Cav's Place

Over a week has passed since May 15 and I still didn’t write this post, so let me now try to pick up from where I left off, which was when I woke up, at 6:15 AM. Was on my feet as soon as the first alarm went off, of course, but wanted to set two for the first time in order to feel more at ease, as otherwise I highly doubt I’d have gotten even that half an hour of sleep that I did get.
Was told I should be there no later than 8:30 AM and aimed to leave at 7:30 AM in order to likely arrive around 8:15 AM even if I’ll have to wait a bit at the metro, to allow for a bit of time in case something will go wrong. As such, I grabbed a little something to eat, checked whether anything new was posted, went to the bathroom, checked the bag one more time and made some changes I thought of after getting in bed, got dressed, put two small cloves of garlic in the wrapper of the energy tablet sample that was part of the race kit and shoved that in a pocket along with two mints, went to the bathroom again and then left. Right on time, if I remember correctly.

On the way to the metro I saw the route, which passes through this area as well, still being worked on and a group of volunteers getting themselves organized. Then saw a few people wearing the race t-shirts in the metro from the start, but there were a whole lot more obviously going there after switching trains, recognizable by t-shirts, bags, timing chips on their shoes and the conversations they were having. Of course, the stretch of road between Unirii and Constitution Square was full of even more, nearly everyone heading in the same direction and for the same reason.

Actually got there at 8 AM, so even earlier than intended, since the trains came quickly and I walked at my usual pace, if not even faster. This gave me time to go all around the area twice and also check the map quite carefully, looking for the WWF area, since they were the obvious choice for me out of the NGOs one could choose to support when registering, 10% of the fee being donated by the organizers for this purpose. However, my search yielded no result, even though I had been told they’ll have their area at the start and the others were definitely very visible, with both stands and teams of volunteers.
That was unpleasant, but there was little else I could do at the moment, so after the first search I dropped off the bag, taking a cue from others and writing my name on the sticker with the number, and after the second I also decided to take part in the warmup in front of the stage. Didn’t initially mean to, since I thought it was going to require more effort than it actually did and wanted to conserve my energy, but I went there since there was little else to do at the moment and stayed until the end since it was quite light and took less time than expected, and than the schedule said it would.
That still left me with quite some time until the 9:10 AM start, but I decided to head to the starting area and see what’s going on anyway… And happened to stumble into the WWF area, which I’m quite sure wasn’t there when I first looked and only consisted of a plain background for pictures and one person standing in front of it, holding a camera. Actually walked up to her and the first thing I said was that they sure are hidden, to which her reply was “that’s the idea”. When I asked why, she said it’s because of the main sponsor and people asking them what are they doing at an event sponsored by a fossil fuel company. Which in a way makes sense, and I said so at the time, but on the other hand it’s exactly the sort of place where a strong environmental message is needed.
Either way, from there I went back to the large tent where the bags were being left to grab my cap again, deciding to wear it after all, and then I wanted to go to the toilet again before starting. However, after passing in front of one row of toilets to search for a green sign and finding one, I noticed it was just a problem with the door and somebody was in there after all. Then, when I tried to go in after another person who had just come out of another I was pulled back by the next person in line, letting me know there was a line. And when I stepped behind him and the next person, I was actually shown where the line started, several more people behind and for every single available toilet, making me realize that large group of people wasn’t there to get ready for the start, but for the same reason I was. Was also told I sure am an optimist, obviously for thinking I could just find a free toilet so quickly.
Not that the wait was that long, only about ten minutes, but with the start time approaching and others even behind me, nobody was feeling comfortable. And then there was also the fact that the girl who went before me allowed the door to slam shut when she got back out, and it locked itself, making me have to try to pull it open and pretty much forget how it even worked, since I wasn’t expecting that and being among so many people plus the earlier interaction meant my brain wasn’t really working anymore anyway. That a guy told me it’s locked and that means it’s occupied didn’t help either, but while he simply repeated that it’s still locked when I said the person who was there came out, someone else got involved then and pulled hard enough to force it open… Which I guess had to be done for another a moment later, since as soon as I got in I heard someone else shout that another door was stuck closed. I made sure to hold it open for the next person when I was done, of course.

