twosecondmemory.org

Why Blog

2011-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

So, I was reading this article on my phone which doesn’t render plain text very well so I wasn’t really paying much attention. But then I noticed it was talking about TODO lists and plain text. This piqued my interest so I read it. To say this article will change my life would a massive overstatement but there were a couple of points in it that made me think “aha!”. And then I did a facepalm. The first point I will save for a later post, the second point, and the focus of this blog post, was about private blogs. And this got me thinking about blogging and who my target audience is.

I’ve had blog for quite a while (my first blog post was published on 2006/08/13) but I never blog. And I realised it was because I always blogged for others. I now realise this is silly. I’m not an expert in my field, I’m not doing something specialised, indeed I’m probably not doing anything terribly interesting, I just write about stuff that interests me, annoys me or things I think are of note and really the only person I’m writing for is me. It’s not that I don’t care about people reading any of my posts, I do, it’s just they are not the target audience.

You see, it’s about motivation: if I think I have to write an interesting article because I want someone else to read it and think “um, that was interesting” then I’m probably on a hiding to nowhere. Whereas if I think I’ll write something I find interesting I might stand a small chance of succeeding and, most importantly, I might actually write it.

It’s not about the reading it’s about the writing and that is a huge thing for me.

Day Twenty Eight

2011-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

So my last Tour de Feb day. I have to say I’m a bit sad; I’m also a little bit relieved! I’ve enjoyed it for the most part, there were times when I really didn’t want to go out but I did and I mostly enjoyed it. It really would seem that the thought of it is worse than actually doing it.

So I did a bit a tour (no, really. No pun intended.) round the Inner West. I had a back wheel off the ground braking so hard (I was doing about 40km/hr) incident due to some silly bint pulling out in front of me and then reversing into the small gap that I could have just gone through. She expressed indignant surprise when I shouted a volley of very bad words at her but really what do you expect. But apart from that a very pleasant ride.

So all in all a little sad that Tour de Feb is over and yes I will be cycling tomorrow (a meeting in Surrey Hills), Wednesday & Thursday but I will definitely be taking Friday off!

I will be blogging about who has won prizes once the various timezones have caught up and I’ve worked out who has won a prize. Watch this space.

Day Twenty Seven

2011-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Lunch with @KathrynElliott’s family in Austinmere which is about an hour and a half away. We got back and I fell asleep on the couch which isn’t something I normally do but was nice anyway. So dragging myself of the couch for my penultimate, a short but exact 10km.

So tomorrow it the last day. I’m not sure what I’m going to do but I think I’ll try and do something a bit special.

Viva la Tour.

Day Twenty Six

2011-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Busy day today. Fix the car (had to get fibre glass matting from the local(ish) hardware shop), visit a friend to pick up some food, get coffee, back home to fix the car. 8 kms. Do some work. Go to the Local Taphouse to say bon voyage to @dylanfm & @brettgoulder in Surrey Hill. About 10.2km and then of to a friend’s for dinner another 3.1km. So another utilitarian day. 21.4km.

Viva la Tour.

Day Twenty Five

2011-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Well I think my rest day worked! I went for a ride round the bay via Leichhardt and across the new Iron Cove bridge which is despite being the mother of all fuck ups has a fantastic surface. With a slight tail wind I was quite happily doing 50km/hr. That makes me happy, especially when I went past a guy peddling like mad doing about 20 kms/hr. Hehe.

So nothing really out of the ordinary: no screaming drivers, no car horns no run-ins with buses. Tidy!

Viva la Tour.

Day Twenty Four

2011-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Today I decided to have a rest day. I had a few too many beers last night courtesy of nineforld so I wasn’t quite as fresh as I might have been. But I also just fancied a bit of a day off. So I rode to the station, got the train, got the train back, rode home, rode to mate’s house, and back. So a fairly cruisey day and a total of 5.4 km.

Viva la Tour.

