The Mandelbear's Musings

08:46 am - A pleasant weekend

We spent a delightful, relaxing weekend with the jenkitty. She got up at some ridiculous hour to fly down from Seattle Saturday morning, and left Sunday evening. We (me, the flower_cat, and the chaoswolf -- the Y.D. wasn't interested in the kinds of things we had partially planned) piled into the van with Colleen's wheelchair and spent all day Saturday driving back from the Oakland airport (which has been extensively renovated since I was last there, and had surprisingly little traffic) by way of San Francisco.

The entire weekend was an exercise in real-time scheduling. We drove along the waterfront, passing up the food paradise of the Ferry Building because of large crowds and a lack of parking, past the tourist traps of Fisherman's Wharf, South on Van Ness, West on Geary past Japantown, and had a late breakfast at the Cliff House. Crab is a house specialty. Yum.

South on the Great Highway to Golden Gate Park, and parked under the de Young Museum. We need more museum time. The textile gallery was showing Turkmen weaving -- wow! The pace and interaction are vastly different when I'm wheeling Colleen around, but it wasn't unpleasant by any means.

After the museum we went next door to the Japanese Tea Garden. This was mostly a matter of Jen and Kat exploring widely while I tried to figure out how to get around with Colleen and the chair. On occasion I failed miserably; fortunately the Cat is still fairly mobile under her own power. No disasters.

Finally, we drove down to San Jose via Skyline Boulevard (as far as Woodside), took a turn past $WORK on Sand Hill Road, and tried to figure out where to have dinner. We'd originally identified a couple of places in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, but it was still too early and the Wolfling really didn't want her sister to be entirely left out, so we went home, let the Kitty take a nap, and headed out to Kobe, our favorite sushi boat place.

The evening was a combination of filking, conversation, and looking at the proofs of the wedding pictures, which artbeco brought over for us to sort through.

Sunday the Kitty slept in while I went out for bagels and Scottish lox, then a walk to the Rose Garden. There was time for Jen to have a bagel before going out "silly food shopping" to Cosentino's with Colleen. Colleen's been shopping there for nearly three decades; most of the staff are old friends. Dinner was huge pieces of lamb (which Colleen pan-broiled with Greek seasoning) with saffron rice and caprese (which I made). Quick, simple, and delicious.

All too soon it was time for Jen to leave. I combined the trip to the airport with dropping the kids off at their gaming session a couple of blocks down Coleman Avenue. All-in-all a delightful weekend; I just wish there was some way to do it more often.

Capped the weekend with a pleasant drive with the Cat.

05:40 pm - Puttering about

After a nice walk this morning (Rose Garden) and a short shopping trip with the Cat and Wolfling (BevMo, Barefoot Coffee Roasters, and the bank), I've spent most of the afternoon puttering around the house, mostly in the office. This is basically what I do when the list of things that ought to get done is totally overwhelming. I can either sit around admiring the problem, or nibble away at the edges. It's marginally more productive to nibble.

The main task for the weekend is getting all of last year's banking and investment records put away, along with tracking down a couple of missing pieces that Colleen will find useful. This will eventually result in substantially less clutter, and a nearly-full paper recycling bin.

There are system administration tasks in the queue, too, but those will mostly wait until tomorrow when the main WiFi users are out of the house, or at least otherwise occupied.

12:21 pm - Dietary note

Ok, so it seems that one egg and the equivalent of a slice of toast in the morning is not enough to sustain me through a walk before lunch. Not quite as bad as some of my past crashes, but I definitely need more protein in the morning.

On the other hand, it was a nice walk, around and through the Rose Garden. It's starting to bloom.

05:51 pm - Other than that, ...

Took the car in for an oil change this morning. They told me it would take 45 minutes to an hour, so I went out for a walk rather than sitting around. Beautiful day for it; it was just starting to get uncomfortably hot by the time the car was finished.

We'll go out for a drive after dinner. We don't say much, usually; it's just a good way of getting out of the house and spending some quiet time together. At home, there are always too many distractions: kids, computers, books... Even with gas near $4/gallon, it's a cheap evening out.

08:06 pm - Not my day...

... for dealing with physical objects, anyway. This afternoon I somehow managed to get my keychain tangled up with my steering wheel and windshield-wiper lever, causing a minor explosion of keys all over the inside of the car. I think I have managed to straighten the bent one back to the point of useability. (8:52 verified, by the simple if slightly risky experiment of using it to move the van so the garbage bins could be rolled out to the curb.)

And only half an hour ago, when attempting to flatten a board that was considerably more warped than I needed it to be, I managed to break my right thumbnail. Right before a filk con. Fortunately, the break provided a good gluing surface for once, and didn't affect the outside edge (which is what I use for picking), so it could conceivably hold together. Maybe. If not, well, it wouldn't be the first time I've played a guitar without my fingernails. It'll just hurt a little.

Meanwhile, the flower_cat is annoyed at me for not finding the black pepper, which she insisted was in a tin on the kitchen counter. The fact that she was eventually able to find it in a plastic bag in a drawer does not seem to lessen her annoyance. That's ok; I'm annoyed at me, too.

I did have a reasonably productive morning, though; did all the data entry for the Amex year-end report, which covers essentially all of my online payments. That leaves only the paper store receipts; the various forms (1040 and the 1099's) get entered directly into the software.

