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Ira Yake, 27 Feb 2018 23:05:54 +0000en-USSite-Server v6.0.0-13633-13633 ( OfIra YakeTue, 27 Feb 2018 23:05:54 +0000 tests out a new segment, talking about who, what, where, when, and why. I’m chilling in my room after a shower, just waiting for my hair to dry a little more before I start to get dressed. That’s a thing I wait for now, hair drying. I’ve vowed not to trim my locks until after I get back from the AT, but so far this awkward stage of growing it out long is really starting to get on my nerves.

Anyway, as the title implies, this is a spontaneous blog post. I’m not even writing in Ulysses, my word processor of choice, just writing straight into the ol’ Squarespace blog app for iPad, which has gotten marginally better, but is still pretty bad. In my constant quest to actually produce steady content, I’ve decided to try out one of my “template” blog post ideas for today. I haven’t decided on a name for this one yet, the working title is “Thinking of”. Basically, I’m going to answer five questions: Who, what, where, when, why? As in, who am I thinking of, what am I thinking of... you get it. Some of these may be a bit abstract, and I may hate this and never do it again, but here’s to variety.

Right now the person I’m thinking about most is Bill Gates. And no, it isn’t those dreamy brown eyes drawing my thoughts. He did an AMA on reddit earlier today. The whole thing is worth a read, he’s a very humble and wholesome man. But one response in particular caught my eye. This question about how he thought his life might be different if he were born into a low income family is a great question, and his response is very well put.

I benefited from having a great education - public schools through 6th grade and then a great private School (Lakeside). So there is a good chance I would never have gotten turned on to software and math the way I did and therefore not as successful.

It’s refreshing to see a famous rich person be honest about how lucky they were. People like to sling around the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, possibly not realizing that it’s a tongue in cheek phrase, as literally pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is impossible, so the original intent of the expression was one of sarcasm.

The thing on my mind most right now is, probably obviously, the Appalachian Trail. I’m re-listening to “AWOL on the Appalachian Trail”, reading blogs of people out there right now, watching videos of pack lists and trail vlogs. It’s all I can think about.

And I keep getting anxiety about my own plans and gear. Since writing my pack list post only 5 days ago, I’ve already ditched some stuff sacks in favour of a garbage bag pack liner, and I’m switching out my wall charger for something a little heavier and faster. I know logically that once I get on the trail I’ll find out what I need and don’t very quickly, but I can’t stop myself from obsessing.

Other than the AT, which I’ve decided I can’t do again since that seems like cheating, I’ve been thinking about Kamloops a lot. I don’t know if I mentioned this on the blog, but I’ve been accepted back to Thompson Rivers University! I’ll be going back in the fall and finishing my Bachelor of Arts degree. I’m not sure exactly what I want to major in yet, maybe Economics or History, but I know that I’m going to take the creative writing minor, since the end goal is still to write for a living.

I can not get my mind off tomorrow, the 28th of February, because that is the day I will be done driving oil truck FOREVER! I’m so glad that I’ll be done. I know that it’s a job that my dad has done basically forever, and he likes it, and I’m thankful that he’s employed me for three years and been a great boss. But I’m just so done. I’ve mentally checked out for the last week or better, and I have no desire to ever return to this job. It’s not for me, and that’s fine. And there are plenty of people that enjoy working in the oilfield. And that’s fine too. But it was bad for my mental health and I’m so anxious to finally be done.

I wasn’t originally sure what I would do for this section. It’s kind of a wildcard section I suppose. The “why” I’m spending the most time thinking about right now is: Why do people insist on trying to force their beliefs on others? Like, I don’t understand how someone can believe that there’s an all knowing being somewhere out there that created the world, and that when they die they will be transported to this being’s home to live an external happiness. I don’t understand how anyone can think that’s true, but as long as the people who believe in that aren’t harming others, I don’t really care what they believe. I just wish everyone would just let everyone else do whatever they wanted as long as it wasn’t affecting others. Yeah, if there’s a Muslim person that’s attacking people in the streets, stop him. But that doesn’t mean that all Muslim people are going to attack people in the streets. And here’s another thought for you: Before you go preaching that we should hate all Muslims because of something a few of them did, realize that Muslim extremists are teaching their kids to hate all white people and all Christian people because of something that our ancestors did. In the end, we’re all people, just fucking chill the fuck out and let people do whatever floats their boat. Again, and I can’t believe I have to append this disclaimer, as long as it doesn’t harm or interfere with others.

So let me know what you thought of this type of post in the comments. I haven’t decided if this would be a scheduled thing, like every second Tuesday is a “Thinking of” day, but when I get back from the trail and get into a more consistent routine, I wouldn’t be against doing something like this at set times.

Thanks for reading everyone. Have a great day!

Pack List - Appalachian Trail 2018 NOBO - Starting March 7thAppalachian TrailListIra YakeFri, 23 Feb 2018 04:33:19 +0000 pack list for Ira's NOBO hike is here. Fair warning, there are over 6000 words in this post, and most of them are asinine jokes
If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced
— Vincent Van Gogh

I leave for the AT in less than two weeks, and I’m freaking out a little bit. It both feels immensely far away and so ridiculously close at the same time. I wake up every morning with the thought that I’m one day closer to this incredible, terrifying adventure, and then while I’m at work the days seem to drag on forever and I feel like it’s a million years away.

So in this odd limbo time I’ve tried to keep myself busy. Since 90% of my cognitive power is going towards thinking about the trail, and what the trail will be like, and consuming all of the information I can about the trial, I thought it fitting to make blog post about the trail. I’ve watched dozens of hours of pack list videos, from people who have a base weight in the single digits to folks who have 35 minute long videos and don’t even seem to own a scale. I tended to gravitate towards the shorter videos, as I found the longer ones to mostly be one continuous shot and a lot of over explaining. Being the perfectionist I am I had to write a script for my video, and cut down explanations and shoot 18 different takes of each part. I’ve nailed the video length down to what I think is a respectable 7 minutes. However, here on the blog, I believe I’m known for a much longer and more rambling style. I mean, I’m over 200 words in right now and haven’t really said anything of immense value yet...

All said, if you’re in a hurry or don’t feel like reading several thousand words going over minute details of how I managed to get my soap into an eye dropper, thereby saving 0.2 ounces, take a look at the video I made. Otherwise, keep on reading for a more comprehensive and detailed look at the items I’ll be carrying on the Appalachian Trail.

I've watched this video so many times while editing I've lost all sense of whether it's good or bad...

Alright so I’m not going to be posting pictures of every item, since that’s too much work and I already made a video! If you need visual stimulation go watch that you big goof, what are you still doing here? I’ll throw up a few pictures here or there though, mostly to showcase things that I either couldn’t or didn’t have time to show in the video.

