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Notes From The Streamside...

13th January, 2016. 12:16 am. It's been a while.

Nearly two years, to be semi-precise.

It's been good for the most part. Marriage remains blissful, work remains both fun and interesting, the hunting and shooting and fishing and kayaking are good, and the only thing I can really complain about (aside from our having elected a spoiled, privileged, bubbleheaded empty suit in the last federal election) is that I had a mild stroke back around Thanksgiving, for which I had prompt and completely effective treatment. I have no deficits whatsoever as a result; I can still walk and talk and brain as before; the only lingering impact is a bit of post-stroke fatigue. I can't even do a half-decent Jean Chretien impression. My energy levels are starting to bounce back, and hopefully I'll be back at work soon.

Notable developments since I last posted have all been recreational. Shooting-wise, I seem to have wound up on the executive at the local army base's gun club; I basically take minutes, RSO, and pick up spent brass. Since it's the club's favourite competitive discipline, I've taken up up 3-gun; it's an action shooting discipline involving movement over courses, shooting at a variety of targets, with carbine (I'm running an AR-15 with 20" HBAR upper and iron sights, just to cement my rep as an iron sight dinosaur), shotgun (Alice, my tactipimped 870 Marine Magnum) and pistol (I picked up a GLOCK 34). Score is based on time, with time penalties for missing targets. It's a heck of a lot of fun, and I'm actually managing to not totally embarrass myself in a field of mostly military competitors.

Outdoorsstuffwise, back before I went silent on LJ we picked up a couple of touring kayaks; Necky Manitou 14s. We've been doing a lot of kayak camping since; there is no human presence on the other side of the river for tens of klicks up and down from town, and lots of long gorgeous sandy beaches, it's just a question of stuffing some gear into the kayaks and finding a nice spot to spend the weekend. After a couple of long haul trips (Petawawa to Deep River, or heading way upriver), where Carolyn basically threatened me with death if I ever said "don't worry, dear, it's just around the next point" ever again, we picked up a (lightly used) 21" Kevlar layup tandem touring kayak. The thing is an expedition-grade monstrosity that is so ridiculously in excess of any sane kayaking needs we might have that we're seriously considering heading farther afield; Georgian Bay and the North Shore of Lake Superior are both destinations we're considering. We can get so much gear into it it verges on glamping.

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Domestically, Carolyn's allergies worsened to the point where we had to find good homes for the cats this past spring. However, we've replaced them with budgies. Meet Thuggo, Brutus, Attila and Ghenghis (although Carolyn doesn't use those names.

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So 2016 is finding me bouncing back from a Disease of Civilization (again, it's not the pain, it's the deja vu), but looking forwards to beiing shortlisted for a Nobel Prize for lifestyle architecture. I don't know whether I'll be back here regularly, if at all, but if anybody from back in the heyday of LJ is still around, I hope you're doing well.

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19th February, 2014. 6:13 pm. Is this thing on?

Is anybody still out there?

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22nd February, 2013. 8:38 pm. Possible very brief coda.

Perfect marriage.

Fantastic job with great colleagues.

Lovely home in a beautiful setting.

A wide range of diverse and stimulating hobbies and pursuits.

Fun personal fitness program with very challenging goals.

Interest in gaming and geek culture that's been on the wane for years and has dwindled to the vanishing point over the past year or so.

Increasing realization that social media holds little appeal for me anymore, is a poor substitute for socializing in meatspace, and is really only a timesink that detracts from the foregoing.

I deleted my Twitter account, and scaled my Facebook account way back to family, extremely close friends and shooting buddies a couple of months ago. And tonight is possibly the third time I've checked into LJ since locking it down around Christmastime. I don't really miss it. Any of you who're reading this and who I was Twitter or FB friends with, take no offence from this; it's not you, it's the medium. If you really want to keep tabs on me via social media, send an FB request; just don't expect much interaction. I'm not as active there as I was. Email is the best way to get in touch with me these days.

I'm just not feeling the social media urge any more. I'm still active over on Fitocracy because Fitocracy is a useful adjunct to the fitness program. If you haven't got an account there, you should check it out. It's like social media, only it doesn't help make you fat.

I'll be keeping the LJ, since it's been nearly eleven years, and is a neat record of my transition from fat depressed overstressed unhappily married urbanite anti with a burgeoning social media addiction to my current situation, where I have almost all aspects of my life optimized to nearly ideal. And I might get the urge to start blogging again; who knows. But in the meantime, I've got better places to be than cyberspace:

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It's nice out here.

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6th June, 2012. 7:32 am. Pictures from Sunday's Spartan Sprint

So I managed to self-inflict a mild LCL strain going over the first wall obstacle for the second time (I'd gone back to give somebody a boost over it), but managed to hobble through the rest of the race.

Which was fine, since Carolyn, on the way over to the race, got very quiet and serious and then announced that she was going to run it with us after all, which she did, with no training.

It was a great time, the knee should be good to tun on again in a few weeks, and I am going to train up for a Spartan Trifecta next year: a 5k Sprint, a longer Super Spartan, and a Spartan Beast.

Each level comes with a different colour of finisher's medal, you see... I want them all.

Running a Spartan with your spouse, sibling, and close family is one of the best things you can do for yourselves. I'm still pumped.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

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