And I had a good walk, if slightly less than yesterday: three miles by the creek, from Leigh Avenue to the little park at Campbell Avenue and back.

Current Mood: tired

08:00 pm - Taxes, but apart from that...

This post seems to be written in blog order: most recent events first. Seems appropriate.

Just finished off the data-entry for the checkbooks. That leaves the paper receipts, which are a bit more work but also more interesting, and the Amex and Paypal reports.

Tasty dinner: scalloped potatoes, pork ribs with spicy peanut sauce, and carrot-and-raisin salad.

Went for a nice drive with the Cat this afternoon. Good to get out of the house and hang out together. We don't usually talk much; it's all about good company and comfortable silences. Spent some time working on a song -- still marinating.

Did a little shopping. Mostly Office Max for white business card stock for mini-fliers, little colored dots to mark ripped albums, 9V batteries for the travel guitar, and a package-opener. Fry's for a 2GB micro-SD card and a little USB reader that's no more than a 250%-longer plug. Came with a little plastic cover threaded onto a little lanyard of the sort usually used for cell phone charms, but it seemed unnecessary and I took it off.

Did the 4-mile walk by Los Gatos Creek this morning. Felt good. It always does. The weather was cool but a little too humid after last night's rain.

07:48 pm - All-in-all a pretty good day

A nice walk at lunchtime, and it looks as though $BOSS is going to buy off on my latest idea for a "research" project. I put "research" in quotes because what I actually seem to do is come up with ideas and build infrastructure that my coworkers can use to do things more traditionally thought of as research. Sort of like the people who design particle accelerators and electron microscopes.

My title is "chief software scientist". It really means "ageing hacker"; I figure that if you have to put "scientist" in the name of your field, you probably aren't one. Dad was a chemist. (On the other hand, his sub-field was spectroscopy, so he was primarily an instrument-builder too. Family tradition, along with folk music, computers and science fiction. *Sigh* -- he would have enjoyed the wedding.)

Left work a little early so that I could meet Colleen and the kids at Kobe, our usual sushi boat place. Emmy's grades came in over the weekend and weren't anywhere near good enough to earn a reward, but we were already planning on sushi for her 16th birthday, so that took precedence.

I'll be leaving shortly to take the Wolfling to school for her HTML final - it was a self-paced class, but there's a written final tonight. I'll be back 9:30-ish; there's no reason to spend 40 extra minutes driving when I could be spending it reading.

08:05 pm - Mostly better now

It was a good afternoon for a walk; I'm glad the flower_cat kicked my sorry butt out of the house and told me to take one. Walked for an hour by Los Gatos Creek, from where it crosses Leigh Avenue up to the little park in Campbell and back.

Started working on a song; nothing but fragments so far. I may just scribble them down and let them marinate for a while; if I go much further down that particular rabbit hole I won't get the taxes started until next week, if then.

The park was full of people; I had a nice little conversation with a girl who was sitting on a picnic table playing a guitar. Well, she looked like a girl, anyway, until her five-year-old daughter came over for a hug. They left when the little one fell down and scraped her hand. But I was able to show off a little, help her with a C chord (she's only been playing for a couple of months), and talk about music and kids for a while. Her name was Bonnie, if I remember correctly.

It's hard not to be at least a little cheerful with music and pleasant memories in my head. Even harder after tasty rabbit stew and steamed asparagus. We started the stew just before I left; I came back just in time to help finish it, and to empty the dishwasher.

Still no real handle on why that wave of depression hit me this afternoon, but it doesn't matter. Besides, I tend to write when I'm depressed. It might just have been the song trying to get out.

08:20 pm - State of the Bear

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

It's been a while since I posted one of these, so let's see...

Went out for a walk this morning (twice around the Rose Garden -- yay! there are finally buds after the winter's drastic pruning) and somehow fell back into power-walk mode. I was a little surprised at how natural and unforced it felt, even after several months of walking with my hands at my sides or in my pockets.

I have been walking, but I haven't been keeping good track, or particularly consistent, since sometime in mid-January. (In part because I was doing other things with my lunch hour, for reasons that have mostly gone away now.) The last couple of weeks, though, have been pretty consistent.

My weight is down to 183 or so, from about 198 at the beginning of the year. I'm using a high protein, low glycemic index diet, and it seems to be working.

I've cut my flonase dose down from two to one squirt per nostril, twice per day. This seems to work even better than the old dose did before nasal irrigation, and doesn't seem to cause any bleeding. I sometimes forget the flonase after nose-watering; it's taking me an annoyingly long time to form new habits. But I can actually smell the flonase now; yesterday evening on the way home I smelled the star jasmine blooming next to the parking lot.

The CPAP is working. The flower_cat no longer complains about my snoring, and she reminds me to put it back on if I've taken it off to snuggle. I seem to need about an hour less sleep; 5 hours isn't unusual these days. They can have my facehugger after they pry it off my cold, dead face.

On the down side, I still tend to become easily addicted to things like LJ, blogs, and (more recently) IM. I need to stay the hell away from Second Life.

On the other hand, having finally gotten my life together, I seem to be in danger of forgetting where I put it.

