Blugh.
Is the semester over yet?
In This Blog: Claudia Complains About the Weather (Again)
I’m so sick of this freaking weather, yo.
Save for like three days, this whole month has been full of dangerously cold temps. Ambient temps in the negative teens (Fahrenheit), wind chills in the -20s or -30s (or even -40s). It’s gross, it hurts, and I’m so tired of feeling like I’m going to die of hypothermia on my walks. Where the shit is the “mild winter” we were supposed to get?
A -22 windchill seems to be my absolute lower limit, or at least the limit at which even my stubbornness won’t let me go below. I’m pretty sure I’ve had legit hypothermia on a decent number of my walks. Some of the signs of it include shivering, shallow breathing, clumsiness, confusion, and there have been a few points on my 15-mile walks (usually after I’ve been walking into the wind for five miles) where I really start to get into this hazy, confused mental state and start to lose a bit of coordination as I’m walking. There’s also been a few times where I go into the public bathrooms at mile 7 and have to shiver uncontrollably for about 15 minutes before I finally warm up enough to continue. Fun times!
Beats four hours on a treadmill, though.
Woah
Guys, we were in the POSITIVE FAHRENHEITS today for like the first time in 20 years.*
It felt really good to be able to walk outside and not feel like I was going to die of hypothermia.
Seriously, I think this was the first actually enjoyable outside walk of this whole month. Does that mean spring is coming?!?!?!?!
(…please?)
*Mild exaggeration
OH MY GOD IT IS SO COLD
What in the actual frozen hell, Calgary.
Yes, this was at 5 AM, but it really never got much warmer than this today, let me tell you.
It was NEGATIVE THIRTY-EIGHT DEGREES when I walked to Anytime Fitness a little bit after this. If I had been walking into the wind instead of it blowing at my back, I would have easily gotten frostbite. That’s a 30-ish minute walk.
This weather is gross, yo. The only thing about being forced to go to Anytime Fitness is the fact that I have finally found the courage to try running again, and it feels so freaking awesome.
Now I just have to try to not go from 5k to, you know, like 13k in a day. I’m going to try to stay in the 5k range for a little while just to be safe, then slowly increase it.
But you know that as soon as the weather gets better outside, I’ll abandon Anytime Fitness altogether and just go back to my 15-mile outdoor walks, meaning running might cease again.
‘Cause that’s how I roll.
Frostbite ALMOST
So today’s fun adventure was “let’s see if we can get from campus to home before frostbite sets in!”
No, seriously.
According to a “how long does it take to get frostbite?” calculator I found, an ambient temperature of -29℉ and a wind speed of 7 mph combine to give you 12 minutes of exposure before frostbite develops.
And it takes me about 14 minutes to get home from the closest indoor part of campus.
So, you know, fun.
I, uh…
I have a lot of hair.
The Passion of the Pit
I don’t know why it took me so long to listen to Sleepyhead with these Sennheisers, but oh my god.
Sleepyhead was added to my music collection before my Decade of Music project (February 23, 2009 more specifically). It’s been surpassed by quite a few songs on my overall ranking of best songs, but I still maintain that its chorus is one of the best things I have ever heard.
(Chorus at 1:20)
I mean, I judge the quality of a Sleepyhead remix based on what they do with that chorus, which is why the Jazzsteppa Remix (makes the chorus a little slower and a lot more prominent with some serious bass) and the Cillo Remix (makes the chorus a bit more techno-ish and, again, more prominent with a chill vibe) are my two favorite remixes of this song.
Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve praised Sleepyhead. I’ve had a lot of other songs to rave about, but this one definitely has not fallen off my radar.
Decade of Music Project: A Task
ALRIGHTY, so as I’ve mentioned on here a few times recently, 2019 is the last year in my Decade of Music project, which means after December 31st of this year, I will no longer be “forced” to find and obtain a new song every day of the year.
And this, of course, means that at the end of this year, I’m going to be doing a huge review of the 3,560 or so songs I will have acquired since 2010.
So an additional task for this project this year is to make a sort of master list of all the songs since 2010 with their respective genres, lengths, stars, ranks, etc. so that I can make my final summary as accurate as possible. So far, I’ve got this:
I’ve decided that on each day of the year this year, I’ll go back and enter information for each song I’ve downloaded on that day since 2010. So for example, today I’ll look at my January 4th song from 2010, my January 4th song from 2011, my January 4th song from 2012, etc.
It’s going to take a bit of time each day, but as long as I don’t get behind, I should have a nice comprehensive list of the last 10 years’ worth of music by the end of this year.
WOO I LOVE LISTS
Moscow…Moscow Never Changes
- People still blow at shoveling their sidewalks
- The Palouse Mall still allows whoever shovels their parking lot to pile the snow on that outside sidewalk that goes the length of the mall to Walmart
- Winco still has cheap as hell cheese and it’s fantastic
- COLBY JACK CHEESE
- Safeway doesn’t have pitas
- There’s something kind of comforting/relaxing about walking in a small town compared to Calgary. I can basically get anywhere I want in about 45 minutes regardless of where my starting point is. The same definitely cannot be said about Calgary
- No Chinook headaches!
- The bus runs on Saturday now?!?!?!?!?
IS IT TIME TO GO TO MOSCOW YET?
I WANT TO GO TO MOSCOW
(This is an excellent blog post.)