Let’s kick things off big with the pack. Originally I had bought an Osprey Atmos 50 AG because I knew that I liked Osprey pack, as my bag of choice for backpacking in Europe was the Osprey Farpoint 40, and because I wasn’t paying too much attention to my weight. I knew that weight was a factor I should definitely keep an eye on, but I wasn’t measuring each item to the gram or anything. I knew I wanted to be under 20 pounds, so when my first kit came in around 16 pounds I was really happy. For about a month. See, the issue was I had started putting all this stuff together in August. So I was in time to do one shakedown hike in early September, but then I had half a year to pine over my choices, which ended up in me spending a lot more money than I should have but getting some better gear to boot. I’m not going to sell my Osprey, as I want to keep it around so if anyone wants to go hiking with me in the future but doesn’t have their own gear, I have a loaner pack.

 Can't tell what's more embarassing, the mini bun or the muffin top 0.o

Can't tell what's more embarassing, the mini bun or the muffin top 0.o

See what I mean about the rambling? Anyway, the pack I’m going with is the Zpacks Arc Blast 55 L DCF (colloquially “cuben fibre”) Backpack (23.5 ounces). Zpacks is one of the higher end cottage companies making backpacking gear. I feel like because of their reputation they might be a little higher priced than necessary, but so far everything I’ve gotten from them has been fantastic. I went with this pack completely on reputation, and so far I’m happy with it. I guess the real test will be when I hit the trail, but in the limited wearing I’ve done around the house and yard, it’s performed well.

For the tent I went with the “go big or go home” motto as well. Again by Zpacks, I bought the Duplex DCF two person tent (20.1 ounces w/ stuff sack). It’s completely wonderful, and for $600 USD it should be. Between the tent and the backpack, with a few extra items like shoulder pouches and all my stuff sacks, and after paying duty fees (curse you, customs!), I’ve easily given over $2000 Canadian to Zpacks. I don’t want to add it all up, because it will make me sad, but I feel confident with that estimate.

My sleeping “bag” is actually a quilt, the Enlightened Equipment Revelation 20º (22.1 ounces w/ Zpacks dry bag). This is another replacement piece, as I originally had the Therm-a-rest Corus, which was not a great quilt. It’s what I took on my shakedown hike in September, where the temps only went down to about 5ºC (41ºF), and I was cold. Again, I haven’t used the EE in the wild yet, but it has rave reviews.

I tried to go lighter on my sleeping pad. I really did. I bought a Z-Lite and everything. Even cut it down to torso length to shave ounces. But in the end, I’m going to be sleeping on the ground for 5 months straight, so I decided to go with some more comfort in the Therm-A-Rest NeoAir X lite (12.1 ounces). It has a nice, high R value of 3.2, and it’s thick and comfy. This means it’s heavier, and I’ll have to blow it up each night, and it’ll make my feet rub against the roof of the tent, but damn it I want the luxury. I’ll probably utilize the Z-Lite on shorter hikes, and I can use the bottom half that I trimmed as a dog bed when I eventually get a hiking buddy, but for the AT it’s X lite 4 lyfe yo.

So now we’ve come to the first difference in my pack from the video that I made two days ago... I’ve decided to cut down to only one ditty bag, and to ditch the ziplocs that I had for redundancy. I originally had two so I could keep one in the pack and one outside the pack, but that doesn’t seem ideal after thinking about it a bit more. Plus I want to toss my battery and headlamp and pen/ink into the foot box of my quilt at night so they don’t freeze and drain or explode during the night, and it’s easier to do that if it’s all contained. So I’m bringing one Zpacks dry bag (0.5 ounces).

A smartphone is, in my opinion, one of the ultimate ultralight multi-purpose items a backpacker can have. Maps, camera, entertainment, not to mention things like a flashlight or compass in a pinch. I briefly considered buying something like an iPhone SE for the small form factor and lighter weight, but then decided that my iPhone X with a leather Apple case (6.9 (heh) ounces) would be a better fit. I fucking love the camera on this phone, it’s the best I’ve ever owned other than my big heavy DSLR, which is for an entirely different purpose. Plus the OLED screen means I can put pure black backgrounds and use dark modes in apps to extend the already fantastic battery life.

I originally bought a 20,000 mAh battery pack, thinking that I would want all that extra energy for my Apple Watch and AirPods. Since I decided not to bring those two things though, and since I realized that even if I had to charge them as well, that 20,000 is extreme overkill, I downgraded to a 5000 mAh battery pack. Then I ended up going up to a 10,000 mAh battery, because it’s only 3 ounces heavier and it gives me that peace of mind, knowing that even if I get a little heavy on the audiobooks one day or decide to read late one night, I’ll probably still have enough juice to get me to the next town. So the pack I went with is an Anker PowerCore II (7.3 ounces)

I considered getting a different battery pack that had Qualcomm quick charging, and getting a quick charge compatible power block, but decided against it for two main reasons. The first is that I really like Anker products, which use their own, albeit slightly inferior, brand of quick charge. And the second is that all the quick charge power blocks I could find were pretty heavy and bulky, and only added to that heft if I wanted two USB inputs, which I did. So I decided to get an Aukey Dual Port Wall Charger, which comes in at only 1.2 ounces. And it’s still 2.4A, so according to the product page for my battery pack it should charge it from dead to full in around 5 hours. Since I hopefully won’t be running all the way out of juice at any point, it should be more than sufficient.

I’ve got the standard cordage to charge all my stuff. An Apple lighting cable (0.7 ounces) and a Micro USB from Anker (0.5 ounces), as well as a pair of Apple Lightning EarPods (0.5 ounces).

 Much easier to manage sans all the damn redundant ziplocs...

Much easier to manage sans all the damn redundant ziplocs...

The headlamp is another item I bought a lot of, going back and forth. I started with a Black Diamond Spot, but decided it was overkill, and that I wasn’t going to do any night hiking, so I downgraded to a Petzel e+Lite. I wasn’t super happy with the battery performance on that one though, and just a couple weeks ago I decided that I might run into circumstances where I’ll have to pick up the pace on the trail (more info on that in a forthcoming blog post), and therefore might have to do some night hiking, so I went back to Black Diamond but got the Ion this time (1.8 ounces). It takes one less AAA battery than the spot, and while at High the battery only lasts 6 hours, on low the battery should last 180. So I figure at a happy medium, which should be enough for dusk hiking, I should get a couple dozen hours out of it.

I’m bringing a mini bic lighter (0.4 ounces)too. Although I’m going stoveless (more on that later), I want to have some way to start a fire. For hopefully obvious reasons.