11:07 pm - Busy Sunday

Walkies in the morning (just down to the Rose Garden and once around -- I was feeling strapped for time). Left-over Chinese for lunch -- I seem to be the only one eating it, but that's fine with me. Trip to Fry's with selkit and the chaoswolf for them to look at a replacement for his dead laptop. I picked up a alarm clock with huge, easy-to-read numbers for Colleen, plus a combination phone and clock radio that, as it turned out, Colleen didn't want. Then over to Central for comparison shopping. I hadn't realized there was a local dealer for Lenovo. Hmmm.

Side trip to OSH for 9v batteries, coat-hooks (actually for Colleen's bathrobe and nightgown), and angle brackets.

Dinner was lambburgers, asparagus, and butternut squash. Yum.

Then over to Dave and Joyce's for a quick run-through of "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine", and an extended cut-and-paste job piecing together a wedding ceremony. Anyone out there not know that selkit and the chaoswolf are getting married at Consonance? Consider yourself informed. Less than a week!

Our annual March "It's Green!" party is the Saturday after Consonance, i.e., two weeks from yesterday.

07:03 pm - Nice drive

Went out for a walk this morning around the Rose Garden. The garden itself is rather sad-looking at the moment: it was pruned a week or two ago, and although there are lots of leaf-buds and a couple of flowers that presumably were left on from before the pruning, there are no new blossoms yet. Or even buds. The Wolfling had been talking about wanting wedding pictures in the Rose Garden, but in addition to being logistically difficult it looks as though the season will be wrong as well. We'll see.

Came back and had bacon and eggs for a late breakfast, then went out at about noon for a long drive with the flower_cat. I love our drives. They're one of the few times we're by ourselves with no tempting distractions or annoying -- or even welcome -- interruptions. Usually we talk; sometimes we just sit and enjoy each other's company. This time, not surprisingly, we mostly talked about wedding and travel plans. The long drive is about 4:30 -- over to the coast via State Highway 9, up 1 from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay, then back via 92 and I280. The coast route takes us past a big produce stand (closed, alas!) and a fishmonger's. Tonight's dinner will be red snapper.

After dropping by the house for a pit stop and to get the snapper into the fridge, we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for curtain rods and curtains. At vast expense, but they're pretty and we've been needing them for a long time. The general idea is to be able to curtain off the portion of the living room that used to be the master bedroom, so we can give guests sleeping there a little privacy. As a practical matter, the sewing room (originally a kid's bedroom and small even for that) only handles one person, or a couple with very little luggage.

We decided to head home rather than going to Barnes and Noble to pick up some books that Colleen had ordered. It had been a longish day, and the Cat was getting tired.

08:40 pm - Saturday catch-up.

Went out for a walk this morning by Los Gatos Creek; a little shorter than usual, because of some lingering discomfort from yesterday's leg cramps. It seemed to get better rather than worse as I went along but I didn't want to push my luck.

It was oddly different knowing that I was going to be walking there with a friend in a couple of weeks. I don't get to do that very often.

After that I went shopping. At Guitar Showcase I got a gig bag for our Casio keyboard, so that it would be easier to take to Consonance to be borrowed by the assorted keyboard players on the guest list.

After that I went to Fry's and picked up the APC 1300VA UPS they had on sale ($20 mail-in rebate). It's a little smaller than the 1500VA one I picked up a few weeks ago, but it'll do for the bedroom. Like the larger one, it can be permanently silenced, which means I can use it for the facehugger and the alarm clock as well as the computer, and not have to worry about getting rudely awakened by a screeching UPS.

(As an aside, this will free up the 420VA supply again; I'll probably put it back on Nova, the fileserver. That should give me about an hour's worth of uptime on the router and network gear.)

I also wanted to get 4GB of RAM, but discovered when I got up to the cashier that they'd given me 2GB. Don't know whether I misread the ad, or they just wrote me up for the wrong item, but it'll wait. It's not really all that urgent now, and it'll only be cheaper next time.

added: After Fry's I went first to Bed, Bath and Beyond, basically just across the street, to look at curtain rods. The plan is to be able to curtain off part of the living room (the part with the couch and bathroom access) to provide a little extra privacy for the guests we're expecting for the wedding.

After that, I went over to Southern Lumber to buy wood for cutting boards: my usual wedding present. It took a lot of looking, but I finally found a piece of nicely-grained maple that will make two cutting boards.

Finished the loop by stopping off at BevMo for gin. Made a second, briefer shopping run to Safeway for ground beef, grated cheese, and tortillas so the Wolfling could make tacos for dinner.

Current Mood: content

12:15 pm - Quack!

When I started out for my walk this morning it was overcast but basically clear. About 45 minutes later, somewhere into my third circuit of the Rose Garden, it started to rain. It was a very gentle rain, with no wind, but it did get steadily heavier. By the time I got home I was intensely aware of the fact that my raincoat needs to be re-waterproofed.

On the other hand, I don't particularly mind walking in the rain (as long as it isn't too cold or too heavy), and I needed to put those clothes in the laundry today anyway.

09:31 am - Weekend wrap-up

Well, it's been a pretty productive weekend, although not at all the way I'd planned it. Having to take the server rack down to install the new UPS after Saturday's power glitches, combined with the DSL modem going down, gave me an excellent excuse to do some long-needed maintenance.

