Josh Writes a Blog

Author: zornog

  • A Running Update on Running #4

    Now that my legs are more-or-less cooperating with me, I’ve decided to start up my Garmin Coach training plan for my July 10k. Yes, it’s time for me and my buddy Jeff Galloway to reconnect.

    “Hey Josh, it’s me, Jeff Galloway! You’re my favorite runner, did you know that? I love you.”

    How could you not trust this guy? (He did go to the Olympics, so I guess you really should trust him.)

    This week is focused on cadence drills. The plan updates as you go along, so I’m presuming that Mr. Galloway thinks that I’m not taking enough steps per minute, as he (it, whatever) scheduled two of the exact same cadence drills for my weekday runs.

    The plan is this: 10 min warm up, followed by 3x :30 running at 150-200spm with :30 recovery in between, then 3x :30 “acceleration glider” drills, which are basically just helping you transition from walking to running. Lastly, a 10 min cool down.

    I (of course) had never thought about cadence in my running. In fact, my only thought about my feet touching the ground was practically the opposite–that I should take fewer steps and that each step should sort of bound me forward. I should note that, as a slow ass runner, my concept of running forward as opposed to running upward (i.e. bouncing up and down too much) was very nonexistent. It’s hard to have a good run form when running slower. Think about walking. You walk heel-toe, right? That’s a perfectly acceptable form when walking, but it would destroy your knees if you did it when running. In fact, any sort of “feet in front of body” landing when running is a big no-no. But if you push forward with each step, you will run faster, and if you run faster and you’re not used to running faster, you won’t run as much.

    Now that I think about it, this is kind of the whole point of gradual progression. It’s about your form as much as it is about your breathing and your leg strength. (And really, these are all basically the same thing.)

    Currently, if I am running at a steady pace that feels alright, my cadence is about 150spm. The ideal is around 170-180 for a recreational runner, and when I push my pace up to a level that I can’t keep for very long, I hit that. So my goal (and I guess Jeff’s goal) is to do some interval training that helps me feel that 170-180 step pace without wearing me down. This is Jeff’s whole deal, folks; his training plan is called Run Walk Run® and YES he did trademark the phrase “Run Walk Run.” His idea is that walking is crucial for runners and that walking actually improves overall time for longer distances. I’ve already seen this in action with parkrun, where I take more walk breaks (though shorter) and end up finishing faster. And, moreover, I think these short walk breaks coupled with the cadence drills will improve my pace when I’m running, which is key. If I have to walk every so often, but my pace when I run is around 9-10:00/mi, then I will finish faster. Because, math.

    On Sunday is my first Run Walk Run® run. The app said nothing about what this run entails until today, when it was finally revealed to me: it’s running, and then walking. This whole time I’ve been thinking, don’t I already do that? The answer is yes, but not like this:

    I did not expect the program to include so many intervals! I have to run 2.5 miles like this on Sunday. It’s going to be so weird to be walking and running so much. I’m aiming for that 10:45-12:15 pace, but we’ll see how that works out. This really is just an extension of the Couch to 5k program, except Jeff just trademarked the first couple of weeks. Kind of awesome, really. I also appreciate how you can start this even if you’re a newbie with those 5-10 second intervals.

    I added another 5k race(ish) to my calendar. This one is the Five Fifty Fifty and is in honor of mental health, which is right up my alley. It is also taking place at Laurelhurst Park, which is very close to me! This will be one of the few times I can just jog over to my race. It’s a run/walk and I don’t think it’s timed, which makes sense if it’s in Laurelhurst, but it’s for a good cause an I get a t-shirt. You know how much I love t-shirts.

    This means that my next three weekends have a 5k race in them. I would’ve signed up for one on the 29th but I missed the cutoff for t-shirts and medals, and you know I gotta get those t-shirts and/or medals!

    My real hope for April is to approach the 35 minute 5k time. That’s an 11:16/mi pace, which is within my reach.

    Lastly, my family are heading to Shady Cove, OR in June for a little trip and that will coincide with my last full week of non-tapered training before my 10k at the Foot Traffic Flat. It’ll be very interesting to try and get some much needed runs in while on vacation. I’ve done it once before, back in Idaho, and the elevation difference was a hell of an upgrade.

    No parkrun this weekend because I’ll be at the Lacamas Hop Hop, and boy do I hate that name. See you then.

  • parkrun #10

    Oooh, look, fancy 3D map.