That left me with minutes until the announced start time, so I made my way to the entrance to the start area for Sector E, where those with a last official time over 2:15 or with no official time within the past two years were supposed to start from, quite a long way behind the start line. Since the crowd went around the square and the tents were in between, we couldn’t even see the start line from there, and while we could perhaps hear that something was being said and how loudly, we definitely couldn’t make out the words… And 9:10 AM came and went, with no sign of anything happening.
At least that gave me a bit of time to try to recover after the earlier events, somewhat less anxious over being in a crowd of people, since none of them had anything to do with me. But I was getting ever more anxious that something was wrong or we were simply being held back, losing time compared to the official start, as until then I still had an ideal target of two hours as official time in mind, which considering my optimistic target of 1:56 as real time meant I could afford a maximum of four minutes to reach the start line and I’m pretty sure it was past 9:14 when I heard something that gave me the impression the start was given.
As it was later proven, I was correct, as I started my stopwatch a few seconds later and when I eventually managed to see the official timer I saw mine was only nine seconds behind. However, I only got to that point after waiting for a few minutes longer, during which time nothing moved not only in Sector E but even in Sector D ahead, and then barely walking slowly until there was enough room to try to start lightly jogging as we finally approached the line. Unfortunately, by then it was already clear that a target of two hours as official time was merely wishful thinking, as my start time seemed to me to have been 5:47, or at least that was what the official timer displayed when I looked up just before crossing the line, though the official results state it was actually about 5:48. Either way, significantly more than the four minutes I could afford to lose, so I settled for two hours as real time instead.

But I think I’ll stop here, at the start, and continue with the run itself and the rest of the day at a later point. Ideally, that will be tomorrow, but may even be next week. Right now I’m content I finally managed to post something about this and I’d rather not struggle with it even longer and risk not finishing today, leaving me to need to get myself going again to continue tomorrow or who knows when and not have anything here at all until then.

After installing an update to Windows Update released around the time of the start of the push to make everyone “upgrade” to Windows 10 made it no longer alert me that important updates are available, I have to glance at the available updates at least once every few days myself in order to catch any important ones released outside the normal schedule. Well, when I did that yesterday, I noticed two new optional ones, released on May 17, one of them being KB3156417, which when I checked I noticed had the interesting title of “May 2016 update rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1”.
That looked like something I should look into more, so I did just that last night, immediately finding plenty of articles and an official post which make it clear that, while it’s not called as such, it’s pretty much Service Pack 2, including nearly all updates released after Service Pack 1. There are some exceptions, and I see people confirming that the “Get Windows 10” nagware is fortunately among the updates not included, but I’m not seeing an actual list anywhere and that’s not the only one I don’t want on my computer, so I’ll be staying away from it at least until I’ll know more.
Then again, my list of hidden updates is quite short and I’m sure that, on top of many unnecessary but at least harmless ones, I installed at least a few I shouldn’t have since this push to “upgrade” started. For example, as I was searching now I stumbled into a forum thread containing a long list, while my list of hidden updates includes only the following, which I’ll list along with the reason why I chose to hide them. However, short as it is, I definitely do not want these updates to end up installed:
Related to “upgrading” to Windows 10: KB2952664, KB3021917, KB3035583, KB3123862
Adding telemetry: KB3068708, KB3075249 (*), KB3080149
Causing some fonts to become hard to read: KB2970228, KB3102429
(*) This seems to no longer be offered, as I have it on this list I keep but it doesn’t show up as either hidden or available. I’m not even completely sure I hid it, as I know I simply left it pending for a long time and there is a chance I added it to the list of updates to avoid but never actually hid it before it vanished, if that didn’t happen very recently.
In addition, on top of KB3156417 and KB3139923, which was the other one released recently, at the moment I have KB3118401, KB3133977 and KB3140245 still pending, the first one because it makes me a bit wary, the second because there is something that sometimes feels a bit unstable after multiple reboots within a day or so and that update has a double restart requirement, and the third because I’d need to edit the registry to take advantage of what it adds and then write down what to do in case I’ll need to do it again later and at the moment I’m not sure I’ll get any real benefits from it.