My toiletries bag is a simple little Zpacks mini stuff sack (0.1 ounces). It’s not waterproof, but basically everything in it is, so I’m not worried about it. I used to carry this in my small dry bag, but I might just toss it in the mess on the outside of the pack.

This section is the least interesting, so it’s gonna go fast. Try to keep up.

Well, it’ll get fast, but first I want to talk about my soap. I posted to the ultralight subreddit asking for opinions on soap vs hand sanitizer. There was some good discussion, you can read it here if you’d like. The end result though, for me anyway, is to bring both. I like hand sanitizer for just periodic cleanups throughout the day. I actually have some in my work truck, and every time I get in the truck I use a little bit. It’s especially nice since I’m putting on old gloves that get so oily so quickly and make my hands stinky and just make them feel dirty. Anyway, I digress. I have a small bottle of hand sanitizer (1.6 ounces) hanging from my shoulder strap, and a small eye dropper bottle filled with Dr. Bronners soap (1.1 ounces). I actually got the idea for the eye dropper from that thread I linked above. It was a bit tricky to get the soap into the bottle, requiring some strategic prying of small plastic pieces, but in the end I have soap that should last me a nice, long time on the trail, as it’s concentrated so I just need a drop or two for cleanup after using the washroom.

 Anti-chaffing technology is the one true god.

Anti-chaffing technology is the one true god.

Ok, on to the speed round. The rest of my toiletries are: Toothpaste at 1 ounce. Floss at 0.4 ounces. Toothbrush at 0.5 ounces. Chapstick is 0.3 ounces. Fingernail clippers at 0.5 ounces. Sunscreen is 2 ounces. Anti-chafing stick is 3.5 ounces. Earplugs are basically nothing. I have a Rocky Mountain Barber travel comb (0.3 ounces) because I’m growing my hair out and plan to grow a beard on the trail as well, so I want to combat those pesky tangly strands.

And I have a super minimal first aid kit. Leukotape (similar to moleskin), a needle, thread, tweezers, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen. I don’t have it yet, but I’m planning to add a few antihistamine pills as well. I don’t have any allergies that I’m aware of, but I don’t want to find out about one on trail and be caught off guard. I also keep the repair kit for my X-Lite in the first aid kit, because why not. The whole thing is 1.1 ounces.

Next is the category that I’ve ostensibly dubbed “survival”, although that’s a generous term.

My knife (gotta have a knife) is a Spyderco Ladybug (0.6 ounces). This is a fantastic little knife, I’m still debating on whether to keep it in my shoulder pouch or to attach a carabiner to hang it from my shoulder strap. Also, I find it endlessly hilarious that some dudes were so fucking insecure in their masculinity that they couldn’t bear to carry a knife called a “ladybug”, so Spyderco actually made an almost identical knife called the “manbug” that’s slightly taller and slightly wider. Like, it’s honestly incredible in its stupidity.

So I’ve decided to go stoveless. I took a stove on my shakedown hike, and honestly between the first meal I made taking way too long and not tasting all that great, to my lighter failing the next morning leaving me with a cold breakfast anyway, I wasn’t impressed. Like, I’m a guy that enjoys some delicious hot coffee in the morning, but I don’t need it, and I especially don’t need it if I’m going to be standing up and hiking in the fresh air that day. As for hot meals, I can have one when I get to a town. I’m perfectly happy living off cold meats and cheese and candy bars and nuts and tortillas for 3-5 days in a row. I decided I might want to try cold soaking though, even though the thought of cold, mushy food makes my tummy do little flippies, so I’m bringing a peanut butter jar (1.2 ounces) and a spork (0.7 ounces). At least to start with anyway.

I have a Zpacks bear bagging kit, including a food back (1.7 ounces), a rock sack and 50 ft of dyneema cord (0.8 ounces combined). I’ll probably hang my food every night. I know lots of people don’t, and some even sleep with their food in their tent. All the power to them, but I’ll take the time to hang my bag if for nothing else than the peace of mind it will give me. I’ve also got a large freezer bag for trash (0.4 ounces). Leave no trace, people!

 "Cnoc cnoc." "Who's there?" "Water." "Water who?" "Water you doin, it's cold, let me in".......

"Cnoc cnoc." "Who's there?" "Water." "Water who?" "Water you doin, it's cold, let me in".......

Next up is my water filtration system. I’m using a Sawyer Squeeze (3.2 ounces) and a CNOC Vecto 2L (2.6 ounces). I really wanted to love the Sawyer Mini, but even at home I can tell it’s got a pretty slow flow rate in comparison to the squeeze, and according to reviews it only gets worse with repeated use. So I’m eating the weight for a bit more reliability. And I take the CNOC Vecto because I like to have a dirty bag. I know it’s heavier, and I could just fill the bottles and drink straight from the filter, but I like the system of filling the dirty bag and putting only clean water into the bottles. Plus I have an extra 2L capacity in case I need to dry camp. And the wide mouth on the Vecto makes filling it from streams so much nicer. If I ever get to a water source that’s still to shallow though, I have a small scoop I made from the bottom of an old random water bottle (0.1 ounces). Everything lives inside a large freezer bag (0.5 ounces).

As for water bottles I’m using two Smart Water 1L bottles. This is pretty standard among through hikers as far as I can tell. Plus apparently you can use the sport cap to backflush the Sawyer, so that saves me some space and fractions of ounces for the syringe I otherwise would have to take.

This is the part of my video script where I say “And here’s another Zpacks Small Dry Bag”, but as we’ve previously discussed, I’ve downsized. Everything is going into the one aforementioned ditty bag. I’m also ditching the two small ziplocs, but I’m keeping around a mini ziplock for my pen and ink. Fountain pens tend to get a little leaky with large altitude changes, which, if I’ve done my reading correctly, I’ll be running into quite often on the AT. So it’s staying in a plastic bag inside a plastic bag. My journals on the other hand are just getting tossed into the dry bag loose.

 We didn't start the fire... it was always burning since the world's been turning.

We didn't start the fire... it was always burning since the world's been turning.

Speaking of journals, after much deliberation and internal struggle, I ended up with a pair of Field Notes: Campfire editions (2.3 ounces for both). I don’t think I can adequately explain the amount of time and effort that went into picking my journals and pen. I started out with the pen I ended up choosing, a Kaweco AL Sport, Extra Fine nib (0.7 ounces), but I must have gone through about a dozen pens in between. I considered every combination. Originally I wanted to bring my regular size Travelers Notebook, but that beast weighs a pound. So I changed my mind to a Passport sized Travelers Notebook. But then I was worried about the lightweight paper refills I’d chosen, so I thought I’d change tact completely and go with a Field Notes Expedition, which are waterproof. But the fountain pen didn’t write very well on that paper, so I thought I would bring a Fisher Space Pen instead. But then I was worried about refilling on the trail. Plus the writing experience wasn’t that great. So I thought I would bring a Retro 51 Tornado, using a Schmidt P8126 refill, which would almost certainly last for the whole trip. But that didn’t write very well in the Expedition, so I was considering flipping back to the Passport Travelers... and on and on ad nauseam. Suffice to say, I eventually ended up with the combo of Kaweco AL Sport and Field Notes Campfire Edition. I’m bringing 5 ink refills as well, because I’ll probably need them and they’re only 0.3 ounces for the lot.

