exercise – Page 5 – dangermouse.net

Introducing species

The weather today was forecast to be rainy again but the morning seemed dry, so I went out for a run while I could do so without getting wet. It was time for another 5k, and I agonised over whether to do laps of the oval, which is nice and flat, but incredibly boring, or do my street route, which is much more interesting, but also much more hilly. I decided I’d go for interesting, and grit out the hills. Given the humidity (91%), maybe it wasn’t the best choice, because I was struggling by the end.

And then it wasn’t helped by the fact that the footbridge I usually run across to cross the creek in the last few hundred metres was closed for construction work when I got there! I had to take the alternative route which goes down into the gully via a series of steps—about 30 or 40 steps—followed by climbing back up the other side. That slowed me down a lot, but I managed to finish the 5k in 30:15. Phew!

Today I worked on the new ethics class material for the week, on introduced species. Then I ran the class this evening with the first three groups of kids. The kids never fail to surprise, and really keep me on my toes. I’d written a sequence of questions beginning with the idea of culling to control introduced species that have become invasive and are serious pests, destroying native species and costing billions of dollars in crop damage (specifically starlings in North America). I’d kind of assumed that the kids would be okay with controlling the species in this way, and staged my follow-up questions based on that. But I was surprised when two of the kids in the first class said that culling should not be done, because it’s cruel, regardless of the fact that the birds cause immense damage. So I had to think on my feet and restructure the follow-up questions, to avoid it descending into a series of “Same as my previous answer” responses.

The next two classes went a bit more according to plan, but now I have some alternate pathways through the material depending on what responses the kids give to the early questions. I do this a lot with the classes. Usually by the end of the week the sequence of questions is quite different to what I started with, as it evolves every class.

New content today:

Double busy double day update

I completely missed writing a post yesterday due to my day being full of work, and wanting to get to bed not too late. Today was also very busy, but I thought I should not miss two days in a row!

I spent a lot of time yesterday (Tuesday) and today (Wednesday) marking and finalising my comments on the UTS image processing course student assignments. I really wanted to get them done today, so I can move on to other tasks tomorrow.

Yesterday I also did a 5k run. I’m trying to fit in a 5k distance once a week and figured it was a good day to do it. Last time I did my street route, with hills, and it was exhausting, so this time I went back to running laps on the oval.

After completing the run, I walked home via the Gore Hill Cemetery, where spring wildflowers are blooming. This is an old cemetery—no burials have taken place here for many decades—and it has been allowed to become overgrown with plants. And this time of year it’s incredibly beautiful with all of the flowers.

Because I spent the rest of the day working on marking, I didn’t have time to prepare new slides and material for my one-on-one science lesson on Outschool. So I repurposed an old presentation I made years ago for a primary school talk on stars and stellar evolution, and used that.

Today, this morning I did another 2.5k run. I write my lesson plan for the next week of ethics classes, this time on the topic of cancel culture. Then I got stuck back into marking to finish off that task. I managed to complete it, and posted all of my marks and comments for the lecturer to collate.

I made vegetable soup for dinner, because I needed something I could eat early before my ethics classes began at 6pm, and that my wife could heat up easily later when she got home from gym to eat. I gobbled down some soup quickly and then got stuck into three classes in a row, ending at 9pm…. when I had an ISO Photography standards meeting! This is an “in between” ad-hoc technical group meeting for the topic of visual imaging noise, one of the technical topics in which I have more of an interest. It was scheduled to go until 10:30, but ended up running late and not finishing until 11pm. So now it’s getting close to midnight while I type this up.

Oh, I almost forgot! On my run this morning, towards the end, I cross a footbridge over a creek. While running across, I saw two tawny frogmouths sitting on a branch, at eye level and only about 4-5 metres away from the bridge. I completed my run and went home, and came back out with my camera, hoping they’d still be there. It was a good bet, as frogmouths are nocturnal and tend to find a roost for the day and then not move during daylight hours. And indeed, they were still there when I got back:

It’s a chick and a parent, nestling together. A really great opportunity to get some close up photos, even if they were fast asleep.

And with that… time for bed…

New content, yesterday and today:

Raining, running, and ruminating

It’s been raining most of the day, and heavily at times, with thunder and lightning. But there was a break in the morning, perfectly timed for me to go out on a run. I decided it was time to do another 5k effort, and I also decided that the oval track is so boring that I preferred to do my street route, even though it is quite hilly. I managed to complete the distance just a few seconds slower than last week’s 5k on the oval, so that was pleasing, if exhausting. And I just got home as it started to rain again, so the timing was ideal.