    My official parkrun time was 37:10, with an average pace of 11:58/mi. That, in itself, is very cool. I think I can whittle my pace down to under 11 minutes by the end of the year. I walked a lot during this run, especially in the second half. Ate too much for breakfast, I think, so my stomach was being a little sloshy. Plus I had to tie my shoe at one point. But also, my heart rate was threshold practically the entire time, so I stopped purposely a few times to get it down below 160. Clearly I can tolerate a 170-180 bpm for 3 miles (my average was around 165), but it’s a reminder that I need to do more slow runs. I’m sure if I ran slower overall I would’ve gotten a faster time. It’s nice to see a 9:30/mi pace but clearly I can’t sustain it.

    In fact, comparing this run to my track run on Thursday, where I ran 2 miles and all but 30 seconds of it was running and I’m basically proving my point, as my average pace for that run was 11:32 but was a consistent 11-11:30/mi pace, rather than the serious ups and downs of this parkrun. To be fair! the parkrun course does have a couple of uphills, which the track does not.

    For some reason WordPress won’t let me caption these image, so I’ll do it here: the top is my pace for the track session, the bottom is today’s parkrun. You can see how, for parkrun, when I was running I was generally running much quicker than I usually do (again, because I was keeping pace with other people). But it really does tire me out.

    The message overall is good: run slower and you’ll run faster.

    My first parkrun time was 42:58. So, over the course of four months my 5k time has gone down by a little under 6 minutes. If that’s not progress I don’t know what the fuck is.

    That’s my pace for parkrun #1. Look at all those troughs of walking, whereas now they’re more like spikes.

    Next week I am running a race. I’ve got a lot of races lined up but will have more parkruns in between them. So … see you then.

  • Bottom of the Evening to You

    Bottom of the Evening to You

    see cause it’s the end of march. it’s like the … bottom of march.

    Spring hath sprung. In Portland, this means only one thing: news outlets forecasting thunderstorms that never happen. I swear to god, they’ve been forecasting thunderstorms for like three weeks now and NONE of them have ever happened. I have not heard one peep of thunder! It’s a travesty, I tell you.

    Anyway welcome to the newsletter.

    News & Updates & Ut Oh Josh is Being Introspective Again

    I have updated my website. Wow, oooh, aaahhh. In short, I moved the blog to the root folder and now my website is more or less a blog. For now, at least. I have reasons for why I did this but the general gist is twofold: first, I was getting sick of trying to figure out the weird HTML/CSS language to make things do things and not look like shit on mobile, and second, I was kind of sick of having all of these projects on my site that went largely unnoticed except by search bots.

    As I’ve stated many times, this is my Marie Kondo year, and that includes all aspects of my life. First I looked at all the literal stuff in my apartment, and now I’m looking at my online presence. I don’t really want to get into detail about my relationship with the ratio between the things I create and how they are consumed by an audience, but suffice it to say that it does not Bring Me Joy to review this information or even to think about it for more than three seconds, generally. (I did write a blog post touching on this issue though if you’re truly interested.) Thus, things like Plays and Albums and Music and Projects stuff like that are going into the Disney Vault for the time being.

    I know what you’re thinking. “Josh, how can people consume your art if it isn’t there to be consumed?” Well, it’s been there, for many years, sitting like a smörgåsbord of content.1 Those who have picked up their nibbles did so long ago and either ate or spit it back up in their napkin. To each their own. It’s now just gathering dust on the internet shelf. I’m mixing my metaphors a bit there. Plus, some of it is still around—albums are on Bandcamp and Spotify, for example, for the foreseeable future.

    I’m not expecting people to be listening to or reading my shit every second of every day, it’s just that the statistics behind the content is depressing. Back in the day we didn’t have this level of statistical analysis and you could just make stuff and post it on Myspace and if a handful of people liked it, that was pretty good. Like, I heard somewhere that the bast majority of people who write books2 sell less than two dozen of them, ever. That’s depressing! Please don’t tell me that information. Ignorance is bliss, you know?

    “Josh your newsletter is depressing now—” Yeah yeah I know, this is what happens when you’re about to turn 40. Mi introspección es tu introspección. My life now is about enriching myself and not worrying about how many people are into my shit. Maybe I’ll reupload some stuff to my site later on, but right now I just want to write drivel into my blog and just kind of be. Just vibe, bro. Big on vibing these days. Thanks, Gen Z. Or younger Millennials. I can’t keep track anymore.