Since I’m Canadian, I have to bring my passport (1.3 ounces), and try to care for it for 5 months. Oh goodie...

My sunglasses are Ray Ban Wayfarers (1.1 ounces) and I have a little sleeve for them that my Grandma made. I actually asked her to make me a sleeve, and she did, and then the next time I went to her house she had like 4 more that she’d made because she wasn’t entirely happy with the first one. I picked the lightest and most functional ounces.

My “wallet” is just three cards strapped together with a rubber band inside a Zpacks wallet stuff sack (0.7 ounces total). I was thinking about ditching the stuff sack, but thought that it was barely any weight and it works to kind of obscure the fact that my credit card and ID are bolted together, so if anyone wanted to really fuck my day up they could just steal that. Also I plan to carry some cash, and the stuff sack will work well to house that as well as any coins I might get from change.

As a child’s book once told me, everybody poops, so I’m bringing a Deuce of Spades trowel (0.6 ounces) and some TP in a ziplock bag (1.6 ounces). A lot of people say to ditch the trowel and just use your trekking pole or a stick, but I have serious, serious doubts that these people are digging a true 6 inch deep cat hole to do their business in. Plus the trowel can be used as a tent stake in an emergency.

Speaking of tent stakes, I have 10 of them in a Zpacks stake sack (0.1 ounces). My shelter only requires 8, but it’s nice to have redundancies for something so integral. Plus I have variety. There’s 8 Zpacks titanium shepherd hooks and 2 MSR Mini Groundhogs (2.9 ounces total). I figure the ground hogs can be used for the main guy lines when it’s a bit windier, as they should hold a bit stronger than the shepherd hooks.

On the comfort front, I’m blowing a whole 4.7 ounces on things that may not be entirely necessary, but sure make me a lot more comfortable. Firstly is the quilt straps for securing my quilt during the colder nights to reduce drafting. They are 0.9 ounces, which is completely worth it in my opinion. Also for my sleeping enjoyment, I have a Sea to Summit Aeros Pillow (2 ounces). My only complaint is that it constantly slides off the sleeping pad, but I think I’m going to try the dab of silicone trick to get it to stick. And I have a Therm-A-Rest Z-Seat (1.8 ounces). It lashes to the outside of my pack and actually serves as a pseudo pack stand, and it weighs very little in the grand scheme of things. Plus it’s nice to have a dry place to park my ass at the end of the day.

 Gotta wear that hunter orange so I don't get mistaken for a cute little doe, a deer, a female deer.

Gotta wear that hunter orange so I don't get mistaken for a cute little doe, a deer, a female deer.

Honestly, if I could give up some of my clothing choices, I could come in under 10 pounds pretty easy. I’m definitely packing a bit of extra weight in clothes, but again, this is one case where I prefer the comfort over ultralight principles.

To start I have an Enlightened Equipment Torrid Apex puffy (10.5 ounces). Back in February or March of 2017 I bought a Patagonia Nano Puff jacket with plans to use it on the AT. I took it to Europe and it worked wonderfully, and I still use it for work to this day, but it was a bit heavier than I wanted at nearly a pound. So I was trying to figure out which jacket to take, doing lots of research, and then EE serendipitously released their Torrid. It’s synthetic down, just like the nano puff, but for a jacket I think I’ll actually prefer that. Yeah, maybe it’s a little bit colder than true down, but it also won’t get decimated if it gets wet, which I’ve heard is a good quality for the AT.

 You may think these are jackets, but they are actually just stylish ghosts

You may think these are jackets, but they are actually just stylish ghosts

The rain jacket is another one that I worried over for literally months. I wanted something lighter than the Columbia that I had taken to Europe, which was 14 ounces. But I also didn’t want to give up things like pit zips and pockets. But I finally decided that unless I wanted to spend like $300 on a Zpacks Vertice, I’d have to give up either weight or functionality. I chose to go lighter based entirely on the massive amounts of recommendations I saw online for the Outdoor Research Helium II (6.7 ounces). I searched and searched for a Helium HD, which is the older version with pit zips and pockets that aren’t being made any more, but couldn’t find one for a reasonable price. So when I was visiting a friend in California I headed into an REI, tried on a few jackets, and realized the Helium II felt pretty good. Some people still say it’s quite hot to hike in, so I guess we’ll see if it lasts the whole trail.

For the rest of my clothing I have a Zpacks medium dry bag (0.8 ounces). I haven’t talked about it yet, so this seems as good a place as any, but I have basically all my stuff in dry bags to avoid using a pack liner. I mean, the Arc Blast is really water resistant, but it’s not fully waterproof, so I need a second line of defence. I know lots of people use compactor bags inside their packs for the liner, but I just didn’t like it very much. Who knows, maybe I’ll switch to that on the trail. I do like the more streamlined ease of use of just shoving everything inside the backpack instead of separating it first, but then I also like the organizational aspect of the separation. I’m a man torn asunder by his conflicting desires. Curses!

Anyway, inside that stuff sack lives a Patagonia Capilene Thermal Long Sleeve (6.6 ounces) and some Patagonia Capilene Thermal Leggins (6.4 ounces). I’ll be using these for sleeping, hopefully exclusively. Also for sleeping are an extra pair of Darn Tough Hiking Socks (2 ounces). Again, I probably could just sleep in my hiking clothes and save nearly a pound, but I like the thought of having dry, mostly clean clothes to change into at the end of the day. This is another thing that we’ll have to see how it works in practice on the trail, but until I have a good reason to ditch them, the sleeping clothes are staying.

I have a second (or third overall if you count worn clothes) pair of Darn Tough socks (2 ounces again) and a pair of Injinji Toe Sock Liners (1.2 ounces). I’ll talk more about the liners when I get to the worn clothes section, but I’ve really liked them so far.

Gloves were something I debated bringing, but when I found some Icebreaker Merino Wool liners for 0.9 ounces, I thought why not. Gloves will be nice to have for breaking down camp on cold mornings, extra warmth on cold nights, and for hiking in the rain. I picked Merino Wool since it retains warmth pretty well when wet, and I figured if it got really cold I could through some of my extra socks over my hands as ad hoc mittens.