For lunch I drove over to a friend’s place, where he made us some food, and we played a couple of board games: 7 Wonders Duel, and Wingspan. I managed to win both games, which was pleasing. I really wasn’t sure about Wingspan until the final points tally.

At home I wrote the class plan for this week’s new ethics topic, on extraterrestrial intelligence. It’s basically exploring the questions arising out of the prospect of receiving a radio message from an alien civilisation. There’s plenty in just that to last for a full class. I’ll probably do another class later on about different scenarios such as physical contact. I ran the first three classes tonight, and it was very interesting because I got a very wide range of responses from the students. That’s always a lot more fun that everyone agreeing.

New content today:

Considering online product reviews

Last week, the day after my 3.2k run I was very stiff and sore, with my legs protesting at the exercise after so long without doing any. Today, after yesterday’s 5k run, I felt pretty good. Good enough to go for another run! I didn’t go as far this time though, just doing 2.4k along the first and last part of my street route, cutting out the middle section where the nastiest hills are. In previous bouts of running, I really only did one run a week, but I figure this time I’m going to try to at least a little bit on most days if I can. Maybe that will get me into a habit that sticks better.

The work part of the day was writing the new week’s online ethics class. This week the topic is online product reviews. I want to get the kids thinking about whether they are good things or not, how reliable and trustworthy they might or might not be, and how people should evaluate them. I’m also raising the whole question of whether a company like Google should be allowed to host reviews of unaffiliated businesses, and whether they should be held liable for false negative reviews that might adversely affect another business.

This evening I taught the class with my first three sessions of students. And… I don’t think it went down as well as I’d hoped. Maybe the topic is not that exciting or interesting for the kids. Ah well… I guess they can’t all be hits. Hopefully it will improve – it usually does as I adapt dynamically to what the students say during the classes as the week progresses.

In the afternoon I made a couple of Darths & Droids strips. I’m way behind on buffers for both this and Irregular Webcomic! due to how busy I’ve been recently, and need to spend time rebuilding completed work into the future. However my plan for tomorrow is to work on the curriculum planning for the revised Data Engineering course that I’m working on for next semester at the university. I really need to get cracking on that!

New content today:

Dental Tuesday

Today I had an appointment at the dentist for a regular clean and checkup. Except it was over 6 months overdue, because dentists weren’t doing anything but emergency work during Sydney’s COVID lockdowns, so it was impossible to get a routine appointment.

The hygienist was very pleased with my teeth and gums, which was good news after so long. It’s the second time I’ve seen this hygienist, who is relatively new at the practise, and I’m really happy with the way she works. The previous one was nice enough, but very heavy handed with the probing tool and it always hurt my gums a lot more.

This morning I shook the cobwebs off with a run. I wanted to get a 5k run under my belt after the past two weeks of building up the distance again with 2.5 and then 3.2. Knowing the 5k route that I’ve been doing earlier this year is rather hilly, I decided to go up to the sports oval near the hospital and just do laps. It’s more boring and less scenic, but it’s flat, and so easier to complete the distance without feeling like you’re dying on the uphill bits. I was hoping to complete the 5k in under 30 minutes, but ended up clocking 30:16. Hopefully I can get times under 30 minutes again by next week.

In between all this and picking up Scully from my wife’s work, then dropping her back during my dentist appointment, and picking her up again on the way home, I wrote some comics and helped some more university students with their image processing final projects. I also had a Zoom call with several family members, including my elderly aunt in Germany. And I made calzones for dinner. Phew!

And took this photo looking under the railway bridge near my place. The jacaranda trees are beautifully in bloom, right on cue for November.

New content today:

A long walk and a lie in the grass

This morning I took the opportunity to go for a run. I haven’t done any for a while, so I started easy and went at a slower pace. I started thinking I’d do 2.5 km, but I decided to extend it a bit further, and ended up doing 3.2 km. It felt okay but I was starting to wane near the end. I want to build back up to 5k again if I can.

I did some comics stuff in the morning, then went for a long walk over to the new bakery I discovered yesterday, to try it out for lunch. On the way I took a photo of St Leonard’s Catholic Church, which is a landmark visible across much of the surrounding area with its tall copper spire.

