A new thing to look forward to on Fridays - @iconfactory’s latest build of Tapestry.
I’m feeling that post exercise glow right now. I’m not long back from the next run in the Watch To 5K program that I’m following - or at least trying to; I came to an abrupt halt earlier this year when I attempted to make it to 5K.
We have a Tropical Depression, essentially a Tropical Storm that is running out of puff, going over the island right now. The conditions are overcast, hot, muggy and next to no wind. It poured last night. So today I appreciated no direct sunlight, no wind to run into, and was alright with the muggy conditions.
I was feeling it in my legs by the end of today’s session, and tried to stay away from my old, and unhelpful habit of racing against myself. I pulled back and tried to maintain a steady pace.
I am considering repeating week 2 before moving onto week 3.
So I now have a Shortcut accessible from my iPhone Lock Screen. When I press on icon to launch it, I am presented with a window to type some text. When I am finished typing I press Done. I’m asked if the text has a category on my blog, and from there it is published. Like this one 🥳
🥵 It’s humid today. Muggy, like walking through a think cloud of invisible warm water. I think a prelude to Tropical Depression Gilma arriving here this weekend. Gilma is waning which is a blessing. Last week it was a hurricane midway between the US west coast and Hawaii.
I’m slowly making my way back through the Watch To 5K program. I have just completed the second run of week 2. At the moment I feel that I am pacing myself better than last time. Not racing against myself, but rather trying to set a steady pace to work my way through the program.
I’m enjoying the new venue for my run as well. I’ve chosen the path that runs along the bottom of the runway at Kahului airport. I’m not running round a busy park now, working my way through thick grass or over tree routes. Now it is an even surface. I get to watch the aircraft come and go, and wave at new arrivals. On the other side, just over the bushes and dunes, and visible at times is the ocean.
Onto week 2 run 3 in two days.
After a hot day and strong trade winds, yesterday evening the world seemed to settle down at dusk and take a breather. As the sun set and the sky darkened, we sat outside and chatted. I feel blessed to call this view home.
Watching and listening to an aircraft fly into the distance against a star filled, inky black sky tonight makes me think of scenes from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I remember being taken to see the film by my grandmother when I was in my early teens. I remember the scenes where we looked to the skies to see if there was anything out there, both when we were expecting something and when we were not. I remember sitting there in awe while the cinema shook as the Mother Ship landed.
I have not seen that film for a good while now. However, I remember it fondly and as a masterful piece of story telling by Steven Spielberg.
🌞 Yeh! The sun is out. The first time for 48 hours. Hopefully it will remain so until the next storm arrives at the end of the week.
🏄♂️ Meanwhile my stepdaughter’s partner and their son are off to find the good (big) surf thrown up by the storm. Island life.
Wind and rain this morning. Not as bad as the Big Island which is taking the brunt of the weather, but Tropical Storm, now Category 1 Hurricane, Hone has arrived in the islands.
🔌 Charging lights, phones, etc and making sure that candles are at the ready, just in case the power goes out tonight as Tropical Storm Hone arrives in the islands.
As Tropical Storm Hone arrives in Hawai’i this weekend, it feels appropriate to read in Orion Magazine about All the Ways to Name Rain in Hawaiian. The are apparently over 200 words for rain in the Hawaiian language. This article touches on only a few of them, but oh how descriptive and nuanced they are. If you want to know more, the article shares a reference.
Nature's Friends
Last night my wife and I took our grandchildren to see the movie My Penguin Friend. Set in Brazil, it is based on the true story of an old man who saved a South American Magellanic penguin that he found washed up on a beach, almost dead and covered in oil. The man cleaned the penguin and nursed him back to health, the penguin only leaving 11 months later when a fresh plumage had grown.
From then on, for the next 8 years, the penguin, named Dindim, would return to spend 6 to 8 months with the old man. DinDim’s swim up the eastern coast of South America to see his old friend was 5,000 miles.
While not the same close friendship, I couldn’t have been happier this morning when I stepped outside.
Each year the Pacific Golden Plovers (kōlea in Hawai’ian) migrate from Alaska to Hawaii, arriving towards the end of August. Their journey is quite incredible considering their tiny size, that they cannot swim (most of the journey is over water), cannot glide (so those wings are flapping all of the way), the distance that they have to travel (2000+ miles), and the navigation prowess that they use (with all the above considerations, one simple error or adverse weather conditions can mean the end for this little bird).
I always look out for the return of these migratory birds each August.
Well this morning, with grey clouds building and rain falling as Tropical Storm Hone approaches the Hawai’ian islands, especially The Big Island of Hawai’i today, there was a Pacific Golden Plover on our driveway. I don’t know if it the same one that we see on our property each winter, or just a random one taking a well earned breather from its long journey? Either way, I was more than happy to see this little creature back on Hawai’ian shores.
As we move through the coming days and weeks, I’m sure that I’ll see more of the birds as they arrive here. I hope that they are not blown off course and are able to navigate around the Tropical Storm Hone and Hurricane Gilma as those two storms cross the Pacific.
And the coincidence of the Golden Plover’s arrival on the back of seeing the movie last night was not lost on me.
Well this morning wasn’t planned. What was going to be a quick tidy up before I got on to other things ended up being an exploration as to how to navigate up and down Dictionaries in Apple Shortcuts. I delved into this a couple of weeks ago, and thought that I was done, as in figured it out. This morning proved that not to be the case, and after stumbling across a little gem of information I disappeared down a rabbit hole that I just wanted to get fixed.
There was a fair amount of trial and error involved, and ChatGPT was my companion on the journey. All appears to be working correctly now. I’d like a few more goes at problems requiring Dictionary access and manipulation before I will say that I have this licked. For now though I feel as though I have learnt and accomplished something.