Day Twenty Three

2011-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Today was always going to be a bit tricky! I had to go to client’s, a devops meeting and I had to fit an hour of boxing in. So I started riding to the client’s and was wondering how I was going to fit it all in. The most sensible option was to work from home, so after quick call to check that was ok I had a quick trip to the Little Marionette for anaother coffee & returned home. A much curtailed ride! So in total three rides today: a short aborted ride to said client’s; to and from boxing and the ride to the devops meeting. So all up 15.2 km.

Viva la Tour.

Day Twenty Two

2011-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

I was cogitating while riding this evening about that the fact that I don’t like any of my rides. I live in the Sydney’s Inner West and I love in it. But It’s a pain in the arse to get anywhere where I’d like to ride, for example I did laps round the container port this evening. While I don’t mind it, it’s, well, a container port. Not the most exciting place to ride a bike.

So my reticence to ride this last week or so I put down to the fact that I don’t like any of my rides. And I refute all allegations that it’s because it’s week three of Tour de Feb.

Viva la Tour

Day Twenty One

2011-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

I rather foolishly left today’s bike ride until after exercise in the park so after doing an hour of boxing I then took off and did a couple of laps round Annandale for a fairly paltry 5.2 km.

I was going to write last week’s write up but I’m absolutely shattered so I’ll try and do it tomorrow.

Viva la Tour

Day Twenty

2011-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Well it turns out that today was much like yesterday. This time it was a taxi and only for a kilometre. I expect this kind of behaviour from a cabbie, after all they are on about the same level as pimps. It still put me in a bad mood though, so a fairly short ride and then back home as I’d just had enough.

Oh yeah, I’ll do a very late week two round up tomorrow (just before the end of week three).

Viva la Tour (without taxi driving scum)

Day Nineteen

2011-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Today’s ride was sandwiched between writing a Riak map-reduce job and hosting a dinner party for friends. So I leave home and within 500m a car starts blaring it’s horn; this is not uncommon is not uncommon in Sydney. I turn round to see what the problem is but he just carries on blaring his horn & not catching my eye. Now, it’s my right of way so I keep my position in the lane and he carries on blaring his horn. This goes on for about 500m. I pull up at a red light and ask the guy what the problem but he’s still not engaging so I take the confrontational route and take his lane. I could argue that I was in the right as I was about to turn right. The guy starts blaring his horn and I turn right, he’s still blaring his horn so I stop in the middle of the road, get of my bike and try and see what his problem. Still not engaging I carry on, he carries on horn still going. Again this keeps going until I turn off in Annandale. A total of about 2km.

I genuinely do not understand what motivates people to behave like this. But behave like this they do. So I carried on and did a few laps before going home to greeting our guests. In my cycling gear. Ar well it was a lovely evening.

People blare there horns all too often here but I’ve never had anything like this happen before.

Viva la Tour.

Day Eighteen

2011-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

I think today was my laziest yet. Working for myself is something that I find immensely rewarding. It’s also hard but on the whole I would really struggle to go back to “normal” work. Given that you don’t get the “normal” interactions that most people get when they go to work you tend to develop these little rituals such as morning and afternoon coffee. In this way you get contact with others which in a “normal” working environment you would get from your peers. And I enjoy that. I know most of the local shopkeepers, cafe owners, publicans and bottle shop owners. One of those rituals is Friday Beer O’clock. Now I know that Beer O’clock is appreciated pretty much everywhere but it seems to take on special importance when you work for yourself.

Ergo at 1800 this evening I really didn’t want to go out for a ride but of course given that we are in full Tour de Feb swing I went out. I did five laps just up the road and was going quite well until I got self conscious about the group of guys that kept starring at me as I went past. They weren’t doing anything apart from leaning against a car, chatting and watching every rotation of my peddles as I raced(ish) past in my shiny Lycra. Nonetheless I felt shall somewhat vulnerable. Oh, and that it was Friday night well past Beer O’clock.