But now we get to the worse problem: If you keep reading that official announcement, or the articles mentioning this development, you’ll notice that this sort of bundle will be the method of releasing non-security updates from now on, as only the security updates will continue to be released separately while everything else will be available as a single monthly bundle. It is of course “sold” as a way to simplify the process and improve compatibility, but it’s obviously the latest in the series of methods to force users who stay away from the newer version of Windows, in large part just in order to avoid these things, to install undesired updates, starting with telemetry, possibly more ways to push Windows 10, and who knows what else, including those that they simply know will cause them problems. And this comes just at the end of the free Windows 10 “upgrade” period, so people who’ll want a way out of whatever will happen to their systems will need to pay for what may unfortunately quickly become a slightly lesser evil.

There’s also something there about updates no longer being available to manually download from the Microsoft Download Center, but only from the Microsoft Update Catalog, which is an old and, from what I gather, largely abandoned function that requires installing an ActiveX control, and therefore also using Internet Explorer, in order to use. There are promises that the Catalog will be updated in the next few months to remove the ActiveX requirement and therefore also allow the use of other browsers, but it’s definitely a bad practice to first require the use of something and only later develop it, which again makes me suspicious of the motives behind the move.

Either way, the main point of this post is to raise another alarm over these bundles of non-security updates that will be the only way to obtain said updates from now on, and which are certain to also include those people specifically want to avoid. As such, I guess the standard recommendation from now on will be to not install any of them, as they may even make some other methods of avoiding some of the undesirable consequences obsolete, and perhaps if you find yourself needing an included patch to try to find a way extract it individually from the package or find it posted separately somewhere by someone who did extract it, assuming you trust the source.

Sadly, yesterday I allowed myself to be drawn into the WP-SpamShield developer’s “I said, you said” game and went around in circles for a few messages until the moderator yet again closed the thread, and again I got the warning. So what’s left there are opposing statements from an unhappy user and the developer of a plugin with a 4.9-star average rating, with the developer insisting they have “literally been dealing with [me] since November of last year” and “bent over backwards trying to help” while I refused their help and have been abusing and harassing them all this time. And instead of simply posting the evidence and letting it speak for itself, I allowed myself to be drawn into that sort of game until the thread was closed, like I said.

So let me just post the evidence here now, starting with the logs being referred to, which the developer claims included “many errors in [my] theme and other plugins”. This is straight from the log I sent to him last November, when he asked for it in the first reply to the support request. At the time, the problem only appeared when first loading a page on my site after opening the browser, or more specifically when the session cookie was not set, but the delay is the same as what 1.9.8.1 caused on every single page or operation, every single time. Removed file locations, but these four notices are all from my theme, as anything from any other plugins would have been impossible anyway, since WP-SpamShield was literally the only plugin even installed, not to mention active.

If you check the times, you will clearly notice that 24-second delay in there, before loading one part of the code and another. On the other hand, below you see how it looks now, with WP-SpamShield removed and no delays anymore. Exact same notices, with some added information for the last one, the only real difference being the lack of a delay.

But what do you know, now that I looked I found an error log with the entry below. Only thing there, in fact. Again removed file location, but it said it was actually caused by WP-SpamShield, while I had 1.9.8.1 active. Must have happened when I checked a page that didn’t exist, as I recall noticing that it failed to display the normal message in case the page isn’t found and I ended up with a standard 404 page instead, so now I know why. Of course, now that works normally as well, with WP-SpamShield removed.

