In which is furlongs and more acronyms than reasonable.

unning in the Wee Town is interesting. The best training I ever did, I did in Southern Ontario, where there were at least the remnants of a rural grid of roads. Knowing how far I ran was relatively easy, with a ruler and a map. And here... not so easy.

The local roads are laid out in a sort of mangled radial pattern, following the lines of less resistance, wherever they may lead. In Toronto, runs can be planned by "Go to the next county road and turn right." Here, if you look for a chance to turn right and circle back home, you have to run to the next town first. Towns here are spaced out a great distance. (Parts of the province are rural. Other parts would require major immigration and serious infill development to become rural.) Loop runs around here start at five or six miles. So, to run a known distance, I'm up at the track. The track brings in a whole new method of measurements.


Back in the stone age(i.e. the 1970's), as we slowly discovered the world, some parts of it made more sense than others. One part which made little sense at the time was systems of measurement. The imperial system involves multiples of three, and twelve, and sixteen, which had just been discovered to be Too Complicated. (Seriously, the twelve times table? What kind of twisted genius super-race can multiply by twelve? Have we even discovered the twelve times table, or is that the thing they're working on at the CERN Large Hadron Collider?)

The alternative was the metric system. I'm sorry, the Système International. The SI has no commonly used measure of length between something smaller than the width of your little finger, and something longer than your arm, and is now the world standard. There is an undeniable genius to French political culture.

Of course, as with all declarations of new and perfect systems, subversion started immediately. Running tracks are now 400 meters. This is about seven and a half feet short of a quarter mile, which is not enough make a difference in training, or in any racing that most of us are likely to do. So, even though the local track is in meters, my training approach has not had to change since the 1970s. 

What has changed, drastically and fairly recently, is my ability to run. The last time I did any serious running, I measured my training in miles. That's not going to happen for a while. When I first went up to the track, I could run half a mile before I gassed. Intellectually, I know that's not far. Physically, it feels far. How to measure the distance? 

Meters, and yards are not marked anywhere on the ground. Miles and kilometers are discouraging, when you're running fractions of them. Even a lap is a discouraging distance right now. What's less discouraging is a half lap. Half a lap is within about three feet of... a furlong. 

Oh, the furlong. The perfect measurement. Organic. Sensible. Logical. Based on the well-known distance that an ox team could plow between rests. Standardized at 40 rods, the rod being the standard, normal, sixteen-and-a-half-foot long ox-whacking implement; no home should be without one, otherwise you may find yourself with an ox to whack, and nothing to whack it with, and then where are you? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Furlongs are easy to measure on the track. You run from one football goal line around to the other. They're short enough that I can run multiples of them, but not too many multiples to keep track of.

The current running workout is this: 
 Every week or two, do the Foot Journey of Length (FJ/L). (I can't call it a long run, because I'm still walking most of it.) As part of it, see how far or how long I can run non-stop. This is the Distance of Temporary Significance. (D/TSig.)

Two days a week, divide the D/TSig. in half. Run three of them, with a little rest in between. 
A third day each week, either repeat the above, or divide the D/TSig. in quarters, and run six of them, or, spend a Time of Astonishing Length (T/AL) on the the bike at the gym. The bike is useful, in the event of Unreasonable Soreness of Feet (US/Ft).

The fourth day, do any of the above, or repeat the FJ/L. 

When the D/Sig. gets over a mile, I'll rework the workouts, but for now this workout works.

Last Saturday, I did my Foot Journey of Length (FJ/L). It comes out to about six miles (thank you milermeter.com!) Of this, I could run about three quarters of a mile nonstop. (thank you again, milermeter!) Now, a furlong being half of a quarter mile, and a lap of the track being a quarter mile, I'm running three furlongs, three times. I've done this on Monday and Wednesday, and today I'm off to the bike, because of the previously referenced US/Ft.

More to come soon: The End of Railing, The Building of a Box, and the Visit of the Great Tucker.
  

In which the dark side calls...

'm not sure how I ended up here. I attended the highland games this weekend, because what is the point of living here if you don't?

