Ashley really wants to go for a long walk. But she doesn’t want to go for a walk in the outside that actually exists. She wants to go for a walk in some other outside—one where it’s not windy and snowing.
2025-11-29 15:19
Tag: Photography
Glorious new Thibault book preordered
This summer, while in Chicago for other reasons, we went to the Art Institute. I made a point of tracking down the room with the arms and armor, where I found, among many other things, a copy of Thibault’s Academie de l’Espée.
The picture above gives you and idea of the fabulous (and fabulously detailed) engravings, but look how big the book is! I mean, it’s half the length of a sword!
So, I was delighted to discover that HEMA Bookshelf has a plan to publish a book with these images, “the first time this art has been published at close to full size since 1668.”
Read about the project here: The Thibault Project. While you’re there, go ahead and pre-order a copy yourself. I mean, it’s only money. Oh, and way more bookshelf space than I have available. But I’ll fit it in somewhere.
2025-11-20 10:24
I’m trying to ramp up to two runs a week—a “long” run (currently anything over 4 miles), and a “fast” run (sometimes hill sprints, sometimes an interval session, sometimes—as today—just a shorter run where I press the pace).
2025-11-12 1:41
I got in a nice run: 4.67 miles in 1h 5min 51s, for an average pace of 14:05. My Fitbit would have me believe that I spent 59 of those minutes with my heart rate in zone 5, which I’m sure is double-false. That is, I don’t think my HR reached the 200 bpm that the Fitbit recorded, nor do I think my maximum HR is nearly as low as 154, which is what the Fitbit estimates.
Still it was a great run. My fastest and longest in a long time, and I felt great the whole time.
2025-11-11 13:07
Ashley is just back from a walk, just ate a bowl of food and had that bowl refilled, just drank from her water bowl, and had that bowl refreshed, just went out on the patio and returned, and just got a greenie as a treat.
So, I assume this posture means, “All is right with the world and I want for nothing.”
Halloween run, with a dog
Ashley seems to enjoy going for a run, and she’s a pretty good running companion. She does want to stop and sniff rather more often than I do, and she wants to stop and pee occasionally, which does make it tough for me to hit my best pace for any particular mile. But that’s okay. Enjoying some dog-companionship is a lot better than hitting my best pace.
I had virtually quit running a couple of years ago. I’d gotten a trifle tentative after a fall, and then Jackie was out of town (and therefore not on-hand to rescue me if necessary), and then the weather got cold and the running routes icy. And by the time the weather improved, I’d just fallen out of the habit. For a few months now I’ve been working to reestablish the habit. I haven’t accomplished that yet, but I am getting in an occasional run.
The Fitbit software in my Pixel watch estimates my VO2Max. My estimated VO2Max has long been excellent for my age, but it had gradually dropped some, which was part of the reason I wanted to start running again. These past few runs have produced a modest increase, so as of today it’s in the 95th percentile for people my age. (I think Peter Attia suggests that the minimum acceptable VO2Max is the 95 percentile for someone a decade younger than you, which I’m still a bit below, although it seems perhaps doable.)
I’m afraid I failed to get a photo of Ashley or myself running (or better, the two of us running together), but I did get a picture of a cool little snake friend who was crossing the sidewalk where I was running.
I got in one writing session in the morning. Now that I’ve finished my run, I very much hope to get in some more writing (and most especially some more plotting) before the end of the day.
Zine-fest and Fungus-fest!
Jackie and I spent an hour or so at the zine-fest at Lincoln Square, and then another hour or so at the fungus-fest at Anita Purvis Nature Center.
The highlight of the zine-fest, of course, was Tony who was there with his Alphistia zines:
But there was other stuff as well. Teacupweeb was there (sadly with no new Birb stuff). There were at least three people who made fancy stickers, of which I purchased several:
I really liked the Steller’s Jay, and the raccoon was suitably scary. (Raccoons are terrifying. The have hands, and they work in teams. If they learn to smelt metal, humanity is doomed.) I thought Steven would appreciate the Ax-olotol (swinging a big ax). (I didn’t get him one though. I’m going to put mine on my laptop.)
The big fungus sticker at the bottom was from the zine-fest. The smaller ones higher up were from the fungus-fest.
The zine-fest was great fun!
We had great fun at the fungus-fest as well! We got the stickers (see above). We also each bought an Illinois Mycological Association t-shirt! (Mine is printed with glow-in-the-dark ink, which I’m expecting to enjoy very much, once it gets dark.)
Among the many other activities, there was a woman using stencils to paint mushrooms on people’s arms. Jackie and I each got one done. With sparkles!
We also got in a walk along the boardwalk in Busey Woods, which is always a good walk. I neglected to get any pictures of that, but it was fun even so.
Great fun! I’d recommend either fest for next year!
I’m not explosive at all
For an athlete, being explosive is good. You can jump higher, run faster, hit harder, and (the point of this post) thrust a sword more quickly. Sadly, I’m perhaps the least explosive person around. This is very frustrating when it comes to sword fighting, because my thrusts aren’t quick enough to hit my opponent, whereas their thrusts are quick enough to hit me, before I can parry them.
I can obviously compensate in various ways. I can try and be very deceptive, and then launch an attack that is so surprising my opponent can’t react. I can get very good at parrying, so I can stop an attack with a very small movement that doesn’t have to be so quick. I’m working on these things.
But one other thing I can do is work on explosiveness.
This will have other advantages too. Explosiveness (roughly the same thing as power) is an aspect of muscular strength that disappears early as one ages, and it’s very useful. Just being strong is great, if you want to lift something heavy, but power (or explosiveness) is what you need if you catch your toe, and then want to get your foot out in front of you before you fall down.
I’m going to have to do some research on training for explosiveness, but one exercise that I already know that I can start training right away will be to throw my slam ball. Some people do that facing a wall, so they can catch it and throw it again. But I think I’ll throw it, and then spring forward as fast as possible to pick it up and throw it again, so I can train both explosive arm strength and explosive leg strength.
2025-09-06 11:35
Onions, three kinds of peppers, and some breakfast sausage, sautéd, two scrambled eggs, a little taco sauce, then wrapped in tortillas.
I call the breakfast dish Wavy Rancheros.
2025-09-05 12:04
Two things I’m allergic to are ragweed pollen (which is at its annual peak right about now), and household dust (which has been at a peak this morning, because I’ve been decluttering, dusting, and vacuuming in the living room).
Although wearing a mask is an obvious move to minimize getting household dust in my nose when I’m doing housework, I usually don’t think of it until my nose is all snuffly. Today though, I remembered. And it worked great! No snuffling at all!
