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CATURDAY


$60 Friday

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Yesterday was probably my best swim yet. The baby shampoo pre-treat seemed to work pretty well for fighting the fog in my goggles, though I guess if I wanted to be really scientific, I'd treat one half and compare the two. The center snorkel and small goggles work great together because the snorkel doesn't bump the goggles at all. The internal nose plug works quite well, though I've discovered that even if no water seeps in, my sinuses get pretty snotty. Gross, I know. I didn't have to wait too long to get a lane, and I swam for a full hour. It didn't really occur to me to estimate the distance until recently, but it takes less than a minute to get all the way across the pool, and that distance is 25 yards. So if I round up and just say every trip across is a minute, that's 1,500 yards. Not bad!

So far I've only spotted one regular from Forest Park over there, which surprises me. But it's a big place and I might just not be spotting them. Plus if I do laps for an hour, that's plenty of time for people to come and go. I've noticed a lot of people swim for a little as 10 minutes. One guy at Forest Park cracks me up. He always spends up to 30 minutes talking to the lap swimming coach, then barely spends any time actually swimming.

I check Safeway's app every week to see if there are any $5 Friday deals I want to take advantage of. There are actually tons of deal categories in there, but it's too much to look through. I'm mostly looking out for one particular deal.

I save 50% by waiting until litter is a $5 Friday deal and stocking up.

This particular litter is regularly priced at $9.99 according to the tags, though I think I've seen it for a little less. Anyway, $5 Friday on a $9.99 litter is half off! I stopped at the Snohomish Safeway on the way back from the pool and they only had six on display, so I got those and some frozen vegetables. At our neighborhood Safeway, I got six more. $60 savings! There was one left in the storage spot where I keep them in the garage, so I've got 13, which should be plenty to last until the next time they're $5.

Schmupdate

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I gotta say, susandennis is a real tastemaker. It was her post about Snohomish Aquatic Center that led to my checking it out, which led to me swimming laps. I've also wanted a smart watch for ages and hadn't really looked into Pebble until she raved about her new one. I chose the Pebble Time and it arrived yesterday.

Pebble Time arrived yesterday and I love it so.


I love this thing. I originally wanted a watch with a camera and a heart rate monitor, but it had to be waterproof and once require all those things, the selection doesn't really exist. I didn't think that a watch's camera would be that good anyway, and I can always get a standalone heart rate monitor and pair it with my phone. With those features dropped from the list, Pebble started to look pretty great. Ironically, I can't comment yet on how well it does as a fitness tracker because I skipped my Sunday workout today.

But the notifications and the things you can do are pretty great. It vibrates when my phone rings and I can dismiss the call. I get an alert when I get a text message and can read it on the watch and even reply by speaking. I bought Snowy, a personal assistant app, which can do quite a few things. Mostly I'm looking forward to using my watch as a shopping list because the phone is pretty awkward to carry while shopping.

Garrett planted the garden today. Here's his photo I stole.



Chives, spinach, carrots, red radish, mesclun greens, onion, icicle radish, and an empty spot for more of whatever does best. He'll also plant potatoes in the corners. I tried my hand at gardening last year and didn't really enjoy it, so I'm glad he wants to do it this year.

Beholden to batteries

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I was looking forward to today's walk because I wanted to see how well Pebble integrates with MapMyRun, the phone app I use to keep track of my workouts and generate those maps I always post. I also wanted to compare the step count it generates compares to the estimate from the app. A while before I left, my watch buzzed and there was some notification about power. I hooked it up and it wasn't too long before it said it was fully charged, but soon I'd see that was clearly not true.



When I start the app, the face of my watch displays the same stats from MapMyRun that are in the notification bar on my phone, which are time elapsed, distance, and pace. Pretty useful if you're trying to walk until you reach a certain distance or time, or if you're trying to keep up a certain pace. But if it's steps you're interested in, that'll have to come from a different app or you can check the day's total in the Health tab. I don't think the steps that are collected by the watch integrate into the app results, but I won't know for a couple of days at least because my watch ran out of power. First it warned that it had enough power to last until this evening, then this morning, and then it just started displaying the time and a plug icon to indicate it wanted power.

My phone also had an issue starting yesterday that I didn't figure out until today. It's almost too stupid to mention. I thought that as soon as I'd installed the Pebble software, the battery life indicator was busted. It stayed at 100% and said I should unplug the phone, even though it wasn't plugged in at all. I'd tried restarting the phone several times, so when I got home I decided to try to drain the battery to see if emptying it and recharging would help. Eventually the notification went away and I decided to recharge it with my phone's case, which has an additional one. Only nothing happened when I flipped the switch. And it was in the off position. The reason the phone was acting like it was plugged in all the time is that it essentially was, because the case was charging it constantly. Oops!

I'm beginning to think I'm some sort of reverse psychic. It hasn't rained much in the last few days and last night I thought maybe today would be the day to return to the side trails. But when I pulled out of the garage, it was obvious that it had rained a lot overnight. That's fine. Until the sun comes up a little earlier, I don't have as much time to walk in the morning anyway. Today I got up to get ready 40 minutes before dawn, though I lost a little time setting up my phone mount in the car. I thought I'd found the perfect spot in the top right corner of the windshield, but that's the one spot where the windshield wipers don't reach, so the center of the dash it is. For now.

It was quite dark when I got to the gulch.

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Pretty nice walk, though. As always, I had to stop and enjoy that moment when the trees all blended together to form a perfect texture.

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And I walked closer to get a better picture of the mossy graffiti I posted the other day.

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Today"s awesome walk, 3.58 miles in 1:12, 7,707 steps, 395ft gain
3.58 miles in 1:12, 7,707 steps, 395ft gain

Sometimes it feels dumb to post the map of a similar walk several times in a row, but I like having the record. And when I process too many in a row that are similar, it makes me want to figure something else out to do.

Refining and workarounds

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I was all set to go this morning in the pool with the Pebble on my wrist to keep track of time and count my laps. It was working great, but then the same thing happened that I experienced yesterday during my walk. It said it had enough energy to make it to the evening, then the morning, then it died. They definitely need to release an update, but I've figured out what I need to do in the meantime. If I connect it to the charger, the Pebble will report pretty quickly that it's fully charged, but that likely won't be true. If I turn it off and back on, I can get a more accurate reading, and today it said 20% the first time I looked after putting it on the charger.



It's hooked up and should be fully charged by now, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep it mostly charged by taking it off when I wake up, plugging it in, and leaving it until I go for a swim or walk. I'm so used to just charging devices overnight, but I'm using the watch to track my sleep patterns, so that's not an option.

I mentioned in another post that my phone turned out to be a much better dashcam than the dashcam that I bought. Here's how sharp the video can look.



It took me a while to choose how to mount it. My original clip that I've been using when I want to navigate with my phone wasn't working because the angle was all wrong and I couldn't figure out how to get it to release. So I ordered a kit with a visor clip, a vent clip, and one that can stick to the windshield or a disc you can stick to the dash. The visor clip was my first choice, because I figured if I hung it from the passenger side visor, it'd be nice and high and I wouldn't see the wipers all the time. The angle was wrong, though, because it's designed to tilt the phone down a bit for visibility. The vent clip wasn't an option because the vents are way too low and the phone's too heavy for the clip to stay on a vent. I liked it on the dash horizontally, but felt the angle wasn't high enough, so I finally settled on having the phone mounted vertically there to get the lens a couple of inches higher.

And wouldn't you know it, the angle everything was at was too heavy, and it pulled the sticky disc off the dash. Figures.

But all that lit a fire and I finally managed to get my original clip moved over a bit, and now understand exactly how it works in case it needs to be moved again. I won't have to pry it off with a screwdriver again.

Since I want to be able to share things I happen to see while driving, the quality's important. Here's the earlier shot I got of the weed store's billboard along with one I got today. The phone was mounted vertically at the time and I think I could have gotten an even better screenshot if it was horizontal. Maybe I'll go a block out of my way tomorrow for a third shot.




Aside from the technology fiasco, the swim was good. The tip from susandennis to lick my goggles to keep them clear works quite well, and I did laps for 50 minutes. My next swim is the last on my ten-pack, and I think I'll go ahead and buy another after that. Forest Park isn't open again for another three weeks, and I think once it's open I'll still want to use both pools.

Compare and contrast

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I figured out that I hadn't been able to properly record my last two workouts with the Pebble because it was lying about having a full charge, so it got to spend all evening yesterday charging up, and was at 100% when I wore it to bed. I'm pretty sure it only displays factors of 10, because it's been at 90% ever since I woke up this morning, and that's even after several restarts, which was the way I was verifying the actual power level after a quick charge made the watch indicate it was at 100% when it was really at 20% or so. It didn't connect up with the phone to display live walk info today, but I didn't mind because today I wanted to monitor what I was doing according to the Pebble step counter.



I stood up to get ready 40 minutes before dawn and that's about the earliest I can go. It was quite dark when I got there which made it hard to navigate the one puddle I had to contend with, but after that I was fine. I made my way up to the top of the gulch just like I have been, and am pretty sure the timing would have been good for a nice sunrise if it wasn't so cloudy.

Which reminds me, I wish there were bigger windows at the Snohomish Aquatic Center, because I've missed what I could tell were some really spectacular sunrises while I was in that pool.

The runway lights were on when I got up there and I was really hoping to see a plane come in, which is one reason I went back and forth on the access road. The other was that I wanted today's walk to be over 10,000 steps, and after some quick math I saw that if I stayed up top until my watch said I'd gone 6,500 steps, I could head back down. It was 3,500 to get up there, so I only needed 3,000 before going back. Not exactly difficult math, but my daily step count was already at 454 just from the day's activities, which includes all my ridiculous tossing and turning in bed. I might grab a second app such as Misfit in order to access a step counter that's separate from my daily total.

Today"s awesome walk, 4.67 miles in 1:30, 10,049 steps, 408ft gain
4.67 miles in 1:30, 10,049 steps, 408ft gain

Since I don't have a standalone step counter yet, I emailed myself that 454 step total before I got out of the car, then replied with the total when I got back, which was 10,921. Subtracting 454, that makes a total of 10,467, so just over 400 steps difference between what the watch says I did and the app estimated. I can live with that.

I believe this is the first time I chose the USA Topographic map option in my screenshot. It's really quite silly, but all my maps look the same lately so why not? In the real world, some of the green that's been gone for a few months is on its way back.

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Learning curve

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The watch is doing much better. I charged it yesterday between when I got up and when I went for a walk, and now after wearing through the walk, and ever since then, it's still showing 80%. That includes this morning's swim. Not everything went as planned, though. I got in the pool this morning and selected the swim.com app, only to get a "not connected" error message. Of course it wasn't connected, as the phone was in my shorts pocket back in my locker, much too far away for Bluetooth to connect. That didn't matter the last time, but I'd done a factory reset since then, so of course the watch needed to connect to the phone to get the info I'd entered. Makes total sense. I didn't feel like taking the snorkel and goggles off to go back to the locker room and get everything set up, so I figured next time would be the time to try out the app, and I could at least see how many "steps" I'd get while swimming.



50 minutes in the pool netted me about 2,800 "steps", which is almost exactly half the ratio of steps per minute as I got yesterday while walking. It makes sense; I'm a somewhat fast walker and a pretty slow swimmer.

The watch is pretty great for its other uses. I appreciate how all the dumb little notifications my phone gets throughout the day show up on it and I can dismiss them with the press of a button. It doesn't make them disappear from the phone, but they can all be dismissed as a batch later on. I didn't do the best job putting on the screen protector, but there are five more in the package I ordered.

I'm pretty sure I've found the best spot for my phone to work as a dashcam. It works great in the lower left corner of the windshield and the videos are amazing. It was sunny out today when I drove home from the grocery store, and everything looked gorgeous. It's now sitting horizontally, too, which helps a lot. Here's the latest shot of the billboard which I've chosen as the test card.



SchadenFriday


Another extremely exciting update

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Remember the office chair I bought that wouldn't stop sinking which I tried to return, only to find out that because it was more than 30 days after the purchase, I had to file a claim with the purchase protection company I'd bought a policy with? If you don't remember, it turned out that they decided to just send me the money, leaving me with a chair that I liked, except for the fact that it sinks quite frequently.

I wanted to figure out a way to fix it. After all, it's not like I need the mechanism to work properly. I want it to stay all the way up, all the time. It doesn't need to move up and down to keep me happy. So what if I could just prop it up somehow? And that's when I realized, someone has probably thought of this already. And that's correct.

I think my search term was "office chair repair." If you search that, you'll see results for replacing and repairing the gas cylinder, but as I mentioned, that's more of a fix than I was looking for. But right there alongside that suggestion in the sponsored results, something caught my eye.


Sinking Office Chair? - chair-saver.com‎

Adwww.chair-saver.com/
Fix it quick without buying a new chair or replacing the cylinder!


It's kind of like bracelets for your chair. Big thick bracelets you can slip on. Exactly what I was looking for. Less than $23 total and it took me less than a minute to slip them on. They left a gap of less than half an inch, perfectly acceptable.

Always google it, somebody probably already made the thing you need.

CATURDAY

New hair

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I didn't go to the pool for several weeks last time I colored my hair because I was worried about ruining the color. It didn't matter much because at that time, I was only going once a week and swimming for about half an hour each time. Now I'm going 2-3 times a week, and I like to stay in the pool for an hour. That's going to be the routine for the foreseeable future, so I began to wonder if I should just never color my hair again. I figured an experiment was in order. The salon is using WebOpenings to offer short-notice appointments at a discount, so I signed up for an appointment yesterday.

I've still got a couple of weeks before my neighborhood pool opens. That one's a chlorine pool, and I've been swimming in salt water at Snohomish. Salt water's got to be easier on hair color, so phase one of the test will be to see how it holds up there. Once Forest Park opens, I might get the color re-done if it's worn off a bit and see what happens. I actually don't even need to get my hair very wet when I'm there since I tread water in that pool.

Anyway, here's the before:

"Before"



In the steamer:

"During"

New color lit by their new circle light:

"After"

Outside with sunlight and glasses:

One last one with glasses and sunlight.

I like this new color, though not quite as much as the last time I dyed it. She said part of what she used that time has been discontinued, which is unfortunate. However, she also said they recently did a class about different effects they can achieve with silver dye, so I might try something different soon. One example she mentioned was a denim color, which sounds kind of fascinating and trashy at the same time.

Mud = dum

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Of course I'm glad that I've found a way to walk at Japanese Gulch any time I want. If I bypass the lower part of the main center trail by following the railroad tracks, a walk up to the top and the end of the first service road and back is a good 3.75 miles with a nice climb, and I can even start when it's still quite dark. But it's pretty frustrating to walk past all those awesome side trails and just keep going. I might have to try Rusty Car or head up to the ballfields via the Garbage Can Plateau soon.



I caught a nice glimpse of the moon as I started up the tracks yesterday.

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The sun came up and I could see just how muddy it really was.

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Doesn't seem to be an issue for mountain bikers.

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Today"s awesome walk, 3.68 miles in 1:12, 7,918 steps, 393ft gain
3.68 miles in 1:12, 7,918 steps, 393ft gain

If you compare this map to the other recent ones, you can see I went a little further. That bit of trail that leads away from the end of the service road that I've been wondering about is not currently overgrown, though I had to bend over while I walked part of it. There is indeed a way to keep going past the retention pond and over to the next two service roads, but I didn't attempt it due to all the mud.

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I even had a little trouble when I turned back, the trail was that slippery. I'm tempted to go tomorrow for a longer walk, maybe one that crosses over the creek twice so I can get some good distance in. But I also am curious to see what it's like over at Langus Riverfront Park and Spence Island since it was so flooded last time I was out there. We'll see.

Easter!

Facts and figures

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I've had a lot of bad sleep since we got back from vacation. Bad enough that I finally asked for a referral for a sleep specialist. I've been putting that off for half my life, but now that I'm middle-aged, I'm a lot more nervous about the consequences of a bad night's sleep, or worse, oxygen deprivation. Last night was the worst night so far since I got the Pebble, according the the Pebble, and I'm inclined to agree. I get trapped in these awful loops where I dream about something not working over and over, and will wake up just long enough to try to get more comfortable in bed. This time I think it was about a video capture program I was trying to use the other day in real life, and in the dreams I just couldn't get the program to draw the area to be recorded on the screen. 20 times? Who knows. It felt like forever.



According to the Pebble, I had 2 hours and 52 minutes of sleep, and my average is 6 hours, 58 minutes. Last night's deep sleep was 0 minutes, and the average for that is 2 hours, 13 minutes. I didn't feel too terrible this morning, but it always catches up in the afternoon. I hadn't really thought about that when I left for the movie theater to see Batman Vs. Superman, and ended up dozing off for a while during a Batmobile chase scene. I guess that's as good a time as any. The movie was pretty good, in spite of what most of the reviewers have to say about it. But I also have terrible taste.

This morning's walk was pretty great. I was treated to another nice view of the moon when I got there.

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Not sure why it took me so long to try a panorama of the view from the tracks. I guess because I only recently started walking there and it's pretty dark.

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I spent the entire walk up debating whether or not I should do something in the Eastern portion of the gulch. It's been forever because of the mud, and I wasn't particularly optimistic since it rained so much over the weekend. But when I turned the corner to the access road at point A on the map below, this happened.

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My first Japanese Gulch deer encounter! And actually only my third total since we moved here. I saw them across the street from our driveway once, and I saw a huge buck eating some flowers near the entrance to Forest Park once. I really didn't want to scare them off, so after I got my photo, I turned around and left. Since I was turning back from what was to be my turnaround point, I decided to go ahead and make a big loop by going up to the business park where I park sometimes and enter the gulch again at Mukilteo Community Garden.

One bonus was that it was a little foggy up at the top by the highway.

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That entrance is paved for a while, which is a good thing, because it's quite wet. Some nice person put some plywood sheets in a couple of spots in the biggest puddle, which helps a lot. One trail I like that leaves from this area has been inaccessible for ages due to water, and looks worse than ever. But the way I wanted to go was ok. At first.

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That's not even all the mud on what I consider the "main" trail of the Western portion. I made my way around a big patch earlier using the side trail I've mentioned that seems to be specifically for bypassing mud. I got about halfway through this muddy area by going along the sides, but couldn't quite get the last six feet or so more to the second bypass. And I was only halfway through the mud. In this photo, you can see about 2/3 of the huge stretch. Oy.

Thankfully, I know the area well enough to be able to double back and go around. You can see at point B on the map where I turned back and where I finally got back to the trail.

Today"s awesome walk, 5.34 miles in 1:51, 11,479 steps, 508ft gain
5.34 miles in 1:51, 11,479 steps, 508ft gain

Because of the deer, I ended up going 1.5 miles longer than I have been lately! The extra distance is nice, and I think it's time to make five miles my average walk again. And while the residential areas aren't my favorite option, it's nice to see the landscaping. This is one of my favorites.

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Fogs and figures

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One of the things I like about driving out to Snohomish to swim is that there will often be thick fog everywhere in the valley that I won't be expecting to see at all. It's one of the reasons I wanted to get the dashcam hooked up. The best part is when you can see a huge wall of it just sitting there as you approach.

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One thing that's interesting is that the camera has a way bigger field of vision than I do. I couldn't see the moon at all from where I was sitting, but I noticed it on the footage.

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My swim was great! I did a full hour, only having to stop momentarily for minor adjustments. I gave myself a couple of laps without the nose plug when it became uncomfortable, and that helped a lot. And the app on my watch worked. Glad I made a note of the numbers as I was never able to get it to sync to the phone. I know it was a little off because it said I swam 1825 yards. That's 73 times across the pool, which is impossible because I ended up on the same side as I started. But I went ahead and entered it that way in my app and will compare it to future swims.

It was nice to see this at the aquatic center.