     It's been forty years since I attended a highland games. Some things remain constant, and comfortingly familiar: the heat is amazing, the breezes are few, dust is everywhere, and the UV index is at a level that will sear steak.There have, however been changes, which I must classify as good, or the notion of human progress is put into question, and all society's done for.

     Tiny girls danced, often with grim determination, but sometimes with every appearance of enjoying it. The dancing is much more balletic than I remember, and not just in the movements. ALL the girls have their hair in chignons, ALL the girls are in stage makeup, which is dramatic on a nineteen year old, but just silly on a six year old.

     All the competitors, including the one boy I saw, were in Serious Highland Dancing Costume. Apparently the days when a piper would walk over from the band tent, change shoes and compete in a band uniform, no makeup, and hair loose,  then walk back over to play in the band competition have been banished to the memories of old guys.

     The first step of the sword dance seems to have a two-footed landing where there used to be a right-footed landing into a pas de bas. In the opinion of one observer, the new style looks like hell; everything just suddenly stops for half a beat. The elevation in the jumps is much more than I remember, too, which is progress in the heavy events, and I suppose must be progress in dancing, too.

     In the heavy events, little has changed. Large men threw heavy things with determination and some success. The occasional competitor is far less beefy than was formerly common, but even they can still throw a light (16 lb!) hammer halfway down a football field.

     There were nervous moments; who knew that a caber had a significant sail area? The field looked comfortably large, until some of the longer runups in the caber toss. In the end, there were three successful (turned) throws, and much rejoicing. There were no casualties, although spectators around the perimeter of the field moved in a sprightly fashion from time to time.

     In piping, all the snare drummers wear a two-shoulder harness now, as seen in drum and bugle corps, instead of the diagonal shoulder belt. It's supposed to be easier on their backs, but it looks about the same weight as a small Hyundai, so I have to take that on faith. There was not a single drum major sighted over the full weekend. This may be a regional variation, or simple statistical clustering. The standard of playing seems quite variable, but on average, high.


     Now, some of you know that I played bagpipes forty years ago, and may have made some surmises about my current proximity to them. Unfortunately, bagpipes are a woodwind instrument, and make the same impossible demands on my hands as other woodwinds, so there is no return to piping in my old age. But... there was a conversation with a couple of bandsmen.

      Maybe my willingness to double on any percussion instrument I could reach was where the rot got in. Maybe it was my destiny all along to go where I seem to be going. Maybe the irresistible call of  the dark side marked me as its own in my innocent youth, and has been, all these years, not defeated but waiting. Maybe we will never know why such dreadful and frightening changes occur. Whatever the reason, early this week, I will venture out and acquire a pair of drumsticks.

   

In which is railing

or, Return of the Deck.

I didn't take a lot of pictures (well, any pictures) of the first week of work. This is the earliest one, and it's from my dumbphone, so forgive the quality.

This was the end of the first week. The stairs at the far end had been ripped out, by the simple method of picking them up and walking away. They have been replaced with a rose trellis, supporting the massive rambling roses that were planted on each side of the stairs. NOTE: if you plant roses by a walkway, the roses are going to win.

Above is a better view of the trellis, across the romantic vista of stacks of pressure treated lumber. The top half is pretty thin, but the bottom half is way tighter than the code requires, so that's all right.

This is the other side of the trellis, with most of the roses put back up. For a while, I thought I was going to have to chainsaw them down to about six inches, just to get at the deck to work, but it was never quite necessary, and my hands are healing up nicely.

Because I'm not a jerk, I did leave them with a working set of stairs, almost to code. Note the lovely lag bolts holding stuff together. Nothing makes a 2x4 go straight like a 4x4 and a lag bolt. Better than a straight-from-the shoulder talk from a salty but caring Irish priest.

In the background are several pots of plants that my wife planted while she was there. Plants are not my department, until they're sawn into dimensional lumber.

And so, I had to leave it for a week. I was exhausted, I was missing my wife, and my hands hurt more than I could have imagined. On the plus side, I did get the railing well up, and I had learned a lot about decks. More shortly, on What the Cornet Player Did Next.

