The views as I drove up to this ingress mission were beautiful. I could clearly see the Jet D’eau in Geneva and the streets of Lausanne on the other side. I could see how light was playing with clouds to provide enjoyable views. Gimel is a village/town in the Jura surrounded by forest and fields. The mission is a six kilometre run or walk. At this time of year wear snow shoes as other shoes will get wet. You start from the village centre and head north to the first check point. You follow field paths until the next checkpoint 1.2 kilometres away across mud paths. Once you get to the second check point the path is road without pavement so be careful of oncoming traffic.
The first and last checkpoints of this mission require that you upgrade the portals so make sure that you are able to. It would be a shame to go on a 6.2 kilometre walk only to find that the mission cannot be completed due to the portals being fully upgraded.
If you want a bag that isn’t a bag until you need it to be a bag then the Trevolution Ultralight Daypack is a great option. I like that it folds into its bag and that it’s easy to have with you at all times. What I don’t like about the version I have is that it’s too flimsy for daily use and the top opening is not practical. It requires both hands to open and close the main compartment.
I don’t like its feel on my back during daily walks. All the wait shifts to the wrong place and the straps feel flimsy when used for one and a half to two hour daily walks. It is not for that niche.
The niches that it does fill:
A shopping bag for carrying your shopping to the car, instead of using plastic or paper bags
A book carrier, if like me you start a walk, see a lending library and pick up a book or two, but don’t want to carry them home in your hands
A spare bag, in the car, for when you drop into shops where you’re not allowed to go in with a bag. Decathlon in Paris, or Mediamarkt for example. (I write this more as a joke than as a serious comment).
Travel by plane or train. I like to travel with just a twenty five litre bag, which is great for the trip, but a pain to walk around with in a city. Having a small bag is great, because you don’t need to empty the main bag.
Museums and other cultural locations: In the past I have been to events where I am told that I need to check in my bag if I want to enter. I usually don’t want to. With this bag you can fold it away, into it’s carrying pouch and then you’re fine.
Conferences and events: It fits in your pocket, and if you pick things up you don’t need to pick up yet another tote bag.
For at least two or three years I used a stoke Bike 10 litre bag. I used it so often, for daily walks to the shops, my daily one and a half hour walks, and more, that the zip eventually gave in. Small bags are great because you can use them for a rain coat, water and external battery to charge the phone.
Conclusion
This is a backup or secondary bag. It is good to keep in the car, in the pocket of a traveling bag or a coat pocket. It is good for occasional use. If you want a bag that you can use for two hours a day on a daily basis then a proper bag is better. If I could I would swap it for the version with a zip, rather than the cord to store helmets or other bulkier items. The one with a zip is 9 CHF more. There is a Sea To Summit variant.
I have managed to neutralise the inner censors. I have accomplished ninety five days of blogging in a row, once again. During the first 100+ days of the pandemic I did the same. At the time I thought that this would provide a document of how life was for the pandemic. The pandemic has lasted over 540 days and I eventually lost inspiration, and inspiration for new things to write.
This is a longer challenge than NaNoWriMo because it lasts for 95 days so far, and it has no end day. I don’t need to write three thousand words a day. I don’t even need to write three hundred words a day. I write this arbitrary number of words each day because I read that it’s better for SEO. The truth is that I don’t get any visits for most posts.
Consistent Writing
The point of blogging every day is to train oneself to sit in front of a blank text box and write. Some days the words will flow, and other days they will fall over each other and dam up the river of inspiration. This doesn’t matter. Writing doesn’t need to be good. It needs to be consistant.
My goal, and my hope, is to get myself into the habit of sitting down at a notes app, text document or other, and be able to write something interesting, without worrying. I want ideas to flow. I can edit later.
Amazon’s Mediocre Internationalisation Efforts
By changing from Amazon.de to Amazon.fr I have a new selection of books. I grew tired of using amazon.de because it is so hard to search through for English books. By using Amazon.fr I have found that there are numerous books about hiking in France, and Europe. This is great, because I spend a lot of time reading about hiking, for hikes that I would not do. Those that are in Europe are just a train journey away, and that’s good. It means it is realistic to try them. Especially the short ones.
We are going into the cold, dark months. The days of long nights, and short days, of fog and clouds. Now is a good time to retreat indoors and read and find inspiration for next summer. The probability that the pandemic is over by then is low, but we can always pretend to be optimistic. I will blog about the books, either individually, or as a group, when I get through one or more.
And finally
It finally feels like Autumn, at least for today. The rivers are still empty so we still need a lot of rain. At least for one day Switzerland felt like it had seasons.
I thought that when I bought two cycling water bottles and two normal day bottles I would be done, but then I found a nalgene bottle for a reasonable price, and then someone mentioned drinking from a steel container, rather than aluminium so I was distracted and tempted. I did tell myself that this would replace my habit of drinking other types of drinks. I thought “Stop with these drinks for three weeks per bottle and you amortise the cost”.
It goes deeper than that. If I stop drinking the two drinks I normally drink, then I will save money within three weeks, and not have to spend it again for weeks at a time. It may be materialist to want more water bottles than I can use in a week, but at least it’s a lot less plastic to be recycled on Monday afternoons. I don’t mind recycling. I just hate that there are set times when it is possible. I hate that it has to be scheduled, rather than spontaneous.