    The only other news I have is that I signed up for two 5k races outside of the Portland Metro area. Oh mah gawd. The first is on my birthday weekend in Long Beach, Washington, just across the river from Astoria, and the second is a ridiculous additional 5k I signed up for in June in Redmond, Oregon, which I completely forgot is in central Oregon. I.e. a fur piece away (as my dad would say).3 My reasoning for the Redmond 5k is that the only 5k I had in June was the Starlight Run, which is a “fun run,” aka not timed. Part of my New Years Resolution technically is that I would be running actual, timed, races. So there you go.

    Some of you might have seen my Instagram story where I made a poll about whether my 10k Foot Traffic Flat race in July (my only July race so far) counted as a 5k race for the purpose of my resolution, because it is a race which contains 5k, or if it doesn’t because the type of the race is a 10k, not a 5k. Everyone voted for the former option, which I still kind of disagree with on principle, but also am happy because it means I don’t have to run a separate 5k race in July. Thank you.

    I got a nice hotel room in Long Beach for the night prior to the May run and a lil tiny cabin home in Terrebonne, OR for the night before the Redmond Run. It’s close to Smith Rock so I’m assuming lots of climbers like to stay there and climb on the houses or something, I dunno. Climbers are weird. I’m pretty excited, to be honest. I like road trips and hotels and stuff and I haven’t taken a proper road trip anywhere that wasn’t to see my parents in Idaho in a while. Should be fun.

    Couve Clover Run

    I done did it again, folks. A 5k a week after a 5k! Read about it in detail on my blog, but I will give you the TL;DR here. First off, wasn’t a 5k, was only 3 miles. Why? I have no idea. They don’t do kilometers for this run. As far as I can tell, this is the only run Why Racing Events puts together that is not in kilometers. It’s indefensible. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I have to turn my brain off thinking about it because it makes me unnaturally frustrated. It’s the principle of the thing! Did St. Patrick hate the metric system?

    My time was 38:26. Not too bad considering I’m still running with a knee and leg injury (which is getting better! Thanks for asking). The Vancouver Waterfront is nice but kind of fake feeling. The swag and food wasn’t bad. The medal is large and heavy, a stark contrast to the paltry medal we got at the Shamrock.

    I took a long rest and recovery and then ran an excellent (for me) run at parkrun on the 25th, which I talked about on my Instagram AND my blog. I’ve already talked about these things. Let’s move on.

    Happy Birthday to My Dad

    My dad is 81 years old today and that is a wild thing to think about. Do you ever think about turning 80 years old? Like, we all know we’re going to get older but I really can’t imagine it. Why would you? It’s literally a thing that hasn’t happened yet. I’m surprised I’m 39, for chrissakes. Sometimes I’ll remember something and realize that my memory happened in high school, but feels like it happened a year ago. Time is weird in the ol’ noggin.

    Anyway, my dad is an old fart and I love him and I’m glad he’s still around. Happy birthday, Dad.

    (Love you too mom!)

    A Video for You

    Folks, I’m sorry, but I am an Andrew Huberman guy now. I knew nothing about this guy until I was recommended a running video on YT from a woman who was doing Andrew’s routine for a year. I didn’t know what that meant but for some reason I was intrigued so I watched it. I wasn’t a huge fan of her video, but for some reason I wanted to watch one of Andrew’s podcasts, and I found it very interesting! In a way he explains a lot of “intuitive” concepts through science. Like, watching the sunrise, for example. People talk a lot about enjoying the sunrise on occasion and how good it makes them feel. Well, Andrew explains why we like it and how good it really (potentially) is. I like that!

    I was concerned that this guy was a Joe Rogan-esque type, but no, he’s just a former skateboarder turned neuroscientist. Very interesting stuff!

    I’m linking this video because it’s a great conversation and the later bits about emotional health were particularly enlightening to me. Have a watch/listen!

    CRUCIAL UPDATE: I still generally like his podcast but he does say some stuff that I disagree or have problems with. Like filtering out fluoride in your water. I don’t think that opinion is right and moreover I think when his scientific opinions get farther away from neuroscience, they sound more like pseudoscience. So, point being: take it all with a grain of salt.

    The End

    That’s all this time, folks. Nothing too exciting for now. As always, if you want more in depth Josh-brain-delvings, head to my blog. Which is now just my website! Huzzah!

    1. I didn’t need to spell it that way, but why wouldn’t you? It’s much cooler. ↩︎
    2. I’m leaving this in here but I just want you all to know that in my editing pass on this post I did realize that the official term for these kinds of people is “authors” and I did, in fact, feel like a dummy. ↩︎
    3. I honestly thought my dad made this up as a general malapropism, but no! ↩︎

  • cold shower

    went for cold shower this
morning, one knob twisted
until i could bear it; so
you seek the lurch in your
throat, the one that cripples
armies bound for moscow.

think of mason jars,
perched under the eaves
& filled with every last
thought you're waiting to
ferment into something useful.

i would've crossed the alps
for you, on elephantback,
were it not for the condition
of my shoes.