That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. So after a 6.5 km I went to the bottle shop and then went home. And drank beer.

Viva la Tour.

Day Seventeen

2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Dear idiot car drivers,

Swerving into my lane, nearly hitting me and then blaring your horn while I hold my position and then tailgating me while revving the shit out of your crappy Little car is not the way to make me move out of your way. When it’s safe for me to move out of your way I will do, until then I ride where the fuck I like. So really you aren’t helping.

Yours.

Viva la Feb.

Day Sixteen

2011-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

A ride to Epping and a frustrating day helping debugging a web services application with someone who doesn’t understand what a post method is. The word your are looking for is WTF. But it’s true. So after riding back from Epping, to go to training the park and doing a really, really hard session I’m utterly, utterly stuffed.

Viva la Tour.

Day Fifteen

2011-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

I had a busy today and what’s more a productive day. So at 1900 I realised that I hadn’t been out for my daily ride. Ops. Given that it’s starting to get dark a little earlier now I legged it out the door and rode to Whitebay and did five laps around the container port.

By the time I got there I only had half an hour of proper light left (I cannot find my lights at the moment) so I just went as fast as I could. There are few small hills on the route so it’s not like going round a velodrome but on the flat I was sustaining 45-50 km/hr which is good. And I really enjoy listening to the noise of the tyres on the tarmac. Relatively short at 11.1 km but my fastest yet at an average of 30.5 km/hr.

Viva la Tour.

Day Fourteen

2011-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

After a frustrating day of not getting much done, culminating in an intensely frustrating one hour phone call with Vodafone the corollary of which means I am now no longer a Vodafone customer. Good riddance Vodafone you are a disgrace of a company and I’m very relieved to be shot of you.

After that conversation I was pretty worked up and since I had received a new pair of bib shorts and a Polar CS200 I went out for a ride to work of my anger. Unfortunately it was cut short as I had boxing at 1730 so I only had a half an hour ride I managed 10 kms, then boxing (which, don’t get me wrong, was good), a ride home & then off to a friends for dinner. So a total of 16.4 km.

Viva la Tour.

Day Thirteen

2011-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

I was going to write a treatise on why I think cycle lanes are so very, very fucked. But it’s late and I quite honestly don’t have the energy. So I’ll give a brief synopsis of my ride. As normal.

I was tired from a boozy Saturday afternoon and not terribly interested in going for a ride but I did. And I have to say that I quite enjoyed it I did a lap round The Bay and then decided to do another lap which I also enjoyed. So that’s it for today.

Viva la Tour.

Day Twelve

2011-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen years ago to the day I moved to Australia. I arrived with a rucksack and nothing else. I remember it clearly. I left the UK after a big party in London and with a return ticket that was valid for two weeks (it was very cheap) I went to Australia. The journey consisted of two stops: Dubai & KL and each leg of the journey was eight hours long. It is still to this day the most time I’ve spent in the air going either to of from the UK. 24 hours is a long time couped up in a plane, especially when I’m 1.98m tall.

So anyway it’s now fourteen years later and my ride today is kind of relevant. The GF and I rode to Central and had a pie form Harry’s Cafe de Wheels with a longneck of Cooper Sparkling Ale. It rained: a rather fitting reminder of the country I’d left behind all those years ago. The ride into the city was fairly short but it was followed up by a ride to Rozelle to the Ruby pub to catch up with some friends and finally utterly saturated from the steady rain I got home. A trip of 10.34 km.

Viva la Tour.

Day Eleven

2011-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

I keep forgetting the blogging bit. Business meeting in the morning and then off to North Sydney to drop off a re-cut key that I broke on the weekend away. All in a pair if jeans and Converse boots. If you’ve never ridden in cycling shoes and cleats I really don’t know how you do it. I absolutely hate riding without shoes on.

I like days like this: using my bike to get to places that would cost a fortune in parking and tolls (not that I’ve ever drive into the city — I’m really not that stupid) or take a long time on public transport. On a bike they don’t take long at all. And it gets my Tour de Feb kms up. Yay!

