James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead
- Thread starter Norm
- Start date
Will do. Hopefully weather doesn't impact the event. Looking wet for both tomorrow and Sunday.
The weekend, it has ended.
I have to admit that I am pretty tired tonight, and I really just want to go upstairs and read before I totally reboot my system for the slaughterfest that is going to be work this coming week. I don't want to belabor the work point too much, but something will need to give sooner or later at this pace. And after discussions with my boss last week, it will likely be sooner. He told the Professional Services org last week they are crushing me and he is going to pull me faster than originally slated. So that means when my 32 hours (they lost 20% of my week) are up, I'll drop the mic. At the current pace that will be Wednesday of this coming week.
The book I want to read is Infinite, by Jeremy Robinson. @MurderBort lent it to me on the Kindle, and it expires in 14 days. That's the greatest screen name ever, even if nobody gets it. I am also reading the Cryptonomicon-or-whatever it's called but I have to finish the other one in 14 days so that gets priority. Plus that one is 900 pages so it'll be at least 100 pages before the setup is even close to being set up.
Friday we went to the 4H Fair where we saw @Glenn Rides After 4 PM CST in the lot and then we hung out with the Kubicks, and so on. I mean, it's the 4H fair. Simon asked if there were going to be fireworks. Can you imagine how the cows would react to that? Saturday morning both the Grasshopper race & the CR TM were rained out so we didn't do that. We went shopping for school crap, then went home. Boys had a birthday party and I stayed home with Julia. Sunday we went hiking up at Ramapo with the kids and did the Castle loop, which was a solid effort for all involved and pretty much nobody really complained. In all, a solidly mellow-family weekend but I am exhausted due to a combination of work & training.
Look @Carson, no glasses! And those of you who are observant will note that Simon got a kinda-mohawk between the above & below pictures.
This week, I am not even sure what's on tap. I'm rushing through this. Sorry.
Training - feel free to tune out now
This is the end of my 3 week block, today is day 21. So next week will be a rest week. I need it.
Friday was a 2 hour easy ride. I was bored. First half+ I watched more Vietnam and it is just one hell of an awful war. Don't watch this documentary unless you want to feel better about the political situation now. Because I am pretty sure nothing was worse that the first half of 1968. That may have been the darkest period in our nation's history in the last 100 years. Holy crap.
Saturday I signed up for a Zwift race and it was supposed to be like 13 miles, but when it started it said 27 miles. We were 30 to start and it went up the hill which is brutal in a race. This was the Innsbruck course and this climb is 1300+ feet. Then on the other side it went up the stupid thing YET AGAIN, at which point I was at 13 miles and 2700' of climbing. Then the "miles remaining" stopped going down and something seemed off. I went down the back side and climbed yet a 3rd freaking time, for 4000' in 22+ miles. At this point I was in 1st place as I think everyone shot themselves. There were only 11 people left, and when it sent me up a 4th time I pulled the plug. I had done the mileage, I think the race was just stuck in an infinite loop.
This was beyond brutal. HR was 171 for 2 freaking hours. Boom.
Sunday I let @seanrunnette talk me into a morning race which was about 15 hours after the end of the murder-in-the-face fest described above. I felt ok warming up, but like a total asshole I missed the opening break because I was putting my playlist on to listen to. So the selection just walked away and I was in the Bell Curve of a 68 person race, along with Sean. There was 1 hill at maybe 200' and 8% in the lap and it was awful because I was exhausted. I did OK the first pass but then at the start of the 2nd lap I started attacking just to try and string out this group of 10 or so people. I told Sean to hide because I was pretty sure I was going to pop at the 2nd or 3rd climb of that hill and wanted to help him thin the herd.
Well, while texting him this stuff, and trying not to sweat on the phone, I got popped. And that was it. He ended up in 2nd so I guess we were in the "C selection" but I never have any idea where I am in my class. It's just a training race. You can see on my power curve where I break then mail it in. I rode out the lap.
Man, I am now cooked. Again, in 6 weeks or so this should pay some legit dividends. But today, yeah, wow I am tired.
