Author: Kris

Bassist. Cat servant. Everything is better shiny.

To continue a theme.

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The fitness kick continues. I’m now over 5 miles on a ride and unlike previous rides I’m now no longer finishing exhausted. It’s amazing how quick your fitness starts to return when you make the demand of your body.

My waist hasn’t shrunk much, but I’ve noticed that the wobbly leftover of my old fat days is no longer as wobbly and my flab on my thighs, similar. I can feel muscles developing all the time and the tone of my calves and thighs improving beyond belief.

Even my weighing scales agree…

A physical week at work also helped though… I’m on three installs at the moment!

So this was week’s Saturday jaunt. A 5 mile run along the Trans Pennine Trail. Not too challenging, however, the thing that can be observed is that my times spent in each exercise area are changing. I’m no longer seeing much in Maximum but I’m getting a nice balance of aerobic and anaerobic which is apparently as it should be for someone of my fitness level and age. Too much in anaerobic and maximum without developing your fitness first can stress the heart and lead to cardiac problems.

As you’ll see though, I’m looking a lot more svelte! These are a 36″ waist trousers and the top is an XL. I’m definitely out of the XXL and 40″ waist now.

First rehearsal in over a year!

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We finally got Jamulus working and after showering (bike ride left me covered in mud!) I set up the PC and prepared for a rehearsal with the new project band (name to be decided).

I can’t believe how well it went! Apart from the lag, which to be honest you do adjust to, it was a really beneficial songwriting session. I finally got to contribute some ideas into the project including both rhythmic and chord progressions and we’ve pretty much structured the final piece at last.

I’ve already changed a couple of previously written pieces too (including adding a rather Sowetto feel to one of the songs – I do love the African and Caribbean rhythms). For Sowetto think Gracelands.

We recorded the session using the only inbuilt recording technology too!

We reconvene next week… Who knows what will happen then!

Arse!

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A call at 4am resulted in me talking someone through stopping a possible fire. A contactor had overheated and the arc chute was glowing bright red. I told them to turn all the breakers on that particular circuit off this removing the load.

When I got there I found this.

Obviously that’s been burning. I couldn’t get one quickly so for safety I removed the outgoing power from the left hand phase of the left hand contactor so it could not be loaded up even if someone accidentally turned on the breakers.

Sadly, the replacement is going to cost in excess of £500. It’s an AC1 300A one (basically AC1 is the highest load rating out there) and because it’s running heating it needs to be AC1 for sure.

I’ve ordered a replacement but it won’t be here till Tuesday.

So many followers, yet so little interaction

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I bet I’m not the only one who tires of social media. Whilst I carry on writing what is in essence my diary or journal here (although I do have a private diary on Journal too) I don’t keep up to date with many of my follows.

It’s remarkable how if I tag a post “health” I’ll get loads of new followers, all of them for their own personal commercial gain and trying to sell me their latest product.

If I tag a post “cats” or “pets” I get the same, but with pets – often trying to sell their latest quack cure for dysfunctional cats. Newsbreak. They’re cats. It’s in their nature to be a bit weird.

Social media is hardly social media when it’s just bots following you to gain something for the bot owner. It’s advertising without the cost. It’s lazy, and I bet it gets hardly any results for the people involved.

I never click on to their blog. Ever!

But, bot makers, please keep it up. Every time I get a new follow my blog gets escalated and I get real followers as a result! So it’s not all bad then.

Sunday

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Today was a really odd day. We’d planned on a bike ride, just a short one as I’m still building my energy up. It was a rather muddy one – but I knew it would be and I did actually wear leather jeans! Great for wiping down after.

We didn’t do quite as far as last time, however, the ride was harder as there were more hills as is reflected in my heart rate and the number of calories burnt for a shorter run.

When we got back to the car I realised just how muddy it had been! Thankfully leather is wipe clean.

So we got home, cleaned up, and I then got into my comfy clothes for our first rehearsal over Jamulus with some of the fishes. We are songwriting and because of the current lockdown we can’t meet up so this is the best way. You can’t use a platform like WhatsApp or Teams because the lag is too high – around half a second.

It is ok once you get used to the slight delay. Sadly Bob couldn’t get his Mac to work correctly – something to do with his ASIO settings – so we’ve agreed to reconvene next week for a second attempt.

The day finished with me attempting to collect all my star fragments in Animal Crossing. We had a meteor shower last night in the game so I have fragments all over the beaches.

Confrontation aborted.

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Yesterday whilst driving along a road I found another driver attempting to cause a confrontation. The road in question is narrow, has cars parked along both sides with virtually no breaks, and in general when someone is coming through people tend to wait and let them through.

But not this entitled tosser. My van (blue) was about two thirds of the way through. The Range Rover (there I said it, you get the picture now, shown in teal) driver, instead of waiting around 20 yards further back, pulled up deliberately to block the road and attempt to make me pull into a space that was really tight (the one on the left). Instead I pulled up in the position my van is shown in on the illustration below and gestured he moved over a little.

He did. A very tiny amount. I then started manoeuvreing left to try and squeeze past, but the dickhead continued to try and make it difficult.

He then wound down his window, and in a Scouse accent said “how long you been f**king driving”, to which I responded “long enough to know you’re being a prick”. I then wound back up my window. He carried on ranting, so I just turned my music up really loud.

It has to be said that my extremely loud heavy metal music terrified the shit out of him, and strangely enough, he reversed up; realising that whilst he thought he was a bit of a twat; that day he’d met his superior.

At one time I would have got into a full on shoutfest with these arseholes, but these days I just think it’s not worth it.

This was a huge pain to fit!

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Sorry for the blurring, but this is a customer’s property. This thing was a massive pain to fit. Really old (200 years) farmhouse walls. I had to run power (ethernet POE) from a nearby socket but avoid using trunking. I did a diagonal hole, targeting adjacent the socket and with my longest drill bit I ended up about 3″ off target. Not too bad. The only bit of visible cable is behind a fridge.