Month: February 2021

The Story of Me Buying a Bike

by

I originally started writing this in May or June 2020. I have been pretty slow getting things published.

Even before the Corona Virus lockdown I thought about getting out with the girls on bikes. It wasn’t until last Summer 2019 that both of them were able to bike ride. They could not get very far on their scooters even though they both scooted for years. With biking skills I figured by this summer they would be strong enough bikers that we could at least travel locally around with them. Then the virus happened and we got locked in.

When I commuted to work my walking to and from the train, and walking to and from getting lunch was typically just enough to get my entire activity requirement for the day. At least according to my Apple Watch. When I worked from home prior to lockdown i would need to take a walk to the store or something to get most if not all of my activities requirements. Even before lockdown I figured one way to keep active when working from home would be to get a bike and use it as my daily exercise.

One of my friends at work told me about a bike purchasing scheme the company had so you could get tax relief on a bike if you wanted to bike to work. My luck the scheme closed at the beginning of the tax year on April 1. I was looking to buy something in the middle of April. I had to figure out plan b. I did some research online for a decent all around “hybrid” / street bike. I figured out what brands the local shop sold and found what would work for me online. I then went to the local bike shop on the Saturday before Easter. The bike I wanted was exactly what the guy at the bike shop suggested. I wanted a simple Giant Escape. I was half convinced before going to the shop to get the Giant Escape Disc. It is basically the bike I wanted with slightly more expensive Disk Breaks. The guy at the store told me the same reasons I told myself why I wanted to spend the £50 or so more on the better breaks. More bad timing the bike i wanted in my size was not available in the store. If I had stopped by the day before I would’ve been able to buy it since he had one in stock that he had already sold. Funny enough I did go to the store on Good Friday however it looks like they were closed. I figured since it was Good Friday they were. It turns out he had the shutters down but was open. I was lucky in the sense that he could still order the model and size I wanted online and have it shipped. Apparently several other models and sizes were no longer available since they were having trouble getting shipments from Taiwan.

The bike was supposed to arrive a week later however it took about two before it showed up. It was ready on Friday afternoon so I biked it home to give it a quick test drive. I hadn’t owned a bike in years. The Trek I had when I lived in Manhattan and Long Island city was long stolen from the bike rack in the long-island city apartment.

What could be considered even more bad luck was in mid-May due to the coronavirus lockdown my company announced they were re-opening up the cycle to work purchasing scheme that I originally could not use. Apparently due to the lockdown and concerns about commuting when the lockdown lifted there was lots of inquiries about it. Even though I bought something already I am still tempted to purchase a Bromley folding bike the of the scheme. With a folding bike I could go places with it and then fold it up and take it inside with me where as the bike I have i cannot. The bike I have I would never really lock it up and leave it anywhere. In all honesty I am not sure if I would actually use the folding bike the way i describe. The idea of it does sound very promising though. The other advantage to the folding bike is I could keep it in my home office versus having to keep the regular bike in the shed in the back garden. It’s a minor nuisance have to get it to get through the house and outside. The main reason I want a folding bike is I just want it. I know myself well enough to know that all the other reasons are pretty much rationalizing that. I’m trying to see how much I use what I have before I decide to get something better.

I knew I missed biking. I didn’t realize how much until I actually had one was able to go exploring the neighborhood. That though is maybe another story.

The Story of My January 2021 Reading List

by

After finishing Revelation Space in late December while I was on holiday I had to sort out what I wanted to read next. I was tempted to read the next book in the Revelation Space series however I reminded myself that I am trying to change pace at least a little bit between books. It took me me a little while to sort out what I wanted to read. I picked Dark Matter from my reading list. It was still science-fiction however a slightly different genre. It was reviewed very well and seemed a like it was perfect for me. A sci-fi book about multi dimensional travel.

Note there will be some possible spoilers of Dark Matter. I had such high hopes for this book. I started seeing sign’s i wouldn’t like it pretty quickly. Early on the protagonists meets a mysterious person was obviously another version of himself.

In another part of the book while he was in an alternate universe it felt like they murdered that version of his wife just to move the plot along. It made no sense or did not feel like they needed to do it other than to put him in a bad situation. I also worried that that twist would turn the book towards a framed murder trope. Thankfully the plot didn’t go that direction however they did use the framing point to a small degree.

Thankfully I was surprised at the direction they took leading up to the climax of the book. I was also slightly surprised at how the book ended. That was good however overall I still feel the book was mediocre. There are just too many sections of the book that I felt annoyed by what was written. It is hard to express however I just was disappointed. I did power through finishing it and I am glad that I did. I still might recommend it since it is a decent mindbending storyline however I wasn’t by any means blown away.

