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What did you do this weekend?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I set a new personal best for distance biked in a day, 60 miles. It was a fun trip, 30 miles uphill to a glacial lake, then 30 miles back. It was cool to pretty much just cruise downhill for a couple of hours through redwoods out here in California.
At some point I hope to bike from San Jose to Los Angeles. That will probably have to wait until next year once we have a Coronavirus vaccine.
When you bike 60 miles like that, what does the ride look like? Do you snack on the way or eat a lunch after arriving at the destination? Do you stop for breaks?
I ride on a hybrid bike and my longest ride so far has been 30 miles. After that ride I was beat!
This was by far my longest ride I've done. Previously I'd done a 40 mile trip, before that a 30, before that 25. I've just gotten into longer distance bike trips a few months ago. Were I more used to long distances I might have taken less breaks, but I stopped quite a few times to stretch, drink water and eat snacks.
During the main climb at the beginning I stopped every 45 minutes. As I got more tired I stopped at 30 minute intervals. For the last few miles I was super beat and was resting my legs every 15 minutes. I'd been biking uphill for almost 4 hours at that point. I had almost no food left once at the peak but had a short rest on the lake's beach (interestingly, the lake was still mostly frozen over). On the way back I only took one break. It was almost entirely downhill so I didn't have as much need to stop.
I'm glad I did the trip alone. I can easily get demotivated by running/biking with people more capable than me and easily frustrated by being held back by those less capable. In the end I just want to have done it and have seen the vistas.
That is awesome. Sorry for all the questions, I'm just really impressed! My longest ride was basically flat the whole way so a 4-hour incline seems crazy to me. How much elevation gain was it? That ride back must have been a ton of fun.
And I can relate on biking alone thing. It has a meditative aspect about it that is better enjoyed when you can go at your own pace. I always feel 100x better when I go on a good long bike ride.
No problem at all! A co-worker recently said I've inspired him to do some more biking, so I'm glad to talk about it if it encourages more people to bike.
Google maps says the trip is 4,045 ft up and 686 ft down on the way up. Here is the elevation map if you want more information. I like hand-drawn maps (and didn't have any cell service along the route) so I copied that down to paper with landmarks noted along the height gradient. The route was purely along one 2-lane highway, so the height change is the only information I needed.
I won't lie - I felt like a badass rolling up on my bike to the vista points along the way where a half dozen cars were parked.
Downloaded Diablo 3 again because the guys and I can't agree on a multiplayer game that we can all play together and doesn't completely suck, made a vegetable curry for this week's meal prep, designed/built/welded a stand for my sandblasting cabinet that has provisions/space to house a pressure vessel for soda blasting, 3D printed Thien dust collector, and associated items, downloaded and converted all 157 episodes of classic Iron Chef to be the background noise show my wife and I put on the TV if we just want to have a drink and vegetate for an hour, discovered there was a two show stint of 'Iron Chef USA' between Iron Chef and Iron Chef America that was hosted by William Shatner that could have been good if it didn't have screaming sports-like crowds for an audience and actually focused on the cooking (but I'm probably just biased as I love William Shatner), did some garage organization to make better use of space.
Got a good recipe that you could share? I would be interested in making some later this week!
This is the one my wife picked out for this week. The recipe is technically for chicken, but once per month we have a vegetarian meal prep week to cut down on the amount of meat we eat. So I just replaced the chicken with cubed potatoes. Suggest adding the cayenne later instead of browning the chicken/potatoes with the cayenne on as you'll mace yourself and make it hard to breath. Don't ask me how I know.
I played a bit of Talos Principle. I like the puzzles, but then the game asked me if my life meant anything, and if it did or didn't how would I even know, and oh boy I was not in the right headspace for that.
I ended up watching a bunch of Dimension 20, burning through podcasts while walking my dog, and practicing piano. Right now I'm working on Sonatina in A minor by Jiri Antonin Benda. ( Link ), it's pretty fun and not super challenging.
