Bouquetins grazing
I walked 16.9km and got this video of bouqetins grazing
A Short Run After Two Walks with Hiking Sticks
In the last three days I have been for two walks with hiking sticks and a short run. On Sunday the walk was a ten kilometre loop that took me across several villages. During the walk I noticed that a barn’s roof was generating about 8000 watts of energy despite the day being overcast. If more farmers placed solar panels on their roofs we would have less need for high tension lines across the entirety of Europe ruining natural landscapes as power distribution would be local.
A short Run
I ran just 2.5km before walking the rest of the way. I wasn’t using the 105 CHF On Running cyclon shoes as I need to return those. Instead I was running with the 110 CHF trail glove shoes. I ran a short distance because I haven’t been running for a while so I don’t want to overload my system. I also wanted to make sure that I didn’t feel that my heels had hit the ground too harshly.
Interval Training
I walked for five minutes and then I ran for one minute, and then I ran for one minute, and then I walked for a minute, and then I ran until the bottom of a slope and then I walked up the other side, and then I ran for the flat bit up to the tunnel and then I stopped the running track. I could have been more ambitious but it’s easy to fall into the trap of pushing more than we need to, just for it to look normal or good on strava, Garmin or other places. I am a walker, not a runner. I can walk one and a half hours to two hours per day, every single day, with ease.
I could get to that level of fitness with running but at the moment I need to work on building a good base, and then I can push further. It’s also a way of breaking the walking routine. if I run I can go out for a shorter period of time but get a better cardio workout.
Not Quite Nordic Walking
I started walking with hiking sticks, first because I have a minimal shield if unleashed dogs decide to attack me again, and secondly because it uses my upper body. By the end of the walk on Sunday I could feel that some arm muscles were not used enough in normal walking.
It’s amusing to look at cadence when walking with hiking sticks because for a big portion of the walk my steps per minute was zero. When I use walking sticks I make them long. I take two to three steps between stick movements so it counts as if I am either not walking, or taking a third as many steps as normal. That’s why my step count after a 10km walk is just 8000 for the whole day, rather than 17,000 as it would have been if the step counter had been in a pocket or somewhere else.
And Finally
For the first time in a while I went for a walk without a bag. Usually I always have a bag with me, whether it’s empty, which it usually is, or not. I don’t know whether it impacts my running comfort but I will try to run without a bag for a few runs, to see if I feel a change.
The Cow and Pheasant
Today I went for my daily walk and I came across a couple of pheasants. One was female and the other was male. I was actually standing right next to the female and didn’t realise until she flew away from me. I was startled but no more. I was more focused on the male pheasant.
I walked closer, to try to get a clearer photo but didn’t succeed. Instead it went into a field with some cows and when one of the cows noticed it went up to investigate. I thought it was chasing the pheasant and eventually it was. It was an amusing sight to see. A cow running after a pheasant.
it got better. When the pheasant went into the next field the rest of the herd came across to look at the pheasant.
No Desire For My Daily Walk
For years, or even decades, I have gone for daily walks. For years I have enjoyed them and for years it felt like freedom. Since a dog charged at me, and nearly bit me in Autumn last year, and since cars are in the habit of driving too fast and too close, on a regular basis, my desire to walk has evaporated.
Looking Forwards to Heatwaves
I find myself impatient for the heatwave to come back. In a heatwave dog walkers and normal people stay home. In a heat wave you don’t live in fear of a dog sensing that you’re afraid, and attacking. In a heat wave you have the freedom to walk off of roads without getting muddy. The ground is dry.
Dogs and Cars
I used to walk on agricultural roads but I stopped. Either you had dog walkers with large dogs, or you had people in cars driving fast. The car drivers thanking me for stepping off the road. I step off of the road, into the muddy field because I’m tired of them driving too fast and too close on roads where they have no reason to be. It’s a farming road, not a main road. During the pandemic farm roads were nice because few people walked, and few people drove. Now that traffic is back to normal the dangers of dog attacks and being hit by a car are back in force.
Of course I haven’t been hit by a car, or bitten by a dog in years, or even decades. It’s the risk that became toxic. It’s the nead to be cautious that tires me. Even with a pram people do not slow down, as I was reminded of yesterday. Even yesterday a dog was threatening. I crossed the road. The dog barked.
The owner said “that’s strange, he doesn’t usually bark at people”. One person had tried to get its attention, but then didn’t consider that others are afraid of dogs. Since last Autumn’s incident I never get near big dogs. I’d rather walk across a rain soaked field, and mud, than have to overcome my fear of dogs.
A More Varied Life
There could be a positive reason for my desire not to walk the same routes every single day as I have done for four years or more. My routine isn’t as routine as it was. I went to Spain for three weeks, and I often drive to walk in another village more regularly. That my routine varies, may be why the sysiphean walk has grown less appealing with time. Before I walked five or six routes, both clockwise and anti-clockwise and now I walk just two or three variants.
I’m tired of facing my fear of dogs, and tired of bad driving because I’m ready for a change. Thst’s a good thing.
Replacing a WD Thunderbolt Duo Drive with an ICY BOX
While consolidating all of my files and deleting triplicates of files I came across my thunderbolt Duo Drive. The issue is that the drive uses thunderbolt two ports and these are nowhere to be found. To be more specific it’s seen as a DVI display port by everyone but Apple for a brief period of time. The result is that I was stuck with data on a drive that I couldn’t retrieve. The solution was to transport the Duo to an old mac book pro with the right ports, transfer the data, and then think about what to do with the two drives within.
