Scatter Splatter - Blog

It started the other day with smoky skies. Air quality was fine since it was staying well above the ground. Yesterday there was a lull with clear skies. This morning it smelled like smoke. I am not sure if that was related to the wildfire smoke making it to the surface or the overuse of fire pits around here. Either way, it was strong enough to burn my eyes. The air quality was bad according to my weather station. Dawn showed a light haze, but there was plenty of smoke in the sky. It took a…

The past several days have been the hottest period I can remember. We had four days in a row where it got above 100. Many years we don’t really get over that point, but it has happened several times recently. It seems that normally when it gets so hot, the humidity has to drop a bit. The other day some drier air did mix in, but aside from that afternoon, the dew point has been between 70 and 80, making for very humid conditions and a high heat index. It was the worst that I have felt in a long…

A little over a year ago, I upgraded my phone from the old Note 20 to a Pixel 9 Pro XL. I don’t miss all the Samsung crap that is installed, and I never used the pen. The only reason I bought that phone was because of the larger screen. It served me well for years until the charging port started getting wonky. That was really the only reason I upgraded. I thought about getting it fixed, but I knew Samsung was going to stop security updates this year, so I bought the Pixel. In almost every way…

I woke up feeling pretty good this morning. It was a little cooler and less humid too. There was a decent breeze and the light rain outside sounded nice so it had me in a good mood. Bench press felt great. Well great for what bench press can feel. It is not a lift hat I enjoy or even thing is all that useful. I only do it for balance. If I had to press I would rather to strict presses anytime. The weight felt heavy but the movement felt good as I warmed up and worked my way up through the sets.…

This morning I woke up feeling pretty good. It was humid, though, so I was eager to get my squats in as soon as I thought would be a reasonable hour to do so. The air conditioner is not in the garage window yet and I don’t see myself needing it anytime soon. We have just had a few humid days so far this year. Today was one of them. I drank and enjoyed my coffee while browsing the web a bit. About 7:30 this morning, the garage was bright enough from the daylight that I decided it was a good time…

Over the winter I had been debating on whether to get the firefly petunias again or wait and look for them locally. I noticed that the company had created new ones that they called trial or something. These new ones had colored flowers instead of the white. They had solid pink ones and white and pink striped ones. The girlfriend loves pink so I had to get those. The company also claimed these new ones would glow brighter and grow more vigorously. I can confirm that they glow much brighter which…

Today it is much cooler and much less humid than the past few days. Saturday wasn’t that humid, but we had places to be so I just got a quick workout in before that. I have been hitting WODs a bit harder as my soreness is all but gone. Not really going overboard with it I would say but definitely bumping both the intensity and weights. I felt good this morning, and the cooler air had me ready to get out into the home gym to get under the bar as soon as I was finished with my coffee. At about…

I think I had mentioned it before, but a couple of weeks ago I tweaked my hip by tripping over the kettlebell I believe, while carrying 40 pounds. At the very least, I twisted my knee doing that. It hurt a lot the first couple of days but felt better as I rested and did a little moderate or light intensity stuff on the bike or rower. Last week it felt good. I knew we had a Phillies game to go to later in the week, so I took off that week from lifting since I’d be on my feet a lot down there. I…

Over the past week or so I have been doing straightforward, just-move-type WODs. They were either slower bodyweight-type workouts to just keep moving. I have also been using the rower or bike at a moderate pace again just to keep moving and get some blood flowing. Each day my deep core has felt a little better. This morning when I got up, I had very little tightness, and yesterday morning I had a little short-lived tightness. Yesterday I grabbed a 20-pound dumbbell and did one of the on-ramp…

Last week I had such a great week lifting, and everything felt amazing. Fast forward to Thursday evening. We were walking to Joy’s for supper and a couple of drinks when my foot hit one of the many pushed up sidewalks in this town. My ankle rolled, and my knee gave out. I didn’t fall as my core saved me. I twisted it, though, and it felt like fire shooting up deep in my core on the side I twisted. It felt fine afterward. A little stiff but fine. Jump to Friday: I was walking up to the house and…

Last night, I did not sleep all that great. It was hot in here, but not hot enough to go in the attic and get the air conditioner and put it in. I did bring it down into the bedroom after doing my squats. It wasn’t hot, really. Just uncomfortable to me. This was the first warm night of the spring, so that is a factor. Once it cooled off outside, the fan helped. With the incoming heat this afternoon, in the middle 90s, I wanted to get my squats in before it warmed up too much. We don’t have the…

Today was an extremely nice day. It was a chilly start, but the temperature rose quickly enough. We got some things done around the yard that we have been meaning to do. The humidity stayed low, making it an extra pleasant day with bright sunshine and a nice breeze. Later in the afternoon we decided to walk over to Harvey’s BBQ for supper. We go there a lot because we like it. They have beer for me, and drinks that my girlfriend likes too! As we were walking up, we noticed quite a few people…