Once I finished Dark Matter I changed genres completely. I read Weapons of Math Destruction. I had heard about this book for a few years now I think. It finally made it onto my to reading list when I saw the author talking in the documentary the Social Dilemma. Sadly Audible UK did not have this book. I wanted to read it enough that I revived my Audible US account and purchased it that way. The author performed the audiobook herself. Her performance was really good. I’d like to say I loved the book however the book is disturbing in what it discusses so saying “love” is probably not appropriate. I thought the stories were fantastic. The issues are extremely thought-provoking. How algorithms are hurting society was disturbing. Overall I highly recommend it. It was well worth the read.

I finished Weapons of Math Destruction in the middle of the month. Due to work commitments I was pretty slow in finishing my next book. I didn’t finish it in February 1. I will put it on my February review list.

The Story of Me Getting off My Bum For a While

by

Prior to COVID-19 and working from home all the time I was semi-active. If I went to the office the amount of walking between home, the train, the office and back again (along with lunch or whatever else i did) was close to my exercise and move goals on my Apple Watch. If I went to Sainsbury’s or something on the way home I would go over my goal with room to spare. That’s not to say I was extremely active. I would force myself to get up and walk around at the office when my watch beeped every hour telling me that it was time to stand up. Even then I knew I needed to do more.

Then the lockdown happened in March and I worked from home all the time. Things deteriorated from there. I bought a bike in April hoping that I would use it to ride around. I did for a while. It just was not every day. I have loved riding bikes since I was a kid and I still do enjoy it. What I keep remembering is as much as I like bike riding since i do not like riding in every weather condition it is not something I will do everyday. I am glad I got the bike. It is just not what is going to be my daily exercise.

Over the summer and early fall I cannot recall. I decided that I would go for coffee every day. I figured that would force a walk. I was actually pretty good at doing that most day’s. It would give me a lot of the exercise I needed. It just wasn’t enough. I tried to walk more however I had an issue with walking that I wont go into detail on.

I needed something more and I knew it. My sister and one of my good friends said I should buy a Peleton Bike or Treadmill. When I stopped laughing I realised they were serious. My sister and my brother in law swear by their Peleton. M and my experience with exercise equipment is they take up a lot of space. We had an elliptical machine in our apartment in New York. I do not know how many times I used it. It was probably less than two dozen in the 4 Years we owned it. We were lucky that the local fire department needed one and they came and took away for us and were happy to do it. Funny story about that was the Firemen offered to bring the kids out to the fire truck and let of them climb around it as a thanks. They showed up with a pickup for the elliptical and the firetruck with the lights on. The girls were petrified and did not go anywhere near it. I thought it was cool though.

Besides the space a bike or treadmill takes up I am not up for paying nearly £1,750 or more for a piece of equipment and then £35 a month in subscriptions for the service. I never went to a gym other than the one in my building because I didn’t want to pay money for a plan that I would not use. That is a story on its own that I may write about

In September 2020 when Apple announced their Apple One bundles and Fitness+ I thought it sounds interesting and moved on to other news. When it launched in early December there were many reviews on some of the tech sites I read. So I read one review. Then I read a few more. If the service came out a year earlier I would have totally ignored it. It is launched at probably the perfect time for me. I need something easy. I needed something with a low barrier to entry. I didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of money per month. Fitness+ offered all of that from me. Sidenote, a low barrier for entry I am talking about me personally. I already had an Apple Watch. I already own an Apple TV and an iPad. That means I can do the workouts with nothing more than the Apple Fitness+ service. With homepods in the house instead of echoes (i will likely write about that in another post) we switched from spotify to Apple music family plan. With our iCloud plan it was cheaper to add the top end Apple One bundle for Fitness+ than just adding Fitness+ for me. By doing this we got Arcade, TV+, News+ and M got to use the services too instead of just me. It seemed well worth the price

I signed up for the Apple One trial. With the new trial account and a yoga mat I borrowed from one of the girls I was doing a work out in the home office or living room. The girls even joined in with me. I did a yoga every day of my holiday. I turned that into doing 30 minutes of work out every day since mid December with the exception (as of this writing) for one day in January.

I am hoping this is a habit I will adopt. And setting aside 30 minutes a day and I can do the work out literally feet from my desk. The beginner courses are perfect for me. For the first week I did the 10 and 20 minute beginner course. Then I would do a 10 minute wind down that was really a lot of stretching that I needed anyway. I have since moved on to 20 and 30 minute regular yoga classes.

M is even getting in on the action. Since i got the Apple One bundle she can use it too. I have been trying to get her to use my Series III Apple Watch. I had spare since I upgraded to a series 5. It wasn’t worth selling so I kept it and was just using it at night. She wanted something for when she did bike rides. She never took it. With me trying Fitness+ she seemed eager to give it a go. At the time of this writing we are competing in a seven day activity challenge. It is too close to call so I will not trash talk.