This coming week, as mentioned above, is rest.
I have to admit that I am pretty tired tonight, and I really just want to go upstairs and read before I totally reboot my system for the slaughterfest that is going to be work this coming week. I don't want to belabor the work point too much, but something will need to give sooner or later at this pace. And after discussions with my boss last week, it will likely be sooner. He told the Professional Services org last week they are crushing me and he is going to pull me faster than originally slated. So that means when my 32 hours (they lost 20% of my week) are up, I'll drop the mic. At the current pace that will be Wednesday of this coming week.
The book I want to read is Infinite, by Jeremy Robinson. @MurderBort lent it to me on the Kindle, and it expires in 14 days. That's the greatest screen name ever, even if nobody gets it. I am also reading the Cryptonomicon-or-whatever it's called but I have to finish the other one in 14 days so that gets priority. Plus that one is 900 pages so it'll be at least 100 pages before the setup is even close to being set up.
Friday we went to the 4H Fair where we saw @Glenn Rides After 4 PM CST in the lot and then we hung out with the Kubicks, and so on. I mean, it's the 4H fair. Simon asked if there were going to be fireworks. Can you imagine how the cows would react to that? Saturday morning both the Grasshopper race & the CR TM were rained out so we didn't do that. We went shopping for school crap, then went home. Boys had a birthday party and I stayed home with Julia. Sunday we went hiking up at Ramapo with the kids and did the Castle loop, which was a solid effort for all involved and pretty much nobody really complained. In all, a solidly mellow-family weekend but I am exhausted due to a combination of work & training.
Look @Carson, no glasses! And those of you who are observant will note that Simon got a kinda-mohawk between the above & below pictures.
This week, I am not even sure what's on tap. I'm rushing through this. Sorry.
Training - feel free to tune out now
This is the end of my 3 week block, today is day 21. So next week will be a rest week. I need it.
Friday was a 2 hour easy ride. I was bored. First half+ I watched more Vietnam and it is just one hell of an awful war. Don't watch this documentary unless you want to feel better about the political situation now. Because I am pretty sure nothing was worse that the first half of 1968. That may have been the darkest period in our nation's history in the last 100 years. Holy crap.
Saturday I signed up for a Zwift race and it was supposed to be like 13 miles, but when it started it said 27 miles. We were 30 to start and it went up the hill which is brutal in a race. This was the Innsbruck course and this climb is 1300+ feet. Then on the other side it went up the stupid thing YET AGAIN, at which point I was at 13 miles and 2700' of climbing. Then the "miles remaining" stopped going down and something seemed off. I went down the back side and climbed yet a 3rd freaking time, for 4000' in 22+ miles. At this point I was in 1st place as I think everyone shot themselves. There were only 11 people left, and when it sent me up a 4th time I pulled the plug. I had done the mileage, I think the race was just stuck in an infinite loop.
This was beyond brutal. HR was 171 for 2 freaking hours. Boom.
Sunday I let @seanrunnette talk me into a morning race which was about 15 hours after the end of the murder-in-the-face fest described above. I felt ok warming up, but like a total asshole I missed the opening break because I was putting my playlist on to listen to. So the selection just walked away and I was in the Bell Curve of a 68 person race, along with Sean. There was 1 hill at maybe 200' and 8% in the lap and it was awful because I was exhausted. I did OK the first pass but then at the start of the 2nd lap I started attacking just to try and string out this group of 10 or so people. I told Sean to hide because I was pretty sure I was going to pop at the 2nd or 3rd climb of that hill and wanted to help him thin the herd.
Well, while texting him this stuff, and trying not to sweat on the phone, I got popped. And that was it. He ended up in 2nd so I guess we were in the "C selection" but I never have any idea where I am in my class. It's just a training race. You can see on my power curve where I break then mail it in. I rode out the lap.
Man, I am now cooked. Again, in 6 weeks or so this should pay some legit dividends. But today, yeah, wow I am tired.
This coming week, as mentioned above, is rest.
Sorry I never noticed you. I was in drop off the boy and head over to the polar cub mode.