Continuing the theme of wooly warmness, I’m bringing a Wool Buff (1.6 ounces). Buffs are amazing pieces of clothing, and I’ve only just started to really appreciate them since I’ve started growing my hair out. If you don’t know, it’s essentially a tube of fabric about 50cm long and 20cm across. The package advertises 12 different ways of wearing it, as a headband, a scarf, a balaclava, a toque, or even as a pirate cap. Plus you can use it as a hanky or a towel or a potholder... the limits are boundless, I tell ya!

 Took me like 6 years to pull it back properly. I'm no hair wizard.

Took me like 6 years to pull it back properly. I'm no hair wizard.

I’m also bringing a Patagonia Capilene Thermal Toque (0.6 ounces). A lot of people will tell you that you don’t need a buff AND a toque, and those people are right. But I like to have both, if for nothing else than multiple ways to contain this cursed hair that’s in such an awkward stage right now :/

I’m bringing some ExOfficio Boxer Briefs (3.5 ounces) mostly for when it’s warm and I want to just wear my shorts instead of leggings. I don’t plan to wear boxers under leggings under shorts, that’s just too thick for my taste.

Instead of wind or rain pants I’m opting to bring a rain kilt by Zpacks (2 ounces). I feel like it’s more versatile, easier to put on and off, and I’ve found that I look quite good in a skirt.

Finally I have a bug net head cover (0.5 ounces) as I’ve heard horror stories about the bugs in New England. I HATE mosquitoes with all the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, and apparently black flies are an abomination the likes of which I’ve never faced. I can’t say I’m looking forward to this particular quirk of the hike, but I’m going to try to prepare myself.

I spent a bit of time deciding what clothes to include in the packed list and what clothes to include in the worn list. I ended up going with the reasoning that I would choose the clothes that I would be wearing most often as “worn”, and everything else would go on the base weight list. I probably spent more time than I should have fussing over this, as it’s all kind of moot in the end.

So I’m bringing some Black Diamond Ergo Cork Handled Trekking Poles (18.7 ounces) for a couple reasons. I was a bit hesitant to bring trekking poles when I first started doing research for the trial, as I had never used them before and thought they were for “old people” or inexperienced hikers (not sure how I didn’t classify myself in that category, but whatever), but I’ve since discovered the large error of my ways. Firstly, they are used to set up my tent, making them a multi purpose item which is a core principal behind being ultralight. Secondly, and I never would have known this if I didn’t take them on a shakedown hike, they are invaluable as hiking tools. Ascending hills is so much nicer when you can use your arms to help, and descending feels way, way, WAY safer when I have a pole that I can stick out for balance or support. I can stick them in the ground to hang clothes off of to dry, or use them as a last resort defence against angry wildlife. If you are like I so foolishly was, give trekking poles a try on your next hike.

 This is actually the same outfit I wore to prom...

This is actually the same outfit I wore to prom...

I have a ball cap (3.2 ounces), which is another multi purpose item. Keeps the sun out of my eyes, keeps the aforementioned annoying hair back, and keeps the bug net off my face if I need to use it.

I’ve given some more money to Patagonia and gotten their Capilene Lightweight T-Shirt (3.4 ounces) for a base layer. I originally had wool everything, but after some research and suggestions from other hikers, made the switch to Capilene, which as far as I can tell is basically Patagonia’s name for water resistant polyester. It’s lighter and more durable, and apparently nearly as warm, even when wet. So I’m giving it a try. Sure feels nice to wear.

More Patagonia with my Baggies shorts (6.3 ounces). These are partly for modesty, to wear over my leggings, and partly so if it gets really hot some days I can forego the leggings and just wear the shorts. They had a mesh liner in them, but I prefer underwear so I cut that out, saving a bit of weight.

The baggies are for overtop of my leggings of choice, Icebreaker Merino Wool 200 Leggings (6.2 ounces). I considered going Capilene here as well, but I really like the merino wool. I guess I’ll see how they hold up durability wise.

So I mentioned my socks above, and I just have two of the exact same pairs of liner and outer socks for hiking so I can switch them out day to day and give them time to dry out a bit. In case you’ve forgotten in the last thousand words or so, I’m using Darn Tough Lightweight Hiking Socks (2 ounces) and Injinji Toe Sock Liners (1.2 ounces). I don’t remember where I first came across this idea of using a liner sock underneath an outer sock, but it worked very well in my shakedown hike, and it makes sense when you think about it. Blisters form from repeated rubbing against your skin, so if you have a nice tight liner sock, the outer sock or shoe rubs against that instead of your skin. Try it out if you haven’t yet!

The active layer I’ll be wearing over my base t-shirt is a MEC T3 (8.8 ounces). This is another one that I hummed and hawed over a lot. Originally I just thought I would use a long sleeve merino wool shirt and that would be enough, but I decided against it after doing some more research. Everyone knows lawyering is the key to an effective outerwear system, and an active layer over a base is just good layering sense. So then I spent some time deciding which active layer to get, and decided on a Melanzana Micro Grid Hoodie. Then I learned that Melanzana had unfortunately closed down their web and phone orders to restructure their business, so I wouldn’t be able to get one. I started looking at things like the Patagonia R1 and some Columbia fleece pullovers, and eventually decided on the MEC T3, partially because they are a Canadian company and I like supporting that (not to mention easier and cheaper to get than stuff from the states) and partially because I feel like it’s the active layer that fit me best. I liked the hood, I liked the thumb holes in the sleeves, I liked the half zip. It’s a nice pullover.

 Black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow

Black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow black and yellow

Finally, the shoes. I feel like I should do an entire post of its own on shoes, especially since this list is going to be pushing 6000 words by the time I’m done here. I’ve ended up with the Altra Lone Peak 3.0, size 11 (22.2 ounces). The first shoes I bought were Salomon X Ultra’s, and I really liked them. They felt good on the feet, they were comfortable, they laced up evenly, and they had good tread. Great shoes. They were one of the first items I bought, and I didn’t even consider changing them for months and months. I was actually kind of overwhelmed when researching shoes, and I remember the Salomons were the first ones I came across that were widely recommended so I just went with them. And they are good shoes, don’t get me wrong, but when I decided to try out the Altras, I realized I’d been buying shoes wrong my whole life.

I originally ordered a size 10, since that’s what I had gotten for the Salomon’s. Since I was ordering from Amazon I knew I could just return them easily if they didn’t fit. When they came in I threw them on and instantly liked them more than the Salomon’s. The wider foot box felt amazing, as I’ve always struggled with finding shoes that fit my wide feet. The only thing was, with each step my big toe kind of poked into the top of the shoe. After doing some consulting with the internet, I realized that I might have gotten a pair slightly too small. My toes came RIGHT up to the end of the shoe but didn’t quite touch. I’ve since learned that should have a little wiggle room between your toes and the end of the shoe, at least enough to fit a finger in. Amazon didn’t carry have any 10.5s in stock, which is what I thought I needed, so I took a chance and ordered the 11s. I thought that if they felt way too big, like clown shoes or something, that I’d send those back and deal with the slightly smaller shoe for the first part of the trail, or just go back to the Salomons. Well, the 11s came in, and I put my foot in them, and realized that I didn’t even know what a good fitting shoe was.

