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I spend some time on a treadmill and watch TV to distract myself from the display that shows elapsed time, distance, and supposed calories burned (it also shows speed, incline, and pulse rate). Every once in a while I'd figure I didn't have much more to go and then, a bit later look again and see that I still hadn't reached the point I thought I was about to pass. The first time this happened I dismissed it as a fluke. The second time, as a coincidence. But it kept on happening. Flukes and coincidences don't keep on happening.
I eventually realized what was going on. I saw one number, or part of one number, and took it for another. Time and distance aren't counted the same way. Distance is truly decimal, so 1.50 means I'm halfway to 2.00 for whatever the distance measure is. Time is not truly decimal, but sexagesimal. 2:50 isn't halfway to 3:00, but 0:10 to 3:00. That's where the confusion came in. I saw X:50 and psychologically (wishful thinking, perhaps?) that became "I'm almost to the next marker." But I saw the distance indication and treated it as if it were time. Then later I'd see that the distance hadn't reached the next marker and was still further away than I had thought. Oops. Now that I know that was going on, I don't expect to have the problem anymore. I do wonder if I would had run into this issue had the display, which shows two numbers at once, had been set up to show time in one place and distance in another.
Lately when the weather has been good I've going out for a walk rather than just do everything on the treadmill[1]. Today was nice day and so I went for a walk. I was walking along when I heard the Screeech! Hooonk! *CRASH* behind me. I didn't see anything, but one car attempted a left turn and was hit by another.
I turned around to see two cars that had just been in better condition coming to stops. The car with less damage pulled over to a curb though rather close to a corner.
Everyone was out of the cars, or was by the time I got back to the scene. They all appeared to be fine, if shaken. There was concern, but no injuries and no arguments. I was the only person with a phone, so I wound up calling the police. I also lent the phone to a guy so he could call his wife to explain that he'd be a bit late.
The less damaged car had a busted headlight lens (the light itself looked like it survived) and the sheet metal was bent just enough that opening and closing the hood might be more interesting that it should be. That was it. No real creases in anything and no liquid leaking anywhere.
The other vehicle did not fare so well. The front end was a big mess, it looked like the cooling system had leak somewhere, and the airbags had gone off. After the officer got his information and photographed the scene, that car wouldn't start again. The officer blocked one street of the intersection and a few of us pushed the disabled car to a nearby driveway belong to friend of that driver.
Once all that had been done and the debris swept up, I resumed my walk. Fortunately it did not get that exciting again.
[1] Getting on the treadmill lately, even without any campaigning shown, has been a depressing demonstration that Newton Minnow would still be largely right today: Television is a vast wasteland.
I've seen comments of that nature for the powering of televisions or laptops and it is a neat idea - while you're burning calories you get to Do Something else. Or while you're Doing Something that usually Isn't Exercise you get exercise. I'm not sure it's entirely practical, but I can see the appeal. But there's something even simpler than that.
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sistaur I used her stationary bike for exercise, but the batteries had run down so I didn't get any indication of speed or distance or calories burned. As I had not much else to do I started pondering that. There I was, burning calories (the whole point of the... exercise, yes) and generating motion which was then... thrown away. Okkay, the front "wheel" is a sort of fan so there is some self-cooling involved. But it seems that a small (even tiny) generator, a regulator, and maybe a rechargeable battery, would be the right way to go. Gadget not displaying? Throw some calories at it, it'll come right up! It's not as if you were going to be conserving those calories. They might as well be made useful even if only in a small way.
The walk across town just isn't going to happen today. I put on sunscreen and packed an insulated bag with a few bottles of water and set out. About a third of the way I stopped to have some water and think things over a bit. It was 85 F when i started out and it would only get hotter. My arms were already glistening and my shirt was likely to be soaked before I went too much further. I decided the best thing I could do was turn around things got bad. Now I'm going to take a much-needed shower and then see about lunch. Either I'll stay home, or drive.
I still plan to walk to that restaurant some weekend, but that weekend will be much cooler than today. It's 89 F right now and climbing.
I'm on my own this weekend as jmaynard will be elsewhere. There are a few things that I can take care of at home and I expect I'll take care of at least some of them. I'm not going to rush on any of them.
One thing I've been pondering for a while is a walk, rather than a drive, across town for lunch. Last time I thought of this and had the opportunity, it rained and so I didn't bother. This weekend there is no rain in the forecast. There is, however, heat in the forecast. Saturday is expected to peak at 96 F and Sunday could be as high as 99 F. Those are raw temperatures, not adjusted for humidity. The heat index will be over 100 F. The distance from the house to the restaurant is about 1 and 3/4 miles for a round trip of 3 and 1/2 miles.
Not long ago, I'd not even have considered such a walk at those temperatures. I'm probably going to at least try it tomorrow. Today's high was 93 F or so and it wasn't too bad. I wouldn't want to exert myself any in the heat, but walking is no problem. And it's not like I'd be walking at the pace I use on the treadmill. Perhaps my treadmill time is paying off with a better heat tolerance too. One way to find out.
Twilight, Twice
14 October 2005 09:25Last night jmaynard and I went to a restaurant in Sherburn, MN for supper. This was partly to enjoy the good food there, and partly to satisfy our curiosity about what will become of the place. We did enjoy the food, but not the news. The place has been sold and will remain officially open until 15 November, which is a Tuesday. It'll likely still be open after that, but on a "What do you have left?" basis until the end of the week. Eventually a Kum & Go will be there instead of the restaurant. It's a good spot for such a thing, but we'll miss the restaurant. I expect we'll be visiting the restaurant a bit more than usual as its days dwindle.