But this is just a little thing, the more important matter being that they supposedly had to deal with me “literally” since last November and I have been abusive and harassed them all this time, right? Well, in that case I’d ask you to have a look at the end of the exchange from November and my first message from May. Masked e-mail addresses, just in case spam bots are smart enough to grab even from images, but that’s all there was, and I zoomed out that much in order to fit everything in one screenshot and not need to paste more than one together and give anyone any reason to assume I may have cut something out. I have the whole thing saved if anybody’s interested, starting from my support request on November 24 to this last message of mine on November 26, but in the image linked to above you have his last reply and my last reply from that initial exchange and then, like I said, the message I sent this month, after updating to 1.9.8 and noticing the issue appear when writing to the database, before 1.9.8.1 made it far, far worse. There was nothing in between and, seriously, if anybody sees me being abusive or harassing in there, or being “asked not to contact [them] multiple times”, please point it out to me.
Admittedly, since that wasn’t sent by e-mail, I don’t have the second support request sent, after his reply to that May 7 e-mail of mine. He insists I was abusive in that one and I definitely don’t recall anything of the sort. Asked for him to quote me if that was the case, which he did not, but I did already apologize regardless, in case my frustration at being talked down to and having what I say ignored did happen to grow to anger at some point as I was writing it.
However, what I do have is the next, and last, e-mail I sent, which resulted in me being completely banned for the site, supposedly because it constituted a bad case of harassment. So have a look at that as well and tell me which part of it could count as such, please. Again, masked the e-mail addresses for the same reason and also the links to the videos and one version number. Links would be dead now anyway, as I deleted the videos when it was clear there was no reason to have them there when they hadn’t been viewed even in the first place anyway, and call me paranoid but there are a few things I didn’t want to post so publicly. Everything else is right there though, and anyone can judge the facts.

And, of course, there’s also the issue of the problem appearing on other sites that use WP-SpamShield as well, which definitely rules out the claim that it’s something specific to my site. And to stick to facts, I just recorded another video of that happening on two sites that I found after searching for that little text users of WP-SpamShield can choose to have placed in the comments area if they wish to promote the plugin. Now I can’t know what version they use, but I can make a pretty good guess, considering the delay, which is in fact significantly longer than what I had been experiencing on my blog.

Over a year and a half since I switched to it, last night I switched back away from WP-SpamShield, which for my own use I’ll mention claimed to have blocked 72673 spam comments during this time, and returned to Akismet. What’s more, at this point I’d seriously advise everyone to be careful with WP-SpamShield because the developer’s attitude and refusal to admit its obvious behavior and the changes made to the code make me suspect malicious intent. It may of course simply be a case of thinking too highly of himself and too poorly of users, but I’m just saying I see reasons for concern and strongly advise caution if you care for your security and privacy, or even simply want to be taken seriously when you point out issues.

The story is that I first noticed a problem several months ago, at which time I had tracked it down to setting the session cookie and suspected it had to do with the change of ISP. Since as of then my IP could no longer be resolved and the problem also appeared on dad’s computer but not when using other connections, I eventually assumed it was a matter of WP-SpamShield trying to resolve it, possibly multiple times, before finally allowing that cookie to be set after a 24-second delay. Took it back and forth at length with support and, while the problem was never admitted and instead blame was laid on everything from my host to my WordPress version, theme or even browser, the issue was eventually fixed in an update. That delay still appeared when I tried to submit a test comment and when updating WP-SpamShield, but it made sense for it to check things then.
However, as of some point between version 1.9.7.7, when it was still fine, and 1.9.8, which I updated to directly about a week and a half ago, that delay appeared again whenever something was written to the database, therefore badly affecting the back end. Judging by the list of changes, I’d hazard a guess that something introduced in version 1.9.7.8 was the cause, but definitely can’t be sure and either way that became the lesser problem once I updated to 1.9.8.1, as then I started getting that delay on every single page and operation. 24 seconds to load a page, 24 seconds for something to be written to the database, 48 seconds for something that does both, such as publishing or saving changes to a post. As such, my site became next to unusable for me with WP-SpamShield active.
So I sent another reply to the old discussion I had saved after dropping it back then, but all I got back was another condescending reply listing all other things the developer thinks are wrong or simply doesn’t like even though none could explain the issue, telling me there’s nothing else they can do if I refuse their advice and closing the ticket, saying I can open another if I have other problems. Which I obviously did, once again explaining exactly what’s going on and why none of the proposed “solutions” tackle the actual problem I’m reporting, but there was no other reply.
Admittedly, I was frustrated and dismissive in that new ticket, but don’t see how it could have been considered abusive, yet when I posted a comment to another review mentioning slowing down a site, that was exactly what I was accused of, again being told that they “bent over backwards” trying to help me, yet again ignoring everything I was saying and force feeding their attempt to blame everything but WP-SpamShield for a problem that only appeared with it enabled, while nothing else that was mentioned as a potential other explanation was changed in any way. As I yet again pointed that out, I was simply told I was wrong and that was the end of it.
Well, I don’t appreciate being, albeit somewhat indirectly, called either a liar or an idiot or both, so I recorded video of the issue, using different browsers, then showed it go away with WP-SpamShield off, then reappear as it was reactivated. Then also showed it happen on another site I had found after searching for sites using WP-SpamShield, which should make it perfectly clear that it’s not something specific to my host, theme, WordPress version, options or anything else of that sort. Also made another short video to show the IP issue and how the delays fit right into the picture, and offered to test other sites or scenarios as well if needed. But I was unable to send the links as a support request, at the time being unsure whether that was due to an error or a ban, so I sent them by e-mail… Which resulted in me being banned from the site entirely.
Now I don’t take posting bad reviews lightly and have to admit that WP-SpamShield does also do what it should very well, in terms of eliminating spam, but at least these latest versions also very clearly do things they shouldn’t, the developer’s attitude and refusal to admit this is a huge red flag and today I felt I had exhausted all options of solving the problem amiably and at least somewhat privately, so I did post this story as a two-star review and, well, you can see what happened next. Not that you’d need to by now, since it’s pretty much the same story of what I’m saying being ignored while the developer force feeds his ideas to me and anyone else who may be reading, blaming anything other than WP-SpamShield for the problem and continuing to accuse me of being abusive while also adding harassment to the list now, since apparently sending the links to those videos as evidence amounted to that in his view and justified the ban.

