My Bald Spot Solution
One day we will live in a world where I can walk around like this in public but for now I can only play hair clips with my niece.
(That's a genuine Brian L "Weeds and Sardines" t-shirt I'm sporting btw. One day I too will offer Anoopy swag.)
Mountain to Beach Marathon
My... I don't remember the number anymore... Xth marathon is in the books and it once again totally sucked! Well, it sucked less than the last one for sure, my famous failure in Honolulu in December where I couldn't run past the first 5k. This time I was working on pacing and was going quite slow but fast enough that I should've made it under the 5hr mark. But alas my feet started hurting, then my legs started hurting, and I ended up having a difficult time of things during the last 10K.
I did get a PR at 5hr 13min. I don't think it was because of the "mountain" to "beach" downhill thing, which was overhyped as there's plenty of uphill, including the first 3 miles or so. But in order to really get under the 5hr mark I'm going to need to solve the FOOT problem. I actually think if I can get under 5hr I can get WAY under 5hr.
San Francisco is just three months away...
The marathon itself was a mixed bag. It starts off in Ojai, a beautiful mountainside town and surrounding pastures. But once you get to the bottom, you're running alongside freeways, factories and even oil pipelines. You barely even run by the shore! I loved the first half so much that I was pronouncing it the prettiest marathon ever, but hated the second half part so much that I don't think I want to run again. (But if I do run it again, I'll stay in Ojai instead of downtown Ventura.)
Pliny for President
A Pliny the Elder / Allagash White ticket is something I could get behind.
Though I'm not sure why Whole Foods charged me 50 cents more than the regular Pliny the Elder when this seems to be the same thing with a different label. It's not like you're supposed to actually keep the bottle and label.
Headlands Half
My first long distance run under my new zone 2 running regiment, unfortunately not the best route for staying in zone 2 as it's super steep up for the first part so I had to walk to maintain zone 2 (actually zone 3 -- I have given up on trying to stay in whatever my heart tracker things is zone 2), then it was super steep down for the second part so I had to walk again.
But definitely the prettiest marathon course as you repeatedly turn into inspiring views of the Bay and SF.
I was distracted though, as I was trying to do some mental time travel as I ran because I'm pretty sure I came here on a three day field trip in 5th or 6th grade and I got sick during a hike so I wanted to travel back in time and encourage myself to continue with the hike rather than going back to the dorm to sleep, thus altering my life in unpredictable ways. But because you're reading this text, I obviously didn't succeed. Or maybe you're not reading it. I don't know.
Apparently I placed 3rd, as evidenced by this ribbon the organizer sent me. 3rd... amongst males 45 to 49. My group has gotten older and probably smaller so I wouldn't be surprised if there were only three of us.
High Stress Flying
When I'm flying by myself (meaning not with my instructor or on a check ride or something) I feel quite calm and at ease. I could stay up there forever if I weren't being charged 200 bucks an hour for the privilege (and you know, bathroom breaks).
And yet this is what my Oura Ring shows for my stress level:
That spike is when I was flying -- doing some low altitude maneuvering work around Leslie Salts (just to the West of Fremont) then shooting some takeoffs and landings at Livermore. I was at most 3000 feet up so I don't think this would be due to some Oxygen thing.
Foreflight and Oura both have APIs so maybe I can use some of my computer programming skills to match up stress and heart rate levels with takeoffs and landings.
Strava March 100km Challenge
I guess I'm as prone to gamification as the next guy. I joined the Strava March 100km challenge midway through the month having run just a few days in the first half of the month, and I really really wanted to finish the challenge so I was pulling stuff like this towards the end:
That's more than one Bay to Breakers length around Palo Alto Airport, all so that I could get above the 100km mark just before the calendar turned to April!
Teaching My Niece to be a Collaborative Human Possibly?
This is the madness that emerged when my niece and I took turns adding Magna-tiles to a house we were building and this time for the first time I called her out on that bullshit she pulls where she breaks the rule and starts telling me to put my tiles in certain spots.