& then i wrenched my spirit
out of permafrost & set
in front of the hearth, &
waited, & waited, until it
bloomed again.

still see frostbite along the
petal edges, reminders of cold
showers & cold winters.

  • Best Picture Winners, 2022-2011

    I’ve been trying to catch up on Oscar Best Picture winners over the years for a while now, and thought I’d do a lil blog with brief reviews and thoughts, organized by decade. I review movies I watch on Letterboxd if you want to follow me there.

    There will be spoilers in this! You’ve been warned. It also won’t be every 11 years, I’m just getting to 2011 on this installment so the next one will be 10 years, 2010-2000. Capiche?

    2022 – Everything Everywhere All at Once

    This is what I wrote before EEAAO won:

    I’ve watched all the nominees except for Avatar 2. I will not be watching Avatar 2.

    Out of all the nominees I think it’ll be a close race between Everything Everywhere All at Once and Banshees of Inisherin. Which is fun because they are very different films. I would be happy if either one won. The other films were all pretty good, except for The Fabelmans, which was kind of a disappointment.

    What I’m writing now: GLAD EEAAO WON. Great film, great performances. 4.5/5

    2021 – CODA

    I think this film suffers a bit by being released on AppleTV, only because it feels like a Hallmark movie at many points. But in the end I really enjoyed it, and while it’s certainly formulaic, sometimes formula is good because it creates a frame from which you can explore character, and I think this film does a great job of giving us interesting characters who must fend for themselves in the unique world of being deaf. I may not be deaf, but I understand what it feels like to be alone in a crowded room. Lots of great scenes, especially in the 2nd and 3rd acts, even if the ending part is a little contrived and probably shouldn’t have ended the way it did. 4/5

    2020 – Nomadland

    I had no idea what this film was going be about, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a type of people I’ve seen and talked to numerous times in my life growing up in southwest Idaho: poor, destitute, forgotten by middle-class America. People who hate the government and shit in buckets. Another film about being alone among people. Excellent performance by Francis McDormand and all the supporting cast, many of whom are actual van living nomads. I’ll always have a place in my heart for these folks, even if I spent much of my adulthood trying desperately to get away from that life.

    Also, the fact that Chloe Zhao made this AND the Eternals is very weird. 4.5/5

    2019 – Parasite

    I honestly don’t have much to say about this film other than I enjoyed it very much. Such an interesting premise with some wild twists and turns. I watched the black and white version which was cool, and one day I’ll watch it in color to see if it feels any different. Seeing the entire family immediately go in on the con in the beginning was great too. I love films where the characters are gung ho for anything, even if it means their own downfall. Great film. 4.5/5

    2018 – Green Book

    A lot of controversy around this film due to a variety of things that you can google on your own. That said, I liked it. Yes it has problems and is a little tropey, but Viggo and Mahershala give such great and opposing performances that it feels like an alternate version of The Odd Couple. Juxtaposing that with the utter lunacy of the Jim Crow south made for a film with some obvious plot points and characterizations, but one that I still liked sitting through. Plus, Tony folds an entire pizza in half to eat it at one point and that’s what I aspire my life to be like from now on. 3.5/5

    2017 – The Shape of Water

    This was also enjoyable to watch. I liked the spin on the classic monster movies of the 50s. I don’t really think it was Best Picture worthy though, it honestly felt a little hollow to me. Like a fable that didn’t really have a moral at the end besides it’s okay to fuck fish people. But the fish guy was cool looking and the leading lady is like Amelie if Amelie jerked off every morning in the bathtub. You go, girl. 3.5/5

    2016 – Moonlight

    This is probably the best film I’ve ever seen. Beautiful, touching, kind, this film has it all AND is beautifully shot and lit. I appreciate so much about this film. It is a film about so many things, but most of all it’s a film about men supporting men. You think about the Chiron/Kevin stuff, but Juan from the start was so supportive of Chiron. And then to find out almost in passing in the second act that he’s dead is just such a brilliant movement in the film. That relationship could’ve been its own film!