If I have less aluminium and PET then my trips to recycle are diminished. In reality my goal is just to switch the budget from one luxury to another, without having a new expense. If I find that I am happy with the new system then that is all the better.
Temptation 1 – to replace the half litre bottle that I use daily, because it’s easier to clean
Temptation 2 – to replace the 1l bottle I have used for over ten years, because it is easier to clean, and because it should be easier to carry.
If we were not in a pandemic, and if we were not in a society where people still do not wear their masks properly, and where people respect the 2 meter safety distance then I would go and look at the products in person, and probably lose interest. It’s because we’re in a long protracted pandemic that I am growing curious about such things. It is a coping mechanism. As dull and boring as it may sound.
A few years ago I looked at mobile phones, new watches, climbing gear etc. Now I’m looking at water bottles. I like water bottles. It is something that you use every day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep.
Rows of Corn
Have you ever considered that we always look at rows of corn from the same angle. We always look at them along the line of plantation so all we see is a wall of corn. Today during the walk I saw that some corn had been cut to reveal the seed rows of corn and it’s interesting to see the cistern like rows of columns of corn plants.
It’s interesting to see that corridor down which animals and other small creatures can run along. You never think of how distinct it is. You always associate corn fields with a jumble of corn, like a forest of trees. Unlike in old films and cartoons this is highly organised, so walking in one direction is easy, but not perpendicularly.
We are in the middle of a pandemic and governments see no urgent reason to end it by rational means like soft lockdowns. As a result of this we can pay 1100 CHF per year to go to an indoor gym, rebreathing the same air as other people, using the same machines, and the same washrooms or we can go for the cheaper 49 CHF per month option but run the same risk. I found Option three. Some Freetness machines were installed in Celigny by a children’s playground.
These are just the type of machines that I like to use when I am at the gym. They’re not as resistive as I would like. They require workouts using our own body weight. Today, to escape noise pollution I found the motivation to try the machines. At first I did three reps of ten before following their recommendation of 12 reps, 4 times. I could definitely feel the effort by the last machine.
It’s nice to have machines like this outdoors because they can be used at any time of day or night, as long as you’re quiet. The other nice thing, is that if you have your own disinfectant you can clean your hands and the machines, before and after you use them, as well as your hands. There is plenty of fresh air, because you’re outdoors. The sun, rain and morning dew should help to keep them clean too.
The two machines I didn’t really like are the eliptical machine and the rowing machine. The rowing machine only works the upper thigh muscles, not the entire core. The eliptical machine felt far too light for me so within two minutes I stopped.
If the body weight machines are not to your liking then you have the body weight lifting bars where you can work on lifting your entire body while hanging from some bars. I didn’t use them today, because I was blown from the other exercises. If you went every two to three days you would soon see some gains, and you do have variations of excercises, to keep it from becoming boring.
There is an app, but I haven’t looked at whether it allows you to track what you’re doing, or whether it is just video tutorials on how to use the machines properly. I can check that before my next session. I might throw this into my daily walk, rather than driving to it. I feel a double workout would be more advantageous. This workout takes 10-15 minutes for now. That is too short.
We are in a pandemic and I am between contracts, two reasons for which having an interest in the latest mobile phones is a futile pass time. I tried to revive my old Android phone and succeeded. I sometimes find it hard to get the phone recharged, and when it is recharged I need to keep it charged. This time I had a bonus problem. No data connection
I tried to connecting to wifi, no luck. I tried using the mobile phone’s data connection, no luck. I tried using one phone as a hotspot. No luck either. Restart the phone, no luck. In the end I tried a factory reset and the problem was resolved. Data worked both on wifi and 4g. The phone is old, but at least it allows me to play with Android when I want to.
Nettle Tea
I read that Nettle tea tastes of various things, honey, grass, slightly minty, spinach and more. The combination of those tastes didn’t sound appealing, except for mint and honey. I also wanted to see what they taste of. I spent an entire 2.95 for twenty tea bags and I tried it. When it’s dry it smells like hay, and when you smell it in boiling hot water it smells quite bad, like fish, or some other unpleasant smell. I then tasted it and it tastes like it smells when it’s dry. Hay. It’s like drinking the smell of a barn. You can see why people mix it with other flavours. Now I have one less thing to be curious about.
Jungfrau Tea
Jungfrau Tea, named after the mountains is made from seven herbs. It is made from a combination of round leaved mint, citrous thyme, orange mint, fennel seed, Lemon balm, Achilles Yarrow and mauve. I am confused by the lat one. The taste is definitely different. It has texture and I consider that it could almost be good. I have not added sugar or anything else and it has had time to sit so I may not be getting the full experience.
I try not to write about the pandemic too much. We are stuck in a loop where governments make mistakes, and people who don’t follow international news go along with it. We are four or five waves into this pandemic in Switzerland and it is only possible to remain positive if we expect little from our governments. England, Switzerland and Sweden have governments that are trying to ignore the problem, and pretend that it is endemic as soon as possible.
Meanwhile in most of Asia the pandemic is under control and there is less human suffering. Europe and the US are suffering, and yet other nations are not. Some people say that it is because in the West we have selfish cultures where the individual is put on a pedestal and community is ignored, while in Asia there is community spirit, and this helps to control the pandemic.
Either way, Covid-Zero should be prioritised over the fool’s errand of endemicity.
Now you understand why I avoid writing about the pandemic.
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