My new gateway is up and the user home directories moved over; web, DHCP, and DNS still need to be moved over, but at least everyone in the house should have a good net connection now. The "new interim" gateway is up on the old DSL line; hopefully that will go away soon, but I can't get rid of it until I figure out a good solution for email.

The new gateway has a 200GB disk now; it was going to have flash, but the CF-card-to-IDE adapter I was going to use seems to be broken. That's OK: I was going to have the big disk on it anyway. I'll have to replace it in a year or less, since it already has a year or two's use on it -- it came out of my main fileserver as part of last May's disk upgrade. But it'll let me move the Debian mirror, which will free up over 100GB on the fileserver. Which I'm going to need for recording -- the fileserver's 80% full right now.

Spent several hours last night trying to get two of the Windows boxen to recognize my networked HP printer. No dice - the driver install hangs. I HATE Windows -- configuring a networked printer is a 2-minute job on Linux.

No recording this weekend. Grumble. And I'll probably spend most of the next two weeks doing data entry for sales taxes, which are due the 31st -- the day after I get back from Seattle. So they'd damn well better be done before I leave. Grumble.

10:07 pm - State of the Mandelbear

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

There have been several major changes in my approach to health this year, mainly brought on by a belated awareness of impending mortality and a couple of alarming sets of symptoms.

Walking: I've been getting in roughly three-mile walks most of this week. It's very frustrating: in order to avoid leg cramps I have to either walk slowly (i.e., my old pace that didn't give me much actual exercise) or shorten my stride to what to me is an unnatural degree. These days I usually pick the fast pace and short stride, but it's annoying to have to make the trade-off. I end up walking at about the same speed (3mph) regardless. I've gone back to power walking to compensate. Hopefully when I'm back at work I can cut off the usually-fascinating lunchtime conversations and the temptation to dive back into LJ in time to walk for an hour during the week, too.

Facehugger: I finally built a little shelf on the dresser beside the bed, and just last weekend bent up a piece of coathanger wire to hold up the hose. The combination really helps; it's a lot less likely to leak now. I can also sleep on my back without waking up -- that's a big win. I can't say there's been a huge difference in how sleepy I get or how much sleep I need, but I think there's been some. The silliest thing about it is having to shave about 1cm off the top of my mustache in order for the mask to seat properly -- first time I've had to shave in about 40 years. Well, it was a good excuse for a new backpack, anyway.

Nose-watering: Watering my nose seems to be roughly as effective as taking a standard dose of sudafed, and lasts for roughly as long: 6-8 hours. I've fallen into a routine: morning, before dinner, and about an hour before bed. Morning is, of course, combined with making coffee, and takes about 15-20 minutes. The evening wash is combined with brushing my teeth; I've gotten a bit better about that, too.

Diet: This is the newest bit of attempted behavior modification. It's my understanding that a reduced-carbohydrate, low-sugar diet is good for reducing both cholesterol and weight, so I'm going to try it. It's hard -- potatoes and pasta are both popular in this family. At least the rice we use is basmati, which is unique in having a low glycemic index, and I prefer whole-grain bread anyway. I've stopped eating fried-eggs-on-toast for breakfast and switched to omelettes. At least dark chocolate, and one alcoholic drink/day are still on the diet. By doctor's orders. So there.

With a little luck and more determination than I've shown to date, I might even survive another decade. We'll see.

09:10 pm - Weekend wrap-up: Puttering along...

Modulo my walks, a drive with the flower_cat last night, and a outing with the Cat and the chaoswolf this afternoon that I'll get to later, my weekend has mostly been spent puttering around the house. That's what I do when I'm trying to avoid, you know, real work.

I've reluctantly come to the realization that, if I haven't read one of those stacked-up magazines in the decade or so they've been sitting there, I'm probably not going to get to them in the next decade, either. And the ones that I have read, that are sitting in piles in the garage attic? Recycle time.

Note to self: it's time to stop when the dust starts making you sneeze.

Today was very pleasant. At the Cat's suggestion I went out this morning and got bagels and lox for brunch. Yum. House of Bagels might not be a real New York bakery, but it's close enough. Along the way I stopped at the nearby Whole Paycheck Foods to get some nose-watering salt. I asked for "uniodized" and got a blank look, but then I noticed the three-pound boxes of kosher salt on the top shelf of the salt section. Score! Less than $3 for pure sea-salt with guaranteed, God-gets-mad-at-you-if-you-cheat no additives. )Tried it this evening: works just fine.)

After brunch the Cat and I took the Wolfling to Stanford -- it seems she's been curious about the place where her parents met and fell in love, not to mention other places on campus she's been hearing about. As it turns out, the coffeehouse appears to be either defunct or being renovated -- what used to be the main entrance is now a bike shop; the tables are there but there's no sign on the door and the place looks far too clean to be in actual use.

Then she spotted the bookstore, so we took a side-trip. It turns out that, regardless of its total absence on their web site, they do have a shelf for alumni, student, and faculty music. I'll go back during the week when there's a manager on site.

We also stopped at the museum to wander around the Rodin sculpture garden (always one of my favorites), and looked at the Quad and its centerpiece, the Memorial Church. It was locked -- I don't remember it ever being locked during my time on campus -- but the mosaics on the front are as gorgeous as ever, and you could get a glimpse of some of the stained glass through the window on the front doors.

