View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Work was being done in the area, hence the Metro Vancouver vehicles.
Today was the third time in the past three days I’ve completed the loop at Burnaby Lake, though I wasn’t carrying my camera with me this time.
Instead, it was the start of my weekly set of runs and once again, it was partly sunny, though a bit cooler than Friday, so the two layers stayed on for the duration. Shortly after I ended my 5K I had a guy pass me who was obviously not as sensitive to the temperature, as he was going topless.
There are two kinds of guys that run without a shirt:
Guys who want to show off their six-pack
Guys who look like they’ve had a few too many six-packs
There is nothing in-between. Average guys seem topless-averse.
Today’s run was clockwise, and very similar to Friday, with only a one-second difference in the average pace and a one beat difference in BPM (both were a bit faster/better today). I didn’t experience any issues, the trail was relatively dry after a few blissful days of not-rain and only one dog was off-leash.
In all, a good start to the week.
Still Creek, post-run: Back to the stillness.
Stats:
Run 1,019 Average pace: 5:44/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Start: 11:15 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:50 Weather: Partly sunny Temp: 7-8°C Humidity: 62% Wind: light BPM: 148 Weight: 172.1 pounds Total distance to date: 6,920 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (190/291/481)
I thought my new PC would be well-prepared for Linux–it has an AMD CPU and an AMD GPU, just like Linux distros love.
And in reality, I have installed a few distros with some success:
Linux Mint, my old standby
Kubuntu (Ubuntu, but with the KDE environment)
KDE Neon (for when you want the very latest KDE)
Pop_OS (to try out the Cosmic DE1Desktop Environment)
The problem in each case was a variation of one of the following:
The distro would not see my Windows 11 install and thus not create a proper dual-boot setup.
The distro WOULD see Windows 11, but would still not create a dual boot setup, either by error or design (some distros will not do this without you going in with a hammer and fixing it yourself).
This would lead to things like having to mash the F8 key when switching OSes, which is a pain compared to a nice Grub menu. I faffed about on several of the distros, convinced I could sort it out. I could not.
I tried a bunch of things to help distros see Windows 11, from disabling fast boot, to twiddling with various BIOS settings, to unplugging USB drives. None of this has made any difference.
I thought about taking the SSD from my old PC with Linux Mint on it and adding it to the new PC, but this has its own problems:
Probably needing to run some kind of boot repair to get Grub working properly.
The old system has an Nvidia card and I don’t know how gracefully Mint would handle suddenly running on an AMD system before the right drivers could be installed.
Also, opening up both PCs and moving the drive is just a hassle, and I’m kind of reaching my hassle limit.
So at the moment I’m at a standstill. I think I might try either Mint or Kubuntu again. Mint I know will not recognize Windows 11, and the manual partioning seems weirdly uncooperative. It is very possible this is a me issue. Or I might try Kubuntu again, which has generally been a smoother experience. I’ve even thought about nuking Windows 11 altogether, but I don’t have replacements for all the programs I use quite yet, so I’d prefer to dual boot for now.
I’ll probably decide on how I next want to faff about in the next few days.
Until then, here is a penguin, but not the Linux penguin.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run. The sky cleared up substantially during the run.
It was my first run of Spring 2026 and as a bonus it was both partly sunny and unusually mild, a nice change after multiple days of torrential rains.
I wore two layers (hoodie and t-shirt), which actually turned out to be one too many, as I doffed my Echo hoodie about halfway through the run, meaning I got an early start to my 2026 tan. 😀
I missed Wednesday’s run due to said torrential rains and felt a little sloggy (that’s the best way I can describe it) today but kept up a fairly consistent pace throughout, with an average of 5:45/km and a BPM of 149. Neither is outstanding, but both are perfectly cromulent.
Strangely a lot of dogs were off-leash. Bad dog owners! Fortunately the dogs themselves were well-behaved.
The trail was in pretty good shape despite the heavy rain–or so I thought! It was actually fine right up till the end of the run, where the newly-resurfaced stretch was seeing water ingress:
It should be fine with more normal amounts of rain. I think.