When I got there and went inside, it was very weird – they had several of exactly the same things as the Grumpy Baker over at Waverton. The pie selection was identical, and they had Nutella babka – the only place I’ve ever seen that before is at Grumpy Baker. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe that they were going over to Grumpy Baker first thing in the morning and buying a bunch of stuff to resell under the guise of a different bakery. Anyway, I tried a pie and a sausage roll. And they did have some things that Grumpy Baker doesn’t make, including vanilla slices, so I had one of those too. I’ll add the review to Snot Block & Roll in a day or two when I get time.

On the way home I picked up Scully from my wife’s work, and took her home via the slopey park where she does ball chasing and fetching. We had a bit of a play with the ball before she got tired and decided to have a rest. I joined her for a lie down in the grass too, and we both just laid there for a while. Nice and peaceful.

But on the way there we passed the brand new pedestrian island in the middle of the road. It’s not a main road, but it does get a lot of traffic. The council recently widened the pedestrian refuge in the middle and installed safety barriers. But today…

Someone had ploughed right through the “Keep Left” sign, the first pedestrian safety barrier, and half-removed the second barrier on the far side. I really hope nobody was standing there when it happened, or they would have been severely injured, if not killed. I think it might have happened while I was out getting lunch too, because I didn’t see it messed up like this when I passed it on my way out, and neither did my wife on her way to work this morning, though she did see it on the way home.

New content today:

Start me up

This morning I decided to kickstart some exercise routines again, and I went out for a jog around the streets. I didn’t want to start with a full 5k run, so I cut a large loop off my normal circuit, and also took the pace a little easier than when I was running regularly earlier this year. I did 2.25 km, and was feeling good at the end, like I could have kept going at least a bit longer. It probably helped that I skipped the hilliest parts of my normal route. Afterwards I did a stretching routine that I haven’t done for ages as well… my flexibility has decayed quite a bit.

I spent most of today working on new Darths & Droids strips. I also took Scully out to the dog park for the first time in weeks, now that the COVID lockdown restrictions have been eased back to allow you to meet with a friend or two in an outdoor setting, so long as everyone is vaccinated.

For dinner tonight, I made a pesto, pumpkin, and pistachio pizza. It also had chunks of fried haloumi on it, which added a nice saltiness.

A friend pointed out that the haiku I wrote a few days ago had an error, with “frangipani summer” being 6 syllables. I completely missed that at the time! And there isn’t an easy fix either. Oh well. I claim the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi on that one!

But inspired by another prompt: “The Secret Lives of Vegetables”:

Soft dewy morning
Refreshingly crisp and green
Cucumber dreaming

Flowers of passion
Fecund seeds swell in their beds
Conceiving pumpkins

Furtive green hairdos
Possessors shyly hiding
Carrot introverts

New content today:

A big lockdown walk – and backups

My wife had her first COVID vaccination this morning, and I went out at the same time to take Scully on a walk while my wife went to the clinic. I decided on a longer walk to get some fresh air and exercise – during this COVID lockdown in which exercise is one of the valid reasons for being out of home.

I walked a couple of suburbs over to the Italian bakery that I like. It’s a bit under 3 km away, according to my Strava tracking. It was close to midday, so I stopped in for a pie for lunch. There was some confusion as I asked if they had the roast chicken pie and the lady said they only had curry chicken left. So I asked for a curry chicken pie and a beef pie, and she said no they only had curry chicken. I could see maybe 30 pies spread over two shelves of the pie warmer, thinking that normally the chicken pies would be on one shelf and the beef pies on another shelf – so I’d naturally assumed they must have had some beef ones in there.

Okay then. I asked for a chicken curry pie and a sausage roll. The lady said they were out off sausage rolls, despite the fact that I could also see three of them right there. I was a little lost for words as I looked blankly between her and the pie warmer. It was only then that she said that most of the pies and all the sausage rolls had been sold, they were just waiting to be picked up by customers.

With comprehension finally dawning, I realised I’d need something else to make up my lunch. I looked at some sweet options, but I hadn’t wanted to get anything sweet. Then the lady suggested the pizza slices! So I went with a curry chicken pie and a slice of potato and rosemary pizza. While bakeries in Australia virtually all sell meat pies, it’s very rare for them to sell pizza. It’s only because this bakery is extremely Italian that they do pizza as well.

Anyway, I enjoyed my lunch, sitting on a nearby bench with Scully. We saw someone walk by with a standard poodle, deep black like her, and about 5 times as tall! The contrast was pretty amusing. Back home I did a bunch of maintenance tasks on my computer and with various bookkeeping stuff that needed to be done. I squeezed in a bit of comic writing as well.