Did I mention the Golden Bough concert last night? I thought not.

Computer geekery a post or two upwhen.

06:50 am - Am I becoming a morning person?

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

A short walk yesterday: once around the pond, with a hill, rather slowly. Given my current condition, it was probably enough of a cardio workout to count. As is frequently the case these days, my calf muscles felt tight but not cramped. Grump.

Woke up about 5am both yesterday and today, in both cases after going to bed around 11:30. It would be delightful if the combination of the CPAP and nose-watering means that I need less sleep. I remember that Mom only needed about 5 hours' sleep in her 60's, so it's possible.

My nose seems less congested now, in spite of the fact that the I haven't taken my usual decongestants (loperamide and phenylephrine) in several days. Win.

Pedometer: 8198.

10:27 pm - Walking; watering my nose

Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Took a slightly shorter-than-usual walk today: down to the little shopping center at Sand Hill and Sharon Park, and back by the same route. The main goal was to get a NeilMed Sinus Rinse kit at Longs, but they were on sale and out of stock. Picked one up at Walgreen's on the way home.

The kids were, predictably, disgusted (I suspect it would appeal to 5-year-olds). The flower_cat is intrigued in spite of a painful experience with it a couple of years ago, possibly due to a too-concentrated saline solution. I'm sold on it.

My pedometer currently reads 10552 for the day.

08:39 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

No walking to speak of yesterday, but today I got back into it. Started with a trip to the local mall to get a holiday prezzie for the Y.D. Since this required a considerable amount of searching, I got in quite a lot of walking at what I now consider a good pace. Fortunately this was around 10am and the mall was surprisingly uncrowded.

After lunch I went out for a proper walk: my usual weekend route by Los Gatos Creek. By power-walking I managed to get a decent workout while still taking small enough steps to avoid cramps. My calf muscles feel tight and a bit sore, but they're not tied into knots. This is good.

I should also mention multiple trips up and down the garage attic stairs, and a fair amount of lifting. I've been a busy bear.

My pedometer reading for the day is currently 14900.

06:47 pm - Walkies: from bad to verse

I set out for to take my walk
At Noon on Doggerel Day
The route the same as yesterday;
So there's not much to say

The weather cool, my pace quite slow
Not much to my report
Except that when my muscles cramped
I nearly cut it short

And since anything in ballad meter can be done as a talking blues, I can take advantage of that to include my stats: time: 1:01; avg: 112; max: 141. But at least I'm walking.

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear)

09:20 pm - Walkies and w00t

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Same route as yesterday, and my muscles still aren't trying to tie themselves into knots, so I may be back in the groove. On the other hand, the neuropathy may be increasing, in spite of the assortment supplements I'm taking. It seems to be affecting my feet now. Well, we'll see...

update: forgot to mention that I bought a cheap pedometer a couple of weeks ago. 10643 steps yesterday.

Current Mood: calm

08:35 am - Walkies!

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear)

Finally had a chance to walk yesterday. Skipped the monitor, since I didn't want the kind of positive feedback that seems to lead to pushing it too hard. (I still have to get some professional advice on that.) But I walked for an hour -- up the hill and twice around the pond -- and didn't get cramps. So I must have done something right for a change.

Things I've learned: stretch, start out slowly, take small steps. Apparently years of sitting cause your leg muscles to shorten. Taking smaller steps means that they don't get overstretched. And I'm finally (I think) figuring out how to stretch properly: you have to remember to fully relax the muscle you're trying to stretch. That's hard.

I don't appear to have gained weight over the weekend, though I haven't lost any, either. I have gained about three pounds in the three weeks or so since I started getting leg cramps to the point where I couldn't walk regularly. So I'm glad to be getting back to it.

11:17 pm - Walking and stretching

It's entirely possible that some of my problems with leg cramps are due to not stretching properly. Discovered that I have a tendency not to fully relax the muscle I'm trying to stretch. That's wrong. Might account for at least some of the cramping. Probably not all of it.

11:20 pm - I should probably go to bed

... but not before at least briefly mentioning what I did today. Went for a half-hour stroll by the creek -- not much exercise, but a nice morning, all muffled in fog and comfortably cool.

We had bagels and Scottish salmon for brunch, then headed up to San Francisco for the Lamplighters gala. This year they only had one performance, and they combined it with an auction. Too rich for my wallet, unfortunately, but a lot of fun as a spectator sport. They worked the live auction part (mostly it was a silent auction out in the lobby) cleverly into the end of the first act.

I should mention at this point (for those just tuning in) that the Lamplighters are world-class Gilbert and Sullivan (and other light opera) company; the annual Gala is a parody fundraiser. This year's title was "Harry Patter and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief - A Series of Unfortunate Musical Numbers". To make a long and extremely funny tale much too short, the auction was woven into the plot to raise money to renew the 1500-year lease on the Hogwash School of Witchery and Wizardcraft, in order to prevent it from being turned into a big box retail establishment called Vol*De*Mart... You get the idea.

It was around 7:30 by the time it was done, so we skipped the usual champagne reception and headed over to the Cliff House for a somewhat expensive but very tasty dinner. The kids were happy -- they serve mostly seafood.