Puddles aside, it was nice to return to the lake, get some sun and round off the week with a decent effort.
View from the bridge over Deer Lake Brook, post-run.
Stats:
Run 1,018 Average pace: 5:45/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 11:24 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:56 Weather: Partly sunny Temp: 12-13°C Humidity: 89-85% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 149 Weight: 171.3 pounds Total distance to date: 6,915 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (185/278/463)
I’ve never watched Stargate SG-1, but I knew the series was shot around Vancouver. Looking over the Wikipedia page, I found this entry for one of the characters, played by Corin Nemec:
From the country of Kelowna on the planet Langara. As someone who worked at Langara College for almost nine years, I find this quite amusing. It also reminds me of a first season episode of The X-Files where Mulder and Scully go the sleepy town of Steveston, Massachusetts, which looks suspiciously like Steveston, BC. I mean, it saved them having to change any of the signs when shooting on location. It’s just smart planning.
Brunette River, pre-run: Swollen like a Botox operation gone wrong. Or something.
We are in the midst of a four day “atmospheric river event” which means rain and plenty of it. I checked the forecast and tried to time today’s run during the one likely gap in the showers. And I mostly got it, woo. It sprinkled briefly around the 2K mark, but was otherwise dry for the run. It rained on the walk back, but it was more a steady drizzle, so I didn’t get drenched like last Wednesday. Nice, I sez.
As for the run, I started out a bit sluggish and flagged a bit on the second km, but picked up speed and finished with a pace of 5:43/km, a little slower than Friday, but also with a BPM of 147, which was appropriately lower. My max heart rate got adjusted on the Garmin watch to 165, so I have a goof amount of headroom.
The river trail was fairly quiet, though I did see a semi-regular out for a walk, all bundled up. Speaking of, I wore my three winter layers because it was around 5C when I was originally going to head out, but rose to 8C by the time I left, so I was a bit overdressed. Still, always better to be over than under in the winter. You can always shed layers, but you can’t magically manifest them out of nowhere (if anyone can do this, please teach me).
In all, a good start to what is likely to be a soggy ol’ week.
Post-run: The river banks are getting more green!
Stats:
Run 1,017 Average pace: 5:43/km Training status: Productive Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 1:17 p.m. Distance: 5.04 km Time: 28:50 Weather: Cloudy, some sprinkles Temp: 8°C Humidity: 87% Wind: light BPM: 147 Weight: 170.8 pounds Total distance to date: 6,910 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (180/265/445)
For those in the future (hello!), the MacBook Neo is Apple’s lower cost laptop. It comes in at $600 (no, I am not going to credit Apple the $1). In Canada, it’s $800, which is still pretty cheap for a new Mac.
It just got released this month (it’s March 16 as I type this) and the tech YouTube world has gone bananas over it, with some declaring the Windows laptop market dead. Or something.
People who have no need or use for the Neo are sharing their desperate urge to buy one. The best I can figure is these people have disposable income most of us don’t, so the cost/need is irrelevant, and it comes in “fun” colours. It’s certainly not that it does anything special or unique. And that’s why I’m already tired of it.
Apple has made “cheap” Macs before–that was the whole point of the original Mac mini, to serve as a low-cost entry point to lure PC users away from Windows. And the original M1 MacBook Air, still extremely capable five years later, has been selling for the same $600 at Walmart, so even a cheap laptop is not a new thing.
The Neo makes compromises to reach its lower price and as others have said, Apple seems to have cut down on things that won’t have a major impact on the overall quality or usability of the device:
It uses a (cut down) A18 Pro processor–the same used in the iPhone 16 Pro, a step down from the M series they usually use for Macs
8GB ram
The screen is not as bright and doesn’t have the same colour reproduction as the Air
Chunkier bezels and a worse webcam
One of its two USB-C ports only supports USB 2.0 speeds (lol)
The trackpad is mechanical, rather than haptic
You get the idea. It’s the Air, but a little worse in most ways, but not in any way that would significantly harm the user experience. Apple was smart in its design. They even used screws instead of gluing everything in place, making it one of the most repairable Macs out there.
