• 26.2 take four

    Posted on by beno Comment

    All inspired by my failure to hit my 1000 miles for the year, plus digging into my mental health data shows I am happiest when I am fit and running, I am going to have yet another go at getting a marathon off my bucket list.

    Begin the training does.

    Terry ran the numbers for me last night. To ramp the miles up each Sunday till 20 in 2 months I am going to add 2 miles to each run. Last week I did 8, so in a few days time, Sunday morning, I will knock out a 10 miler.

    Without a goal I feel sort of lost so we have set the goal of doing the marathon in March. Hopefully going back to run the Grand Canyon in April and then if my mate Lloyd gets the camping permit for May, we have 3 days hiking in the Canyon at that time (North Rim!!!!!).

    So, three realistic goals. If you first don’t succeed, try try try try again.


    📂This entry was posted in Fitness 📎and tagged

  • Strava – 2018

    Posted on by beno Comment

    It’s a bit lame, I was hoping for something flashy and data heavy, but eh, you get what you are given….
    Here is my year in review according to Strava (one of three websites that I use to track my running).

    At the start of this year I set myself the goal of running 1000 miles, and fell short (see my post on mental health), but don’t feel too bad about it…. given what I was up against this year, it’s been challenging enough…. Anyway, the highlight was running the Grand Canyon, it was my longest run and the run with the most altitude gained.
    My other running data website confirms that my average distance run is 4 miles… so I have no idea where Strava got the 1.8 from… Unless it’s miles per day for the whole year…. in which case, 1.8 miles a day for 365 days sounds about right.

    What about next year? I will set the same goal. It is realistic, but challenging. 1000 miles in 2019. Lets get on it.


    📂This entry was posted in Fitness

  • Mental Health – 2018

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Its been a big year. Tough in some ways, but in others, its been pretty straight forward. (This is my blog, so it’s my thoughts. For Freddy she claims that this year was the tough one, for me 2016 was THE WORST hands down with 2017 a close second).
    Because of the ’16/17 debacle, we finally admitted we needed some help…. After all, the definition of insanity is just doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…… Just doing what we had been doing was clearly not helping….. We had two bad years in a row, so that much was clear.
    So, at the start of this year one of the things that I now do is a twice daily assessment of how I am feeling in the mental health space. It has been amazing to see the improvement by this twice a day checkup.
    Of course I use an app to do that (Daylio).

    At 7am and 7pm I get a reminder to check in with my brain and review how I have been going.
    I can also link activities and see what trouble spots there are and what activities make me happy/relaxed.
    So here is my year in mental health pixels…..

    Blue is bad. Only 34 of those days for the whole year. Not bad.
    Purple is meh. 381 of those. (Remember, I check in twice a day).
    Green is good. 301 of those. Some room for improvement.
    Orange is rad. April first is the obvious stand out. The day I ran the Canyon. I was on a runners high. Interesting.

    Anyway, bottom line, I am a lot more aware of how I am doing in the mental health area of my life and as a result, I am doing much much better.
    I intend to keep using the app and so it will be interesting to see what next year is like, having the data will be useful to do the comparison.

    As we say in the industrial automation space, you can’t change what you don’t measure.


    📂This entry was posted in Fitness

  • Irrigation woes

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    I. Am. So. Sick. Of. Fixing. Our. Irrigation. System!

    The bit you cant see is that the jet of water went clear across the patio and just about doused the Opto and network switch I have installed to run the seismograph and other cool stuff out the back yard….
    Anyway, just wanted to share this photo with you lot.
    It really is a pain in the butt and takes a lot of work and seemingly constant maintenance to keep it running.
    Remember, the only reason, the one and only reason I have to do it is because if the lawn browns off, I get a fine from the HOA.

    Bleh.


    📂This entry was posted in Life in the USA

  • Post Falls – Idaho

    Posted on by beno Comment

    A few weeks back we flew up to see Amy and Cole.
    No reason, just wanted to see them, Ok, Ok, yeah, we also wanted to see some snow…..