In which is haste

Or

Which is in haste. Curved space confusion strikes again.


Some things to catch up on , and some excuses for delay.

First, the second blood test came back.

Fasting Glucose 4.4 (down from 6.4)
Haemoglobin A1C 5.1 (down from 6.

Basically, the probability of going blind and losing my extremities has taken  a very large hit. This entailed a visit to Dairy Queen... because if you go out for ice cream, there aren't leftovers in the fridge, calling softly to you in the wee hours of the morning. Or the middle sized hours of the afternoon.  Or the large-ish hours of the early evening, when it's hot and humid, and you've worked kind of hard, and deserve it. (Yeah, I know. Humidity in Nova Scotia. Who saw that coming?)

Second, I'm hurting in new ways, because I've taken up a new, and I hope brief, career in (very) rough carpentry. 

A few weeks back, Sue and I bought a house in Kentville. We're renting it to my son and daughter-in-law and their son, Micah (AKA Howlin' Mouse the Bluesman). It requires some changes to make it a little safer. The one I'm working on now is the railing around the back deck.  

"But Bob," you cry. "Granted that you are the Suzerain of Profitless Arcana, what do you know about building decks?"

And comes the answer: "A hell of a lot more than I knew three weeks ago."

I went down on the first of June, and came back on the ninth. At that point, I had removed the stairs on the north side (by the simple expedient of picking them up and walking away with them. You see why I thought the deck needed a bit of work?) The north side is now a rose arbour. (Note: If you want people to walk there, DON'T PLANT ROSE BUSHES. Just don't, okay? The two species are happier in a long distance relationship, for values of long ≥ three feet.)

By the ninth of June, there was a railing on the east side which pretty much meets code. There were steps on the east side which will meet code when I get hand rails on. There was a vague impression that somebody had been pounding nails into random parts of my body.

Now, a week later, I'm heading back to do the south side. There will be pictures.

In which I'se strong in the finach.

Cause I eats my spinach.

A long delay, in which blog posts have been written, but not posted. The process of adjustment to my new life continues, 

and sometimes thoughts get a bit darker than I want to put out in public. (I don't know who all might read this blog.)

    The thought of the day concerns Eggs Florentine. (Man, I'm coming to like spinach. It's like salad you can cook.) I tried this yesterday, poaching an egg in a silicon egg poacher. Since it's made of the same stuff that really good oven mitts are, I thought it might take longer to cook than I was hoping for... and I was right. Also, the egg stuck, so it rated a fail.

     Plan B: got a microwave egg poacher. Poaching eggs in a microwave has never been a great option, because the yolks cook much faster than the whites. Still, I figured that if they did it right, the plastic might heat up and cook the whites from the outside in, and all would be lovely.

     Nope. It would not be true to say that you could play golf with the yolks. They're too smooth, and a bit too small. About right for ping-pong, however.

     Plan C: Marry somebody smart, and steal her method. The next trick will be to 1) butter the poacher before the eggs go in; 2) separate the eggs, and cook the whites for 30 seconds before you put the yolks in. 3) add the yolks for another 30 seconds or so, 4) Open the poacher, and hope that this worked.

     Unlike the Ping-pong Yolk Conundrum, the amazing spinach-water conjunction has been definitively solved. Draining spinach is a drag. If you try decanting out the water, by the time you tip the bowl far enough to dump the water, the spinach starts falling out, and I'm trying not to use that kind of language. The answer, of course, is canned tuna fish.

     Not that I eat tuna fish any more. I started getting taller every time we had a heat wave, so it looks like there really is a mercury problem with it. But they do sell strainers for tuna fish (is there really anybody who doesn't just use the lid?) and with these, and diligence, you can drain the spinach without dumping it in the sink. (Take my advice, and buy your diligence in the 64 oz. cans. Otherwise, the price is ridiculous.)

     Music for the moment: Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz show. She's gone now, but her show is great.

     Coming soon: results of a follow-up blood test, and a follow-up fitness test; news on the house, and even, perhaps a sketch of the workbench,

In which things get intense, arguable madness ensues...