The Altra Lone Peak 3.0 Size 11 fit me so well I feel like I’m not even wearing shoes when I have them on. I really, really love them. I’m a tad concerned about the minimal aspect of them, and worry that my feet will really hurt while getting used to the zero drop, but I don’t even care about that right now because I love them so much. Plus, I used to run and hike in Vibram Five Finger shoes. I prefer to be barefoot whenever I can. I think I’ll really like these shoes once I get used them fully.

 Casual picture after I just tossed everything into the corner, didn't do any organizing for this shot

Casual picture after I just tossed everything into the corner, didn't do any organizing for this shot

So there we go. Hey, look at that, I did break the 6000 word mark 0.o

I've already changed the total base weight a little bit by removing one of the dry bags and some ziplocs, and I still have a few odd knick knacks to add or remove. Plus, it's going to change on the trail, I can pretty much guarantee that. So let's go ahead and just call it ~11.5 pounds base weight. I'll be updating my lighterpack as I add or remove things, so if you want to stay up to date with the most recent list, even when I'm on the trail, that'll be the place to check.

Thanks so much for reading, especially if you stuck it out through that whole mess of words. I hope you enjoyed, and maybe that you got something out of the post. Whether you’re looking to do a thru hike yourself, putting together a kit for some weekend warrior-ing, or just reading because you like the cut of my jib, thank you, and I hope you’re having a wonderful day!

Pack List - Appalachian Trail 2018 NOBO - Starting March 7th
It’s All About PerspectiveLifeIra YakeSun, 04 Feb 2018 00:20:30 +0000 goes into detail, possibly too much detail, about the circumstances that sent him into credit card debt and how his views have changed since paying it off.
Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.
— Sam Levenson

Getting out of debt completely changed how I think about money.

I know, that seems like such an obvious statement, but it’s kind of crazy how true it is. I’ve toyed with budgeting on and off for a few years now. Everything from buying YNAB (You Need A Budget) back when it was just a lump sum for the whole program, to using google sheets, to just simply outlining my monetary goals on a sheet of paper. In the end though, I’ve come back to YNAB, which is a subscription service now. That’s a bit annoying, but honestly it’s only $105 a year and I would be willing to bet I easily saved that much because of the program in the first month. Plus considering not even 2 months ago I was ponying up $2000/year for subscriptions (I’m way under that now) it wasn’t a huge dent. But YNAB, or budgeting in general, has completely changed the way I view money.

I started thinking about cutting back my spending in early mid November. Mostly it was out of necessity since I knew I wouldn’t be returning to truck driving (a story for another time) and therefore would lose my inflow of easy money. So by the time January rolled around and I decided to buy YNAB, I was already nearly debt free. But to tell this story right I need to start back at the beginning. Many, many eons ago, in the far flung past of the summer of 2014! insert screen wobble and ascending piano keys here.

I had just finished up at my first real job, working as a Customer Service Rep for an environmental sampling company, which is to date the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life. My mother had expressed her interest in sending me to a “leadership workshop” (read: cult) that took place in Nevada, just a couple hours outside Vegas. I won’t name the company, but it starts with an “R” and ends in “apport”. Ok, the word “cult” is a bit strong. It was a really weird experience, and completely not for me, but I saw some people get benefit out of it so they are clearly doing some good. It was mainly focused around strong public speaking, leadership, confidence in your opinion, etc, all of which I have falling out of my ass so I didn’t get very much out of it except for a kind of fun weekend in the desert and one long and interesting night in Vegas.

On the bus ride back from the, I don’t know what to call it, campus? Lodge? Anyway on the way back from the leadership place I called my mom and asked if she would look into changing my flight to the next morning instead of that evening. Some of the people I’d met on the trip weren’t flying out until the next morning and were making plans for some fun in Vegas. I had never been before and had just turned 21 a few months earlier. The perfect storm. I distinctly remember moving to the back of the bus to talk to my mom about switching my flight, and arguing with her when she said I should just come home that night. Lesson 1: listen to your mother. I mean, her reasoning was that I should come home and process what I’d learned in the course, which I had already done because the processor of a 1977 Apple II could have handled that load in about 2.8 seconds. But the fact is I should have listened to her and gone home that night. I often wonder what my life would be like today if I had taken that step. I try not to ruminate on things like that too much but hey, when you drive 12 hours a day your mind tends to wander.

Instead I convinced her to change my flight and I hastily booked a hotel online. It was in the Venetian, and it was a $100 room, so I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular. Imagine my surprise when I saunter through the door and into literally the nicest hotel room I have ever stayed in, ever. It was huge, gorgeous, and fucking huge! I wish I could find a picture that I took, but I don’t have any of my photos from back then.

I quickly dropped my stuff off and went to hang out with some of the other people who were staying in the same hotel. I’ll be honest here, part of why I wanted to stay is because I had spent some time talking to a girl who was in the program who happened to be staying until the morning as well. And, since I was 21, I shouldn’t exactly be blaming it on stupid teenage hormones, but god damn it I’m going to anyway. There were a few of us in her room hanging out, then we all decided to hit the town. If I remember correctly I was the only one of age by Nevadan standards so I went to the liquor store to pick up some supplies. I will not confirm nor deny the accusation that I purchased alcohol for “minors” by Nevada state law, so stop asking.

We wandered around a bit, looked at some of the street performers and artists, went to Fremont Street to see the cool overhead lights, etc. A few of the group members split off and went back to the hotel. I was invited to go along. Lesson 2: always go with your gut. I wanted to head back to the hotel with the group, which had the aforementioned girl I had been talking to. However, for some reason that escapes me to this day, I didn’t go back. I continued on with the other group and this is where things started to head south.

Everyone decided they wanted to go to the strip club. Since I had never been to one before and since I was in Vegas I thought to myself “Hey, when in Rome” and tagged along even though I wasn’t feeling it. We got to the strip club and everyone ordered some Red Bull’s, because it was 2am and everyone except me was under 21 so they couldn’t drink. And I’d like to just take a second here and point out the hilarity of the United States of America, that we could be in a room filled with objectified naked women, but most of my party was unable to drink alcohol because... reasons?

