The Activity App Tried to Kill Me

The iOS activity app that’s tied to the Apple Watch gives these little challenges every now and then and I like to complete them because I am easily manipulated by technology.

It had a challenge for the Lunar New Year to do one workout of at least 20 minutes between February 1st and 15th. I decided that today was the day. I was going to hop up on that exercise bike and ride for 20 minutes. I brought up an episode of Tacoma FD (s3ep12 Pickleball) on my iPad and put it on the little iPad holder on the bike’s handle bars. Then I told my wife that if she heard a loud crash coming from the bedroom it was likely because I died trying to ride the bike for 20 minutes, and off I went.

I actually went for 21 minutes. The Activity app triggers exercise time based on your heart rate and for the first minute of my workout (which I tracked in the Workout App because I am not only easily manipulated by technology, but I am also chemically dependent on using technology for everything imaginable) my heart rate did not increase enough. I wanted the 20 minute workout, but I also wanted 20 minutes worth of exercise time on the app, so I had to throw in an extra minute.

What a feeling of accomplishment! Well… I assume I would have a feeling of accomplishment for catching the little carrot that the little app dangled in front of me, but my legs hurt so much that I can’t acknowledge any feelings other than aches and pain and a general sense of blissful, pain masking numbness.

The next challenge is to do 30 minutes of exercise on Valentine’s Day. That’s no worry. I want to do 30 minutes total every day, so it’s a gimmie. Assuming I can get my legs to move again. That’s sort of a big if right now.

Photo Geek Backup Plan

It was the last day of August 2019. Jen, Harry, and I had just played nine holes of par three golf and were out somewhere for lunch. Among the many things discussed were Flickr’s photo a day challenge (why?) and a scene in Family Guy where Peter takes a selfie a day for a year and turns it into a video. The next day I started a photo a day thing that has lasted for over two years now. I also started using an app to take a selfie a day and turn it into a video. I stopped that after one year, but a couple of months ago, while in my brief, ultimately unnecessary, quarantine adventure, I started another one.

The original idea behind the selfie a day app was that if I forget to take a photo one day, maybe I will have taken a pic for the selfie thing and I could use that. In the 2019/2020 photo a day thing it never happened. In the 2020/2021 photo a day thing it wasn’t an option, but it still never happened. In the current 2021/2022 photo a day thing… it happened yesterday.

I did take a picture of something but I deleted it. I think I took a picture of a letter where the text was too small for old people to actually read. I didn’t think that counted for the photo a day thing (why?) so I trashed it. Today I realized that I never took another pic through the entire day. But wait! Yes I did! I have a notification for the selfie a day app that posts at lunch time and I took that pic! I downloaded it, sent it to Flickr, and BAM! Back on track, babie!

Spam Filter Fails

Want to know something that would make me really happy?

It would make me really happy if the damn spam filter in Gmail would actually do it’s damn job.

I can’t tell you how many junk emails I get over the course of a day that I have already, on multiple occasions, marked as spam. I know I’ve already marked the from addresses as spam because when I send the new emails to the spam folder I don’t get prompted with the unsubscribe option the way you do when you send something to spam the first time.

It’s not the end of the world or anything, but it does get on my nerves. It is something small and annoying that really pisses me off when it happens.

Come on Gmail. I’ve been a user since 2005 for crying out loud. Do your damn job.

Weakness

I’m feeling weak today.

No it’s not a physical strength thing. I’m still freakishly strong (or so they say).

No… it’s… a Facebook thing. There’s a part of me that wants to just say duck* it and install the Facebook app on my iPhone and see what’s going on in the old guitar gear groups.

Yeah… weak.

*I thought it would be funny to purposely use the word duck, which we all know is autocorrect’s go-to fix for fuck. Unfortunately, when I tried typing out duck it somehow autocorrected to suck. I must have mistyped, but it felt like autocorrect was making fun of me for trying to make fun of it.

Pitch Meetings

We watch these things on the YouTubes all the time. Pitch meetings. Pitch meetings are tight.

A Downside of Weekend Work

So there is a hidden downside to working around the clock over the weekend.

There are a bunch of podcasts that I like to listen to during the work week that release new episodes over the weekend. This week I’ve listened to all of them. Now I have nothing to listen to during my actual work shift tomorrow.

Bummer, dude.

Unrelated to work, there was good news today. First, we got to see Bellana for about five minutes. She was passing through town and stopped in to say hello. Second, we had a FaceTime call with Harry! Both kids on a random Sunday! If only I had had a chance to shower and change out of yesterday’s clothes! Also, if I don’t get a haircut soon my head is going to collapse under it’s own weight. Keep an eye on the news. The headline will likely be, “Red Head’s Head Implodes. News at 11:00.”

Sleep is for Suckers, Boom!