Although we did get out of the car and try and see the K9 dogs. I like K9 dogs! But they were already packed up.
Although we did get out of the car and try and see the K9 dogs. I like K9 dogs! But they were already packed up.
Multi-tasking sucks. These "races" are effing hard. It's super-easy to get distracted for a moment and miss stuff. Next time, I say we call each other, headphone it, leave the line open and pretend we're not on the world's worst phone-sex line. I felt like crap when I went with that break, then realized you weren't there.
Magic
Formerly 1sh0t1b33r
I assumed you guys do this already, lol. We should set up a MTBNJ Discord!
That's a really good idea, actually.
jnos
Well-Known Member
Then the Podcast could be a daily.
I'm not sure if I mentioned I am reading Infinite on the Kindle, and not in physical book form. I came across this page the other day and it was eerily similar to things I have said before and a conversation that @Dominique, @2Julianas, @MurderBort, and I were having on the way to Virginia back on Memorial Day Weekend. I still find this thought pattern interesting. Incidentally, the book took a fascinating turn today. I haven't finished it but I recommend it for those of you who enjoy Science Fiction. Or you can wait until I'm done.
Anyway, the text:
On the topic of being tired, @BCurry, I don't have any firm opinions on this. I've been around the block on this stuff and it's my observation that the training & exhaustion cycle doesn't work the same for me as it does for some others. In general I do well when I have a lot of volume. Something in the 15 hour realm wasn't abnormal in years past. There was 1 week a few years ago I did 5 races in an 8 day span and felt amazing, until I didn’t. I have typically not needed as much rest as others, though like any human being I hit a breaking point. I have also found that getting maybe 2 consecutive nights of 7 hours pretty much resets me to normal.
I think what this means is that I have a very good ability to train and a really shitty on/off indicator as to when I should rest & build for my future. I've taken just one day off and already my brain is wanting me to delve into the Zwift world, or to get on the bike in some form. I am trying to be better about everything this cycle because I am old and I want this Road to Louisville* to actually go somewhere. So I need to make sure I rest and eat properly.
But yeah, I do get tired at times. I did double down on the racing this past weekend which turned the screws more than usual. Plus, you know, this is my first 3-week block in like 6 years? It's been a while.
* On that note, if I were to rename this blog or start another one, that would be the name. But I think the days of repeat blogging are done for now.
@seanrunnette - If we do a not-sex-line call next Zwift race do we need to have a safe word? I think we need a safe word. My safe word is "jurisprudence". Is that too long?
Things Accomplished Instead of Training
I find these rest weeks are really hard on the eating front. I am not burning calories at a preposterous rate yet my body is screaming at me non-stop to consume calories for the imminent destruction I am about to subject it to. I will do my best this week to eat oatmeal-salad-salad for my 3 meals a day, but you know how life goes. So far, I am 3-for-3 this Monday.
I also find that I want to get things done around the house that I may not have the time to do when I am riding more. I'm not going to take the whole week off but I will take a day or 2 off then ride easy as well. Still, riding easy does not leave me feeling like I went through a meat grinder. So today:
Anyway, the text:
On the topic of being tired, @BCurry, I don't have any firm opinions on this. I've been around the block on this stuff and it's my observation that the training & exhaustion cycle doesn't work the same for me as it does for some others. In general I do well when I have a lot of volume. Something in the 15 hour realm wasn't abnormal in years past. There was 1 week a few years ago I did 5 races in an 8 day span and felt amazing, until I didn’t. I have typically not needed as much rest as others, though like any human being I hit a breaking point. I have also found that getting maybe 2 consecutive nights of 7 hours pretty much resets me to normal.
I think what this means is that I have a very good ability to train and a really shitty on/off indicator as to when I should rest & build for my future. I've taken just one day off and already my brain is wanting me to delve into the Zwift world, or to get on the bike in some form. I am trying to be better about everything this cycle because I am old and I want this Road to Louisville* to actually go somewhere. So I need to make sure I rest and eat properly.
But yeah, I do get tired at times. I did double down on the racing this past weekend which turned the screws more than usual. Plus, you know, this is my first 3-week block in like 6 years? It's been a while.
