August 12: Week 6 wrapup
Mixed results this week. Failed electronics. Failing timelapses. And the cat threw up.
Not really that much of a mix, when it's lined up like that.
It's all sounding a bit heavy, so let's talk about the cat. She's an old, grumpy and entitled, a bit too used to having a staff of human personal attendants. She's fed twice a day, and normally swaggers up beforehand with to remind everyone that it's time to FEED ME NOW. But recently she hasn't - and she's leaving her food uneaten, instead of scarfing down her pellets as soon as they're served. Which means she's sick - or she's finding her food elsewhere.
On reflection, it's probably the latter. Yesterday night I fed her at the usual time. She showed up late, sniffed disapprovingly at the pellets, and gave me a disappointed look. But she did get stuck into them. I went off to do some chores, and when I got back she'd thrown up twice and gone out for the night. Which does sound like a very high-level cat power move.
Also she's in the habit of barging in around midnight and demanding skritches. So it's probably not sickness ... and maybe it’s all part of a hardball play to reassert her dominance. Whatever the reason is, she's on reduced rations until she gets her appetite back.
A more positive note for the week is that I was able to take the Ghost XL camera out on the weekend ride, and capture a timelapse! On the plus side, the battery lasted the full 7 hours, and got some video out. But it's not easy to watch: it speeds up the ride 15x and since the bike is always swaying and turning, the magnified movement makes the result very unstable. Postprocessed video stabilization helps, but doesn't completely fix it. It’s going to need something more. Whatever happens, I'll keep the original recordings and can revisit stabilization later.
Last is the Garmin satellite locator. It caused a bit of trouble last time, it needs to be revived and checked early. So this week I dug it out, charged it up and installed the latest firmware. Reupped the rescue insurance. Resubscribed to the monthly communication plan. And turned on satellite tracking to test it works.
It gathers its strength, sends one last call up to the heavens, then dies.
Operatic. Hell, let's pretend that the one last GPS squawk was "O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!" and we're looking at a postmodern performance of Tosca.
But I'm really not in the mood. Two failures in a row - maybe it's time to check out the competition? Tempting! But it's still under warranty.
So I contacted their online support chat. I’m connected to the US branch who promptly passed me off to the UK division who were very helpful, until we figured out I needed the NL group. I contacted them and before I could stop them they snappily transferred me back to the US. But it was four hours until they’d open for business...
Maybe it IS actually time to check out the competition? Unfortunately, given the cost of a replacement, the answer is still "no".
I did get it sorted over the phone. But the capstone on this monument to Kafka is that I then got four different emails from Garmin asking me to fill in feedback about their support - it just wasn't clear which each one corresponded to. I'd have loved to unload an incendiary 500-word zero-star evaluation, but the risk it'd land on one of the helpful people gave me so much pause I still haven't done it. And to be fair the peremptory handovers most likely happened because someone senior with a spreadsheet kept demanding call times be reduced.
There's more but it's boring so let's summarize by saying it's In Progress.
From left to right: Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen peaks. One of the climbs; not much but put together they added up to 180m for the whole ride. A pretty little waterside path which turned into a tight squeeze. Selfie once it opened up. Swan tower gate ornament. This statue is for an exhibition, but was just sitting beside the road. Rubbish bins for cyclists.
Training happened - a very technical session on Tuesday, incrementally ratcheting the effort up and down by a few percent for the whole session. Thursday was peak-effort training, which means short sprinting bursts. I'm getting better at these but do not expect to ever need do 100rpm while standing, so I'm dubious about the benefits here. The weekend ride was an uncomplicated seven hour roll out past Haarlem with a long stretch between Zandfoort beach, and Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen with its low-country peaks. Plus there was cake.
In conclusion: I suppose there is progress, so I guess it is a mixed week after all. Hoping things are a bit less mixed and a bit more positive next week.
Six weeks left…