Later on this afternoon I was feeling pretty good. I was thinking of doing a WOD and finally decided to get off my ass and do one. I didn’t want something long and complicated today. Instead, what I wanted to find was something fairly quick. Another idea I had in my mind was that I wanted to do something heavier. This morning I saw the 50-pound dumbbells when I moved the rower against them to do my deadlifts. The sun was shining on them, and they were begging for me to pick them up and use…

I have continued with my 5/3/1 this week. It’s the second week in this first rather light cycle, but it is still feeling pretty good. On Monday I got in my squats. That day I was feeling tired and run down, but I still was able to get my reps in with the bar. I took my time working up through the weights but enjoyed myself in the process. I love squatting! The final set, well, even the one before that felt a bit heavier than it should have, but I still got it done. The 3 reps at 250 pounds felt…

I posted about it earlier in the week, but I have gotten back on the wagon with my strength work. For this first cycle I took all of my lifts way lighter than I needed to, but that is just my common-sense kicking in. I’d rather go lighter now and keep moving up than get frustrated or, worse yet, get myself injured because I jumped into things too quickly. All my lifts felt great. Even the presses and bench press. Both are my weaknesses, and I’m not really concerned with how much I can bench.…

I know it has been a while, and when I am lifting, I post about it a lot. I do that because I enjoy lifting. After about half a year off, I feel like I am finally getting my consistency back with it. I really have missed it, but life has been so hectic I just didn’t have the focus. I did my squats two days ago, and that was nice. Yesterday I got my bench press in, and those felt better than they have in a long time. Yes, the weight was light, but that is just a lift I am really not into. Today…

I took a break from my strength last December when my sister was visiting. I wanted to max out after that, but then one thing led to another, and I did not do that. The intention was there to restart it in January to get a benchmark, but my mind wasn’t into it with planning our trip to see her. I had every intention of getting back to lifting after that trip, but as I have mentioned here and there this year, shit has hit the fan in multiple ways and over and over. That trip was significant to…

Last week I switched this site over to the new version of Zola since I had gotten all my templates working as I wanted them to work. Of course I knew there would be things that I had overlooked while doing that. As I notice these things, I have been fixing them. There have been a few typos in the text that I either corrected or wanted to change to make things a little clearer. I did some of that this morning while drinking my coffee. I also noticed a glitch with the weather times on my weather…

Today has been an extremely nice weather day. It started off chilly with a low in the upper 30s, but it warmed up nicely this morning. I even thought about bringing the D-ball outside this afternoon or taking the sled out. My stomach has been feeling a little off, though, so I wound up just sitting on the chair with my feet up. I did do a WOD in the garage early this morning, but I want to bump the intensity. There is time for that later. Earlier this afternoon when I was out there before my…

I can’t wait to watch the Flyers game tonight! They are in the second round of the playoffs. This team is pretty fun to watch. They are young and fast, and I think hungry to win. I have always loved hockey. It was on TV a lot when I was very young. My dad, who we now know really isn’t, always watched the Flyers. My one brother is named after a player, actually. I fully expect that the Flyers will get eliminated this round. I am so happy that Crosby the crybaby and the dirty Penguins got knocked…

This season it is no secret that the Phillies have been awful. I thought they could fall off some from last year, of course. Age is catching up with them, but no way did I anticipate them being in last place. There is too much talent there for them to be so bad. The whole situation is weird. Something seems off in general with baseball this year. The Mets are even worse, and that shouldn’t be the case either. Trust me, it pains me to admit that. The Phillies starting pitching was supposed to be…

I posted about it last week, I think, but I have been slowly getting my templates ready for the next version of Zola. It would have been much quicker if I didn’t have the complex weather stuff, but it is worth it to have that taken care of. With the new version of Tera, it is in plenty of ways easier to deal with that stuff since I can create maps and pass those. There have been some glitches, but I am doing this without any real documentation. I have peeked at the Rust code, which I am not…

I had been at least a little disappointed to not really see any glow from the Firefly petunias that I grew from the seeds I collected last fall. The ones that germinated have been growing well. The first one is really growing now. Last night I noticed the stems have a glow to them. Seeing the glow was a nice surprise after I had written it off. By being disappointed, I don’t mean I was upset that they didn’t glow. I was just hopeful that they would. There was never a guarantee. The pink ones I…

I have no clue when it will be released, but the next version of Zola at least seems to be functional but has breaking changes with the switchover to Tera 2. The breaks are significant, but over the long run it will be worth it. The additions will make the templates much cleaner, I think, and more manageable. If I didn’t have all the trickery with the weather-related CSV files, it would already be done, but that stuff has been relatively time-consuming. I like the changes in the templating a…