* On that note, if I were to rename this blog or start another one, that would be the name. But I think the days of repeat blogging are done for now.
@seanrunnette - If we do a not-sex-line call next Zwift race do we need to have a safe word? I think we need a safe word. My safe word is "jurisprudence". Is that too long?
Things Accomplished Instead of Training
I find these rest weeks are really hard on the eating front. I am not burning calories at a preposterous rate yet my body is screaming at me non-stop to consume calories for the imminent destruction I am about to subject it to. I will do my best this week to eat oatmeal-salad-salad for my 3 meals a day, but you know how life goes. So far, I am 3-for-3 this Monday.
I also find that I want to get things done around the house that I may not have the time to do when I am riding more. I'm not going to take the whole week off but I will take a day or 2 off then ride easy as well. Still, riding easy does not leave me feeling like I went through a meat grinder. So today:
- Worked 11 hours. Yeah, this is what I want to be doing today but after my 40 hours for the week is up, I slide down the dinosaur's back and by Friday I will surely be backing off the resting part of this rest week. I also put in 4 hours yesterday so I have 25 to go and YABBA DABBA DOOOOOO!
- Clean the kitchen for the disaster I left it last night. D cooked dinner so it was on me to clean. I didn't clean. See pic below. This is fixed.
- Clean up the dungeon and set the bike stand up. This is hopefully a prelude to tomorrow. I would like these rest weeks to be bike-productive in some fashion so I always envision myself doing all the little bike things I never got around to. But you know how that goes. Anyway, step 1 is still a step in the right direction.
- All of the laundry, done.
- Started watching The Tunnel.
what is 40 hours? the amount of time engaged with clients (ie billable hours?)
Since the problems never stop filling the arrival queue, there is always the thinking part of getting stuff done.
Which can happen while zwiftering?
my ocd makes me want to repack the dishwasher.
Since the problems never stop filling the arrival queue, there is always the thinking part of getting stuff done.
Which can happen while zwiftering?
my ocd makes me want to repack the dishwasher.
I follow the same Friel-esque 3 weeks on/1 week rest training approach. I'm pretty toasty by the end of that third week. In particular, it's the high intensity workouts that get me more so than general high volume.
I'm with @fidodie , I'll come over anytime to organize that dishwasher.
@fidodie is going to be our podcast guest this week. I guess we'll need to expand our talking table, or make him sit on the floor.
1. On the dishwasher, aka The Great Dishwasher Arrangement Fiasco. What you see there is my OCD (possibly trumping your OCD). This is post wash, post dry cycle. The dry dishes have been put away, but the ones that have concave bottoms when you flip them over end up with water pools even after the dry cycle ends. So I then flip them right-side-up and let them air dry. I dislike putting dishes away wet so I do this when I am at home during the week. On industrial dish use weekends (read: kid's weekend) I'll cede and put them away maybe not totally dry. But when I have the whole day I'll often do this.
But did you really think I washed dishes like that? With the bowls right side up?
2. The work question is a good one, a very good one. This is something I think about often. There are many times when the solution to something can be literally 1 line of code, but the process of reproducing the issue, tracking it down, fixing it, testing it, and delivering it can take a real long time. It's not unheard of for 5 lines of code to take 4 hours when you are debugging. But I think that's the easy answer to the question. The hard answer is when you are designing something. If you are an expert, should you just know the answer and writing those 5 lines of code take that literal 15 minutes to write & test & document? Or can you count the time you are trying to come up with the solution?
I don't know the answer to that question. I don't even think there is a good answer to that question, especially when you WFH. If you are in an office, you can claim you were thinking about the design. I am effectively architecting 3 different systems right now as well as providing guidance for 3 other systems that are live but experiencing growing pains & bugs and whatnot. I don't have the time to devote to the 3 support orgs so I give the support guy 2 hours a week, on 2 different days a week. As an example, today we took care of 2 bugs in the hour. I was able to identify, fix, and test them on the call with the support team. But this is because I know the system really well and they were able to tell me exactly what the issue was. In that case, time is time.
