Sunday, March 31, 2024
Monday April 1st, 2024 Dear Readers, I had to laugh this morning. It’s related to the post that I put out yesterday around busyness (see it below). I had been trying to slow myself down, to be focused and get done what needed to be done, but obviously it was not working. I forgot that this newsletter was going out today. That’s humbling and at the same time an opportunity to try that little bit harder and see where I can improve.
🧘 I have, am having a busy few days. When that happens my mind starts to pull me onto the next task before the current one is finished. From that anxiety builds and patience can diminish. I must remember to stop, to breathe and be aware of others around me. Rest…my body will appreciate it and the jobs will still get done.
☕ My coffee in take had been going down. One or two cups in the morning. However, in the last couple of days I have going back to another cup mid-morning. I'm not sure what is up?!
🏞️ Digitizing slides. Reliving memories.
I have been silent on my running posts for six days now. I haven’t run in that time, though that is not the sole reason for not posting. The last run took the wind out of my sails. More so than I initially thought. I was tired by the time that I finished my last run because of the increased run times that the Watch To 5K had me doing at the Week 4 stage - at least I assumed that that was the reason. However, though those run times played a part I now don’t see them as the sole reason.
My mind was in comparison mode, comparing my current run’s distance and time with how well I had done on the previous run. In essence I had been competing with myself and telling myself that if I ran further and/or faster, both was a real bonus, I was doing better.
I was essentially in race mode. Racing with myself, though I did not see this. I need someone else to point out to me that this way of running was simply not sustainable. Rex Barrett kindly reached out to me on Mastodon giving me some perspective. He pointed out that the pace that I was running for my training runs, was a race pace. I needed to slow down and set myself more realistic paces for the training runs, along with the time that I spend running.
Something else that I am forgetting is my age. I turned sixty last September. I’m in pretty good shape, but whether I like it or not, I’m not where I was forty years ago. I am older, the body is slower, it needs more time to recover. I need to recognize this and proceed with my training accordingly.
I hope to get back to running today or tomorrow, before I loose the momentum. I don’t think that I will, I want to see myself running a 5K whatever the speed, but the mind can be tricky and as I said at the start of this post, that last run took the wind out of my sails.
We watched Mrs. Doubtfire last night. I had never seen it. I miss Robin Williams.
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Benaulim Beach, Goa, India. A month ago I explained how I was capturing the slides that I am using in the “Story behind the Photograph” series (all of which can be found here (RSS), or under the map emoji 🗺️ in the menu bar above). Well I have now found a gadget that I was given a number of years ago. Its purpose is to digitize slides and negatives. Due to the device’s age, the scans are probably not the best.
👓 The new glasses arrived today with progressive lenses in them. My first pair of progressives and they feel a little disorientating at the moment. I sense that I'll get use to them, but for now I think that I'll be switching back and forth between the new glasses and the old.
I remember being in college when Space Invaders first came out. Then there was Asteroids, Pac Man, and a few other Space Invaders variants. Pinball machines were still available in UK pubs, and then as Space Invaders started their, um, invasion, evenings moved from trying to keep a metal ball on the playing field to huddling around the boxes that housed Invaders and the like, trying to better your score.
I was never that good at these games. Maybe they just weren’t my thing or I did not have the aptitude necessary to improve my game.
Recently I think that nostalgia got the better of me. I purchased The Iconfactory’s iOS app, Ollie’s Arcade. Recreating the video games of yesteryear, three of them and done very well as The Iconfactory do, they are a fun to play. However, I am still not very good at them. My scores remain low, but I keep on coming back for more.
Monday, March 25, 2024
Monday March 25, 2024 Hello and welcome to another weekly roundup of posts to my blog. This has been a wet winter and as such some outside jobs that needed to be done in the garden have been sitting, waiting for the weather to clear up. Seasons here in Hawaii don’t have as clear a delineation as more northerly latitudes, but there is a definite change in weather patterns. In the part of Maui where I live the weather becomes wetter, and although the day time temperatures can reach the high 70F(21C), mornings and evenings are cold and the trade winds that blow through the islands can be chilly.
🗣️ I’m trying out various translation apps to decide which best suits my needs. I find apps that offer a slower play back of the foreign language helpful. Though finding an app that has everything I want neatly packaged, is not easy.
♻️ I wouldn't mind restarting today afresh. I've got things done, things that needed to be done, but I'm sitting here now at the far end of the day feeling a little dissatisfied, maybe frustrated as well? Such is life....up one day, down the next.
🍃 I’m waking up to wind and rain, hard showers followed by a wait for the next one, this morning. Yesterday’s sun appears to be an anomaly at the moment. It appears that we have a little longer before the winter rains recede.
🌱 Clearing in the garden today. Pulling out an invasive plant. There is still some to move, but it just got too hot….so I started work on a new blog post.
I’ve said it many times on this blog…in essence to myself…that not doing something will not get it done.
This time I will add that the satisfaction of getting that something done is enormous. To see it in the rear view mirror as opposed to constantly looming over me.
Yesterday I ran the furthest to date. It was only by 0.1km, but at 3.51km this was the further distance that I have covered so far in the Watch to 5K program.
Last night I was feeling it. The glow of exercise was accompanied by a tiredness in my legs and by the time that I went to bed, I was exhausted.
I’m in the middle of week four. At the moment the routine is walk, then run, then walk, etc, with the run times increasing and walk times being commensurate recovery periods. However in four runs time, the end of week five, I am going to be running for twenty minutes. Apart from the warm up and cool down walks, there will be no other walking. Just twenty minutes of running. Right now, I don’t know how I will do it? I am wondering whether to repeat week four before moving on?
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Every Thursday night I sit in a weekly men’s group. I’ve mentioned before the value that I get from sitting with this group, but of late I have been reminded of something else. Maybe it’s the same thing but I am just now finding words for my experience? It’s simple, common sense advice to “keep the company of good friends”. That is, the influence of those around me, rubs off on me.
Jacoby asks how far you live from where you were born? So I thought that I would take a look. It turns out that I’m currently 7,191 miles (11,572 km) from where I was born. That distance has varied over the years from just round the corner, to now halfway round the world. None of this was expected, so while I see no change anytime soon, who knows?
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Waiting at the border crossing I was going through some more slides of my travels last night and this one has stuck with me through the day. Taken in July 1989, I recognized most of the faces, as well as the nationalities of some of those standing there, but could not put names to them. I found myself wondering where they are now? What happened to them after we parted ways on our respective travels?
🌞 Hey, no rain today. That’s a first for a while.