sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: https://svana.org/sjh
twitter: https://twitter.com/sjhmtb
instagram: https://instagram.com/sjhmtb

Other online diaries:

Aaron Broughton,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Tony Breeds,

Links:

Linux Weekly News,
XKCD,
Girl Genius,
Planet Linux Australia,
Bilbys,
CORC,

Canberra Weather: forecast, radar.

Subscribe: rss, rss2.0, atom

←August→
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

←2007→
Months
Jan Feb Mar
Apr May Jun
Jul AugSep
Oct Nov Dec

Categories:

Archive by month:

Mon, 27 Aug 2007

Keeping with tradition, I missed my Blorthday once more. - 17:55
Yesterday was once more my Blorthday. Though only a day late this year in mentioning it, I am obviously getting with my trend of not posting on the date of the anniversary of this diary.

This year the stats are: 

[17:57:26] 173 oneiros sjh ~/diary/data>find -name '*.text' | wc -l
696
[17:57:28] 174 oneiros sjh ~/diary/data>wc `find -name '*.text'`
...
24060  181077 1143131 total

I have been following another prevalent trend out in diary space (yeah I still hate the term blogsphere) and that is the trend of posting frequency to approach zero over time. I have been posting a lot less this year than either of the previous two years. 148 posts is significantly lower than either 221 or 337. Ahh well no matter, I am sure I will keep doing this for my own reasons, as much as I feel like.

[/various] link

What changed to make year round sports so much better - 17:36
Last Wednesday, Craig (who I did Geoquest with) and I headed up to Perisher Blue for a day of downhill skiing. This is the first time I had been skiing since 2002, which for me was a really long break from the sport. Until 2002 I had been skiing for between 2 and 3 weeks most years (except 1993 when we lived in England) from the age of 5 or there abouts.

To say I used to be snow obsessed is not overstating things. Although I have been an avid mountain biker since 1991/1992 I had been skiing avidly for longer and had spent a lot of time (and effort, money, etc) in being a competent skier. I tended to have a week of lessons every year to help improve more, then spend the rest of my time up there skiing a lot.

The interesting thing is that though I had a lot of fun last Wednesday, I do not feel the need to go back and ski more this year, or at least I do not feel the need strongly. So I have been wondering why I am not as snow obsessed as I once was.

I think a large part of the problem is that I am somewhat bored with Perisher Blue, sure I could go to Thredbo some more, or to Victorian resorts. However it would all be somewhat similar. I think a much more interesting thing to do would be more cross country skiing again, after all that opens up new places and adventures much more than lifted alpine skiing can. I suspect if I headed over to Europe or "Canadia" for an alpine skiing trip I would enjoy it a lot more due to the completely different environment and style of terrain and snow there.

However another aspect of this boredom with skiing I think is heavily related to the fact it is not easy to ski year round from where I live. See if I want to go mountain bike riding, paddling, running, hiking, etc. I can do that at any time of the year and have fun in the outdoors. I can concentrate on improving my ability and related fitness with each activity whenever I want to. Skiing on the other hand I can only do for a few short months eery year and it costs a lot of money. (I almost said a lot more money, then I thought of my tendency to break bike components and decided it may not be so incredibly different... though it is likely more expensive on a per hour of participation basis to go Alpine skiing)

My Alpine skis are "old skool" straight skis rather than parabolics, up on the slopes I was almost alone in skiing straight skis last Wednesday. Thus it was surprising, when I consider what a gear freak I can be that while looking at some shiny new skis in the shops in Jindabyne I was not even remotely tempted to buy new equipment. Probably because I realised I would not use it, looking at the price of some of the good ski and binding pairs I thought to myself, gee I could buy another boat for that (AUD $1400 or so), after all I can paddle year round (and I did not think I could buy a bike for that, being the bike snob that I am I would be wary of riding a bike that only cost AUD $1400 new.... <g>)

[/mtb] link

Thu, 23 Aug 2007

Yaaaaaarrrr, them Sydney siders beware - 11:57
I hear there is a atlassian treasure hunt going on around Sydney today, or maybe cutlassian pirate thing. A warning from the dirty long johns team. If you see them beware or you may walk the plank.