But it is not the ne plus ultra of laptops.
Not everyone wants to run macOS. Not everyone wants to be in Apple’s ecosystem. There are other laptops that are as affordable and they’re fine. Apple is not turning the world upside down. It’s just a cheaper MacBook, made possible through some sensible compromises.
And Apple is likely doing something different here–not banking on fat margins off sales of the Neo, but counting on those Neo buyers also going all-in on Apple’s many services. $600 upfront is nice, but a full (“Premier”) Apple One subscription is $38 a month or $456 per year. That’s like buying a Neo every 16 months, forever.
EDIT: I wanted to add this so it doesn’t seem like this is just an aging would-be hipster complaining about big bad Apple (as I have often done in the past). I think the Neo will be a fine laptop for many people, and I don’t begrudge anyone wanting or using one. It’s fine. The tech coverage on it is just kind of ick to me. I suppose that’s a problem I can correct myself, though. And I will!
Matt Birchler had a bizarre take on the lack of a backlight that I have never seen before: “The keyboard is not backlit, which I guess is a bummer, but honestly, I don’t think I ever use my keyboard’s backlight. Honestly, I’m not totally sure why other people use it either. Does your screen not light up the keys already?” ↩︎
Where: Terra Nova, Richmond Nature House (Richmond), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 4-7°C
It was windy and kind of chilly, but also sunny. Hooray for the sun.
Terra Nova
Looking toward the coastal mountains at Tera Nova.
We started at Terra Nova, where it initially reported 4C but “feels like 0”, which seemed accurate. Some wigeons were there to greet us just offshore, noshing among the marshy outcroppings. Farther off (too far, boo) were a bunch of herons brooding in the tall grass. We also spotted a few less social ones brooding off on their own.
When we moved away from the water, we came across a bunch of sparrows doing the sparrow thing. We looped off into the Terra Nova Natural Area (unclear on where the Artificial Area is–maybe the parking lots?) and when we came back, someone had scattered some seed, which drew the attention of all the birds, many of which were banded or banded and sporting a radio transmitter. This is probably how the “birds aren’t real” conspiracies get started.
I, of course, shot planes.
We did not see any grebes at the main pond, but we didn’t not not see them, either, if you know what I mean. There were some scaups, though.
In all, Terra Nova proved to be a perhaps unexpected bounty, just as Brydon Lagoon had been a few weeks earlier.
Richmond Nature House
An apparently confused chickadee on a hummingbird feeder at Richmond Nature House.
We went to the Richmond Nature House next, unsure what to expect. Would there be seed in the feeders, and also possibly birds? The answer was yes to both. However, only a few feeders were filled (including the nectar feeders), so while there were birds, they weren’t ravaging the area like we usually see. Instead, we saw a small but nice collection of juncos, chickadees, hummingbirds, and towhees. And we saw our first Rufous Hummingbirds of the season, who may look even more “I’ll stab you” than Anna’s Hummingbirds (which we also saw).
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Burnaby Lake rippling in the wind. Not shown: Goose terror.
We wrapped at Piper Spit and there were so many people feeding the birds (especially the blackbirds, which shamelessly pander for food) it was as if the signs said PLEASE FEED THE WILDLIFE. Alas.
The recent rains have reduced the adjacent island into a tiny little piece of land big enough for a few gulls and their golf balls, which is what we saw there.
One gull took a golf ball out and played the seagull equivalent of golf with it, which involves flying up over the water, hovering, dropping the ball, then retrieving it and doing it again. I mean, at least it wasn’t trying to eat it.
Most of the usual ducks were present, including a single adorable Bufflehead who got close enough for a few good shots before disappearing back into the Bufflehead dimension. We also saw the first sparrows of the year. I’m guessing Tree Swallows, but they were too far away to positively identify. The water level was too high for shorebirds, so the Dowitcher count was, sadly, zero.
