Lots of typing today. There are two startup ideas I have that a potential partner wanted more information on, so I spent an hour this morning typing up an email for each startup describing the problem, how the startup solves the problem, example usage cases, important features, and competitors or sites/products trying to solve at least part of the problem. Preliminary research work mostly, and it was nice to finally get a smattering of thoughts and links into a more organized state.

And then I wandered off and finished a new email template design for Bookbranch v3 and created the events in Laravel that would trigger the sending of two new emails to users with that template. Wrote the content for those emails too. When you are the sole developer and there is no writer available, you have a tendency to write quite a bit of the filler content yourself. Thankfully with all of the emails I receive on a daily basis, I found a few examples that helped me along. Also, I am ever so naturally charming over digital communication, right?

However. Before I go to bed, there is a little thing I need to get off my chest. This whole primary season has shown how bad politics and elections have become in the United States. People in line for 4-6 hours to vote in their state's primary. Massive, vexing voter purges. Candidates sounding like Nazis/sociopaths. $33K a person fundraising dinners. The media hardly challenging the blatant lying and their flagrant biases for or against candidates. It is all rather embarrassing. Not exactly a beacon of democracy.

And the long arguments in Facebook threads between friends and family about what is wrong with the other person's candidate. Oof. Is it over yet?

For me it really comes down to the fact that there are long standing problems with the health of this country's people, infrastructure, and economy that are not being adequately addressed and forcing many things to limp along in survival mode. The middle class is in a shockingly bad shape. Our government has such high debt and an aversion to raising taxes that our infrastructure got a D+, to the point that many schools, bridges, roads, etc. are unsafe for those who use them. And, if you consider the potent combination of income inequality, stagnation of wages and underemployment, tax havens in foreign countries, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and low household savings, I think it is pretty obvious our economy is far from being in a stable, healthy state.

These problems are systemic and dangerous for the long term future of our country. On the surface we present a stalwart and glamorous face, yet there is strong erosion in our foundation. We are not months away from a dystopian hell on Earth, but I am concerned. Very. If things do not improve, I expect a slow decline in our fortunes with an eventual, seismic level shake up.

I am an idealist. I believe in the United States and its potential. I also am acutely aware of its self destructive tendencies and bouts of careless behavior. I would rather we be the country with huge swaths of scenic beauty, the ability to explore the cosmos, and a leader in diplomacy, peace, and social progress...than the militaristic, polluting, barely disciplined bully of the world.

Of all the candidates, Senator Bernie Sanders is the only one I believe in. Maybe it is my curmudgeon side rearing its head, but it is time to proclaim loudly and forcefully that "The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!" No more billionaires and their Super-PACs. No more wealth funneling to the top 1%. No more denying climate change. No more of going bankrupt because of injury or illness. No more working 2 or 3 jobs and barely surviving. No more pay inequity between men and women. No more massive student load debt just to get a college education.

Things can and should be better. No more bullshit about this is how politics work or how it is not politically feasible. Time to standup and demand that things change.

A year ago, when I switched from training for a 50K trail run to training to bike 100+ miles for Reach the Beach, I finally downloaded the Strava app for my iPhone. At the periphery of my knowledge, I knew the app existed and that multiple professional athletes used it to publicly share their training, but for a long time it seemed a bit more serious than I was willing to be, just like my training log.

Curiosity got the better of me though and I wondered how fast I was flying down some of those hills in the West Hills or in the Columbia Gorge. And yes, I craved a bit of bragging rights too. My profile is located here. As you can see my usage is a bit sporadic. Entire months and multiple weeks have no data, despite them being in the middle of prime running or biking season. What can I say, I am inconsistent. While I love my phone, I have a tendency to ignore it as a computer device as it seems silly to be so consistently connected to the world when you are Outside™. More than a few rides have ended and I discovered much to my chagrin that I had not started Strava at all. One of those fancy GPS-enabled watches would likely help, but I have not bit that bullet yet.

As far as the data Strava provides post-run or post-ride, it is quite a bit of fun to see what my average speed is, the elevation gained, and what my mile times are for various sections of my run or ride. Just recently, during a downhill section on Newberry Rd., I apparently hit a maximum speed of 51.7mi/h. And during a trail run this past week, I was running half my miles at 8 minutes or under. That is pretty darn fast on both accounts. I am a tiny bit impressed with myself. It makes me think that this more structured approached to training is providing real results. That is a positive feeling.

