Cav's Place

Received a notification that my site will be moved to a different server on the evening of March 15, as part of a regular maintenance and upgrade program, and that copying everything from one server to another is likely to take several hours, with the switch being made once it’s all done, the data on the new server obviously being as it was on the old one when the process reached each site, so any changes made after that are likely to be lost. So, while this may actually not even affect the database, I have to write this tonight, to be certain… And hope there will be no other issues as a result of that switch, because this is just this week’s first post, after all.
At least I won’t be volunteering at the Botanical Garden this Saturday either, leaving it for what should be the last two weekends, according to the schedule listed at the moment. Or more exactly either for next Sunday or for the last weekend, since there should be a protest to attend next Saturday, though at the moment there seem to be some differences in what’s listed on one site and the other. But whether I’ll be using this Saturday for the week’s second post, I still don’t know, since at the moment I’m thinking to take the first step towards something I mentioned in the previous post and write one of those quick reviews for Eschalon, and possibly one for Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark as well, though it’s quite a while since I finished that, since that’s another game I couldn’t write a proper review for due to taking years to finish it. Even considered trying to do that tonight instead of writing this, but this was a sure thing, at least.

The main point of this post is this week’s run, which was Wednesday and marked setting a new second time over ten kilometers, 47:10, or more exactly 47:10.08. Sector times were 4:18, 5:08, 5:49, 4:21, 4:59, 5:44, 4:23, 4:56, 5:45 and 1:47, making for lap times of 15:15, 15:04 and 15:04. Though these are all a matter of just when I happened to press the button, since I have some more exact times, I’ll also mention that sector three of lap two was actually covered in 5:43.91, sector two of lap three actually in 4:55.69 and sector three of lap three in 5:45.39, while the exact time for lap three was 15:04.64 and I really think that the exact time for lap two was actually 15:03.34, but I’m not absolutely certain.
Left rather late, at 4:25 PM, but while I was worried that there will be many people getting in the way again after 5 PM, that wasn’t the case this time around. I mean, there were some, but not much of a problem. The wind wasn’t an issue either, and while it was rather cloudy, the reported temperature of 9-10°C meant I could run in my t-shirt, though I did wear the jacket on the way and had it tied around my waist while running, and my hands got a bit cold. On the other hand, didn’t even eat all the usual stuff I tend to eat before a run, though I guess what I had was good enough.
Just meant for it to be a normal run, staying under 48:30, and the first lap was all right, though I was slightly concerned after the second sector and pushing to make up for that resulted in that pretty fast third sector, which made me start considering getting under 48 minutes. So I kept that up over the second lap’s first sector, then was even faster over the next two and kept giving it everything on the third lap as well, though it was only after its second sector that I dared to start thinking of getting under 47:30, and doubted it even then. But the third sector meant that target wasn’t even an issue anymore and I kept pushing on that final sector to see what I’ll manage in the end, only then starting to think that I may just have a chance for a new second fastest time, yet still rather doubting it, and definitely not thinking I’ll manage to beat the previous one by more than a couple of seconds, so I was quite surprised when I beat it by five.

And just as I was starting to write the next paragraph, the power went out. Waited for some eight minutes before shutting down the computer, but did make the required changes first to have good chances to be able to boot back up normally, and it seems to have worked for the moment. If I’d have downloaded this month’s Windows updates, maybe I could have installed them as well and not have to go through it again, since I was putting it off due to the issues, but it was too late when it happened, since I obviously lost Internet access as well. In fact, quite surprised that it works now, when the power came back on, instead of requiring something to perhaps be rebooted, possibly in the morning. And there’s also the fact that when I called, the recorded message stated that the power should come back on around 5:30 AM, and while those estimates tend to be conservative, especially for this area, the fact that it came back just a bit after 3:45 AM, so just over one hour after it failed and just under one hour after I turned the computer off, was a bit surprising as well.

To get back to what I was writing, Sunday morning I slept badly, kept waking up, had worrying dreams, couldn’t get back to sleep, but at least that meant I watched the Formula E race live. Then, in the evening, I went to that “free shop” I mentioned, still leaving around 6:35 PM even though I saw that the start time had been changed from 7 PM to 6:30 PM. Took those issues of National Geographic which had gathered, an old cap, those slippers I hardly ever used and three old undershirts bought by my parents probably some ten years ago, if not even more, and which had just stayed in the wardrobe since then, since I didn’t want them due to being purchased by them when I said I didn’t want any. Put a note on those, saying they hadn’t been worn but had been in the wardrobe for many years, and walked there, getting a bit confused at some point but working it out soon enough, to arrive at 7:15 PM and leave again 15 minutes later. There were few things that weren’t clothes and nothing I was interested in, so didn’t take anything, but at least I found where to sign for Demos, so did that. Then it took me a bit over 45 minutes to get back, since I had a quick look through a supermarket on the way, though I didn’t buy anything.

And just as I was finishing the above paragraph, there was another brief power failure, though this only lasted for some 30 seconds, so didn’t have to shut down again, and my Internet access still works too. I really should download those updates once I post this, though I’d still rather not deal with them until the weekend, assuming I won’t need to shut down or reboot for other reasons. Something does seem a bit off when I check running processes now, but I won’t be bothering with it at this moment, since I know that something is seriously wrong either way and what I did just allowed me to log on, definitely didn’t fix anything, and may have in fact worsened some things.

But before posting this, I’ll also mention that when I went to eat Monday night, so when it was actually already Tuesday, I badly burned the bread and you can actually still smell that, since I burned it by putting all of the slices in the microwave and setting it to four minutes, and when I opened the microwave again tonight to put some more bread there, this time for two minutes, I could definitely still smell that. Been doing that with the bread a few times recently, but definitely never set the microwave to four minutes, quite sure I never even set it to three, but two or even two and a half seems too little. The thing is that what burned then was the bread that was in the lower part of the pile, in the middle, the rest of it actually being just as I wanted it, but all of that part ended up a charred lump and smoking badly.