☀️ It feels good to see the sun this evening after a couple of days of cloud and rain. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy moody weather, but on this still evening the heat of the sun brings some warmth and rest.
My default search engine for a number of years now has been DuckDuckGo. In the past I have also used their browser and their privacy based (redirect) email service. I have been happy with DuckDuckGo’s service, never questioning the quality of their search results. Now though I am exploring Kagi as a possible replacement. Why? That’s a good question, for which I don’t think that I have a good, clear answer. Praise or at least mention of Kagi’s service passing across my timelines has probably played a part in this decision.
I’m not sure that I am comfortable with paying for my searches after years of them being ‘free’. For now I am on Kagi’s free, 100 search trial. I might keep DuckDuckGo in another browser and run comparative searches to compare the services. I have also read of other features within Kagi that I am not clear about at this stage and must try and remember to explore these.
Privacy is important to me within search, the reason that I stay away for the most part from the big search engines. At this stage though, I don’t know if for me the privacy of Kagi is worth a move away from DuckDuckGo?
🚽 If someone redesigned the humble toilet brush, making it more hygienic, I believe that they would be onto something.
🌊 Before going to bed last night the sounds of waves crashing against the distant cliffs, a mile away, was loud. In the middle of the night it was so loud that we could hear the roar inside the house with windows and doors closed!
I have since read that a 30-50ft swell is hitting the north shore until this evening.
Yesterday morning’s view at sunrise.
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 →
My wife gave me two of these metal tumblers from Japan for Valentines Day. They are great at keeping drinks cold…, and look good as well.
Yesterday was meant to be my next run on the Watch to 5K program, but I didn’t go out. I had the feeling of a cold coming on twenty four hours earlier, and yesterday I was not right. Today is also going to be a no show. I’m still not feeling right, and don’t want to do too much and just make myself feel worse. So hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll be back out there.
HAPPY LOSAR
Today is Losar, Tibetan New Year, the year of the Wood Dragon 2151.
Below is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s New Year message to the Tibetan people.
Well there’s week 3 of the Watch to 5K program completed. The conditions were perfect today - overcast, barely a breeze, and a comfortable temperature. There was some stiffness, but I was feeling better with the longer runs.
Earthquake just felt on Maui. I’m getting texts from friends across the island with people having felt it. I was sitting in my truck after a run and it just started shaking. Then the guy next to me jumped out of his car thinking that someone was shaking it!
About 15 minutes ago an earthquake was reported, initially as a 6.3 and now as a 5.7 earthquake centered 2km from Pāhala on the Big Island. This report on Maui Now confirms the earthquake and says that no tsunami is expected.
🌴 After a week living in a wind tunnel, last night the winds finally appeared to have blown themselves out. It was still when I returned home yesterday evening, and we are waking up to the same this morning.
A Memory
Thursday, February 8, 2024
I’ve just left Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram situated just outside of the small town of Sevagram in almost the geographical center of India. I had spent a couple of night’s at the ashram as part of a pilgrimage around India that I had set out on, to visit places connected with the life of Gandhi. He has been a big influence on my life, and I have read a lot by and about him.
A rainbow is never far away here, but the wet and windy weather is producing some good ones at the moment 🌈
Yes I keep saying it, but today’s Watch to 5K run felt hard. At one stage I thought that I was going to start walking during a running stage. Admittedly the island is still experiencing strong winds, but my legs felt a stiffness in them today. …Onto the next leg…
On a roll at the moment. This evening’s rainbow 🌈
The Rubin Will Close Its Physical Space and Become a ‘Museum Without Walls’ - I’m sad to see this happening. I don’t visit New York often, but when the opportunity allowed I loved spending time (long periods of) in the Rubin Museum, taking in its displays of Himalayan art. Still a central tenant of Buddhism is impermanence.
🌬️ I’m not happy with this strong wind. It has been here for a few days now, and it looks like at least another two more days. I’d really appreciate it stopping.
My last run on the Watch to 5K program was last Wednesday, January 31st. The program is structured so that you run every other day. The day in between is for rest and to allow the body to build its strength. However, a cold front moved across the State this last weekend bringing some strong weather with it. Because of that I missed my Friday and Sunday runs.
Today I got back into running schedule, repeating the run that I did on Wednesday - the first of week three. Although the wind was strong, overall I felt comfortable today. Initially there was some stiffness in my legs. However, as I worked my way through that, I paced myself better than last week, most likely because through repetition I knew what was coming as I worked through today’s program.
I have been playing around with the Feedbin iOS app and found out completely by accident that it is possible to save searches. Searches of all feeds or selected. It feels like creating a feed of one’s own, looking out for subject matter that interests me.
The Story Behind the Photograph: A View Over the River Ganges
Monday, February 5, 2024
Photo of a slide projected onto a wall. It was mid November, 1989. I was four months into my journey through Central Asia. With my visa expiring, my time in Nepal was drawing to a close. Not feeling ready to go home, indeed a deeper sense of purpose and exploration beginning to arise from the trip thus far, I decided to travel down to India. I had left home with a few vague goals of things that I wanted to see or do, otherwise I was following my nose and seeing where the adventures would take me.