    Ah I could talk about this film for hours. I had already seen it before writing this but I’m glad I watched it again, I think I found new things in it that I hadn’t before. 5/5

    2015 – Spotlight

    Another movie I knew nothing about going into it. A very important story to be told, for sure, and some good, subdued acting, except for John Slattery, who was basically playing Roger Sterling with a hint of a Boston dialect. Again, not sure if it was Best Picture worthy, but I appreciated the “just the facts” style of storytelling on these types of movies, where the plot is just getting the thing done with bits and pieces of character development thrown in. 3.5/5

    2014 – Birdman

    I’m still trying to decide if I liked this film. I think I did. It was a little hard to watch as someone who used to do theatre (not Broadway-level, but still). I think Michael Keaton did a great job and everyone else did well, but I also kind of felt afterward that I was taken for a ride. Which is what movies do, but I’m looking back and wondering what it was I watched. Slightly bamboozled, if you will.

    That said, there were some truly enjoyable moments, like the above framed clip plus almost everything Zach Galifianakis did. 3.5/5

    2013 – 12 Years a Slave

    I couldn’t watch this film. I started it but the brutality was too much and I don’t think I can sit and watch a Black man get whipped and tortured and be enslaved for two whole hours. (I was also honestly kind of confused by the opening, which didn’t help.) I want to watch more films with Black people now, in modern times, experiencing life now, with all the trials and tribulations that follow. We shouldn’t forget slavery, of course, but we don’t need to keep visualizing it like this. Let’s celebrate Black people and not watch them get whipped all the time!

    I’ll come back to it some other time.

    2012 – Argo

    BEN AFFLECK as Tony Mendez in “ARGO,” a presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures in association with GK Films, to be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

    In a lot of ways, I think this film is pitch perfect. Great cast, a LOT of tension throughout the film, from start to finish. Everything that happens on screen is serving the plot and there were numerous times when I felt actually nervous about what was going to happen, or not happen. That’s not a common thing for me. Most of the criticism I see about the film is how it doesn’t explore the deeper issues of the Iran hostage crisis, which is a salient point, but also, I don’t think this film is as much a political thriller as it is an “escape from prison” type film. Which is reductive, sure, but it has to be to serve its point. I’m sure there are plenty of other films and media that explore the complexity of the Iran hostage crisis with sufficient depth and nuance. Argo is a movie about getting people out of Iran. 4/5

    2011 – The Artist

    This film was a delight to watch. I truly had a blast watching it. I’m not a big “silent era” movie fan but I think they did a great service to the genre and time. Lots of great cinematography, shots you just don’t see anymore because they’re out of style (I guess). I think Uggie the dog deserved an Oscar nomination. Berenice Bejo is … the most attractive woman I’ve ever seen? In my life? Jean Dujardin did some excellent mugging and even though the plot was thin, it was supplanted by a certain joie de vivre (France!) that other films lack. 4/5

    If I had to pick a “winner” of these winners, I’d probably pick Moonlight, with EEAAO second and Argo third.

    I’ll be back soon with 2012-2002, yeah? A lot of those films I’ve already seen but some of them I think I need to or want to see again. No Country for Old Men? Don’t mind if I do!

  • A Running Update on Running #3

    I was lucky enough to get asked to do a survey for Google last Friday, where they showed me all of the new features they are looking to add to Fitbit. It, honestly, was very promising, and if they implement it, may cause me to start using my Pixel Watch again. Can’t go into too much detail because I basically signed an NDA, but I probably can say that they are trying to get Fitbit to compete with Garmin in terms of the amount you can do with the app and your smartwatch in relation to specifics, like running. Everything they showed me was very cool and even a little surprising, so we’ll see if it works or not. If it does, my Forerunner might become the paperweight.

    That said, Fitbit’s premium stuff costs money while Garmin Connect doesn’t, so in the end, cost may be the limiting factor. We’ll see.

    This past week has been interesting. New PB! The fastest I’ve run since 2013! New shoes that rule! My only running mileage this week was parkrun, as part of my knees and IT band recovery. Overall my IT band feels better but my knees themselves feel a little weary. I think I’m getting Runner’s Knee. Just a little ache behind the patella, nothing more. I’m hoping some regular walks and strength training will help offset it.

    My nutrition has been better as well. Not great, but leaning more into that 80/20 mindset than before. Meal prep has helped a lot. I thought I would get sick of that Lime & Pepper Chicken but I really didn’t, even cold. I never eat cold chicken but it was good! And this week I’ve got more sitting in a marinade as I type this as well as some ground beef and preferred veggies for burritos.

    So now this week is for upping my mileage again, slowly. If I run 5k on Saturday (parkrun 10!) then I want to hit 6 miles overall, for starters. One mile on Tuesday, two miles on Thursday, 3 miles on Saturday. A gentle ramping up for the sake of my legs.

