Finished reading: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse is a great story about a monster hunter on a Navajo reservation after a climate apocalypse📚
Finished reading: The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi is a fun “soldiers in space” book with some interesting ethical concepts📚
Finished reading: A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is really good. A strong emotional core with an intriguing sci-fi structure📚
Busy morning so far
One of the highlights from last night’s Stout Beer Festival: Beeramisu Imperial Stout from the Third Moon and Bellwoods breweries
Although I was disappointed to miss out on attending Micro Camp March 2022, I’ve enjoyed catching up on the videos. A nice diversity of topics, each very well presented
I think I liked season 1 of Raised by Wolves? A curious mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror that overall was more about mood than plot. I’m not sure what to make of the ending yet.
Integrating MindNode, Reminders, and Mail 🗺 ✅ 📧
I’m still using MindNode for task management. Seeing all of my tasks, projects, and areas of focus on one mind map has been really helpful, especially since it is integrated with Reminders.
One challenge has been integration with Mail, given the majority of my tasks arrive via email. Despite Apple’s seemingly inexplicable decision to isolate Mail from the usual sharing actions found in other apps, they at least allow drag and drop from Mail into Reminders, which adds a link to the original email message. This works with MindNode too. If you drag an email onto a node, it will add a link there. The issue is that when you synchronize MindNode with Reminders, the links to emails from MindNode no longer work when shown in Reminders.
After tinkering around for a bit, there’s a relatively easy fix. When you drag a mail message to a node in MindNode, it adds a url that looks something like:
message:%3CYT2PR01MB9@YT2PR01MB9447.CANPRD01%3E
Editing the link to add // after message:makes the link work in Reminders, while also continuing to work in MindNode.
I’m not sure why MindNode creates a url that isn’t accessible from other apps (perhaps a security feature?). At least this fix, though a bit annoying, allows for a more seamless integration between Mail, MindNode, and Reminders.
As a follow up to my post about swimming with an Apple Watch, I’ll note that the watch only records activity when your arm is moving. So, things like kicking drills aren’t recorded. Not a serious issue for me, though this can make stats inaccurate.
Despite this, I still appreciate the simplicity of using the Apple Watch to train for triathlons.
Pancakes for dinner
Indoor cycling 🚴♂️
The last piece of my training setup was an indoor bike trainer. Canadian winters aren’t great for outdoor cycling (-20ºC with a blizzard just a few days ago, for example). So, I picked up an Elite Suito-t which is well reviewed and on sale at my local bike shop. This is a direct transmission model with built in power and cadence sensors.
I don’t have enough space in my house for a spot fully dedicated to cycling. So, I’ve got the bike a trainer tucked in a corner of the basement and then I slide our basement couch out of the way and move the bike in front of the TV when I’m riding. The compact size of the Suito definitely helps here.
The Suito came with a free month of Zwift that I’ve really been enjoying. Zwift has lots of group rides and workouts that are fun (though hard work!). Because the Suito is a smart trainer, it automatically adjusts resistance to mimic hills, as well as hit specific targets during structured workouts. Riding with a hundred or so people from around the world is inspiring and motivating.
Although I’m really looking forward to proper outdoor rides in the spring, this indoor setup has been great.
A fun one
A good one on a cold night
Finished reading: As with the first two books in the trilogy, The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton is a fun sci-fi story about humans fighting back against powerful aliens. Definitely an easy read, though with some pretty imaginative twists and ideas about the future 📚
Finished reading: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is an entertaining mix of computer nerds, ancient rituals, cryptography, and a love of printed books 📚
I’m fortunate to have a nice bike storage room at my office. Something happened there today that prompted the facilities manager to send us the list of prohibitions, which included this miscellaneous grouping at the end 😀
New bike 🚴
I knew going in that a first triathlon requires a lot of planning and gear, especially when you don’t have any equipment.
Given that the cycling component is the longest distance, it is important to have a good bike. Once I knew my size, the next step was to actually choose a bike. And, oh my, are there decisions to make.
As with most things, budget sets a pretty useful constraint. Within that, there’s finding the sweet spot between spending enough to get something good that you won’t regret compromising on later and spending so much that you’ve exceeded your fitness level and can’t capitalize any speed gains from the purchase.
My bike sizing was based on a Trek Domane and I figured that was a good place to start. The next choice to make was between aluminum and carbon fibre. The obvious difference here is price. This Global Cycling Network video helped me understand that an aluminum frame is more than sufficient for me. Spending a few thousand extra dollars to gain a few minutes advantage in a “fun” race is a bad choice. Consistent training is going to provide a much better advantage than the choice of bike frame.
Having made it this far, I figured it was time to start looking around for options, only to find out that COVID had disrupted yet another supply chain. There are close to zero new or used bikes in the market. In fact, there was exactly one Trek Domane AL 4 in Toronto with the next nearest one 200 km west in London. The AL 4 seemed like the right balance of cost and performance for me. So, that’s now my bike!
After all that, I now have the fanciest bike (by far) that I’ve ever owned and it is -20ºC outside just after the biggest snow storm in decades. Rather than just stare forlornly at the bike for the next few months, my next purchase will be an indoor trainer, so that I can build up cycling fitness while winter carries on.
Finished reading: Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton is fun. Part 2 of the Salvation trilogy and a great humans fighting back against powerful aliens story📚