But days are too short in November – January in Canada to do multi-day hiking or cycling trips. I’m stuck with it.
Right now I’m alternating:
For runs I head off from home towards my favourite park. Turn around at the half way point in time / distance.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
RELATED:
Click PLAY or watch running Parksville in the Spring on YouTube. Flowers!
Click PLAY or watch running Bermuda on YouTube.
Just back from 17 days cycling Vancouver to Calgary, more cycling wasn’t going to do much more for my fitness.
I decided to run stairs, instead.
Over time I’ll …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Stairs are UP ONLY due to COVID-19 distancing.
Click PLAY or see Glenmore Park on YouTube.
Related – Running stairs at the University of Florida stadium in Gainesville.
The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World is a surprise hit.
“Captivating . . . The Book of Eels is, in the end, not really about eels but about life itself.” – Wall Street Journal
The European eel has a lifespan of at least 80 years.
It’s a a critically endangered species.
Like Salmon, this eel has a crazy difficult method of reproduction. They must migrate all the way to the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda.
How do you feel about eels?
For reasons that aren’t the eel’s fault — its shape, color, lateral movements, nocturnal nature — you may feel the way I do, which is: Yuck.
Svensson is the most recent thinker to contend with what scientists call, I’m not kidding, the “Eel Question.” …
First, eels are fish, not aquatic snakes. …
Also, after roughly 40 million years on Earth, eels are mysteriously dying off at a rapid rate. Probably it is our fault.
What’s the Deal With Eels?
On the 4th of July I want to send best wishes to all Americans navigating dread 2020.
So many challenges.
American entrepreneurship is best at coming up with new business formation, survival, and growth. Looking forward to better days.
One permanent change from COVID-19 will be more physical distancing of strangers.
On the one hand, it will be more sanitary.
On the other, physical touching does connect people. Hugs. Kisses on the cheek. Even a touch on the arm.
It won’t affect me much as I was already quite frigid. But less touching will be culture shock for some societies.
I’ve been in and around Parksville nearly 3 months now during COVID-19.
The Pacific N.W. truly is fantastic for walking, running and cycling year round.
Mostly I cycle. But running I find to be better, more demanding exercise.
Here’s a tour of some of my favourite trails.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (2min 35sec)
In 2020 I tried Diphenhydramine HCI 25 Mg – Kirkland Brand.
They did seem to work. It helped my Dad, as well.
My brother bought Kirkland in the States, inexpensively. Over the counter. Pink tablets.
Some people do experience side effects.
As I couldn’t find it quickly in Canada, I ordered something that looks identical from Amazon.ca.
More expensive.
I acquired allergies later in life. In Calgary they start about May 15th, end about July 1st.
In B.C. with a much milder climate, everything is about 2 months earlier. In 2020 I was suddenly mostly better about May 1st. And stopped taking the pills.
Before this year I mainly treated Spring Allergies by fleeing somewhere else in the world. OR … a combination of exercise and frequent showers.
The Kongoli virus in the book is much more deadly than COVID-19.
Kongoli kills hundreds of millions. Leads to world wars.
But, for the most part, readers are shocked at the many parallels between this fiction and COVID-19.
It’s a cautionary tale. And an excellent book.
The central figure is an American microbiologist named Henry Parsons. His personal story is engaging.
Henry tries to discover whether Kongoli arrived naturally like past viruses, or if humans (Putin) had been experimenting with bioweapons.
Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law.
In 2007 he won a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. A book about Islamic terrorism.
The End of October is fiction.
Wright’s fictional tale is about a mysterious virus that starts in Asia, sweeps across continents, cripples the health care system, wrecks the economy, and kills people worldwide.
“I knew from talking to all these medical experts that something like this was going to happen,” Wright says. “They all knew it. They just didn’t know when.”
Wright began writing the novel in 2017 and turned in his final draft in the summer of 2019.
Wright had started thinking about this plot line after Ridley Scott asked him what kind of disaster could cause what happened in the Cormac McCarthy novel The Road.
Netflix is among the studios considering making The End of October a film.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Returning to Canada from Bermuda (zero positives at the time) I was asked at the Toronto airport to voluntarily self-quarantine for 14 days. And watch to see if I developed a fever or other symptoms:
Since that time I’ve only had one encounter I considered at all risky — a hotel check-in clerk near the Toronto airport.
When I got to the room I washed my credit card, the room key and my hands very thoroughly.
Physical distancing at my parent’s place in Parksville went well. Just 5 of us in contact. And one friend.
We had no thermometer but it was clear I had no fever — only my usual Spring allergies.
I’ll continue with the physical distancing, minimizing contact with people. But I do feel freer now to spend more time outside running, hiking and cycling in the wilds of Vancouver Island.
As far from people as possible.
Most mornings I wake early. Head directly to Tim Hortons to pick up coffee.
Continue on to Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park, one of the most beautiful beaches I know in the Pacific N.W.
At low tide, it stretches nearly a kilometre out into the Strait of Georgia.
The park is an important stopover area for migratory birds, notably brant geese, which use the beach as a staging area from March 1 to April 15.
Birds stop in the spring for the annual herring spawn … which also attracts large numbers of seals.
There are plenty of friendly, feral rabbits too.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 