Friday, July 8th, 2011, 6:47 pm
Enjoying Summertime
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HIS month’s schedule has been erratic so far and I spent a lot of time outdoors, owing more than anything to improved weather. Today too I spent almost all day at a friend’s house. Cycling has become a lot of fun, especially along the canals here in the UK. The terrain is rough though, so the bike breaks down quite routinely. I will try to spend the next two weeks blogging a little more as I never neglected my online activity as much as I have recently. Well, frankly, not much has happened either. Since Novell is dead, the “Boycott Novell” push is hardly necessary anymore. We won.
While making a lot of time for exercise and enough time for sleep and social life, I do always try to maximise use of my work time. In particular, here are ways to combine work and boring chores. I typically read papers while I shave, as the latter task is mostly mechanical (shaver, no blades), I listen to music/lectures while preparing to leave or showering, typically audiocasts while doing jobs around the house, and typing of blog posts (including this one) between sets at the gym, unless friends are nearby, in which case I speak to them. There are good devices with full-sized keyboard that make this possible, especially in particular gyms at quieter times of the day. This leaves a lot of the complex jobs that require multitasking to the desktop, which has a vast workspace, steady Internet connection, and event alerts. This actually helps promote the argument that we decreasingly depend on just the old-style desktop, assuming devices integrate correctly. This always leave me wondering how many aspects of ours lives will depend on Linux (which is huge in embedded and mobile devices, not just the server side). But that’s a ramble for another day…
S Independence Day/Weekend was a lot of fun. The Manchester City Stadium 10K (ten kilometers, which is about a quarter of a marathon) took place on Sunday. I was among the runners there and the following day I cycled for 9 hours because it was nice and sunny (now it rains again). Today I spent over 3 hours at the gym, making the total of time spent on exercise in the past 3 days something around 16 hours. In order to keep in decent shape but not make races just a torturous experience (I went to the gym straight afterwards for weights), I took it easy in this race and I intend to carry on running and cycling more than before, maybe building up stamina for a change. My diet too has improved somewhat. So anyway, it was a very pleasant weekend, maybe I will upload more photos later. I will probably do the same Manchester 10K race next year as it exceeded my expectations. The number of participants was a couple of thousands, meaning far smaller than the great run, which is also 10K but has a low of slow runners. The race was by mere chance talking place on one of the more pleasant days of the year, even though it was a little too hot for running (early in the day and not a cloud in the sky). Anyone who considers doing future K-Swiss Manchester 10K races probably won’t regret it.