I HOPE I'm teaching her to be collaborative and accepting of other people's ideas.
But I'm no child psychologist so maybe this is actually how you teach someone to not be collaborative and accepting of other people's ideas!
We'll find out in 10 years!
Is this a woman's watch?
I've decided to wear a watch in order continue my belated journey towards "stylish man" phase. My friend offered to give me his Citizen watch -- or specifically, the Citizen watch his wife had tried to give to her former boyfriend but somehow it ended up back with her.
I can't wear this free watch (which is the exact color I want!) for two reasons.
First, my adorable little back wrist hairs get stuck in the band and it annoys me too much. So leather strap it is. I actually think this will look good since my earring is black and my Oura is silver so having something not fully silver may be nice.
Reason number 2: I SWEAR THIS IS A WOMAN'S WATCH!!! Isn't it? It's so small and dainty. It must be a woman's watch!
I will get confirmation when I buy what I'm sure is the man's version along with a leather strsap.
My Airport
I want to frame a pic of Palo Alto Airport (in the middle of the pic above just behind the green golf course) from the traffic pattern around the airport... but I don't think it's wise for me to actually take a picture when I'm in the pattern since I'm supposed to be paying attention so that I don't crash into another plane or lose control of the plane and crash into the ground. So I'm going to have to for the time-being live with pics like this from a few miles away over SLAC / Stanford Dish and maybe once I get my license I can convince someone to go up with me, open up the window, and take a pic (because the windows on a Cessna 172S can be opened right on up to the plane's never exceed max speed 160kts).
Damnit Tim it's just Pictionary!
My favorite extremely enthusiastic YouTube music guy Charles Cornell has some thoughts:
I also like his takes on other game soundtracks:
Why are my fingers so fat?
This is a sizing ring from the sizing kit Oura sends you when you want to buy one of their sleep/health tracking rings. I apparently have plus-sized fingers because I had to use their size 13 sizing ring and this was the largest in the set. And it doesn't even fit properly -- look at all that excess flesh bunched up on the lee side. Maybe I can do finger folds to tighten things up.
Green Coyote Hills
All the storms mean I haven't been able to fly much of late... but I do get nicer views of the Bay Area landscapes thanks to all the rain. Shown here, Coyote Hills, green as can be, from 1,200 feet up (on my flight back from Hayward to Palo Alto -- a short but meaningful journey when learning how to fly).
Flying Everywhere
I think I've finally bored myself with my solo endorsement limitations. Today's flight was 2.4 hours and I landed at literally every airport I'm allowed to land at. I mean look at this flight path:
I also climbed to 10,000 feet for the first time. To do this, I had to get out from under any Class B shelves, and those things are everywhere up here! There is a narrow strip between Livermore Airport and the windmills just to the west of Altamont Pass which removes all Class B shelves and also remains within the 25nm range limit of my solo endorsement, so I went there and spiraled my way up to just above 10,000.
I've actually been higher than 10,000 before when I flew as part of a club flyout to Mt. Rushmore... but that was with a CFI and I didn't know what I was doing back then. Technically, I should be able to go up to 14,500 feet... but I didn't want to risk a heart attack if the engine quit.
One of my biggest difficulties with flying was sharply illustrated when I was so far up today.
That's Livermore Airport down at the bottom above the window latch. It looks like it's right below the airplane but it's actually 5 miles away. It's taken me forever to know where to point my eyes when looking for things in "the distance." A few weeks ago, if you'd told me that Livermore Airport was 5 miles away I'd have probably looked somewhere where Dublin and Walnut Creek are in the above pic, which is waaaay off. This is why I had trouble finding airports in the past during cross country flights, but I think I finally get it...
Boredom will hopefully inspire me to finally push through the remainder of my private license work and Docusign's stock price will hopefully push my finances up so I can buy my Sling TSi then I'll finally be able to begin the airport hopping life that I think I want to live.