    The week after this one is the Lacamas Hop Hop, the start of four 5k races in six weeks, including my first real traveling race, where I drive up to Long Beach, WA over my birthday weekend for the Pacific Coast Running Festival’s 5k there. I really went all in, folks and I desperately need to increase my mileage so that I can finish the Foot Traffic Flat 10k in July. Thankfully, all of those races except for the Pacific Coast one are on Saturday mornings, which mean I can judge whether or not I can run an additional long run on Sundays. Probably not, at this point, if I’m doing a “30% of your weekly mileage” type of long run.

    This week will definitely be the one that shows me how well I’ll be able to run for the next few weeks. Judging by my recovery from last Saturday’s parkrun, I think I’ll be alright.

  • parkrun #9

    Parkrun time: 37:30
    Pace: 12:04/mi

    The last gasp of winter stretched across the Willamette Valley these past couple of days, and my drive from Portland to the Rock Creek Trail parkrun was like driving from a reasonably cold early Spring morning to Hades clawing for Persephone as she returns to the overworld. Thankfully, it wasn’t freezing or too windy and ended up being pretty good weather for a run.

    So let’s get this out of the way: this was the best 5k I’ve run since 2013, timewise. I might argue that it’s the best 5k I’ve ever run, because back in 2012/2013, Runkeeper’s GPS was very erratic and would often screw up for me. That said, I think the first half of 2013 was probably my best in terms of running, as I was doing a lot of heavy lifting too, which added necessary core and leg strength. Plus, if you extrapolate my 11:44/mi pace from the 8k Shamrock I ran back then, it comes out to 36:27 for a 5k, which you could argue would be faster since it would be a 5k rather than an 8k, blah blah blah, I was faster back then. But not by much!

    I attribute 75% of my faster pace to my new shoes. Whenever I watched videos of people reviewing new running shoes, I would scoff because aside from some basics, like weight, how can a shoe on its own make you faster? Well, the answer is: I don’t know, but these Nike Winflos did it. The pep and push I felt from these shoes were undeniable. The cushioning is great; just enough to let me feel the road beneath me but not too little to hurt. The balls of my feet did NOT go numb this run, which is a big win. My footfalls felt neutral and not too turned out. My instincts were right–the stability shoes were hindering me, not helping me.

    At the start of the run I noticed I was behind many people who usually disappear away from me early on. When I checked my watch, I discovered that I was running a 9:35/mi pace, and I did not feel like I was doing that! A lot of this run became me trying to figure out how to run with these shoes, in a manner that wouldn’t leave me exhausted early on. That turned out to be a lot more walk breaks than I would’ve liked, but my pace never dropped below 13 minutes, which is a good thing.

    A bonus pic of me at the finish line!

    I attribute the other 25% of my success to eating better and exercise. You know, the basics. I had a lot of protein thanks to those lime & pepper chicken breasts I cooked up earlier in the week, plus I’ve been trying to count my calories so I don’t stuff my face and can lose some weight. That plus some lower body strengthening exercises and stretches have helped me all around. I’ve become one of those people who stretches while watching TV.

    My IT band continues to give me trouble but during the run itself it wasn’t bad. The stretches and strength workouts are helping and I know it is getting better over time.

    Good parkrun! Next week is #10, which would be my first milestone if I was a kid. Unfortunately, I only act like a kid.

    See you next week.

  • Josh Makes: Lime & Pepper Chicken

    So, I just made the best chicken of my life. And I think it could’ve been even better, if I had a couple more ingredients.

    The chicken in choice is taken from this site, with some modifications. I’m going to post everything now because that site has like 50 paragraphs before you even get to the recipe.

    First, the marinade, from their site:

    • ¼ cup (60ml) freshly-squeezed lime juice
    • ¼ cup (60ml) extra-virgin olive oil
    • 2 cloves garlic, minced
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 1 tsp ground black pepper
    • 1 tsp powdered red pepper flakes (you could also use cayenne pepper or chili pepper flakes)
    • grated zest of 2 limes

    My modifications were that the lime juice was from a bottle (thus, no zest), I used about 1/4th a tsp of garlic powder instead of cloves, and I used chili powder instead of flakes. Out of all of those, I probably missed the zest the most.

    I did do the pan sear and I will swear by that until the day I die. The only other real change was that I don’t have a Dutch oven so I just baked them in a dish without a lid. Didn’t seem to matter at all, the chicken was still moist and delicious. Again, the zest probably would’ve kicked the lime flavor up a notch, but I’m very satisfied with what I made.