Context: creating a web app that finds the best moments in Twitch videos.
I pretty much have what I consider to be the MVP. There's a lot left to be done, but the essential is there and most importantly, the service is stable. That's what I've mainly worked on. Previously the analysis work was done by a basic Azure function. This meant a forced timeout for long requests (so basically all of them). Plus multiple requests weren't handled at all. Now you're meant to request the analysis and then ping the server for quick progress updates. That includes knowing where you are in the analysis queue.
Before releasing a public beta, I need to iron out the last bugs, and do all those hoops to use my domain name and it being HTTPS which is a massive pain in the ass when you use Azure Static Storage and want to use your apex domain. So instead I'm going to chill and actually use my web app for personal use, which, you know, is also nice.
It feels weird, I've never pushed an idea this far along.
EDIT: damn it, there's a bug in the handling of the queue... welp, back to the drawing board, see y'all next week.
I finalized my cover of Coil's Batwings in VCV Rack, I'm happy with the result, got lucky with the vocalist. It's pretty cool to see the track play itself live too :
https://vimeo.com/414890640
I watched Nothing But Trouble (1991) for the first time. If you’ve never seen it, the movie is a surreal experience. It’s just a non-stop parade of “how the hell did no one tell Dan Ackroyd no?” moments.
It’s an undeniably bad film. It might be one of the worst studio films I’ve ever seen.
Oh I love terrible movies! This sounds wild, thanks for the (non) recommendation!
The thing is, I can't even say it's worth watching in a so bad it circles back to being funny again sense. It's just flat out bad. It misses all the marks.
Oh boy. Those are so hard to watch. But now I feel I must try! And I have nothing but time
Please let me know what you think. At least if you watch it, I can talk about it with someone else!
I listened to a radio play of Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell along with reading some of the essays he wrote. Other than that, not too much.
My husband and I don't binge watch much of anything ever, but we started up Brooklyn Nine-Nine and made it through most of the first season. We are big fans of The Office and Parks and Recreation so this is right up our alley. I'm looking forward to getting through the remaining seasons in the coming weeks.
Brooklyn Nine Nine briefly dips down for a little bit, but then comes back even better than the first few seasons. It's been on fire for the past few seasons.
Kept thinking about playing guitar again.
I played for three years I think and got tired of it. Sold my amp, guitar, everything. 3 or 4 years ago I borrowed one for some days because I wanted to play again. Touched it one day and never more.
Now I'm getting the urge again, but it is a time and money commitment to do this again and I fear it will be all the same.
Is there any way to know if this will stick before going after everything? I don't have any to borrow anymore.
I think I will give a time until the end of this pandemic. I might just be bored...
After things go back to normal if i still want this, I will go after it.
With work, my courses and other things going on I'm sure I won't care so much about adding another commitment.
I've had a similar pull to pick piano back up recently. I played for years as a kid and loved it, but I've been through two spells of "I'll start back up again!" before not following through. It's one of those things that's always on my horizon but that I've never been willing to jump on because the buy-in cost is so high, even for a digital piano (which is what I would get in lieu of an upright).
I was thinking of getting a small midi controller with 37 or 49 keys, plug in the computer and have all the sounds I want.
Could learn how to play some videogame songs I like.
A melodica is cheap and fun if you have any keyboard experience. I like playing melody lines sorta like a horn player. (Or so I imagine, not being a horn player.) Playing one-handed makes learning songs a lot easier.
I watched a couple old soccer matches that FIFA posted to their Youtube channel to encourage people to stay home. 1966 World Cup final between England and West Germany then a 1990 World Cup RO16 game between West Germany and the Netherlands. Actually, I think I downloaded the 1966 game separately, but the other is from FIFA's channel.
So wild that the Queen was there in 1966 to present the trophy to England along with the in-exile Prince Edward. And that West Germany remained a thing into the 90s. I think that was Germany's last tournament before the name change.