    We got the airport on Friday afternoon. I worked a half day so it was a relaxing afternoon with not a lot of TSA lines to wade through. I guess most people were flying closer to xmas, not 3 weeks before. Which did not bother us.

    Blurry selfie photo of the two of us on the plane waiting to push back, taxi and takeoff.
    We flew with Alaskan airlines because they are one of the few that offer a direct flight. I have to say they were one of the best flying experiences I have ever had. Really polite and helpful staff and overall a great flight.


    I mucked about with night mode on the camera a bit during the flight. It’s pretty amazing, but does not do real well with moving stuff like in this photo. It works much better when everything is stationary.
    Still, my phone camera is now to the point where I did not take my DSL with me on this trip.

    Nothing at all to do with Alaskan, but a side note, it was super windy at Spokane when we landed, thus we had one of the bumpiest approaches that I have ever had. The funny part for me was sitting down the back of the aircraft, I could see everyones head bobbing around as the plane ducked and weaved. It was pretty comical.

    This is Wayne. He is Amy and Cole’s new sugar glider. Unlike Wade, their original one, this little guy is super chill and is a lot more happy to just sit and hang out with you.

    We made sure to get plenty of quality time with them. I would love to have one or two as pets, but am not sure I have the time to invest. Not that it is a possibility, they are illegal as pets in California.

    Next morning, after breakfast, Amy took us up to see some snow.

    I just wondered off and started to look around when I could hear Amy yelling for me…..
    Turning around I could see this guy in a truck off the track.

    It soon became clear that he was in the deep snow and was stuck.
    He was not the best driver and I think a lot of it had to do with him just not really knowing how to drive, but eh, we thought we would/should help out just the same.
    At first we tried just using snow shovels to get him out.

    It is the first time I have ever used a snow shovel and sadly I really enjoyed it. They are nice and wide and gulp up a heap of snow. Sure its heavy, but I was enjoying the unusual workout.
    I was not worried about him sliding off a cliff or anything, so it was a bit of fun… Dig, watch him flounder around a bit, then dig some more.
    After a while, yeah, it got a bit old, so we got him close enough to Amy’s truck to hook him up and pull him out.

    (Don’t forget that you can click on any photo to make it bigger).
    And yes, that is some lady slacklining on the tow rope…. People…. Moving on.

    We had worked up a pretty good appetite with all the snow fun and games so Amy took us back to the place that serves the best cheesecake I have ever had.

    The one bit between the three of us was perfect. I think its made out of goats cheese, so it tastes like none other that I have ever had.
    Might have to make it a bit of a thing when we are up there now….

    No photos, but Cole and I got to hangout in his garage for a good while while we tinkered with an electric motor he wanted to get going for some project…. Once I understood that he did not want to keep the speed contontrol that was on it, it was pretty straight forward to just hot wire the motor to the batteries.
    Thankfully I had my new little Kickstarter pocket bluetooth multimeter with me, I will do blog on it, its super cool and deserves its 5 minutes of fame…. Anyway, using the meter I quickly found out that his batteries were dead flat. Once you put them on the charger they jumped from 5v to 16 in an instant. They were toast. Made me wonder if my dad could bring them back using his desulfator…. Thankfully his brother bought some good ones over and we were able to show Cole how to hook them up as 12v for low speed and 24v for high speed. He was a happy chap.

    Speaking of Cole, no photos of his truck, but it’s pretty heavily modded, a bit like Marty really, just in truck form. One of the many many mods he has done is that he has pulled out the original seats and put in racing bucket seats…. So yeah, when he suggested that we go and buy some cigars in his truck, I jumped at the chance…. Why?
    Read the caption……

    Fun sucking California……

    After cigars, Vodka tasting!!

    It was my birthday, so Amy was spoiling me a little…. Anyway, we had a great visit, and before you knew it, the speed brakes were on and we were back in San Diego and a short drive home completed the trip.


    📂This entry was posted in Family