MUSIC IS PHYISCAL

From DJ and Producer Ivan Berko over at thought enthusiast:

“I buy records every day. Lately, I buy a lot of CDs, too, because there are a lot of things that only came out on CD in the 2000s. They’re super cheap, too. You can get a stack of CDs for a dollar apiece, rip them to the computer, put them on a USB, and walk around listening to them.”

I just posted some of the ways I find new music with a little less big tech, so this piece is a fun read, especially as some of us get back to the analog ways of listening to music again.

So much of the music that shaped our early lives in pre-internet times was based on touch, and feel, and location. Think music rooms, or large stereos, where you could only listen via headphones because the cord didn’t reach very far!

Then there’s the physical act of changing CDs, flipping a record or cassette. The physical is so much a part of the music, and I think a lot of us are starting to feel that bubble up again.

DISTANCE

THis is just mind boggling, from ‘One Light-Day Away: Time incomprehensible.”

Voyager is moving at close to 60,000 kilometers per hour, which is genuinely extraordinary by any human engineering standard.

At that speed it still took nearly half a century to cover a single light-day. The nearest star is about four light-years away. Do the math: at Voyager’s pace, reaching Alpha Centauri would take something on the order of 70,000 years! We built the first stone monuments about 6,000 years ago. 

Midterm elections are in two months, and then it’s two more years of who knows what?

Also from this post, “If the galaxy were the continental United States, one light-day would be about the width of a parking space.”

WALKING 10+ MILES FOR 115 DAYS

NIGHT TIME WALKING

Walked 20.12 miles today, a nice way to top off 115 days straight of walking / running 10+ miles per day. Someone asked me today if I’m on GLP-1, and I just told them, “nope, just walking and eating less snacks.”

I’ve always seemed to find time to look at my phone for 3+ hours a day, first thing in the morning, while warming up my coffee, in the evening – all those moments just add up, just like jetting outside for a half-mile walk here and there.

YOUTUBE REACTION FINDER

Some of you know I do work with independent music publicists, on the reporting side of things. Not glamorous, but I make it work.

In recent years labels and management love “YouTube Reaction coverage,” when the reaction channels react to newly released songs.

YouTube’s search function on the website isn’t great, and even then, moving those links and channel names into a report is cumbersome, so I made a “Reaction Finder.”

It uses a YouTube Data API key, so you enter the artist name, song title, and release date, and let’s me click a button to copy the results and paste them into a report.

This saves me a ton of time when dealing with 25+ results, which would take me forever to manage manually.

PACK UP AND FIND FOOD

A long time ago I was “The Bike Nerd.” I mean, I owned the domain name, even. I got rid of all my stuff, left my apartment in NYC in 2010, and biked around the country (via bus, too) and visited friends while also trying to do remote work (which dried up and woo boy, that’s a whole other post).

So when Jason Kottke posted this morning that he got rid of all his stuff (including his car), and flew to Japan. It’s a beautiful post.

The ending is what got me, though.

“For now, I’m going to pack my computer up and walk to find something tasty for lunch — I’ve so missed being able to easily do that.”

I used to do this all the time in those days. Work, write, post, upload, then duck out and find somewhere to eat. Day in and day out, without knowing where I was gonna be living one week to the next. Oh, what a time.

WHERE WE PUT OUR TIME

One of the things I talk about with Social Media Escape Club is that time I save by not being on the major social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, IG, LinkedIn), I can put somewhere else, and these days that’s meant 3+ hours a day walking.

That effort made the thinking about entering a 12 hour loop race seem feasible. Like, hey, I walk 3+ hours a day anyways… maybe I could do four? Five?

And while I only managed 7.5 hours (WTF), I found that I loved being at the event. The planning, the packing, arriving before the sun came up to figure out a good place to park. The camaradier with a bunch of sweaty and smelly and muddy people eating grilled cheese and downing Cokes before going out on another five mile loop.

I just never got that with the local 5K races, which are usually over and done with in an hour. This was a 12 hour timed event, and I wish I could have stayed til the end but I don’t think I’d stay awake for the entire drive home!

So just thinking about how we allocate our time, and where that time can lead.

I RAN 25 MILES WITH BRONCHITIS

So I signed up for the Labor Pain 12 hour endurance trail run a week ago, and here I am with the follow up.

It took just less than 7.5 hours, but I got in 25 miles on the 5 mile course. That’s the most I’ve ever run. Went out way too fast. Didn’t rest enough in between laps. Flamed out on that last lap.

1:16:10 lap 1
1:10:29 lap 2
1:21:05 lap 3
1:32:07 lap 4
2:06:45 lap 5
Total time was 7:26:33

I got two shirts out of the deal, all the grilled cheese and coke and cookies I could ever eat, had so many great conversations with people, and even got paced by a puppy on my last lap.

I really wanted to hit 30 miles, buy my feet had other plans. Next time I really need to rest like 10-15 minutes after each lap. Put my feet up. Recover more.

When I signed up for this race, I already had “a cough,” but didn’t think much of it. Eh, it’ll go away, right? Well, it was still there on Sunday, but I powered through. It really didn’t affect my breathing, except when I was coughing, which wasn’t too often. And really, I figured if I got in 25 miles (holy crap), it must not be that bad.

Well, finally I went to urgent care, and it turns out I have bronchitis. Oops.

According to Wikipedia:

“Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (large and medium-sized airways) in the lungs that causes coughing. Bronchitis usually begins as an infection in the nose, ears, throat, or sinuses. The infection then makes its way down to the bronchi. Symptoms include coughing up sputum, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest pain.”

Again, I didn’t have a sore throat. The coughing didn’t keep me up at night (I slept 10 hours straight after the run). I was fine!

But yeah, I ran 25 miles with bronchitis. If it gets worse, it can turn into pneumonia, which is not ideal.

All that to say, I am still able to walk 10+ miles per day, I feel good, and now I’m on medication to take of the bronchitis.

HELLO, BUTTERFLY

This butterfly would not leave me alone. First it landed on my shoe. Then it somehow landed on my finger, twice. I went inside, and when I came back it was on my chair waiting for me.

My sister said it’s mom paying a visit, which make me tear up. Miss ya, mom.

THE HOURS ADD UP

Three hours a day on our phone is 21 hours a week, so I figured why not just go for a walk instead? I mean, I do look at my phone of course, but.. hey… 20+ extra hours not looking at the phone is nice, too.

The thing about “doing a thing” for so many hours per week is you don’t really know where it might lead. I can imagine someone practicing guitar for three hours a day might get really good in a few months time.

It’s like the Kobe Bryant thing, where he practiced multiple times per day, when everyone else was just practicing once a day. Do that over multiple years, and you’re miles ahead of the other players.

I’m not trying to win this 12 hour endurance trail run, but I’m excited to see what I can do from walking 10+ miles per day for 100 days.