But now that I wrote another personal post and not even about Sunday, let me also add something I kept forgetting to mention so far, which is that I received both Baldur’s Gate: The Original Saga and Baldur’s Gate 2 Complete on GOG. As I wasn’t even accepting the other games I was nominated for in The Community Giveaway, I definitely had no intention of asking for the second or entering another giveaway for the first otherwise, but when they stopped being available on their own on April 29 and people donated several keys for those who’ll just want the originals at some later time, I winced and awkwardly did so after all. Too awkwardly, in fact, as I asked for the second right after it stopped being available separately, but my request was missed due to how and when it was posted and I eventually even more awkwardly repeated it, obtaining the game on May 4. Got the first from that other giveaway on May 13, after donating Arx Fatalis to The Community Giveaway on May 11.
Now this hardly means I’ll get back to the first Baldur’s Gate in the foreseeable future, much less that I’ll start the second, but they’re there in case I ever will get to that point. Been years since I tried and abandoned the first, after all, and I was never sure I cared to continue it at a later point, but this counts as at least some amount of incentive to at least make another attempt, even if not too soon. Hope my old saves will work with the GOG version though, because even if I wasn’t far along I’d rather not have to actually start over, even though in some ways that may be the better option.

And one more thing I didn’t mention in a personal post is the fact that I hit my head quite hard against a metal bar during the May 6 protest. Entirely my fault, didn’t pay attention as I tried to duck under it while stepping forward and down, and I mentioned it in the post about those protests, but should probably add it here as well, especially since, while the lump pretty much went away by the end of the protest as a result of me spending most of the time keeping my hands cold and pressing and rubbing them against the area, you can still see the mark where the skin was scraped off. Also, that part of my head did feel slightly weird at first, there was an occasional dull pain that seemed located deeper, but that also went away after a few days, so I hope there will be no other consequences.