Oh, and I looked into some offsite backup options for keeping my files safe. One possibility I looked into was iCloud. I haven’t been using iCloud to store my Desktop and Documents from my Mac, because I have way too much stuff for the free file storage limit. I noticed that Apple offers 2 TB of iCloud storage for a not-unreasonable monthly cost, which would be enough to copy all of my roughly 1.3 TB of documents, photos, and videos. It should be as simple as subscribing to the monthly payment plan, and checking the box on my machine’s iCloud storage preferences marked “Desktop & Documents Folders”…

But some research indicates that:

My current Documents folder (without photos and videos) is 113 GB.
The typical upload speed on my broadband access is 19 Mbps.
This means it would take at least 13 hours to upload(!).
When you check the box to store “Desktop & Documents Folders” on iCloud, it just starts uploading everything, chewing up as much bandwidth as possible, until it’s done. And there’s no way to manage it by splitting it up into smaller sections or scheduling chunks to be uploaded at some slower speed.

Now, I could work around this by manually moving chunks of documents to another location temporarily, to give me some chunking control of the uploads at least. But I don’t know what this will do to my local incremental backups of my entire machine… I don’t want to suddenly have duplicates of 100 GB of files in my backups. Not to mention that if I want to put all my photos into iCloud, that’s another 1.2 terabytes (or 140 hours) of uploading…

So… I think iCloud will need to stay as just a method to share the relatively fewer documents that I really want to access on my iPad or phone, and I’ll have to look at some other solution as an actual offsite backup. To be clear, I have a full local backup system in place. I just want to add the extra protection of an offsite backup. I’ll either have to look into other cloud solutions or, possibly more likely at this point, just buy another 5 TB drive, do a second local backup, and give the drive a place to live away from home somewhere (a friend or relative’s place), where I can retrieve it every week or two to update the backup.

New content today:

Kayaking!

The New South Wales Government has given all adult residents $100 worth of vouchers as a COVID economic stimulus, to be spent at participating businesses. $50 is for dining, which is easy to spend, and I’ve already used mine. The other $50 is for “discovery”, which is activities such as museums, movies, cultural activities, and outdoor events. I was trying to think what I can use mine for and then I remembered I had the idea a while back to hire a kayak and paddle around Sydney Harbour. I checked, and the nearest kayak hire place to me accepts the vouchers.

So this morning I went over and hired a kayak for a couple of hours!

I started here near the Spit Bridge, which spans Middle Harbour, one of the large inlets within Sydney Harbour. This area s a bit more suburban than the city centre and its famous sights, so I didn’t see any of that from the water today. Instead I paddled around marinas full of expensive yachts and cruisers…

past fancy water view houses…

along bushland foreshore edged with sandstone and oysters…

and past some beautiful harbour beaches…

The photos are slightly fuzzy because I had my phone in a waterproof baggie, and was taking photos through the clear plastic. I was paddling around for two hours, under a beautiful blue sky (although it was tinged a bit brown around the horizon with smoke from hazard reduction burning in bushland near the edge of the city). The temperature was a pleasant 22°C today and just a very light breeze. It was a gorgeous day to be out and about on the water.

Here’s a map of where I paddled today:

Afterwards I stopped off on the way home to get lunch at a French patisserie. I had a chicken pie, followed by a slice of their lemon meringue tart:

The calories don’t count because of all the paddling!

New content today:

Back into running, and dog bandanas

Today I felt like I needed to get back into running, after a long break due to my trip away, followed by a week of heavy rain. My last 5k run was 3 March, so it’s been almost 4 weeks. I decided to take it a bit easy rather than strive for a good time. And I was forced to stop at the half-way mark to remove a painful stone from my shoe, which affected my time anyway. But I managed to keep the time under 30 minutes at 29:28, which I was reasonably happy with.

Apart from that I mostly worked on Darths & Droids writing and making new strips today. I still have to rebuild the buffer a bit more after my week away.

I also baked some sourdough this morning, and I’m glad to say the starter seems to have survived a week of neglect while I was away.

Oh, and I drew up a sizing chart for my wife’s hand-sewn dog bandanas (as in drew by hand) – which you can see on all of the listings on her brand new Etsy shop! If you have a pet and would like a cool bandana, check it out!

New content today: