One picture Tuesday

This was my speed while running the other day in NUS. It took me a number of attempts to get this, as it turns out it's quite difficult to run and take photos at the same time. Also, if I happened to slow down below 12km/h, so as to allow me to take a photo, the sensor would not register me. So there you go interwebs, something you didn't know about speed sensors.

Realization. Part 244

Assuming I live till I'm 80, and considering that I'm still technically 30 (for a few weeks at least), and assuming that I will read on average, one book a week, then we have:

50*52 = 2600

Which means that I have life in me only to read 2600 books. Or 2548 if I go ahead and admit that

I'm 31 already.

This makes for a very small amount of books considering how many good books are out there that I have yet to read, and just how many books I would want to re-read.

One picture Tuesday

On Saturday, the bird and I set out to run 11k around Macritchie Reservoir Park. Why only 11k you ask? Well, we actually set out to run 21k, but then ... It rained a bit on Saturday. Which is to say that the forecast was "thunderstorm" and that it rained heavily. So heavy so as to run through knee-deep puddles. And to get puffy exfoliating palms after 5km. And to be able to wring out about 1l of water out of my dry fit clothes. 

I had absolutely no remorse about stopping after 11km! We retreated to the shelter of a nearby cafe to warm up and I had two teh tariks and one laksa. Good times.

Bouldering at Granite Island

I've spent a while mulling over this in order to decide whether I hated climbing at Granite Island, Victor Harbour. And I finally decided that I actually really liked it. Despite the rough granite with many many crystal pebbles in it. And despite the fact that most of the times, your spotter is considering wearing a helmet because of all the pebbles that you are sending down while climbing. And the fact that sometimes you might step on something and then fly off the route because your foothold just broke. Or, as in D.'s case, come down off the route really quickly because the super solid undercling you were holding as your start just came off. Nevertheless, one thing that is most cool is that the problems are not very high, and that the landings are pretty clean! More info including topos and route descriptions can be found here.

The problems are interesting and tend to be in the slab, mental kind of area - my favorite! NOTT! In terms of difficulty, the ones we tried ranged between V0 and V2, with a lot of mental stealth with respect to footholds and handholds coming off.

Here's me on something called Plumber's Crack (I wonder why!)

This is one of my favorite problems so far. Trust Issues, V2, Umbrella boulder. Start on some footsies under the crack. The name says it all: delicate footers over a bulging slab to a slopey finish. Clean landing either on D or on Stalin and some spiky bushes to finish it off.

 Psyched and scared to death at the same time.

Lolcat Dreamz

Last night I dreamt that a box full of kittens had made its way to my house. From this box, I could only pick a certain number of kittens to save - I'm not sure about the number because it increased in every iteration of the dream - and the rest would go to an unnamed place boo hoo

I had trouble picking out the kittens because they were all so different! I picked a Russian blue that was BRIGHT BLUE!! in my dream because he slept on his back. I picked a black kitten with white spots (I had problems with that one because there were many black and white kittens running around so I had to remember which one!) I picked a very skinny very tall grey kitten and a fat, older tabby.

After picking the above, the other kittens disappeared to lalaland, at which point i got distressed and the dream started all over again.

Eventually I rescued enough of the kittens and got to actually play with them. At that point Suzie somewhat appeared in the picture. I remember that the newly saved kittehs were a bit reluctant to play with me, and that I kept telling myself "suzie is the most loving of all", and "suzie is the softest of all".

I then woke to find Suzie sleeping on my face. Purr.

One picture Tuesday

Judge me not by my books, but by the super cool way in which they are arranged. On the right of the bookcase I will stash the books I have read -> note that this is almost* true for the background column, and not the foreground, which should be only for mountaineering books (how did the rest get in there?!) The nearly collapsing column of books on the right are books I have yet to read. These will be transferred to the column on the right once I read them. I have yet to decide the fate of those books from the left column that decide to collapse. So far, that column has managed to stay like that despite numerous feline interventions :)

*Hell will probably freeze over when I will actually read the Wheel of Time. I think that (and Sasha right on top of it) are the only books that are Marian's. Also, the Maigret Omnibus (the yellow book) has one emergency un-read Maigret mystery in it. 

I've been having issues ...