Yes, two days ago I actually did what I’ve been planning and sort of preparing for since late March, but I’ll get to that in another post. This one is about the week before, starting on Sunday, May 8, when I walked the route I was to run, to learn it and notice slopes, turns, potential choke points and any other details I should keep in mind. Also used that to see how I handle the wind, since there were some rather strong gusts and the forecast at the time included similar wind conditions on race day, and the conclusion wasn’t too encouraging. Worst part, however, was the rather steep climb on Calea Victoriei, after some 15.6 or 15.7 kilometers, and with a single lane available. It was clear I’ll have serious problems there and then pretty much all the way to the end, as that entire stretch after turning around on Victoriei and getting back down to the river somehow felt like a slight but almost constant climb, despite going one way to a point, then crossing a bridge and coming back on the other side.
The initial plan was to do that walk Monday or Tuesday, but that assumed I’ll manage to run again before then, since the plan of 16 kilometers at a certain pace, then ten kilometers on the track, early in the morning on no or next to no sleep, and finally 6.4 kilometers, as in two laps around the lake, starting at the same time as the race itself, had to be dropped and replaced due to finding myself without a working watch. So I had added those two roughly timed seven-kilometer runs after the one I had to abort after a bit under ten kilometers, but definitely wanted at least another good ten-kilometer run, which I planned for the first day without rain after Easter. Since I still had no watch by the end of the week, however, I moved things around, deciding to walk the route earlier and hope to run Tuesday at the latest, assuming the watch matter will be settled on Monday one way or another.

Well, it wasn’t settled on Monday, but I did run Tuesday after all, because after being told the old watch can’t be fixed, or at least not at a reasonable price, and dad didn’t know where to look and said any he saw that fit my criteria were too expensive, I went and bought one myself from the first place I thought of, at a little over half the price he said the cheapest he saw was.
And then I just changed and put that new watch to use, aiming for that time I hadn’t managed three weeks earlier, and actually making it quite easily. So the target was 53 minutes for ten kilometers, with 17-minute laps and two minutes for that final section, and the result was 52:14, with 16:52 and sector times of 4:55, 5:28 and 6:29 on the first lap, 16:53 and sector times of 4:59, 5:33 and 6:21 on the second, 16:43 and sector times of 4:51, 5:31 and 6:21 on the third, and 1:46 on that final section. After the second sector of the second lap I upped the pace a little because I was feeling better than the pace up to that point suggested, and I still had a little left at the end, so getting under 52 minutes shouldn’t be a problem if I’d push a bit harder. Plus, my fibula seemed to have recovered during this time, so it didn’t hurt anymore and I no longer feared a stress fracture.

Moving on to Wednesday, I went to buy some things, as I hadn’t been in nearly a month and was close to running out of some things even that last time, so it was really needed and I wanted to stock up on some things as well, so I won’t need to do something similar again too soon. That took me pretty much all day, checking three hypermarkets and going to two of them twice, once just to check prices before making most purchases from the third, then dropping those off and going back to the first two for the things that were either only available there or cheaper. Always unpleasant, having to do with money and this rotten system this society maintains…
What made it even more unpleasant was that I got confused, more than once, the first time after an old man called me and, when I got closer, shook my hand and asked me for 2 RON, supposedly for some water because he was thirsty. This coming after a young man had called me from the other side of the street that last time I went shopping, crossed the road despite cars still coming when I walked away, introduced himself, shook my hand and started telling me a story that boiled down to him supposedly needing 38 RON to buy some things for others, then trying to squeeze more out of me when I handed him 5 RON, which is probably the first time I gave anything to a beggar. But if that one did get those 5 RON at least, now I didn’t even have such small bills on me, even if I’d have been inclined to give something again, so I made a face and haltingly walked away. However, despite first saying he’s just asking if I want to help him, don’t have to give him anything, the man then came after me, asked me to look at how old he is, then to look at his “golden hands”, probably meaning rough and showing signs of working hard, then even grabbed my arm and tried to hold me back, at which point I roughly pulled myself away and sped up.
The problem was that I was quite panicked at that point as a result of that sort of interaction and completely missed a turn, took another without realizing I was wrong, then took the next as if I’d have taken the first one correctly and only then realized something was wrong. Worse, I then kept going, thinking I’ll sort it out on the go, before realizing I was only making it worse, taking another turn that should have gotten me closer to where I had to be, reminding myself that a panic attack sharply drops your IQ and stopping to calm down a little before making any other stupid decisions. So I eventually got to the first destination, but wasted quite a bit of time from the start and that state of mind made me slower from then on as well.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, I then lost even more time by not paying attention to the number of the bus I got into, out of the free ones offered by that third hypermarket I went to. Finished shopping there at a time when a few different ones pick people up and somehow “managed” to get in the wrong one and didn’t even realize it for quite a while, as I just kept checking lists and prices. Only noticed it some time later, when I took a look out the window and realized I definitely wasn’t where I should be, so I then quickly looked for any place I recognized, saw one and got off at the next stop, knowing a metro station should be nearby. Still took me a while to find it, as I wasn’t sure which direction it was in from that intersection, but eventually did and got back by metro, after wasting another significant amount of time.