Viva la Tour

Day Ten

2011-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

Another ride to Epping today, it actually rained while I was riding in. It wasn’t raining hard but it was really quite nice, I could have done with that on Saturday! I also seem to be getting a bit of form back in my legs which is good, I’ve been pushing it a bit harder than I have been doing over the last week and it’s been fine. So I think I’m finally over my cold. Still a bit tired though but that’s probably just due to not getting enough sleep!

Anyway I’ve got a busy day tomorrow so I’m going to trot off to bed now.

Viva la Tour.

Week One

2011-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

So after a small delay here is the quick round up of the first week I promised.

Well it seems that the first week was completely dominated by the weather: in Australia it’s been filthy hot, we had the hottest night since records began 150 yrs ago. In North America it’s been cold, @TheoSchism has this to contend with:

More images of snow here and snow and geese! (courtesy of @DavidBrowntweet).

So in total 1332.92 km (833 miles) have been ridden in a total of 110 hours and 50 minutes which by all accounts is a pretty big effort. The furthest traveled is 203.98 km by krschmidt, but only just; @bsteveb is hot on your heals (195 km) so no slacking. These are pretty big numbers guys!

Personally I’m stoked that you are all doing this and I genuinely hope that you are getting as much from this as I am. So good effort everyone.

Viva la Tour.

Day Nine

2011-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Six individual rides today. Yay me! 19 km to Epping and back. 1.5 km to training (1 hour of circuits) and back. Finally 2.2 km to a restaurant for date night and back. So a total of 45.4 my longest distance. I’m now very tired.

Viva la Tour.

Day Eight

2011-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Today was a bit a slow day. I’m still not feeling particularly good, in fact I think this is now officially the longest I’ve suffered with a cold. Um maybe that’s a function of age. <sigh>.

So pretty cruisey, did 4.4kms to the Little Marionette (fantastic, by the way) for coffee with @KathrynElliott and then off to #rorosyd for geeky goodness which was a sedentary (in thongs!) 7.41kms.

Sorry about the first week’s write up, it’s been nuts today. Tomorrow. Honest.

Viva la Tour.

Day Seven

2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Had a fairly utilitarian ride today to a meeting with my business partner. Nothing much to report on apart from that fact that my cleat came lose. Now there’s, say, about a 15mm range of cleat adjustment which really isn’t very much but I can tell you it’s quite surprising the difference it makes. Ummm, I sure that sounded more interesting when it went through my head after it happened. Ar well, it’s late and I’m
tired so I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got!

Anyway that ends the first week of Tour de Feb. I’ll do a bit more of a write up tomorrow but congratulations to all those who are still doing it, whatever your goals are.

Viva la Tour.

Day Six

2011-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

If you’ve been reading my Tour de Feb updates you’ll know that @KathrynElliott and I have been away for the weekend and while driving back into winter I was beginning to wonder if Tour de Feb was a good idea. So after a three hour drive and a quick rest I embarked on my day five obligation.

So the weather has turned from the danger of heat exhaustion to the danger of me being blown off my bike; I actually wore my three quarter lengths. So a fairly uneventful ride round a circuit that I’ve been riding for while.

I do have to say that it’s so very nice that it’s a bit cooler and to boot Sydney will be a lot less grumpy in the morning as everyone sleeps a whole lot better this evening!

Viva la Tour.

Day Five

2011-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Viva la fucking Tour.

Day Four

2011-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Out relatively early (due to some sundry hammering on a tin roof at 0730) this morning in Pindimar. But it was quite nice being out, there was a bit of cloud cover and it wasn’t to hot. In fact pretty good riding weather. I decided to go into Tea Garden which by my initial estimate was about 20kms, as it turned out it was only 16kms so I carried on to Hawks’ Nest. I’m not sure who came up with the names but there are kind of cute.