However. The data is not entirely reliable. My trail running takes place primarily in Forest Park where there is a copious amount of trees and more than a few ravines, which regularly interrupt GPS or lessen its accuracy. The trail run I did this past week is a whopper of an example.

As you can see the route Strava thinks I followed deviates a non-trivial amount from the actual trail. Then, you can see in the upper left that it seems to draw a line straight across the map to another point. Seems Strava completely lost signal for about 20 minutes and did not track any of my running past that last point in the upper left. Did not regain signal until I was almost a mile back. I think this is the second or third time such a huge "break" has occurred on a trail run. Biking is typically much better with its data, since it is on a road with a clearer signal from the GPS. Still, I have definitely seen a few cases where because of speed or conditions, a jump or two has happened during a turn or in a valley.

Strava also has what it calls a Grade Adjusted Pace (GAP) speed, which they describe as an estimate of what your pace would have been if you had been running on flat land, opposed to a grade. I am sure there is some solid research and math behind their calculations, but for my first mile last Wednesday I ran a 7:25 pace. Strava informed me that my GAP pace would have been 5:55. Um, I think not. Pretty sure you could put me on a flat mile with a decent tail wind and I would not even come close to a sub-6 minute mile. It's a fun thought but I am certainly not taking that GAP pace seriously anytime soon.

Finally, Strava has "segments" where you can compare yourself against other athletes who have done a similar route and your own past rides. Stirs up one's competitive side, which is not a bad thing. Most of the time I fall pretty square in the top 10-12% percentile of people who use Strava. Every so often I take a look at the top athletes for a segment and notice oddities. For a segment I did during yesterday's ride, most of the top 10% people were doing a 22-25mph pace. The top athlete though? 43mph. Hm. I may be wrong but I have serious doubts that pace is accurate.

These segments also do not take into account conditions either, so you have to be mindful that your pace for a segment done in winter while running 15 miles will definitely be slower than an athlete who did that segment in summer while only running 6 miles. Is it really that important? No, not really. But, if the data and statistics are there, you should understand their faults and adjust your expectations accordingly.

Overall, I enjoy Strava because I can regularly evaluate my baseline and progress during my training. I am definitely getting faster overall. Yet, on days when I feel tired, my pace definitely suffers. When I do 2 or 3 moderate to hard days in a row, the final day is usually the slowest in whatever activity I am doing. Not always though, which forces me to acknowledge the strong effect that rest, hydration, and nutrition have on my performance. Strava validates the power of data in training. Further, it is planting the idea firmly in my noggin' that if I wish to strive for even more performance I need to seriously consider tracking more data, such as heart rate and caloric intake pre, during, and post exercise.

Three weeks ago, after a night of revelry in celebration of a friend's birthday, I got up early on Friday and drove to Mt. Hood for a solo ski up to the top of Palmer Glacier. This winter has seen a complete reversal of our snow fortunes compared to last year, so the mountain was beautifully covered. The snow was quite hard and the temperatures a bit biting, but the wind was completely absent (a rare thing). It was gorgeous in that way only a quiet mountain in mid-winter can be. There is something about the austere colors and the quality of the air that adds a sharpness which makes me ache for these kind of views.

Thanks to upgrading my iPhone to the newest version in early February, the camera I had on me took some stunning photos. I suspect they might even be print quality. So, I uploaded two of my favorites to Flickr for anyone and everyone to see and use. Enjoy.

Update: Thanks to a friend I have discovered that downloading the originals requires a Yahoo/Flickr account. Annoying. Full size images available for download here and here as well.