After supper we looked for a place to go walking, as we both need the exercise. Unfortunately the park in Sherburn is as tiny, like the town. That delayed our walk until we got back to Fairmont, around sunset. By the time we'd finished it was a nice twilight and beginning to get dark. I think I enjoyed that walk, even if it was in town, more than many others. There's just something about being out after sunset that feels good to me. I'd prefer more starlight and less streetlight, but it was still pretty good.
Last night after a light supper I got on the treadmill again. That's not so unusual. This time I was on it for rather longer than usual and also a bit faster than usual for much of that time. Hitting stride might have been it, though a couple fairly interesting television programs certainly helped. It didn't seem suddenly easier, just that I could keep on going longer. Overall, this is good.
I'm feeling the effects of that today. I'm not sore, but I do feel a bit tired. Not so much as need for more sleep, but a weird "peaceful exhaustion" if that makes any sense. What muscles I have are informing me, gently, not to try that again today, though not indicating "don't you ever do that again!"
Assorted stuff
14 March 2003 10:10Hazy morning, but already nearly +40 F and might just hit +60 F today - and the weekend is supposed to get warmer still. Nice, to have fair temperatures. Of course the downside is that Summer is coming. Summer, the season of obnoxiously miserable hot weather.
Did the treadmill thing an hour earlier last night and watched New Detectives, which wasn't bad. But I can see getting tired of that in not too much time. A check of TV Guide (on the web, of course) shows that I should probably set a VCR to record an hour at 1 PM. I have a choice of Tiny Toons, Acme Hour, and Perry Mason then. Maybe I'll set that this noon. It's been some years since I saw Perry Mason (I'm hoping it's the old black and white show).
A couple nights ago Storm Stories was interesting. It was about the blizzard of January 1997 and how it affected an eastern state. What was interesting was that I can remember that one, before it went that far east. It was enough here that the town pretty much closed down, the two open 24 hour grocery stores closed, and there were warnings that said something like "If you try to leave town, we will NOT come out to rescue you. Stay home." The snow itself wasn't too bad, but there quite a bit of it - and with high winds it made for poor visibility and large drifts.
jmaynard has been watching Ranma quite a bit. Thankfully, with headphones if I'm around. I find the voices grating. Perhaps I shouldn't put it that way. The voices are okkay, the dialog is grating. I'm amazed he can stand it, myself.
J. Random Updates
12 March 2003 09:52The hard drive I ordered arrived yesterday. I now have an unusual, for me, situation: I have a huge hdd but the box it goes in isn't here yet. Wal-Mart still only says "scheduled for delivery on March 20" and nothing like whether it even shipped or where it is sitting now.
Had a sample of Spring yesterday as the temperature climbed to 52 F. Today the high will only be in the 30s, and then it'll warm up again. Yep, it's March. At least this temperature swing isn't too bad. I'm hoping the ice on Hall Lake stays long enough for me to get a few pictures of it as it melts.
Weight control is not going so well. The good part is that I'm still under 220 lbs. The bad news is that I'm still over 215 lbs. Hopefully that can be taken care of this month. Current target: Get under 215 lbs, stay under 215 lbs.
The treadmill is nice, but TV isn't. So far the best thing one has been Storm Stories on the Weather channel, but that repeats after a while and how many tornadoes can you watch before they all seem the same? NOVA can be good, but that's only weekly. Maybe I need to find something to tape for treadmill time. Ideally it'd be about one hour long and commercial-free. However, watchable and an hour long are the important things. There's fast forward and mute for commercials.
The "Freedom Fries" thing? Remarkably silly, yes. What's even more amusing is watching the reaction to it. Where was this reaction when other inanities of Political Correctness were being committed? Oh, wait, I shouldn't mention things like that, it's okkay when one group renames things in inane ways, but not okkay if another group does. Uh huh. I'm laughing at both sides on this one. You just can't make this stuff up. Either side. Reality is terribly funny and funnily terrible all at once. I'm also amused (and bewildered) by how UN-related things are counted. Evidently 18 and 2 are the same number there - and these are supposedly well-educated folks?
Team leader at work didn't get a speakerphone right away but uses such. He got asked if color mattered. He said he didn't care. So they got him a cheap (75% off) speakerphone. Why cheap? Not many want a red phone. Not red, red. Bat-phone red. No, he doesn't keep it under a clear cover.
Jay and I decided to look at treadmills yesterday, something we'd been planning on for a while. We figured we'd look, maybe pick something out, and buy later, since the prices would likely put immediate purchase beyond what we cared to spend just now.
( It went a little differently. )
Stopped by the local Radio Shack last night to get some LEDs so eventually I could shine rather monochrome light around the house and see what happens. They only had, in anything reasonably bright, red and blue. I already have blue. And red, being the longest wavelength and lowest energy of the visible spectrum isn't likely to reveal all that much. All the same, I did get a red LED, and an IR LED just to have something more to play with. They were out of bright green and seem not to even carry bright yellow/amber or orange. That's disappointing. I should've tried snagging some LEDs at the hamfest Saturday. Oh well, there's always Digi-Key, if I can come up with the minimum order.
Got away from the computer(s) for a bit last night and watched, or rather listened to, a couple Twilight Zone episodes while sorting through some things. I need to do more of that - the sorting and such anyway. It's now smaller more organized mini-messes rather than one big one. It's some progress, at least. We moved into the house in January and some things still aren't sorted out, and that's not even counting the stuff just stowed in the attic. Maybe I should pick one room and try to deal with it one day this weekend.
Also need to eat less, and exercise more. With the cooling weather (and seemingly constant rainy forecasts) and early darkness, that gets a bit more difficult. I'm not sure if the park I'd walk in is even open now. Sure, I could do the mall walking thing, but something is just off-putting about spending much time that way. At least my knee is feeling better. I still feel a bit of mild soreness time to time, but nothing really bad. That would also make things difficult.