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And that the fog was holding strong as I left.

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It was a pretty rough day due to another night of bad sleep. Strangely enough, I ended up at the movies again, because my father-in-law wanted to see Star Wars. I managed to stay awake all day, though, including at the theater. I had an extra cup of coffee this morning, which probably helped. Hopefully I won't regret that tonight.


That's better

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I'm so happy to say I slept very well last night, and the Pebble figures agree. 7 hours, 22 minutes of sleep; 2 hours, 55 minutes of deep sleep. That confirms my suspicion that the "deep sleep" figure is a portion of the "sleep" figure, not in addition to it, as I definitely wasn't in bed for over 11 hours. I'm a little sleepy today, but it's the kind I'm used to, not the miserable kind like the last two days were.

The ball of my left foot has been pretty sore from walking on the large gravel that's all around the tracks at the gulch, and figured it'd be a good to give that foot a break by heading down to Lowell to try to catch the sunrise. My timing was great.



Today's one of those days where I took way more pictures than I'd ever make you scroll through here. Click on any of them to have a look around over at flickr.

I've never been down there in the dark so I didn't realize that the weird apartment building's cross lights up.

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Awesome sunrise.

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See the splash in the lower right corner here?

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That was a seal! I stopped for a while to watch him swim and dive.



Also saw a heron!

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And lots of geese. I barely missed getting some really good video of geese landing in the water and flying away. I need to get in the habit of just letting the camera roll more often. I can take pictures at the same time, so I may as well.

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I guess if I'd gone to Langus I'd have been in fog.

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The view of Mt. Rainier was pretty great today. Rare in my neighborhood.

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No idea what these are, but they're great.

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I can't remember the last time the river was so still. It was neat to see the mist just hang there.

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I'm happy to report that the mud on the trail section that leads to the restrooms was mostly dry, and the restrooms are open again!

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Here's a view of the bridge I've shown before, from the other side. That train sat there the entire time I was at the park.

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Today"s awesome walk, 4.72 miles in 1:40, 10,149 steps
4.72 miles in 1:40, 10,149 steps

It's pretty easy to do shorter walks there because it's not that big, but I wanted my 10,000 steps so I looped around a bit. It's nice to have the counter on my wrist so I know how close I am.

Looks like one of the things I wanted to do with the dashcam wasn't realistic. It's not good at capturing stunning views of stuff that's far away. From the car, Mt. Baker looks amazing, but in the camera, it's tiny.

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I still manage to get some interesting things sometimes.

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Try, try again

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The swim.com app on my watch really shit the bed this morning. I thought the 1,825 yards it said I swam on Thursday seemed a little high, but as I watched it fail to keep track today, I decided to use the clock on the wall to time a few laps. It almost always takes me about 50 seconds to get across the pool, which in an hour would be 72 times across. I always lose a couple of minutes for the times I stop to de-fog my goggles, but even with that, 18,25 yards is a lot closer to reality than the 475 my watch said I did today. That's simply not possible, and I saw it stay on the same numbers for several laps. Not sure what its deal is, but I'll keep trying.



It's not a huge deal anyway, as entering the distance and laps didn't make any difference in the estimate of the calories burned in the app. It says 964 either way. And I'm not counting calories. I like counting distances and times, and even if I'm never satisfied with with swim.com's doing on my watch, I can install a manual counter if I really want to record the distance. And Forest Park's opening again soon, so I'll probably be doing more treading water again. There's no distance to record there, just time.

The drive out to the aquatic center today was a real treat. I'm used to it being pitch black, but Spring's here and sunrise is happening earlier each day. Today was the first time I drove out where there was a gorgeous sunrise to enjoy the whole time.

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SchadenFriday

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A somewhat slow week. Add some in the comments!





CATURDAY

I made a silly video

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I've had the idea for this for years, but kept putting off learning to edit video so I could make it. I had a lot of fun with Vine this week, though, and decided it was time to go ahead and do it. I've got it on Facebook and Tumblr, but don't really want to put it on YouTube for fear that it'll just end up getting taken down. So if you'd like to see it, please go check it out at Tumblr.
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