Ow
The good thing about this winter: we’re getting Chinook after Chinook, which means it is substantially warmer than it was last winter. I think we were in the -20s around this time last year; we’ve been in the 20s/30s lately.
The bad thing about this winter: we’re getting Chinook after Chinook, which means I’ve been having pretty constant headaches.
But I don’t feel like I’m going to get frostbite every time I go out walking, so I’d say that’s worth it.
IT’S DECEMBER. IT’S A LIST. OMFG IT’S THE DECEMBER LIST
- The temperature got into the 40s today. What in the hell. It’s December. I’m pretty sure we were well into the negative Fahrenheits by this time last year.
- I found a $50 bill on my walk a few days ago. That’s the most money I’ve ever found!
- As I was looking through my enormous 200+ Word document of blog posts that I have yet to upload, I noticed a large number of my posts start with the word “so.” So that’s weird.
- I wonder if it bothers my students that I spell things the American way rather than the Canadian/British way. I know I had one student a few semesters back who was really bothered by it, but I was like “bro, I’ve assimilated up to the point where I’m relatively good with Celsius and can pretty quickly convert miles to kilometers, but I’m not just going to start throwing extra u’s in words, okay? You know exactly what the words “color” and “behavior” and “fiber” mean. Calm yoself.”
- I’ve found a few more Chicago Hope episodes on YouTube and was watching them all over the weekend while I was grading and I’m aDDICTED TO THAT SHOW AGAIN WHY THE HELL IS IT NOT OUT ON DVD
- I’m super excited to see my mom next week. Moscow party time!
And now the blog is over.
I lika dis
So I’ve never really liked prank channels on YouTube (or pranks in general), but this video was linked through r/Calgary due to the large number of porch package thieves going on up here.
I love the effort behind this. I also hate that people are such scumbags that this kind of a thing is even an issue.
Anyway, this led me to the creator’s channel (Mark Rober). It’s full of cool science stuff and experiments. I guess he used to work for NASA and designed a bunch of stuff for the Mars Rover. Check him out!
Cats
Hey poopers. So I said this last year, but the second half of last year’s blogs
Still
Haven’t
Been
Posted
Yet
And I don’t expect anyone to go back and read any of the garbage from the previous year. So I’ll say this again here: if any of you out there want to get me a Christmas present, I ask that you please donate to a cat shelter or cat sanctuary instead?
Cats > Claudia. This is not debatable.
Conglomerate
This is interesting. Check it out if you like linguistics at all.
Random Thought:
When you’re watching movie or reading a book, do you think about which character you’d play if you were to be in a remake of said movie or book?
Or is that just me and my weird-ass desire to make strange remakes of things that star myself and my friends?
(This is something that I’ve always wanted to do ever since I was a little kid. I have no idea why.)
AAAAAAA I FINALLY DID IT
So after like five years of talking about it, I finally did it: I finally made and ordered a paper copy of my blogs.
Well, for now, just Year 1. I’m going to see how it looks and how I like the binding/print/look of it all, and if it’s neato Frito, I’mma do all the rest of the years. I’ll show it to y’all once it comes in the mail.
And yes, I just said “neato Frito.” Fight me.
Edit: damn you, Canada Post, I want my bloggggggggggggs. Now I know how my readers feel.
Skidoo
Cooking dinner makes me anxious.
That’s…really dumb, but unfortunately true.
That’s all I have to say today, sorry.
Packy Back
So remember that L.L. Bean backpack that was brand new last October?
Yeah, it looks like this now.
Faded, just like my will to live.
This is what happens when I take it out walking for four hours a day (and occasionally haul around $12 worth of broccoli for several miles).
I’m pretty rough on backpacks.
Happy December 2nd!
Oh wait, it’s October 2nd?
YOU COULD’VE FOOLED ME
(and this was taken this morning, before another eight or so inches of snow fell)
Edit: holy hell, it’s a snowy death trap out there.
Edit 2: apparently this is the snowiest October day since like 1957. Also, this September was the coldest September ever recorded in Calgary. I can believe it.
I still prefer this kind of weather to the rainy hell that was Vancouver, though.
Edit 3: hahaha:
BENCHMARK
Heeeey, so we’ve got freezing temperatures and snow in September because of course we do.
But here’s a pretty bench picture I took, so I guess it’s all okay.
When Al Gore dances, does he follow an Al Gore Rhythm?
So due to the OH GOD IT HURTS unseasonably cold weather we’ve been getting this month, I’ve had to transition (at least temporarily) to my winter walking clothes.
This made me realize that I’ve never told you what I wear on my walks based on the season.
I’m sure you don’t actually care, but I’mma talk about it anyway. Because this is my blog and I suck and thus this blog should suck accordingly.
Fight me.
SUMMER!
- Hat
- Short-sleeve shirt
- Pants (stretchy, breathable, has a butt pocket for iPod)
- Socks
- (Plus underwear, bra, shoes)
SPRING/FALL!
- Same as summer, except add a light jacket
WINTER!
- Hat
- Short-sleeve shirt
- Pants (thick, not breathable, fuzzy warm)
- Tights (extra protection from cold)
- Socks
- Headphones (to protect my ears from the cold)
- Gloves (I dual-wield those cheap $2 gloves because I’m pathetic)
- Winter coat (I swear this thing is made of the same stuff that protects the space shuttle during re-entry. It’s such a good coat and it only cost like $5 because I got it at Goodwill)
- (Plus underwear, bra, shoes)
Party time.
Eigenblogger 