As an active, outdoorsy, geeky, and nerdy individual who gobbles up medical studies and gear reviews nearly every single day, I have oddly never made a real record of my athletic activities. Off and on I have dabbled with the MapMyFitness sites to help figure out how far I ran or what the elevation profile was for a bike ride, but not with any serious intention to keep it up to date or analyze the data later. In my own way I was being a purist with my belief that the activity itself is the worthier part than any sort of personal record or achievement. My little stab at applying Kantian moral philosophy to athletics. Gods, I just typed that out and rolled my own eyes at it. ::slow applause::

For reasons I cannot really fathom, part of me issued a proclamation stating that 2016 Shall be the Year That Activities Shall be Tracked. At the end of December, I sat down and created a spreadsheet for January with a row for every single day and columns for my common outdoorsy or athletic activities. And, to my own surprise, I actually started keeping a record of most everything I did in that spreadsheet. I also downloaded the Strava app onto my phone to help track my runs and bike rides. While the Strava app's data is detailed and fascinating, I have been far less diligent with using it as I do not enjoy carrying it on shorter runs or rides when I do not have a backpack. A watch with GPS capabilities might be nice in the future.

A copy of the current spreadsheet data is below, thanks to Google Drive. I have a Numbers document that I have been using locally the past few months but the iCloud sharing webpage is godawful slow when rendering the spreadsheet, so I just pulled my Numbers document into Google and fixed a dozen or so formatting issues. May have to switch to using Google Drive completely if I continue sharing this data publicly. Bugger.

After I made the Compiled table, I noticed a pretty substantial data oversight. While I am keeping track of time for activities like running, biking and weights, I am completely skipping it for things like swimming, snowshoeing, and alpine touring. Swimming is easily calculable thanks to me being pretty consistent at a 30 minute mile at the moment. Alpine touring and snowshoeing would have to be educated guesses based on my remembrance of the day and any photos I took during the activity. Back of the napkin workings have me missing about 35 hours worth of time.

So, after 14 weeks, what do I see here? Apparently, I am averaging about 9.3 hours of exercise per week. If you consider that I normally take two rest days per week and took an entire week off at the beginning of March, that means on days I exercise, I average two hours of activity. Not too shabby.

Comparing February and March, it is quite apparent that I slashed my running in order to start swimming and also head outside for some biking, hiking, and alpine touring. What is not immediately apparent is that the shorter runs I did in March were done a bit faster, resulting in me pulling off an 8:30/mile pace during a trail run today, which is a minute faster than my average time in February.

One rather embarrassing statistic is my time spent stretching. 460 minutes in January, 295 minutes in February, but only 85 minutes in March. Not a good trend. Need to work on that in April.

Is it worth having this information? I suppose it really depends on my aims for all of this activity. I call it training but I am not really training for anything in particular. I would not mind finally running all of Wildwood in one go and I do have a dream of climbing both Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams in one day (why? fortune and glory, kid, fortune and glory). Neither of those two things are really motivating me to head out though and swimming is not exactly helpful with mountaineering, I suspect. Honestly, I simply like knowing that I am in shape enough to handle nearly any activity I can throw at my body. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Going to keep on tracking though, maybe add a few more columns in for things like pace and power output. Also considering a heart rate monitor as it is all the rage now for serious athletic training and I am a bit curious to know what that cold, dark cinder in my chest is doing while I am headed up yet another hill.

––

Later: While walking back from Palio tonight (1.5 miles from the house), it occurred to me that I made no mention of all the walking I do. Looking at my iPhone's Health app, it looks like I average around 2.5 miles of walking every single day. Today alone I walked 8 miles during my travels to food carts and tea/coffee shops. I do not really consider this exercise per se, instead it is a key part of my recovery strategy. Walking helps loosen up my body after strenuous activity and it also helps me mentally relax, especially on these beautiful spring days. I definitely think it contributes to how well my body puts up with the strain I put on it.

It has been bothering me for a while that Laravel's default logging sort of tossed everything together into one file. I use Info and Debugging messages quite frequently in my work just to keep track of what is happening on the backend, specifically whenever a queue is used. For example, when you hit a Third Party API to retrieve more data for an entity, it is nice to know what the data payload was and if it was successful. Another important use case is throttling. If you have some script kiddie from England hitting your login routine on a regular basis (actually happened), that is a piece of information that it would be nice to know.

Further, error messages are pretty darn critical. If a piece of code is failing on your API or an incorrect validation rule is being sent, it is rare that users will actually send you an email about it. Most just close the browser and move on. Logging is très important.