Now that the flower_cat's fish allergy (if it ever really existed and wasn't just a coincidental flareup of her Crohn's disease) has subsided, we're getting more fish for dinner. This is a Good Thing.

I wasn't particularly sleepy coming home, but whether this can be ascribed to my new facehugger or to the stimulant=-based decongestant and the four cups of coffee I had with dinner is, as usual, an open question.

But I think I ought to go fall over now.

Current Mood: tired

08:23 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

The weather was cool and cloudy at lunchtime -- perfect for walking. The usual route to the pond via the back hill. I thought I was at my usual pace, but may well have been going a little faster because my heart-rate stayed up even on the downhill segments. In any case it came to an abrupt slowdown when I got some rather painful leg cramps. Promptly stretching the calf muscle in question (the right leg) seems to have kept it from staying knotted up, but it sure hurt. Several times. It seemed to want to tighten up when I got back to work and stopped walking, so I did a little more slow, careful walking indoors until it seemed to stabilize. I was still getting twinges a couple of hours later. Flexoril tonight.

Stats: time: time: 49:44; avg: 128; max: 154.

04:16 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

I cleverly left my heart-rate monitor at work along with the T-shirt that didn't need washing because I took hardly any exercise walks this week. But it looked like a nice, cool, cloudy day and I wasn't hurting, so I set out along the Los Gatos Creek trail, with one eye on the weather.

I managed a reasonable pace, and walked about 4 miles in 1:15 or so. I'd forgotten to stretch before starting out, but a couple of stretches in the middle and after seem to have helped. I don't have shin cramps, though I do seem to have ended up with a blister on my right toe.

(Side note: My posts on healthy_fen are almost exclusively for exercise and healthy living. Posts relating to sleep apnea -- I was diagnosed last week -- can be found here under the facehugger tag.)

06:22 pm - Walkies: there's glory for you!

Yesterday I still had some residual aches from my flu shot on Monday and didn't feel quite up to an exercise walk, so I just walked down to the Safeway and back. Even that may have been overdoing it: I had some odd muscle cramps in the evening.

So today I only walked down to the pond and back, at my old (strolling) pace. May still have been too much, but if I don't get my walkies I go rapidly crazy. (Some people would say that it's a really short trip.) They were painting new stripes on the road and dusting them with tiny reflective glass beads, which the wind promptly scattered all over the road. Since the sun was behind me, I got a lovely glory following me down the hill. (One might say sun dogging my steps, but...) (For some reason Wikipedia doesn't have it on their disambiguation page for glory, but points to the Wiktionary entry for it).

08:21 pm - Walkies: that's more like it

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

A pretty good walk today: down to the pond by the back hill, three times around, and back over the hill. Essentially the same as what was once my usual walk a couple of years ago, except maybe half a mile farther and 30% faster. Hopefully I can keep it up. A little lower-leg stretching before and after; still haven't tried the full "before-and-after-walking" routine from the book.

Stats: time: 57:27; avg: 119; max: 150.

11:37 am - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Down to the Rose Garden today. It's dead flat, so I didn't get my heart rate up very high; but I got a bit of a workout. I'm not sure whether the stretching helped or not; I might have overdone it a little. And it still seems to take me a long time to find the right pace. Grump.

The Royal Amethyst was almost spent, but I found a couple of nice full blossoms to take pictures of.

Stats: time: 51:45; avg: 112; max: 121.

09:21 pm - A fine day out

Woke the family around 9am (after I'd already had spicy tofu for breakfast, unloaded the dishwasher, put some pots to soak, and read Stretching and my morning web pages), made sure everyone had a bit of breakfast, and headed up to the San Francisco Zoo. We got there about 11:30 and split up, agreeing to meet at 12:30 for lunch at the Leaping Lemur Cafe. It was a good day for it -- warm but not hot.

The flower_cat and I headed off to the African Trail and the gorilla exhibit, with the Y.D. in tow. She left us at the Primate Center while the Cat parked herself at the cafe for a while and I wandered through the lemur area and the upper level of the primate center (which I hadn't realized were connected) at more like my typical pace. I like walking with my Cat, but she's arthritic and can't walk fast enough for me to get any exercise.

After lunch we split up again; the Cat and I toddled off to see the penguins, the otters the hippo (in temporary quarters near what used to be the elephant house, but is now occupied by a rhino), the big cats, the black rhinos, and the bears. The zoo is in the middle of a decade or so of major reconstruction; the grizzlies have been moved to a great new "Grizzly Gulch" next to the black rhinos, and the entire back area that used to hold the African elephant, giraffes, and hippos, and others is fenced off and under construction. The giraffes have already been moved to the new African Trail area, and the few remaining elephants have all been moved to a "retirement home" somewhere else. We don't really have enough room in San Francisco to take proper care of elephants.

We'd aggreed to meet back at the Leaping Lemur at 3:00, but converged about half an hour early and headed for the exit. I drove home fighting sleep; the Cat and I collapsed in a heap on the bed and napped for an hour. Leftovers for dinner; we all agreed that an expedition to the local Mongolian Barbecue was best left for tomorrow.

I've spent the last few hours working on the grand directory tree reorganization, re-organizing (but not yet editing) the OVFF recordings, and trying to pull together a setlist for Loscon. So I'm actually making some progress.