But the 3 orgs I am designing for - what is the design time worth? I end up thinking about this stuff all day, often times from when I wake up to when I go to bed. I can't say that I work 16 hours a day for 7 days a week. That is not only inaccurate it's disingenuous. As a FTE, I don't really need to worry about this...as much. However, as someone who is on loan from 1 org to another, I need to draw a line in the sand because the org using me is now abusing me. So we've discussed me cutting it off at a reasonable number, and then the other orgs they are supposed to be supporting will need to fall. How else will anything get better if we just keep giving them free shit?
Ok ok I am avoiding your question. If I am working on something I can say is billable to the client, I count it. If I'm designing something that takes me 4 hours on & off, but I can do things around the house in between, I charge the full 4 hours. See list item #1 below. I worked on the bike through the course of the day but this was when I would take a break and think about things. Yesterday, I worked for one client the whole day. I was doing both the design and the coding for a series of stories needed to get the sprint done for this morning at 10am. I needed to balance the overall design with the specific story requirements, even the ones that were in conflict, and then I needed to think about how I was going to code it all together. So I would take breaks and do laundry, or whatever. This counts as billable to the client.
To the real point of your question. If I drive for an hour to think about something, then at the end of that hour I work for 5 minutes and do what I was thinking about, I think it's fair to charge the 1:05. If I still then take an hour to do an hour of work, it's hard for me to justify. In the end I try to count what I think is fair for both work and for my own life.
Also, when it takes away from my weekend I charge the fuck out of the org. I charge my time like a lawyer.
Discord - @1sh0t1b33r set up Discord for the MTBNJ team and we've been tooling around with it a bit. The intention here is to use the voice capability that is typically used for gaming as a way to talk while we do Zwift races. Oh yeah, I can feel the love that is going to ooze from that statement. We've been using it as a chat during the day but it's mostly been "wait what is this?" and "who stole my cheese?" and shit along those lines. @seanrunnette and I did a quick Zwift ride together today and used the voice to communicate, and it was good save for the fact I had to hold the phone to my head while I rode. Speaker phone didn't work and when I got the Ecoxgear to work he couldn't hear me. I'll need to find my old BT headphones to try and make this work properly for when murdeRacing starts again. It sure would be nice to have like 5 of us in some of these races.
Yeah I hit the trainer today for an hour. Couldn't go 2 days in a row totally off. Getting antsy.
Things Accomplished Instead of Training
1. On the dishwasher, aka The Great Dishwasher Arrangement Fiasco. What you see there is my OCD (possibly trumping your OCD). This is post wash, post dry cycle. The dry dishes have been put away, but the ones that have concave bottoms when you flip them over end up with water pools even after the dry cycle ends. So I then flip them right-side-up and let them air dry. I dislike putting dishes away wet so I do this when I am at home during the week. On industrial dish use weekends (read: kid's weekend) I'll cede and put them away maybe not totally dry. But when I have the whole day I'll often do this.
But did you really think I washed dishes like that? With the bowls right side up?
2. The work question is a good one, a very good one. This is something I think about often. There are many times when the solution to something can be literally 1 line of code, but the process of reproducing the issue, tracking it down, fixing it, testing it, and delivering it can take a real long time. It's not unheard of for 5 lines of code to take 4 hours when you are debugging. But I think that's the easy answer to the question. The hard answer is when you are designing something. If you are an expert, should you just know the answer and writing those 5 lines of code take that literal 15 minutes to write & test & document? Or can you count the time you are trying to come up with the solution?
I don't know the answer to that question. I don't even think there is a good answer to that question, especially when you WFH. If you are in an office, you can claim you were thinking about the design. I am effectively architecting 3 different systems right now as well as providing guidance for 3 other systems that are live but experiencing growing pains & bugs and whatnot. I don't have the time to devote to the 3 support orgs so I give the support guy 2 hours a week, on 2 different days a week. As an example, today we took care of 2 bugs in the hour. I was able to identify, fix, and test them on the call with the support team. But this is because I know the system really well and they were able to tell me exactly what the issue was. In that case, time is time.