Since I am getting close to finishing v3 of Bookbranch and there is quite a bit more functionality being added, I thought it was time to sit down and resolve this particular grievance. Below is the code I added to the top of app.php to separate out my three logs into separate files and now on production if an error happens, an email is sent to me so I can quickly address it.

I remember reading this "Fuck Yes or No" for dating a couple years ago and generally agreeing with the approach. Not just for dating but pretty much all serious relationships in one's life. Love and work, being the big ones, naturally. It does seem incredibly odd that people would spent hours of their day, months of their year, and years of their life on relationships or jobs that are merely OK.

I mention this only because I am Once Again (TM, patent pending) trying to decide what to do with my life. It waxes and wanes, as you can imagine. For five months here I have had steady work as a Lead Developer for two startups on a contract basis. Caught up on all the PHP/Laravel skills and have become a fair hand at using Vue.js for building interactive pages and single page applications. Figured out how to use Homestead locally and even more experience with Forge for provisioning and deploying too. Learning is good. My Full Stack Developer skills remain strong.

All the while I have been hunting for that next opportunity. The job that will make me want to become invested in a company and stay around for a couple years. People like me thrive on intensive projects that we believe in. My Reed degree, EllisLab, Pre-Medicine, the Pacific Crest Trail. I remember these times as the most positive and transformative because I was completely invested in the experience of working towards those goals.

For a short time I thought ImpactFlow might become that but it rather quickly showed its hiccups and once the experience started souring I bailed. No reason to stay around working 50-60 hours a week when you have lost faith, no matter how much money they try throwing at you. My time and energy are way too valuable for that.

So far, no job has really seized me strongly. NY Times, Amazon, a couple startups, a few agencies. Nothing has really pulled me in and said "Go there." Two jobs that I was genuinely interested in did not choose me. Not that I really thought Columbia was going to choose a 36 year old, non-photographer/writer for one of their Director of Toughness positions, but man doing adventures and testing gear seemed like an exceptional way to spend 6 months.

I keep on looking though. Hoping. Daydreaming. Thinking. Eventually something will come along, right? I have the money to do another thru-hike and if something does not come along by June, I am about 50% sure that I will head off for the summer again. Adventure, excitement, a Paul craves these things.

::pause::

Suppose there is always going back to school...

It is a bit mind-blowing how skewed the coverage for Sanders has been compared to Clinton on the NY Times. Even when he wins multiple states like he did yesterday, they often put him in as an afterthought or present him negatively. And then they post additional articles with titles like "Clinton’s Growing Delegate Lead Is Nearly Unbeatable" just underneath. Finally, the Times editors have been caught making substantive changes to already published articles on Sanders to change the tone and perspective.

I hope they realize that only half of the states have voted so far in the primaries and this race for the Democratic nomination is FAR from over. If anything, the media's coverage of Sanders makes me support him that much more while liking Clinton and her ties to big money that much less.

Link.

"While it’s a lot of fun to be a dirtbag, sleep in the back of your truck, shower at public restrooms, and eat ramen for dinner six nights a week, that lifestyle may not be super appealing to potential mates."

While part of me wants to adamantly shout "Lies! Lies!" with a sanguine disposition, I have found this to be more rule than exception. You start mentioning how you are thinking about quitting your job again for the summer while describing the possible adventures you are eyeing, and I swear you can see a little marker attached to your name: unstable.

I kid you not, two women have actually used that word verbally to describe me. Just this past Saturday I was finishing up a trail run with a group and was talking to a very attractive young lady. Perhaps it was the post-run energy but I explained my thoughts for this coming summer and I swear I sensed an entire shift in her approach to me after that. It is frustrating to experience. I sort of wanted to shout: I'm not so bad! I can make SCONES!

The same day I opened up a document and titled it "Resupply Strategy" I also received an email asking me to do a phone interview for a job in London. I lead a special life.

"But, Paul, have you asked yourself what you really want to do with your life?"

Oh, I have internet. I have. Let's look at how that goes.
"That."
That's impossible.
"That."
That is also impossible.
"That?"
That is unlikely to end well for either you or her and would probably leave a mess for years.
"That!"
Ok, that is a bit more reasonable. Though you would end up with life crushing debt for two decades and you swore to yourself you would never go through that again.
"That..."
That's a bag of cookies. OK, knock yourself out.