And it felt good. For the first time in Tour de Feb it was nice to be on the road. I didn’t push it and I was wearing @KathrynElliott’s heart rate monitor. My maximum heart rate was 179 b/m (which is 100.6% of my maximum capacity) and I spent 76% of my time in zone 5, 20% in zone 4 & 4% in zone 3. According to this I should have only stayed in zone 5 for up to 3 minutes! My maximum heart rate is calculated thus: 220 – age which, given my age is 42, is 178. So something isn’t right somewhere. I’ve got a heart rate monitor on it’s way so I think I might have to do a bit more research on this.

My destination:

Viva la Tour.

Day Three

2011-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Waking this morning I really didn’t feel like I would be doing any riding today, but as I lay on the couch and watched Gavin and Stacey for a few hours I started to feel better.

It’s also a friend’s birthday this weekend at her parents holiday home in Pindimar (about three hours north of Sydney) so we traveled up this evening and I have to say this is such a lovely place. I’ll post some photos later this weekend.

So we got here. I had a beer. And. Went for a bike ride. Now I forgot to bring my front light (it’s about 2130 by this stage and given that Pindimar consists of about 20 houses and three street lights, it dark. I don’t mean dark in the Sydney sense, where you can’t quite read a book, I mean dark in the true sense of the word: an absence of light. Now, obviously, it’s not completely devoid of light, there are the stars, oh and the three street lights but as far as riding a bike in a place I’ve never ridden before, to all intents and purposes, it’s dark.

So I launch myself into the dark and ride until I really cannot make the road out and then turn around and head back to where I came from, I then ride to the next street light, turn left and carry on until I could see the road no longer. Anyway you get the picture. I did that for about five kms. Somewhat short of the 20 I’ve been informally aiming for but given everything I think I achieved something.

Viva la Tour.

Day Two

2011-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Hard. It seems that my cold that I pretty much thought I was over is still with me. Again the first five or six kms was good but I was stuffed after that. It’s strange. apart from feeling tired (well exhausted actually) my arms are the thing that I really notice. I’ve never really had much upper body strength but, as thin as they are, they are not usually the first thing to go when cycling. That honour is split between legs and lungs: in no particular order.

So I got to my clients place, who fortunately arrived after I did and therefore didn’t see me laying on the floor looking like I might asphyxiate and started work. As the day went on I felt worse and worse, until after lunch I suggested that I needed to go home to which he replied that he would take me home as only an idiot would ride in “this weather”. I didn’t refuse.

So after a sleep this arvo, a bit more work and a ride to Newtown for “date night” with @KathrynElliott I’m utterly buggered.

Viva la Tour.

Day One

2011-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

That was possible the hardest 22.1 kms I’ve ever ridden! I had to have a rest in the middle as I thought I was going to pass out.

It was hot. Very, very hot. I’ve always loved the heat, I lived in Zambia for a few years when I was a kid and now I live in Australia and from about 8 years old I’ve used my bike as my primary transport even when it’s stinking hot. The heat has never really bothered me. In fact I positively revel in it. But it dawned on me as I was struggling on my carefully chosen route that I don’t actually cycle in it. I cycle in the morning, before it gets hot, and in the evening, after it’s cooled down. These are nice times of the day to ride. During the day when it’s hot is not.

So that was my first day. I started out ok but by about five kms I was absolutely shot.

One of my goals for Tour de Feb is to increase my stamina; I don’t think it could have come a day too soon.

Viva la Tour.

Blogging Again

2011-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Well it’s almost exactly two and a half years since I last blogged and I’ve getting the urge to contribute to blogosphere again, so for better or worse Two Second Memory is back. Since I seem to heading in a fairly minimalist direction in my computing life I’m using the splendid Jekyll. I’ve written all the CSS myself, can you tell?

As you can see it’s pretty basic and that’s intentional but I will be adding a few more bits and pieces such as an atom feed.

So that’s pretty much it. Nothing to say but blogging is now in motion!