But the 3 orgs I am designing for - what is the design time worth? I end up thinking about this stuff all day, often times from when I wake up to when I go to bed. I can't say that I work 16 hours a day for 7 days a week. That is not only inaccurate it's disingenuous. As a FTE, I don't really need to worry about this...as much. However, as someone who is on loan from 1 org to another, I need to draw a line in the sand because the org using me is now abusing me. So we've discussed me cutting it off at a reasonable number, and then the other orgs they are supposed to be supporting will need to fall. How else will anything get better if we just keep giving them free shit?
Ok ok I am avoiding your question. If I am working on something I can say is billable to the client, I count it. If I'm designing something that takes me 4 hours on & off, but I can do things around the house in between, I charge the full 4 hours. See list item #1 below. I worked on the bike through the course of the day but this was when I would take a break and think about things. Yesterday, I worked for one client the whole day. I was doing both the design and the coding for a series of stories needed to get the sprint done for this morning at 10am. I needed to balance the overall design with the specific story requirements, even the ones that were in conflict, and then I needed to think about how I was going to code it all together. So I would take breaks and do laundry, or whatever. This counts as billable to the client.
To the real point of your question. If I drive for an hour to think about something, then at the end of that hour I work for 5 minutes and do what I was thinking about, I think it's fair to charge the 1:05. If I still then take an hour to do an hour of work, it's hard for me to justify. In the end I try to count what I think is fair for both work and for my own life.
Also, when it takes away from my weekend I charge the fuck out of the org. I charge my time like a lawyer.
Discord - @1sh0t1b33r set up Discord for the MTBNJ team and we've been tooling around with it a bit. The intention here is to use the voice capability that is typically used for gaming as a way to talk while we do Zwift races. Oh yeah, I can feel the love that is going to ooze from that statement. We've been using it as a chat during the day but it's mostly been "wait what is this?" and "who stole my cheese?" and shit along those lines. @seanrunnette and I did a quick Zwift ride together today and used the voice to communicate, and it was good save for the fact I had to hold the phone to my head while I rode. Speaker phone didn't work and when I got the Ecoxgear to work he couldn't hear me. I'll need to find my old BT headphones to try and make this work properly for when murdeRacing starts again. It sure would be nice to have like 5 of us in some of these races.
Yeah I hit the trainer today for an hour. Couldn't go 2 days in a row totally off. Getting antsy.
Things Accomplished Instead of Training
- I intended to put new tires on D's bike, but I ended up taking it all apart and cleaning it too. I did this off & on all day, and finished up as she got home and was making dinner, which was another salad. So far Monday & Tuesday I am 6-for-6 with oatmeal-n-salads for dinner. This took all of my free time today. This is also a snapshot of why doing my own bike maintenance ends up being a total black hole of time. I fall into this rabbit hole of doing more than I anticipated and it takes me far longer than expected. Of course, I understand that my alternate to that is to do nothing, which of course is worse than doing just a little.
- Binge watched the second half of season 1 of The Tunnel. It was fine but I’m unsure if I can recommend it.
I'm sure you know this, but on the off chance... You've watched the original Bridge, right? It's still the best.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)
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Figured the bowls were in "staging" - wasn't sure if in or out. Thinking that the wooden spoon set supine vs prostrate threw me.
glasses co-mingled with mugs (which would have handles aligned), and non-strict back-to-front loading - i had to look away! 😀
Probably would have a seizure if the flatware was visible. 😉
glasses co-mingled with mugs (which would have handles aligned), and non-strict back-to-front loading - i had to look away! 😀
Probably would have a seizure if the flatware was visible. 😉
When I open the dishwasher drawer to put something in there and it's a disorganized mess, I consider getting a new roommate.
I sorta find it fascinating that Zwift still happens in the summer time, I guess it is too hot/humid/something now?
Well at least now you can coordinate better to win in virtual races. Real question, since the Innsbruck course has been available, has Zwift started crowing world champions yet?
Well at least now you can coordinate better to win in virtual races. Real question, since the Innsbruck course has been available, has Zwift started crowing world champions yet?