01:33 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Down to the pond via the hill; 1.5 times around. A little slower this time, mainly by shortening my stride. Stretching before and after. Wore the running shoes with an ankle brace on the left; this seems to have worked. One knee twinge, on the right, and some random muscle tightness mainly on the left calf and, for the first time, the right thigh. I think I'm basically hitting different sets of limits each time. Hopefully that indicates progress.

Stats: time: 47:17; avg: 120; max 146.

01:28 pm - Walkies: now, that's more like it!

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Same route as yesterday, but with the hiking boots instead of the running shoes, and faster. No ankle pain, no shin pain thanks to a little stretching before yesterday's walk, flexeril last night when it seemed to want to knot up, and a little stretching after today's walk. Still haven't done more than glance at the book, but even that has been helpful.

Stats: time: 43:46; avg: 129; max: 156. 20% faster than yesterday! That makes it pretty close to 4mph.

03:32 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Yesterday's walk was just half an hour or so down to the pond and back; I'd spent the entire morning getting my sleep study set up and running other errands, and wanted to catch up on email and trip reports.

Today was an actual exercise walk, the first in nearly a week: down to the pond via the hill in back, 2.5 times around, and back. This gets in a reasonable amount of exercise with a minimum of downhill and tilted sections that might tend to damage my left ankle. As it is, it was hurting by the time I got back, but no shin splints. So, yay!

Stats: time: 53:22; avg: 119; max: 146.

05:55 pm - Walkies

(cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear )

The usual loop walk this morning. Probably the only exercise I'll get tomorrow will be dashing for my connection in DFW.

08:29 am - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear)

Got in about a 40-minute walk around the Dublin Metro loop again. Started feeling it in the right calf this time. It was cooler this morning than it was yesterday afternoon, so I wore a flannel shirt. And an ankle brace on the left foot, which I think I'll keep.

Must practice for twofer this afternoon.

09:54 am - Walkies, sort of

Went out for a short walk - about 40 minutes around the little business loop in front of the hotel. Still, I managed to raise a bit of a sweat, so it must have done some good. Still worried about the cramps in my left leg, so took it easy and took a Flexeril when I got back. Yay for cyclobenzeprine.

(Cross-posted on mdlbear and healthy_fen.)

Current Mood: calm

03:07 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen and mdlbear.)

Down to the shopping center, mainly to pick up another knee brace, naproxen, Tums, and batteries in anticipation of Thursday's travel to OVFF. Starting out, knowing that I had to keep to a strolling pace because of continuing tightness in my calf muscles (how long do they take to recover, anyway?), I amused myself by pumping my arms 3-against-2 vs. my steps. Worked for about 5 minutes, then my arms started to hurt. Foo.

Stats: Down: time: 22:37; avg: 104; max: 131.

Stats: Back: time: 34:40; avg: 117; max: 138.

04:10 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to mdlbear and healthy_fen.)

Started out at what I hoped was a sustainable pace, but some incipient pain in my left leg soon disabused me of this notion. I did take in the hill on the way out, so got a little actual exercise even without going very quickly: it's a steep hill. Once around the pond, so as not to push my luck on either the legs or the knees.

Stats: time: 46:27; avg: 118; max: 149.

11:40 am - Out for a stroll

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen as usual.)

Went out for a stroll around the Rose Garden this morning, rather than an exercise walk. The basic idea was to get out of the house and moving, but without putting any extra strain on my legs. I think it worked pretty well, though I did get a couple of twinges in my right knee. It will probably want a brace. (OK, I can has knee brace. That's better.)

No stats; I didn't bother with the monitor.

12:05 pm - Walkies: legs? What are those?

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen.)

Set out for a walk around the Rose Garden, having decided to stay close to home in case the knees acted up. But in the end it was the shins that stopped me. Didn't even get to the Rose Garden before I had to drop down to a strolling pace and turn around. Guess I really needed a bit more recovery time from yesterday. Very annoying. Total time about 20 minutes.

I tossed my shoulder bag, a small water bottle, and the knee braces in a backpack this time. Definitely more clumsy than the bag when it came to getting things out, but also more comfortable.

10:27 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen)

Good walking weather; I understand it's due to warm up next week -- what's with that? It took me about half an hour to find a good pace that started getting my heart rate up without hurting. Also had to tighten my right knee brace -- I still don't know whether that was really part of the solution or part of the problem, since I also shortened my stride a little. By the time I got back, after a little over 40 minutes, I felt I was finally converging on a pace that would give me a decent amount of exercise, so I walked around the parking lot for a while, with my heart-rate up in the 130's.

My shins are a little sore now.

Stats: time: 1:10; avg: 126; max: 150.

02:12 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen.)

Despite the fact that both knees were aching a little this morning, I decided it would be ok to take a moderate walk. Besides, I wanted to go back to Long's and get another knee brace. So I did that. I split the stats for the two segments: there (all downhill on Sand Hill Road) and back again (a slightly longer and hillier route with uphill parts on both Sharon Park Drive and Sand Hill).

Stats: time: 20:30; avg: 109; max: 125 (down)

Stats: time: 31:16; avg: 123; max: 144 (back)

02:53 pm - Walkies

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen.)

Stopped off at Long's this morning on my way to work to pick up some alpha-lipoic acid and a knee brace (plus a couple of other items which don't come into the matter at hand).

