjoyed as a child that are no longer available in the library(!!!), so that I can pass my love for these stories along to Trevor and Owen. One that I’m always on the lookout for is The Machine-Gunners by Robert Westall.
Chrispy rented a studio and took photos of us this weekend too. An example:
The black backdrop makes the photo look extremely dramatic, don’t you think?
Plus it was Dan’s birthday, where he finally joined me in my decrepitude (Note the handsome Dr. Who scarf wearing gentleman in one of the photos on that page).
Must… post…
Update: I read 3 pages and fell asleep on the couch. Rushed and tired.
I feel like I’ve been super busy all the time lately. I still have time to post, obviously, since I’m posting this, but I feel rushed. This will get worse over the next several days, as my father-in-law returns to Croatia tomorrow, and I will no longer benefit from an extra pair of hands.
I have my techniques for combating this, since it is just a feeling, but I haven’t been able to put them in motion lately. My lunchtime walks have fallen to the wayside of late, mostly because it’s been drearily cold here; my book pile looms ever more precariously over my head; and movies are sitting unwatched.
I need to just sit and relax a bit. But it’s late! Must sleep so I can get up and get to work! agggghghh! I’ll be fine, I’m sure.
I am reading Cheers, which is very interesting and relaxing, and I think I should stop here and read it some more, as Gosh! I have to return it by Friday!
Where I Lament the Passing of Time
I love pizza. I think I could eat pizza for every meal, every day, and not get tired of it. Cold pizza for breakfast? Yum! Dessert pizza from Pizza Hut? Odd idea, but I like it! Yummy cheese, a variety of things you can put on top, chewy if you want, crispy if you want, the choices seem endless!
I say all that, but I say it with a heavy heart (literally?). I can’t eat it anymore. The last several times I’ve had pizza, I’ve had a raging stomach ache the next day. I have one now. Courtesy of a “Smokin’ 67s” slice and a “Texas Bold’em” slice from Gabriel’s last night. The slices were awesome; my reaction is not.
So folks, that’s it. I’m done. Please keep having Gabe’s pizzas, they are still good. I’m just not going to do this to myself anymore.
Let’s see how long this lasts.
PS: AtD only complained about “Bold’em”.
In Which I Create a Dummy WordPress.com Blog
Maria.Kat and Chriss and I were discussing how their WordPress blog had chided them about complex phrasing etc. I only had a spellchecker. How sad. So, I investigated. Turns out it uses After the Deadline. It seems pretty sweet, I’ll let you know if it is, actually, sweet.
Other People’s Birthdays…
make me feel old. Not in the oh gosh, he’s a year older and I’m older than him so I must be decrepit, but in the wow, a few beers makes the 5:30 wake up call from K1 or K2 very very difficult to answer. It’s 10 now, and I’m still struggling. At least it’s not a work day.
So, early “Happy Birthday”s to Dan! to Paul! and most of all, to Trevor!
Where I Wade into the iPad Debate
When I read a book, I read a book; everything else fades off into the hoary mists beyond my imagination. When I write in a notebook, the same thing happens. This is good. I can read a book in a day or two. I can fill ten pages in my notebook with almost a pure stream of output. Simple enough. When I’m using my web browser, I’ve got 15 tabs open all the time, and my mail client is there, and a bunch of other stuff, and flip, flip, flip, OMG new link in reader! Case in point: I wrote that last sentence 10 minutes ago, saw that I had a new message, and away goes the concentration.
The iPad, with its lack of multitasking, would do away with that for me. I imagine myself sitting in the back corner at the coffee chop , iPad attached to the add-on keyboard, typing away. Did mail come? I don’t know. I’m in my writing app, I can’t check. I can’t be bothered by the little distractions that a notebook offers me. I think of it as a more gee whiz (and more expensive) AlphaSmart , since it will let you type until you are done typing. But then, it also lets you read until you are done reading, email until you are done emailing, et cetera until you are done et ceteraing, so I guess the extra couple of hundred dollars are justified, since you would get the same functionality (and price) by duct taping an AlphaSmart and an iPod to a Kindle.
Though, you would be able to multitask with the iKinSmart.
The Ethical Dilemma Presented by #AmazonFail
I would like to get my lovely wife a certain book that she is constantly taking out of the library then having to return it as, yet again, someone else requested it. It is one of those low production books that I haven’t been able to find anywhere in Canada. In fact, the only place (online) that I’ve found is Amazon.com. With the whole hurly burly going on now I’m less inclined to send them my money at the moment.
“But wait,” you say, “aren’t you also punishing the author by not buying her book?”
That, my friend, is where I’m getting dilemmaed. On the one hand, this author has been consistently not alive for almost a dozen years, and so is probably past the point of caring; on the other, her estate would probably benefit, and sweetie of mine would be happy.
Update: Problem solved. I ordered it directly from the publisher. That works.
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