After taking it easy Thursday, Friday I went to pick up my race kit, walking to Constitution Square and back. Happened to bump into one of the activists on the way and was asked where I was going, at which point I didn’t want to answer but wasn’t sure how to say I’d rather not say, so when he asked again I simply said I was going to pick up something. Then I wasted a bit of time by not taking the usual route, as I would have needed to cross the road a bit oddly, in the sense of going the long way around that intersection, which wasn’t something I cared about otherwise but suddenly didn’t want to do it when someone I knew could watch, so I kept going until the next place where I could cross safely and used a couple of smaller streets to get back to the usual route.
Either way, once there I had to see what to do about the fact that my name had showed up wrong in the confirmation letter due to me wanting to make sure it was right, in case they’d be so thorough in checking. The issue was that there’s a special Romanian character in my last name and, extremely unusually for me, I actually typed that when I registered instead of replacing with the standard character, only to see that their system couldn’t handle it when the letters were posted. So I went there with the letter printed as it was, with two other characters instead of that one, and tried to see what will happen.
Well, what happened was that nobody cared about that character, but it was confusing to get the kit either way. A map I had found on the site had the pick up area outside the main tent, but there was nothing in that spot when I got there, so at first I glanced inside the main tent, then went back outside when I saw a sign saying new registrations were there, entering the smaller tent with the sign saying “confirmation letters”. But all that happened there was that I had another letter printed, the person assuming I hadn’t printed it at home, and this one had that character replaced with a question mark. When I pointed it out, she said she can’t make any changes, but that it shouldn’t matter, and told me that I need to go inside the main tent after all.
Quite confused by that point, I went back inside the main tent, walked past the new registrations area and to the next signs, which did say “race kits”. However, when I got there I was told to go back and pick up the number and timing chip first, so I got back to the new registrations area even more confused. And then the person who was there sent me back farther on, finally explaining, when I said that from “farther on” I had been sent back there, that in fact the place everybody had been sending me to was in between “new registrations” and “race kits”, having no sign to indicate that people should go there.
So it took a while, but eventually I did get the number and tracking chip, then the bag with a couple of magazines, a couple of samples and advertisements and the sponge, and then, after the person who handed me the bag made sure to mention that it wasn’t included and had to be picked up from yet another place, at the exit of the main tent, the t-shirt. Bit of a funny moment there too, as the person who gave it to me suddenly asked if I didn’t want an S instead of the M I had reserved, then refused to repeat herself and just wished me luck and told me to drop it, “seriously”, when I asked her to say it again, since she had said it too quickly at first and I didn’t catch it right away, only figuring it out a while later.

Once that was done, I tried to sleep some more, but barely caught another hour or so Friday evening. Still, that was better than Saturday, as I woke up and needed to go to the toilet over an hour earlier than planned, so shaved before watching the qualifying for Sunday’s race instead of after, as originally planned. After that, spent another hour or so at the computer, then got back in bed, where I stubbornly stayed for the next three and a half hours or so despite being unable to fall asleep again. Admittedly, it counts as resting, and for a while I even sort of tried to meditate, but there was no sleep.
At 8:45 PM I finally got up and made myself something to eat while watching the Eurovision final, which started at 10 PM. Then, after it was over, I made myself tea for the next day, posted the first part of my opinions about this year’s competition, got everything more or less ready for the morning, which included struggling for quite a while to properly pin my number to the t-shirt, quickly added another pointless paragraph in my story, checked to make sure I had two alarms properly set, at 6:15 AM, and got in bed again. It was slightly earlier than my usual time, but not by much, and even though I did eventually manage to fall asleep, it wasn’t quickly, so I only got about half an hour.