Thunderbolt Adaptor Expensive and Not Guaranteed to Work
For a while I considered buying a Thunderbolt 3 to USB-C adaptor but I didn’t know whether it would work for data transfer and it costs 49 CHF depending on when you look. That’s without counting the thunderblot cable to go with it. I calculated that I would have to spend 80 CHF to have access to the drives within this case.
Cheap RAID System
As I shopped around for hard drive enclosures I came across the ICY BOX IB-RD3621U3 for 69 CHF so I ordered that instead. The advantage I gain by buying this case is that I can use any drive I want to with it. With the Western Digitial Thunderbolt Duo they want WD Red drives to be used. With the Mybook NAS solution they want WD Green drives. With the ICYBOX solution I can have any drives I want.
Quick Setting at the Back
The added feature, which I have not tested yet is that you can have the case in single mode, where each drive is indepdent, big, where both drives count as a single volume, raid 1 where the data is mirrored or RAID 0 where the data is split between both drives. The advantage of raid 0 is that it writes data faster as it writes to both drives at once but it’s scary because if one drive fails all data is lost. I don’t remember if raid 0 or a single disk is considered scary RAID.
Not Hot Swappable
To the best of my knowledge the drives are not hot swappable, especially in RAID 0 and Big drive mode. It also requires a smaller screw driver that I have on a bike tool, rather than the Swiss knife. It took a few seconds for me to get into the drive but once I did everything went well.
Why Not A NAS?
In theory it could have been interesting to get a NAS rather than a simple HD enclosure but there is a 100 CHF difference in price. If I do want to use it as a NAS I can place one of my Raspberry Pi in front, install NextCloud or Samba and setup my own NAS within a few minutes. The other consideration is that NAS drives cost a lot more because they have to cope with being on for thousands of hours at a time.
One of my ideas is to use this box with PhotoPrism and Nextcloud in RAID 1 configuration. The reason for this is that if one drive fails I can swap the one that failed and then it will rebuild from the one that survived. The other reason is that having two or three drives plugged into a PI takes USB ports, power and space. If I have a single box it will be tidier.
Looking Forward
At the moment I have two terabyte drives acting as a four terabyte drive in Raid 0. Once I have backed up the data from this drive confidently I can either have them as a mirrored raid so that if one drive fails I do not lose all my data or eventually I can upgrade the hard drives to increase storage capacity.
And Finally
There are two advantages to getting such an ICYBOX. The first is that now if I have a DUO drive with ports that are no longer common I can simply swap them from one enclosure to another and use the drive with ease. I am no longer concerned with hardware ports. The second advantage is that it’s easy for me to swap drive pairs so I can upgrade when required but I can also quickly access data from another drive pair with ease.
In conclusion, although the automatic reflex is to an adaptor to get data off of a duo drive it makes more sense to open the Duo drive, remove the drives, put them in a new enclosure, backup the data and put the old case in storage. Within a year or two you can buy two new higher capacity drives and use them instead.
Melissa The Frustrated Bee
Imagine, you’re a bee. You stop off at the local watering drinking hole but you fall in. All the pollen that you collected in the morning is now lost. It is now in the swimming pool where you had stopped for a quiet sip.
Life would have been over, if not for a human being noticing movement in the water. A pool brush came from underneath and lifted the bee out of the water and then shook violently so you hang on. The brush is no longer shaked. Instead it is put down in a sheltered spot, away from prying bird eyes.
I don’t know if the bee will survive but at least it had a chance at not drowning. If it goes back to the bee hive it may go empty leg pouched.
The Predictably Irrational Daily Blog Post
There is no reason to write a blog post every day. I don’t have things to say daily but I try to write anyway. I have no interesting photos to share today. Tomorrow I may be more inspired. It’s also because I don’t have two hours to devote to writing a blog post at the moment. I could cheat by using AI, but that feels like cheating.
Walk The Distance – PCT 94 Percent Done
On the 10th of May 2023 I started walking the PCT virtually and now I am 94 percent done. I have about 300 kilometres left to walk and I will have completed the entire distance. Some of it was covered walking and some of it was covered while walking. Of course I didn’t walk the actual PCT. I walked it via the Walk the Distance app.
The thing about walking the Pacific Crest Trail virtually is that eventually you forget about it and just keep covering the distance, without paying attention to landmarks and more. I’ve been walking this virtual path for 10 months. I have ‘walked’ 4008 kilometres and passed 469 checkpoints.
At the peak of my walking habit I would have covered this distance sooner, but because of the return of cars and car drivers, and dog walkers, my walking habit has declined. I don’t enjoy playing chicken with cars, and being challenge to overcome my fear of big dogs that are unrestrained. If we were in the pandemic honeymoon I would still be walking five and a half million steps per year.
I like that we can take on such big walking challenges. On one app I am walking the Silk trail and on Walk the Distance it’s the Pacific Crest Trail. On Garmin’s app I am walking the AT. I think that when I finish the PCT I will walk the Continental divide trail.
The beauty of these virtual walking challenges is that I can walk the same 20-40km loops IRL daily, without the walks I’m actually doing being too boring.
In less than a month I will finish the PCT. I think that it will be done within 30 days.
Playing With Light
A coquille St Jaqcues using a glass of coke and the sun.
Spot the Heron
Can you spot the Heron?