    I also made some lime & cilantro rice. I’m one of those freaks who thinks cilantro tastes like soap, so I didn’t have any. It doesn’t taste like soap in a rice dish like this, or at least it doesn’t at Chipotle, but regardless, I don’t keep cilantro around.

    For the rice I used this recipe, which I kind of screwed up.

    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 1/2 cups basmati rice, or other long-grain white rice
    • 1 clove garlic, minced
    • 2 1/4 cups water
    • 1 teaspoon salt
    • Finely grated zest of one lime
    • 3 tablespoons lime juice
    • 1 cup lightly packed chopped cilantro (leaves and tender stems only)

    Modifications: I used enriched long grain rice instead of basmati, sesame oil instead of olive, garlic pepper, and no zest or cilantro. The sesame oil gave the whole thing a toasted sesame flavor and smell that was nice.

    It says to brown the rice first, which was fine, but then when it came time to add the water I poured a bit in and forgot that the pot was hot, thus the water boiled immediately and I freaked out a bit and just poured water into the pot without measuring. I’m pretty sure I put too little in, and thus the rice was a little chewier than I would prefer. But it wasn’t bad! I also only used lime juice for this and it worked well.

    For the veggies, I just steamed ’em and added pepper and some chipotle Tabasco, which I kind of regret doing. Wasn’t terrible, but the flavor was distinctly not what this dish was. Oh well.

    The best part is that I have lots of leftovers, plus some extra raw chicken in the marinade still that I plan to just cook on the stove top. Apparently I meal prepped today. How about that. Reminds me of when I would cook chicken years ago when I was weight lifting … except much, much better. Back then it was frozen chicken with salt and pepper. Sometimes olive oil, if I felt special. This Spartan recipe wasn’t because I was watching calories, but because I couldn’t cook for shit. I’m getting better!

  • Statistics are Depressing

    Today I looked at my Spotify artist profile. I discovered that my most streamed song is “You Don’t Really Care,” the first song from my first album, Kittens & Puppies.

    I think I’ve had my music on Spotify/other sites for about two years now? You want to know how many streams my most streamed song has?

    54.

    What’s weird is that my song with the most listeners is Noelle, from my Songs for Autumn EP. Spotify shows it as #1 in my Most Popular column.

    You want to know how many listeners it has? 22, and 27 streams.

    “Attaquin Beach,” a song from Going to Boise, has 35 streams but only 4 listeners. Why? I guess four people really like that song.

    Overall, K&P is my most streamed album on Spotify, with a whopping 314 streams as of this writing. I genuinely don’t know why this is. Nostalgia? People who heard it almost 20 years ago still like it?

    Amazon Streaming shows my demo CD, How I Remember You, has the most streams, at 163. “Henry Meloy” is the most streamed son, with 94 streams. (I don’t know how to embed songs from Amazon, sorry.) Why is that one so popular here but not on Spotify, where it only has 10 streams?

    Last Night in America, one of my two “rock”/”distorted guitar” albums, has 90 streams on Amazon, and 83 of those are “Row You Row Your Boat,” which … why THAT song?

    It’s surreal how some of my songs do better on one site than another. I wish the Amazon people and the Spotify people could meet up and exchange notes. What’s strange is that “Henry Meloy” and “Row You Row Your Boat” are my two most popular songs on Amazon but a wide margin — the third most popular song, “Here, I Found Your Stupid Bike,” only has 32 streams.

    YouTube isn’t much better. There’s not much there to be honest. We won’t go into it.

    All of this is really depressing. And it has been for years. I remember burning CDs of Kittens & Puppies and then playing a coffee shop to my family and selling no CDs. That was in 2007. But at least I made the CDs, and some people did buy them, and that felt like some type of progress. Putting music on DistroKid and only making $18, nearly two years later, is almost worthy of despair.

    A lot of it is my fault, honestly. I could’ve been more proactive. I could’ve marketed myself more. Could’ve played more open mics and coffee shops and all that. But there truly was, and still is, if I’m being honest, a part of me that hates my music. Hates the stuff that I’ve written. Thinks it’s sloppy, lo-fi garbage. I know that sounds weird, considering I have a bazillion albums, but it’s true. I feel lazy, like I make something and then run away from it, like a cat taking a shit in the litter box. It’s embarrassing. I assume people don’t like my stuff because I can kind of prove that they don’t because of the statistics. The stats on my latest albums that I really actually do like and am proud of are abysmal. But a bunch of people like a parody song I wrote about The Decemberists 17 years ago. Oh well.