I finished up the routines I needed to run last night at a little before 3:00am. I wanted to go to sleep right away but I was too wound up. I knew a call was going to be coming to start the next phase of the process but I didn’t know when. I wanted to get at least some sleep so I spent about half an hour cooling down and I was able to finally conk out at a little after 3:30.

The text messages asking us to log back in started at about 4:45.

I didn’t actually go to bed. At least not to my bed. My work setup is still in Harry’s room after the quarantinie adventure so I just dimmed the lights a little and laid down on his bed. I messed up his pillows a bit. Sorry about that.

The SleepWatch app tells me I got 70 minutes of sleep. 55 minutes were deep sleep, so I have that going for me. I reached 14% of my nightly goal. Kick ass.

I’ve got a feeling today is going to be one of those “do not operate heavy machinery” kinda days.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

“Exercise”

The clock was fast approaching 10:00pm and thanks to our glorious flake day I still hadn’t closed two of my Activity app rings. Move was about 3/4 done, but exercise… I had five minutes from going up and down the cellar stairs for laundry and flood clean up, but that was it. Five minutes down and 25 to go.

When Jen went to bed I went down stairs to check on the flood situation. While I was down there I “exercised” for 15 minutes. That’s the longest I’ve gone at once since I started this whole ring closing push two weeks ago.

After that I went upstairs to the bed room and gave my back a good 20-30 minutes of rest before getting up and finishing with 10 more minutes. Kick ass! I had all three rings closed at 11:00, with a full hour to spare.

I’m going to be busy tomorrow so it’s not a guarantee, but I’ve got a shot at my first perfect week in a long time.

Kick ass, dude.

I Love My Family

I love my family. They are the best. You will never meet finer people.

Knowing that I am going to be at my parents’ for two whole days and that I won’t see them at all during that time, they asked me if I wanted to play a game of Ticket to Ride Online with them. We all have it on our iPads and figured it would be a nice thing to do together even when we aren’t together. Look me in the eye and tell me that isn’t the nicest thing anyone has ever done. I mean, seriously. How wonderful are Jen and Harry? I know Bellana’s not a big fan of that game, but maybe we can find something we can all play, assuming we can sneak it in around her work schedule as she is working up a storm in the final weeks before school starts.

I’m not sure who setup the network at my parents house, but I am pretty sure they have a firewall of some kind that is blocking online games. I’ve mentioned my troubles with World of Warcraft in the past, and tonight I had to switch from the wifi to my iPhone’s hotspot in order to connect to the game. I know my sister’s kids were doing some of their remote school here last year. I wonder if they put something in to keep them honest.

Speaking of online games, Jen and I have been playing World of Warcraft for the last month or so. WoW is owned and operated by a company called Blizzard. Blizzard has been getting demolished with charges of various kinds of sexual misconduct in the work place. I believe their CEO resigned over it recently. Karmically speaking (I do not believe in Karma, but the principal still applies) we are both starting to feel uncomfortable supporting the company so we’re looking for something else to play. Jen was looking into Star Wars: The Old Republic today. She won’t have to twist my arm to play that one. A game where I can be a Jedi? Sure! A game where I can get in touch with my dark side and be a Sith? Sure! I’ll have to download that one when I finally get home from this nana/papa sitting shift, sometimes in 2043 or so.

Last time I was here I mentioned that the only place I feel comfortable doing my “exercise” is in the cellar, and I don’t like going down there and leaving my parents alone without having a legitimate reason to go down stairs. There is laundry to do tonight, so I have my reason. I didn’t have a chance to start it until a little after 9:00, and only had five out of 30 minutes done, but I think I can close the ring. I have been down stairs once and I got my time up to 15 minutes. I think I will have two legitimate reasons to go into the cellar before midnight and I think I can get in the 15 remaining minutes. We’ll see. It’s really hot here and the humidity is unreal. We’ll see.

I left work for the day at 3:30 today so that I could spend some time with Harry before I came to my parents house. We watched the first episode of What If…? It was really good. I can’t wait for more! While we were busy with the Marvel fun, an email was sent to the whole company saying that our return to the office policy was changing again. Our requirement to come in approximate once a week has been temporarily put on hold due to the increasing Covid-19 numbers (which reminds me, I haven’t updated my spreadsheets yet). My boss called me a little while ago to make sure we were all on the same page. It’s looking like going into the office is off the table until (probably) mid-October. Obviously that could change at any time, but I feel much safer. It was pretty uncomfortable being there the last couple of times. I didn’t feel unsafe per se, I just didn’t feel comfortable. Tonight’s announcement was like a sigh of relief.

Okay, I need to update my MA and US Covid-19 numbers spreadsheets, and then I need to mix a song. All of that sandwiched around laundry and “exercising” and actually going to sleep and stuff. Here’s hoping the quiet night stays quiet. Fingers crossed.