[/various] link

Mon, 06 Aug 2007

Fix the bugs in my food - 16:03
I was amused to see a reference to a burger king product in Canadia containing a buildid http://www.burgerking.ca/en/1158/index.php?buildid=25. Do they build their food like we do software, so maybe you can check a specific revision of the food out of version control and build it. Can you ask for a newer revision of some food with less bugs in it? I am sure they will claim their good does not contain bugs, we know that claim tends to be wrong in software so can they really be telling the truth with their food?

[/various/ilmiwac] link

Fri, 03 Aug 2007

Spoke too soon - 09:02
Oops, maybe I should not have preemptively mentioned the planned future exercise yesterday. During the mountain bike ride in Majura yesterday morning I had a low speed over the bars crash. Landing on the back of my left shoulder and rolling from there on to my lower back. During the day yesterday I could feel bruising around my left glutes and general lower back area. During Yoga I definitely felt the stretches through that area. However I thought that was the extent of the damage. Paddling was alright, nothing seemed to painful.

However at home last night and over night trying to sleep I found my back bruised around the ribs and breathing was a little bit difficult, also I was unable to lie on my left hand side. Thus I guess I should not be too surprised that this morning when I went out mountain biking I found it hard to breathe. As we started climbing the trails at the base of Black Mountain I was dropping off the back (at a low speed already) and unable to take deep breaths. So I had to tell the others to go on and I went home for some Neurofen and a lie down. I will not be able to run this arvo, though the agenda changed slightly already with a paddle session planned for this afternoon, I will wait and see how I feel come 4pm to decide if I can paddle or not today.

[/mtb] link

Thu, 02 Aug 2007

This week in exercise - 15:25
When Mikal was here at work last week he requested that I stop exercising. His reasoning is that I am making him and so many other geeks appear fatter simply due to the amount of exercise I do. I guess my problem is I do not tend to think I really do that much exercise, this is because I compare myself Dave and Julie, who set new standards for doing lots of stuff.

This week I have done a bit, probably more than any week while Mikal was here. I did suggest to Mikal he could skip the country to get away from seeing me exercise all the time, and heck it looks like that is what he is doing. However because I am not a nice friendly person I feel the need to write down my week in exercise as it will stand by Sunday.

  • Sunday last weekend I did a 24 KM paddle in my Mirage double kayak, including a 10 KM time trial at BGCC.
  • Monday I did a 13 KM run from ANU through Haig park up onto Mt Ainslie Reserve, over to the back of Campbell, down to the lake shore and back to ANU. Then that evening I did a Posture and Flex class for an hour and a bit.
  • Tuesday I was lazy and did bugger all exercise.
  • Wednesday (yesterday) I did the Bilbys road ride in the faster bunch before work (40 KM or so at a reasonable pace), during work I did a 11 KM run to Yarralumla bay and back from ANU.
  • Thursday (this morning) I went mountain biking in Majura for a bit over and hour (30 KM on the mtb by the time I got to work), had a 1.5 hour yoga class at lunch and will be heading out paddling on the lake this evening for an hour and a bit.
  • Friday, tomorrow, as always the Friday morning mountain bike ride will be happening (anyone who can not tell what song I am referencing in the email for the ride has never heard the song). Then I hope to get a run in to make it three reasonable runs this week
  • Saturday will be an easy day, hoping for a paddle in the morning, though it may end up being an easyish road ride for a few hours, then I will be volunteering for CORC doing pre race registration for the 8 Hour WWS mtb race this weekend
  • Sunday I will be racing in mens pairs on at the 8 hour mtb race on my single speed mountain bike. Wheeeeee

What can I say, fun will be (or was) had.

[/mtb] link

Wed, 01 Aug 2007

And the k bone is connected to the - 17:47
So after checking with dell today to ensure we would not mess up the warranty to play with my laptop and reseat the keyboard I had a look at fixing the problem. I must say this is a remarkably easy fix, there are 4 screws on the bottom marked k, these hold the keyboard in. Unscrew them, seat the keyboard how you need to, screw them back ensuring they are tight. Job done.

I am sure Bob is laughing at me right now as he tends to pull anything he buys apart the minute it is in his hands, ignoring any other issues.

[/comp/hardware] link

home, email, rss, rss2.0, atom