Making up for that (?) were plenty of Canada Geese, and they were engaged in all kinds of goose shenanigans, some of which we captured in loving/terrifying detail.
The coots were downright ordinary in comparison.
With the sun out and a lot of close-range targets, I got much better shots than last week, so I am pleased.
Maybe next time we’ll finally return to Reifel. It could happen!
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Coastal mountains seen from Terra Nova
An American Wigeon swims through marshy outcroppings off Terra Nova
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: It actually brightened up considerably after I took this shot.
The best thing about today’s run was the absence of rain. It was once again 5C, but for most of the run it was partly sunny, so it only felt cool at the start. Speaking of start, I ran in the early afternoon due to morning showers. There were still some puddles, but puddle-hopping was not too bad.
In the week since I was last at the lake, it looks like the wind claimed a few more trail-adjacent trees, freshly cut up into log-size chunks. Pedestrian traffic was relatively light and only one dog was off-leash and he was being a good boy, walking directly in front of his owner (which made me wonder why he was even off-leash).
I started out at a similar pace to the previous two runs, but unlike those, this time I gained strength as I kept going, instead of flagging, finishing with an overall pace of 5:41/km and a BPM of 150, which is a bit higher, but accurately reflects the extra effort.
I didn’t experience any issues, which is always nice, and enjoyed the walk back, with the amount of green along the trail expanding significantly since my last run–and now including the reappearance of skunk cabbage, a sure sign of spring:
The skunk cabbage cometh. But it’s not actually stinky! Yet.
This was also the first time in a few weeks that I kept to my usual Mon-Wed-Fri running schedule, which I’ll hopefully be better at sticking to as we roll on into spring.
In all, a good wrap-up to the week.
View from ther bridge over Deer Lake Bridge, post-run.
Stats
Run 1,016 Average pace: 5:41/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 1:07 p.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:35 Weather: Partly sunny Temp: 5-6°C Humidity: 77-72% Wind: light BPM: 150 Weight: 170.0 pounds Total distance to date: 6,905 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (175/262/437)
I am having trouble motivating myself to write about whatever on this blog. I’m not sure exactly what causes this occasional ennui. Ironically, “ennui” is kind of fun to say out loud.
The weird part is years ago I gave myself permission to post anything here, so it’s not like I’m waiting until I have something important to say. The dozens of cat pics are testament to that.
I’ve looked through some recent photos I’ve taken and here’s one I haven’t posted from my shopping cart oeuvre1this is a word I can never spell correctly without looking it up first:
I like the juxtaposition of all the various objects, plus the blurry vehicle whizzing by.
There, ennui defeated by shopping cart. I take my victories where I can.
The forecast was calling for heavy (steady) rain today, so there was no avoiding it. I put on three layers, adjusted the belt that holds my phone (by removing the onion tied to it–OK, I just had it tightened up, as it had been growing slack) and headed out, bracing for a lot of wet.
I was not disappointed. Except by how it was much milder and nicer running in mid-January.
I saw one cyclist at the start and one guy out on a walk with a giant umbrella, but otherwise had the trail to myself. It was 5C, the weather app said it felt like 2C, which seemed about right, and the rain, though light, was constant. My running gear is tumbling in the dryer as I’m typing this.
Strangely, my stats ended up nearly identical to Monday, despite the change in weather. My BPM was a bit higher at 147, but my overall pace was the same–5:47/km. My total time was only two seconds off from Monday and that’s probably because I walked the first few steps instead of running. I am nothing if not consistent.
The only problem during the run was just the usual with wet weather–lower visibility, having to navigate around sometimes gigantic puddles and just generally getting soaked and cold. I’m sure it builds character or something.
Anyway, I’m on track for a regular week of running, we’ll see if it continues.
Post-run. Water gushes from a creek feeding into the river.
Stats:
Run 1,015 Average pace: 5:47/km Training status: Productive Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 11:52 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 29:07 Weather: Steady light rain Temp: 5°C Humidity: 90% Wind: light BPM: 147 Weight: 170.0 pounds Total distance to date: 6,900 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (170/249/419)