... with my kindle. You see, at some point last year I went to New Zealand and encountered many many days of superiorly shitty weather. At some point during the trip, I also acquired, among many other things, a library of about 1000 ebooks, which I then immediately put on my Kindle Keyboard. To be fair, I would probably not read most of the books as they tend to be in the "love-vampire-books?-well,-here's-a-thousand-of-them" variety.

And then the battery on my Kindle started to act up. I would charge it and then it would discharge to 75% within hours and then to 50% within a day, and to about 10% within two days, even if I did not read anything at all. Not connecting it with the addition of books, I first thought that there was a problem with the firmware. And when it wasn't that, I thought that the time had come for a new kindle. What better time than the beginning of February (HINT HINT HINT) for such a thing to happen? Endless conversations with San about which Kindle model is better, and after finally deciding on one ...

... I googled the issue. That is when I realized that maybe Amazon hired some of our students  to write software for the Kindle.  Here's what the interwebs had to say:

Also, keep in mind than from time to time, the framework likes to mess around with the index files, even if nothing's changed in the content, and the more books you have, the more CPU it'll eat. (That's kinda true as a whole too, since it'll churn a bit on the index file every time it wakes up from sleep, too).

I went all crazy with this new piece of information and removed all but two books (Perdido Street Station and Mountaineering, the Freedom of the hills, if you must). No change in battery charge in the past two days. All iz well!!

One picture Tuesday

Every new adventure starts with a new stationery item! I have gotten soooo fatt and sooo weak over the holidays that I've started a new training program woo hoo! I wrote it down in this little notebook and then forgot it at work before going for training.. Sigh..

Mammal adventures

Today we went to climb at Granite Island, in Victor Harbour. Again. I had Marian take plenty of pictures of us climbing in order to do a super duper post about it. I was going to post about this today, but then something else happened:

Today I saw my first ever dolphin! True, I had seen some at the zoo in Singapore, but never ever one up close (#define close 500m) and personal!

Do stupid things sensibly

Somebody's stupid actions while running (that is, full speed running in 36 degrees, immediately after dinner and without proper hydration) nearly had me pick up the phone and rebuke said person for totally fucking shit up.

But then I remembered that I too, have done some stupid things in my (running) life, some of them detailed here on this blog. A few gems such as:

• getting totally pissed on New Year's Eve and THEN going climbing on New Year's Day 
• spraining my ankle and then running a marathon on it
• running barefoot in the middle of the day in Singapore
• running a marathon just before a big expedition, resulting in a minor stress fracture that could have threatened the climb
• totally ignoring the running plan, and running much faster than planned (ran 5min 15sec/km, sometimes even 4min 15sec/km instead of 5min 30sec/km), thinking that "It's supposed to hurt like hell" and "I can push through it" and "Pain is weakness leaving the body"

will probably never get repeated, mostly because I have fewer ankle ligaments, I'm not in Singapore anymore, my feet are now used to long distances, and now I know how the "all wheels are coming off RIGHT NOW" pain feels like.

I cannot help but notice that most of these actions are running related - fair enough, if one does stupid things while climbing one tends not to be alive for very long. I wish I could say that I did these stupid things when I thought I was invincible and will live forever, but I can't, because most of the time I still feel like that, and some of these things are pretty recent. I know that I would not have done the second and the third one had somebody told me about WHAT THE FUCK MIGHT HAPPEN. And I've learned from my mistakes as well: for example, now I do not run with a cold unless I really have to (?!) because it really makes one feel woozy, hazy and close to fainting, which apparently are things that are not good for training wheeeeee!

So, summing things up, I guess I'm probably not the best person to preach anything, really. There's this brilliant romanian saying "Do what the priest says, not what the priest does". Damn!

Meet Dude

Went bouldering at Granite island with D. today. Sent some nice little problems and made a new friend. Uncharacteristically, it took me a while to name him, but finally decided on Dude. It's not the best or the funniest of names but then again, who gives a fuck anyway?

Note to self: next time, do not rely on yourself to put sunscreen on your back. Get somebody else to do it, or else you'll burn!

Quiet celebrations

Seven years ago on this day I quit smoking. This is perhaps the only new year's resolution that I've actually managed to keep. This is a big thing (to me) especially since the depths of my previous addictions can be easily judged by my current ones (and my old age has definitely made me mellow addiction-wise). I celebrated by reading two-three books, taking ample naps, and watching two Poirot episodes. Life, c'est jolie, n'est pas?