For the last few weeks, the weight loss has been kind of stuck. Certain changes must be made. Here they go.

     First, the weight workouts have been changed, again. They have the gall to be divided into three parts. The first part uses some intensity, in the 8-10 rep range. Second is a volume section, which uses 50-75% of the weight in the first part, for many, many sets. The third part is the small stuff, mostly rehab for shoulders and knees.

     I'm using two workouts. The first is leg presses, bench presses and seated rows. The second is deadlifts, military presses and pulldowns. With the exception of deadlifts, these will all happen on machines. Deadlifts may well get swapped out for more leg presses, because of a weird cultural thing at my gym.

     Most gyms I've been in are based around machines. The free weight section (if there even is one) is tucked away at the back, and is nearly deserted. Everybody wants to use the machines, with that sweet, sweet, shiny chrome that makes everything better.

     My current gym is about 25% free weights (by floor space) and the rest is a bemusing variety of machines, most of which isolate one muscle at a time. So far, so expected. But about 80% of the people at any one time in the back doing free weights, while the machines stand mostly idle. I've seen squat racks that were constantly busy before, but this one is actually being used for squats, instead of shrugs or curls. I feel like a rarely privileged and fortunate anthropologist, given the chance to see an ancient folk ritual in the same class as the Minehead Hobby Horse but I can't really afford to

wait an hour and a half for a chance to do three quick sets.

     Besides the waiting time, I'm still having issues with my left shoulder, so squats are off the menu right now, and I'm doing leg presses, instead.  And leg presses hit 270 last week! Rows were 120. Bench presses were a gingerly 60, with minimal problems. The first two weight will go up five pounds at a time until I hit a sticking point; bench presses will slowly sneak up at a lower speed.

     The second workout is aerobic, and that now means running. I burned 600 calories yesterday, but more importantly, I did nearly five minutes of real, no-kidding running. This has prompted a spasm of "I just gotta try this.."

So, I'm going to set an actual goal for running: a ten minute mile by the end of July. That'll be about twice as fast as I usually go on the treadmill. We'll see whether it results in this

 Or this.

I'm hoping for the first option.
    
     Finally, I've realized, again, the truth that you can't outrun a bad diet. My one indulgence is almonds. I've been eating too many of them. Reluctantly, I have to cut them back. I'll miss them.

Onwards!

In which there are gigs.

our gigs, to be precise.

I was asked by the Local Anglican Cleric to sing the Exsultet at the Easter vigil. When other people hear me sing, I expect bad things to happen, but for her I would do anything, of course I agreed.

     First problem: no voice. Hadn't sung in some months, had to practise like a fiend, didn't want to, but got around to it eventually, voice was coming around.

     Second problem: L.A.C., hearing me practise, told me that she really, really loves the Exsultet, and wanted the full (three or four page) version, not the short version I've been doing for the last several years, in my Little Presbyterian Home in the West.. O... kay.. I can do that. Just barely.

     Third problem: on the Saturday, I went to try it in the church, because acoustics. It was pointed out that the Sursum Corda is set to different music in the Exsultet (at least the one that I had) than the Anglican church usually sings. So, I whip over to the Book of Alternative Services (Presider's Edition) to get the tone that the congregation might know. Whoever typeset the BAS decided in his wisdom to print the Sursum Corda in a different notation than the rest of the Exsultet...

     It all goes okay on the night. The church is tiny, so my voice holds out, barely, and nobody throws anything.


     Meanwhile, back in my Little Presbyterian Home in the West, a very good friend of mine gets landed with the Exsultet on Easter morning. She has stage fright. (I sympathize!) She worries about it. According to multiple witnesses, she absolutely nails it.

     The third gig is Easter morning. No organist, so hymns are played by a guitarist and the cornet player. It doesn't go too badly, although, on the last hymn, when I nail an F#, I'm so astonished that I gargle the next bar completely.

     Finally, I got an email from the guy who runs the local brass quintet. His French horn player has retired, and I have a shot (until they get a new one) at playing the part on flugel. Of course I'm going to do it.