    39 views on YouTube, by the way.

    And then there’s stuff like this:

    Somebody from some point in my life uploaded a song of mine on YouTube back in 2016. Who? I replied in the comments, got nothing back. But this is nice. A nice little acknowledgment. I appreciate that.

    I’ve said before that I don’t create because I want to, I create because I have to. I make music or write poetry or design worlds for D&D because I need a creative outlet. That’s still true, to a certain extent. But I’m learning that just because I made something doesn’t mean everyone needs to see it. But, on the other hand, if you write a song and nobody hears it (or wants to hear it), what’s the fucking point?

    As you can tell, it’s been one of Those Days.

    There’s a 50/50 chance I will release one more album before I’m done. I’m trying to finalize a track list and decide if I want to make a demos/unreleased album as well. It doesn’t really matter–no one will listen to either. But it will have been something I made. And that’s something.

    I guess I just wish the statistics didn’t exist. There was a time when you’d make things and have no idea how they did, and that was okay. How many people went to your website last month? No idea. But now, everything is statistics, and it really goes to show you how terrible statistics look. Reminds me of a thing I heard a while back, about how a large percentage of people who publish books sell less than two dozen, ever. What a life.

    Anyway, I’m not done creating. I’m just going to be a little more thoughtful about it. I think. And of course, thank you to everyone who has ever streamed a song of mine or bought an album. I am grateful for you, I mean it.

  • Bean Juice Review: Skaut

    Skaut Coffee Roasters, Portland, OR
    Hawk’s Nest – Medium Roast, Guatemala Single Origin
    Tasting Notes: Smooth, Balanced, Nutty
    Method: Pour over

    The Look

    My first impressions of Skaut is the blurb on the back. For a moment I thought, Is this a New York roasting company? But no, of course not, it’s local. The story is just about Hawk’s Nest, New York, which is fine, I suppose. It means almost nothing to me, as it is little more than a blurb about a place and not indicative of the coffee itself. It’s fine!

    I wasn’t super impressed with the roast date, being nearly a month ago. That indicates to me that people aren’t buying these as much as other brands. Doesn’t mean too much though, as there are a lot of different brands to purchase from.

    The thing that got me, though, was the glaringly obvious error or wrong label on the front of the package. You’ll notice that it says this is a 3lb bag. It’s not. It’s a 12oz bag. I weighed the beans myself because I thought I was going crazy. (To be fair, it is a perfect 340g, so good work on that weight.) I do think the fact that it said 3lbs influenced my decision to buy it, for a excellent price-to-pound ratio. What can I say, it was early, and my frontal lobe hadn’t fully activated.

    I just now noticed that the edge of the label is camouflage, which is really not my thing, but whatever.

    The Info

    The Skaut website kind of annoys me. I want to learn more about the people making the coffee and their About page says “Meet the Makers,” but then you don’t actually meet the makers. They just talk about the coffee story. There’s just little blurbs at the bottom. Again with the blurbs!

    But then! I did a little digging and found that you can pick up the beans at Pips & Bounce. Pips & Bounce? Why would you pick up coffee beans at a ping pong place featured on Shark Tank?

    That’s when it clicked: the founder of Skaut is Eugene Jung, aka one-half of the duo that started Pips & Bounce. So, perhaps the lack of bios on the Skaut About page is because Eugene doesn’t want to draw too much attention to himself and his Shark Tank fame.

    That said, I would still like to know a LOT more about the whole setup. Where do they roast? Inside Pips & Bounce? How do they get their beans? “Guatemala Single Origin” could mean so many things. Are they part of a coop? What’s the deal, bro?

    I was able to find a bit of information about the coffee cultivation process, which is nice, but I want to know about the people growing it. I want to make sure that the coffee is ethically obtained. Just add some more blurbs, dude, about the people growing your coffee for you.

    I did also find that Skaut has only been around for around three years, in its current incarnation at least. So they’re pushing and fighting their way for a stake in the wide variety of very excellent roasters in Portland. Good luck!

    The Taste

    Taste-wise, it has the nutty and smooth profile it says it does. It’s easy to drink and not trying anything bold or fruity or tangy. It’s veering slightly into ash tastes for me, but thankfully not enough to be put off by it. I suspect future cups won’t feature that as much. I might try brewing with the French press next time, as I bet this will lend itself better to an immersion brew, though that might also release more of the ashy taste.

    Overall, a pleasant cup with some warm nutty notes, if a little ashy. I wish it was a 3lb bag for the same price. Oh well. 6/10