Anyway, I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say we spent some time in the strip club, where there was an ATM, and my credit card started to feel a little objectified itself by the end of the night. This is where this long, rambling mess has been leading to. It’s actually kind of hard to imagine I started this story off talking about money and debt, then here I am 1000 words later circling back to the point. We spent some time in the strip club, then we went to the casino for a few hours, and then the next thing I knew it was 5am and I was a grand in the hole.

I’m going to err on the side of truth here again. It would be easy to say this was the biggest mistake of a night of my life, and that I blame it for all my problems, but I’m not going to do that. I had a lot of fun that night, hanging out with a bunch of people I’d spent the weekend with and doing things I never thought I would do. I just wish I had done it with a bit more responsibility and when I had the financial stability to have a night like that. I’ll tell you what, I’ll never take money out of an ATM on my credit card again after that night.

So I got back to Canada with more debt that I’d ever had before in my life. To be clear, I’d been going to school and then working minimum wage jobs up until that point and living with my parents so I never had to worry about rent or bills really. Full disclosure, I still live with my dad at this point, so I still don’t have to worry about rent or bills. For the last 3 years. And yet I still just barely climbed my way out of the hole after making nearly $60,000-$80,000 a year for the last 3 years. To this day I still don’t know where all that money went. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know where a lot of it went, but I could never account for it all. I’ve collected stupid things and jumped from hobby to hobby. I spent thousands on Nerf guns, keyboards, collectible figurines, replica weapons, entertainment and media, etc. I’ve eaten out countless times instead of cooking at home, never paying attention to how much I spend. I’ve gone on vacations and just always bought whatever I wanted without a second thought, because I knew I was making lots of money at my job and I would be able to pay it back. And a lot of the reason I was spending that money so flippantly is because I was already in the hole, so what was a little more piled on.

This kind of thinking may seem insane to you, and trust me it does to me as well, but it’s how I justified everything to myself. I came back from Las Vegas with debt on my credit card and for three and a half years been constantly paying it off. I honestly think that a lot of why I was never able to climb out was because I just never got my head in the right place. And budgeting really helped me orient myself and realize what I was buying. Now, when I’m on the way home from unloading the truck at the end of the day, instead of stopping off at Wendy’s and grabbing a chicken burger I opt to head home and make a sandwich instead, and while a small part of that is health related, a huge factor in that decision is I didn’t want to carve $15 out of my budget just then. And when I make that decision, it’s a lot easier to see all the other reasons I shouldn’t stop for food. It’s not as healthy, it would take extra time, I have food in the fridge at home, etc. Maybe I could afford it just then monetarily, but when I frame it in that light of “is this really worth the money” I start to see all the reasons it might not be.

So I’m finally out of debt. As of January 2nd I have a balance of zero on both my credit cards. I know I got a bit off track there in the middle of the story, but I hope you enjoyed reading regardless. And if you don’t have a budget, maybe try it out and see if you like doing it. You can try YNAB free for like 34 days or something, or just use Google Sheets or Apple Numbers and make a simple spreadsheet budget. Once you allocate all your money for the month and give every dollar a job, you’ll be amazed at how your thought processes change every time you think about spending money. I used to just buy stuff because I liked it and I wanted it, and I was lucky enough to have a good enough job that I could pay for it. But that leads to a pretty stagnant and depressing lifestyle with pretty much nothing to show for my time on this earth, and no safety net in case something goes wrong. A year ago if I’d hurt myself or if the work had dried up, I’d have been pretty screwed.

I’m honestly really happy every time I open the app and look at my budget. I have over $2000 saved towards my Appalachian Trail hike, with an end goal of $5000 by the end of this month, which I should be able to just hit as long as I work as much as I did January. All my gear is bought and paid for, and because my parents are amazing and give me a roof over my head rent free I have very few expenses between now and my fly out date of March 5th. Then when I get back, I won’t be driving truck anymore, and to be completely honest I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do. That used to make me nervous, but now it’s just exciting, and I know I can handle things, whatever comes at me.

Thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments if you have a budget. When did you start? How has it helped your life? And if you don’t have one, are you going to start?

Have a great day!

It’s All About Perspective
The Appalachian TrailPlansIra YakeWed, 17 Jan 2018 04:34:06 +0000 talks about his reinvigorated delight in cooking, then reveals (maybe) his big plans for this year.
Today you are you. That is truer than true. There is no one alive, that is youer than you
— Dr Seuss

My blogging hasn’t quite been going the way I wanted it to. I thought I would be posting more. But that’s how it always is, isn’t it. There’s this ideal of what I want to be doing, and then what actually happens. I won’t promise daily updates again, and I won’t say that I’ll be planning more structured posts or big essays this time. I’m going to write for the blog when I can, which hopefully will be more often going forward. But if not, bear with me.

Anyway I have a bit of spare time tonight. It is already a bit late (20:48 as of this second, but remember that I usually get up very early), but I wanted to do a quick post about some things going on in my life.

Firstly, I finally cleaned out my kitchen and have therefore been willing to spend more time in it, so I’ve been cooking a lot more. I found this great app called Mealime. Basically it’s a meal planning app. You pick the meals you want for the week, it creates a grocery list of exactly what you need to buy, then you cook. Very simple. There is a subscription model which seems a bit expensive to me at $70 CAD a year. I bought a month of the subscription, and I’m going to try that out, then try it without the subscription and see if I still get use out of it. Basically the only things a subscription gets you is nutritional info (with no way to export so I can’t use it with calorie trackers like My Fitness Pal), and a bunch of extra recipes. From what I can tell a lot of the pro recipes look amazing, but there were some pretty stellar non pro ones too. Besides, during this month I have pro I’m going to write down all the recipes I won’t be able to access without a subscription. Mwahahahaha.

 Chicken Breast with Sweet Potato Mash and fried Sugar Snap Peas. One of the best meals I’ve made, ever.

Chicken Breast with Sweet Potato Mash and fried Sugar Snap Peas. One of the best meals I’ve made, ever.

Other than work the only other thing that’s been going on in my life right now is an extremely high amount of time spent thinking about the Appalachian Trail. I’m not 100% sure if I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, and I’m far too lazy to go back and check. This year, in exactly 48 days actually, I’m leaving for Georgia to start hiking north on the 2189 mile long Appalachian Trail, from Springer Mountain to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Well, I’m starting the hike in 50 days, I left myself a bit of room to get some logistic things sorted out for when I get to the states. I’ll be setting out on the trail on March 7th, 2018. My 25th birthday!

I first got the idea for this hike probably two and a half years ago. I don’t remember the exact time, but I remember exactly what I was doing when the thought that this might be something I want to do popped into my head. I was driving south, just entering Dawson Creek BC in a tank truck (not the one I currently drive), listening to audiobooks. I had just started “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson, and the gears in my mind started turning, thinking “Hey, this sounds just like the life changing experience I need right about now”. I know, I had visions of grandeur back then. I was beginning to feel stuck in a rut, and that I was going to hit my 30’s and still be stuck in the north driving truck, which was something I greatly did not want. I had decided that before I finished my 25th year, I would do something big and exciting. The AT seemed like the perfect fit.

