Reading Time: < 1minuteGrains in a hand, found on the road.
According to my watch, and farmers, a storm is coming. That’s why they are busy trying to harvest all the grain before it hits.
At this time of year you can watch the combine harvesters harvesting all the fields and collecting grain. You can then see tractors following up and gathering what they leave on the fields and making plenty of bails.
I will be present at the IFSC Climbing World Cup Villars tomorrow. For me climbing has always been an active rather than a passive sport. It has been a sport where the landscape is nice and the crowds are small. Tomorrow will be the first time that I go and watch as other people climb.
It’s not that I don’t watch people climb. Between climbing gyms, bouldering gyms, via ferrata and Rock climbing it is a sport that I have explored in depth. What I haven’t explored in depth is climbing with an audience, climbing as an event, climbing as a competition.
Program
Friday 15th July
9.00 – 16.00 Men & Women’s lead qualifications
17.00 – 19.00 Men & Women’s speed qualifications
21.00 Speed Finals Women & Men (LIVE)
22.00 Award Ceremony (LIVE)
Saturday 16th July
10.00 – 12.30 Lead Semi-Finals Men & Women (LIVE)
20.00 Men lead Finals (LIVE)
21.00 Women lead Finals (LIVE)
22.00 Award Ceremony (LIVE)
Instinct tells me that lead climbing should be the more interesting discipline as it relates directly to the climbing I do. Speed climbing could be fun and interesting to watch but it has less practical applications in ordinary climbing life. If I want to be lazy then I could go up on Saturday and stop asking questions.
On Saturday from 1300 to 1600 there is the concours populaire, That’s when amateurs can try their hand at speed climbing.
Villars Sur Ollon is a place that I have visited a number of times but for once we should be welcomed by summer rather than winter temperatures. It will also be for climbing rather than skiing, hiking or après ski. I will take pictures and let you know what the experience is like. It’s nice after organising satellite distribution for sporting events finally to go on location. We’ll see how energetic the crowd is.
Today a tractor was ploughing a dry field. A cloud of dust was not that visible but you can see that rain would now be welcome. I walked by the usual river and looked down and the rocks in the riverbed are uncovered. There is no water running over them anymore. I notied that in another field pumpkins seem to be ready.
MétéoSuisse note encore qu’après les deux mois d’été très humides de juin et juillet, des précipitations inférieures à la moyenne ont été enregistrées dans la plupart des régions de Suisse en août
Years ago I used to use weather apps to see when it would rain and I would even do things extra early to avoid being caught by the rain. Now I use weather apps for the opposite. Now I even consider driving to somewhere where I could be caught by the rain. I am bored of never seeing rain. I like rain. I like the sound. I like the smell, I like that it cleans everything. I also like that being indoors when it’s raining feels cosy.
Rain would also break the monotony of being able to go for a walk every single day without questioning whether the weather the weather is good enough. The weather is always good enough. The weather is so good that rivers are running dry. The climate has changed.
For several weeks I did not touch YouTube and as I have time to spend time there again I found that I am repulsed and don’t want to use the service anymore. Between the sensationalist content that is pushed on us, the non stop adverts and a general feeling of malaise the site is one I think I should now avoid. Its golden age is over, and now it’s time for it to become Yahoo or flickr.
Joke: I was on the phone with tech support when I walked by these and I was asked “What do the logs show?” I had a double take before I understood he meant the web logs and other server logs. I then continued walking
A pile of logs waiting to be transported by train
I am getting somewhere with my studies. I feel that I am now starting to understand ideas and contexts and that as a result I can start working towards reaching and getting stuck on the next plateau, and the next one after that. In short, I am making progress.
Today the Steripen adventure opti arrived and I tested it in a container. Testing such a device on clean water is useless. I did learn that it is not dead on arrival.
I heard about ClassicPress while listening to a podcast so I downloaded the files, copied them to the htdocs folder, entered a few bits of information and it was up and running on my local machine. ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress.org. It aims to provide those who do not like Gutenburg with an alternative solution where they keep control of how posts are formated and displayed.
For now you can download wordpress plugins and use them on ClassicPress but I don’t know for how long this interoperability will last. There is an explanation about how to use shims to use incompatible apps.
Today during my walk I noticed a sticker on a sign for EuroVélo.com. I don’t know how new the project is but I had not paid attention to the URL before. I like the idea of a European Network of Cycling Routes. I don’t need to capitalise these words. I just did, for some reason.
During my walk I was listening to two podcast episodes of a single podcast about hiking the AT and other hikes in the US. It’s interesting and it makes us want to travel to the US to try these walks. The drawback is that A) It requires travelling to the US and getting a visa for long enough to complete the challenge and B) We have plenty of walking and cycling trips in Europe to enjoy, and best of all they should be quieter because fewer people think about using these routes, for now.
The Route EV 17 starts at the source of the Rhone and then heads through Switzerland through France and onto Nimes or Montpellier, whichever destination you prefer. It bifurcates around the Lac Léman so you can go either on the French or the Swiss side. The French side might be shorter and differently busy.
The beauty of cycling rather than walking is that you can cover bigger distances in less time. The drawback is that you may be on dangerous roads. I hope that the roads are chosen because they are safe. I want to try some of these projects.
For a size comparison. Switzerland has 65,000 kilometres of hiking paths, and EuroVélo, so far, has 90,000 kilometres. The cycling is growing every year, and with time it may become a normal way for people to spend their holidays. People will go on cycling road trips, rather than driven.
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