I am hoping this is not one of those things that in a few months I will look back and go yeah that was something I did. I am hoping that the habit will take it has such a low barrier to start doing every day.

The Story of My December 2020 Book Reviews

by

I have a bunch of posts to publish however after writing my post about reading wanted to write about what i had been reading over the past year. At this rate not sure if i will cover everything I read since January 2020 however I started a monthly recap from December onwards. I have December & January written now. This is my December post. Hoping to post January sometime this month in addition to some other stuff.

In December 2020 I finished two books and started a third. I finished one productivity, non-fiction and one science-fiction.

The first book I finished was tribal leadership. It was a fascinating book about the psychology of groups of people, a.k.a. tribes and how they organise. A lot of what the authors said resonated with me. I think because what they call a stage four tribe encompasses a lot of the trates and characteristics we have been aspiring for in devops culture. I think it’s hard for me to realise that even though I’ve been trying a lot I still gravitate between stage III and stage IV sometimes. According to the book the use of I versus we is partly the distinction. The good thing was even before reading this book I have tried to move towards the we your the group versus the individual. Not sure who recommended it however I think it was someone at work. Since finishing it I have been recommending it to others especially since we been talking a lot about dev ops culture at work.

The next book I read after tribal leadership was a bit of a change of pace. That was deliberate. I am trying not to read the same type of book back to back. I am also trying not to read too many books in the series straight through to give myself a break. The next book I read was Revelation space. I already read Chasm CIty. That was technically the 2nd book in the universe written by Alastair Reynolds. I was worried since there were mixed reviews about the audio performance on audible for Revelation space. After listening to the book I can understand what people were complaining about however it was by no means as bad as described or making it difficult to read/listen to the book. The story was pretty good and having read Chasm City did not ruin Revelation space. I have read that it shouldn’t prior to reading Chasm City so I was pleased that that was true. Clocking in around 20 hours to listen to it was pretty long but not the longest I have read. The plot was slow going at some points however they brought things together pretty nicely. Based on how much I enjoyed Revelation Space I will listen to the next book in the series. I am just going to take a slight break and change gears a bit first.

I finished Revelation space right after Christmas. I started on the next book straight away however I did not get to finish it until after the New Year. That means I will talk about it in my January reviews.

My Story of Reading Again Thanks to Audiobooks

by

Growing up I loved to read. As an adult I still enjoy reading however I have done much less of it over time. Looking back I don’t see one single reason why I stopped reading as much as I used to. When I was single I still read. It may not have been as much as in High School or College let’s say, however I did it. When I got married there was even less reading. I think the reasons then were that there was less time to sit and focus on a book. Especially when I would get into a good book and stay up very very late to read. Not something I could do with small children and feel good in the morning. Funny enough it is something my wife has done.

I have been maintaining a pretty big list of things I want to read. In the past two or three years I have started reading a bit more than I had been in the presiding 8-10 years. Interestingly as I started reading more I found it difficult to physically do it. I turned to e-books more and increase the font size. Around the same time turns out I needed progressive lenses. Small type was never my friend however it became more of an enemy in recent history.

I have known about audiobooks for ages. As a kid we even had a free tape recorder for books on tape because of my vision challenges. Back then I just decided to read instead of listen. Until very recently I think my parents had the take recorder they got for free from some service As an adult I have heard many people talk positively of audiobooks however I never really paid it munch attention.

For several years I have known I need to avoid the news. I went back to my blog archive and apparently I have been avoiding watching the news since at least 2005. I have been trying to actively avoid reading it completely since the summer of 2018. Every productivity and mindfulness person that I have read talks about how the news is not good if it doesn’t make you happy. At the same time I continue to read about how using social media is bad for you. I have gone off and on for a while not reading the news. I will go a few months and then fall back into old habits. Less so with social media. I have all but cut out Facebook and don’t really use many other ones.

Earlier this year, around January I decided that one way to help me cut out looking at mainstream news would be to read more long form books. I think the inspiration to try audiobooks instead of a regular book on my phone or tablet was that I was commuting on the tube and listening would be much easier. With that in mind I signed up for trial subscription with Audible.

Since signing up from Audible the amount of books I have read this year is more than the last 5 to 10 combined. Listening to books has been very transformative for me. I have not even wanted to read mainstream news as much and I am engrossed in books for 8 to 10 or 20 hours per book. I did relapse to the news after the US election through Christmas. At the time I am editing this post I am back to actively avoiding the news.

I have read so many interesting books that I would like to write brief reviews for some of the stuff I have read. It has been a mix of Sci-Fi, Fiction, & Non-fiction. I started almost about a year ago so I have a lot to catch up on.