Today was cool, overcast, but not raining -- at least when I set out. There were a couple of light sprinkles while I was walking, but I ignored them. I was unable to get my heart rate over 120 on downhill segments; in fact, I was halfway around the pond before I got up to 120 at all. Went around four times, at which point I was feeling a few odd pains and decided not to push my luck.

I had the new knee brace on the right knee, and had no trouble with it. There was some pain in the left knee when I was most of the way back; I sat down on a convenient phone electronics enclosure and slipped on the old knee brace, which I had put in my pocket for just that eventuality.

Very little shin pain; either I'm gradually working past that point, or I wasn't pushing the pace as hard as I thought I was. Probably the latter, considering.

Stats: time: 45:39; avg: 122; max: 144.

04:38 pm - Water-cooled

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen)

Despite the fact that it looked clear and sunny when I peered out the window before my walk, there was in fact an almost-invisible light drizzle. Decided not to let that stop me.

My shins were starting to hurt before I quite made it down to the pond; backed off a little and only went around once. By the time I was headed back to work the pain had shifted from the front of my legs to the backs, so probably about the right pace. No pain in either my ankles or my knees, but there were two very disturbing moments where my right (!) knee felt wobbly, like it was about to buckle under me. That would have been bad.

Altogether a good walk, though; I didn't even get particularly wet.

Stats: time: 37:16; average: 126; max: 143.

11:28 am - Grumble

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen)

Between the fact that my shins were starting to hurt, and the fact that there was a stupid rock band between me and the Rose Garden, I cut my walk significantly short this morning. The band was thanks to the San Jose Rock & Roll Half-Marathon, which is also responsible for a lot of street closings today. About halfway down to the Rose Garden I came upon a big crowd of people trudging the other way; presumably the actual runners had long passed.

Stats, such as they are: time: 19:55; Avg: 109; Max: 114. Miserable.

Thanks to an email from B., who isn't on LJ and presumably missed the post where I mentioned that anonymous comments had been re-enabled, I have what purports to be a more accurate way of computing my training range:

 Let:
    MHR = (220 - age_in_years) = 160		# maximum heart rate
    RHR = resting_heart_rate  ~= 65
 then:
    TRmin = RHR + .6 * (MHR - RHR) = 122	# minimum training rate
    TRmax = RHR + .9 * (MHR - RHR) = 150.5	# maximum training rate

This compares to "moderate" = 112-128 (70-80% MHR). Measuring resting heart rate is challenging; reaching over to pick up the monitor raised my rate to 72, and it's too dark to see well at 6am, so the best I can say is that my RHR is somewhere between 60 and 65. The whole thing seems slightly specious, since RHR presumably decreases with training, so the formula has the range going lower as you get into better shape. On the other hand, 120-140 is what I've been aiming for. Anyone have any further insights into this?

01:57 pm - Walkies

Today's walk was the four-mile trip along Los Gatos Creek. Kept my heart-rate in the low 120's going out; on the way back, mostly downhill with my right arm hurting (I'm sinister, so it's underused) and slowing down to prevent shin splints, it was mostly in the 115-120 range.

Stats: time: 1:13 (3.3mph); average: 122; max: 151.

09:35 pm - Not much of a walk today

Not much of a walk today -- just a couple of times around the building. The weather was looking distinctly dicey, but more importantly I wanted to let my calf muscles and left ankle recover a bit. So maybe 10 minutes; at least, with a couple of trips up and down the hill on the East side of the building, I got a little exercise.

It rained a little this morning. It RAINED this afternoon. Quite impressive. I was on my way to a meeting in another building at the time. It seems to have cleared now. Hopefully I'll get a good walk tomorrow.

02:10 pm - Today's walk

Today's walk was at something closer to speed, though I backed off considerably after it started hurting. Unlike yesterday, which was more of a "I can keep this pace up as long as I want" day, today was more like "well, it doesn't hurt as much anymore; let's see if I can keep going". I walked to the pond but skipped the hill to spare my left ankle -- the road is severely crowned, and it hurts. Went around the pond five or six times -- I lost count.

Stats: time: 59:13; avg: 123; max: 146.

01:18 pm - Walking to Safeway

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen.)

Today's walk takes us down scenic Sand Hill Road at the leisurely pace of about three mph. After an interlude in Rivendell Safeway, during which provisions in the form of yogurt and beef jerky were obtained, we return on the slightly more strenuous Sharon Park Drive. The return trip is mostly uphill.

Stats: time: 1:04; avg: 110; max: 139.

Walking on flat ground at my old pace of 3mph gets my heart somewhere in the 100-110 bpm range. I can walk for hours at that pace as long as I stop every hour or so to take my shoes off and let my feet cool down. Otherwise I get blisters. Which I'm close to, right now.

01:41 pm - Another round

(Cross-posted to healthy_fen)

Same walk as yesterday, only "at speed". The hiking boots (because my left ankle was feeling a bit dicey) may have added a few ounces more of dynamic load. Felt pretty good; the trick appears to be backing off just before the calf muscles start hurting. (As the old joke goes, it's a two-pass algorithm.)

Stats: time: 46:13; avg: 131; max: 155. I was over 120bpm for almost the entire walk, I think. Somewhere between 3.5-4mph; I'll have to check with the gmap pedometer sometime.