Now, those are kind of bad reasons on their own, but as I thought about it more over the years and let it stew in my mind, the idea quickly took on a different shape and changed to reality. I no longer wanted to do it just to get away from my life, but I wanted to do it because thought it would be fun. A challenge. Breaking the monotony of daily life is just a bonus at this point. So now here I am, nearly 3 years later, getting ready to leave for a 5 month hike through the wilderness of the United States.

There will be more posts about the AT over the next month and a half. I predict that it will be the primary focus of my writing until I leave for the trail. Once all of my gear comes in I’ll be posting details about what I’m taking, how I’m planning my hike, the tools I’ll be using both physical and electronic, etc. For now, you can take a look at my lighterpack which lists everything I’m taking with me along with their weight. When I first started putting together a list of items in my head, I thought that I wanted my pack to be somewhere around 20-25 pounds. When I started researching gear, I thought that 15 pounds would be an amazing goal for my “base weight”, which essentially is just the weight of the pack and all the items in it, not counting consumables like food and water, or clothing you wear. Now, as my trip draws ever nearer, I’ve gotten my base weight down below 12 pounds. I spent a lot of money, probably way too much to be honest, doing it, but there it is. Just keep in mind the weights might change a bit as I get in the gear that I’ll be taking and get the actual weights, not just the ones listed on the website.

 Me on a shakedown hike to the Cascades near Tumbler Ridge, BC in September, 2017

Me on a shakedown hike to the Cascades near Tumbler Ridge, BC in September, 2017

That’s all for me tonight. Thanks so much for reading. I would love for you to leave a comment telling me about any big plans you have for 2018, or even beyond. Also, what kinds of things have you been cooking recently? I’m always looking for recipes.

The Appalachian Trail
Top 17 of ‘17ListIra YakeMon, 01 Jan 2018 21:07:49 +0000 ranks his top 17 things of 2017
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes
— Oscar Wilde

Happy New Year everyone! 2017 ended up being a pretty interesting year for me. Lots of travel, lots of changes. I wanted to get a quick post up wishing everyone good luck in the new year, and to bid farewell to 2017.

For a lot of people, last year was pretty bad. There was a lot of division and anxiety worldwide. I’m not going to talk about any of that. Instead I want to focus on the things that made 2017 great, and that I’ll be taking with me into 2018. There were a lot of new things that were released into the world, and a lot of things that were already around but I came across for the first time. So I thought I would through together my top 17 things of 2017. Whether it was new to everyone or just to me, these are my favourite things of last year. So, in no particular order:

  1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I had heard things about this show for a long time, but had never gotten around to watching it. Then I heard about a podcast, Buffering the Vampire Slayer, that was doing discussions on the episodes one at a time. It seemed like the perfect time to jump and listen along. I quickly outpaced the podcast because I loved the show so much. It’s become one of my favourites of all time, possibly the favourite of all time.
  2. Nintendo Switch. I used to be a major gamer. I spent a ton of time in my childhood and teens playing video games, and even my early adulthood. To be completely honest I had a bit of an unhealthy relationship with gaming, often prioritizing it instead of school or work. So I took a step back a few years ago, then my gaming PC broke down and I just never bothered to fix it, so I hadn’t been playing a lot of games. Then the Nintendo Switch came out and I picked one up and it completely reinvigorated my love of gaming. It started with only a couple good games in March, but now the catalogue is huge and amazing. I love my switch, and I’m so grateful that it got me back to playing amazing games. Speaking of amazing games...
  3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Holy crap this game is amazing. It’s certainly my favourite Zelda game of all time, and it might be very close to becoming my favourite game in general. It’s the first open world Zelda game, which is a huge departure for the franchise, but it works so well. It’s hard to say what I love so much about this game other than that, after half a year and over 150 hours, I still want to play it all the time. It’s fantastic.
  4. Super Mario Odyssey. One more game for the switch which makes my top 17. I have very fond memories of playing Mario with my aunt and sister when I was younger, the traditional side scrolling games for the NES and SNES. Since about Super Mario 64 I haven’t paid all that much attention to the franchise, but it comes back in a huge way with Odyssey. It’s such a brilliant game, and tons of fun. I would say that it’s equally as good as Breath of the Wild, but the reason Zelda gets higher honours is because after I beat the main campaign in SMO, I just didn’t feel the drive to continue playing it. Still, it took around 16 hours to finish the game, and those were some amazing hours very well spent.
  5. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I was lucky enough to be able to travel over to London to see this play live, and it was worth every penny for the ticket price and travel cost. I haven’t seen very many live plays, so I don’t have much to compare to, but all I know is that I was very entertained for the entirety of this two part play. The acting was great, the production was phenomenal, and despite the storyline not being all that amazing it was still good enough to be entertaining.
  6. My Brother, My Brother, and Me. 2017 was a big year for podcasts for me, and even as a late comer, MBMBAM turned out to be one of my favourites of the year. It’s 3 brothers giving “advice” for the modern era. I don’t have much to say other than listen to an episode. If you aren’t laughing your ass off by the end then maybe it’s not for you, but I find it hilarious.
  7. The Adventure Zone. Another amazing podcast by the same brothers who make MBMBAM. This is a dungeons and dragons playthrough that the brother’s do with their dad. The youngest brother is the DM, and all the others play their way through his amazingly crafted storyline. They aren’t the most adept DnD players, but the sheer amazing-ness of the story that they craft makes up for it. This was my favourite podcast of 2017.
  8. The Unmade Podcast. Brady Haran of Numberphile and Hello Internet (my all time favourite podcast) fame started this podcast with his friend Tim. They talk about ideas for podcasts that will never get made, ranging from the interesting and plausible to the hilarious and impossible.
  9. Star Wars: The Last Jedi. This movie probably deserves a post of its own, considering all the controversy revolving around it. I won’t say much other than that I loved it. I think it’s in my top 3 for favourite Star Wars films of all time.
  10. The Dresden Files. This is a pretty massive book series with 15 currently in the main series and a bunch of short stories to go along with them. It’s about a modern day wizard living and solving crimes in Chicago. The books are formulaic but that doesn’t even matter because each one is incredibly interesting. I quickly went from 1 to 15 this summer and now I’m (not so) patiently waiting for the next instalment with everyone else.
  11. Apple Watch. I picked one up in January, and it was a game changer. It helped me keep track of my health and pay attention to what I was doing in a way that exercise and diet hasn’t been able to do by themselves in the past.
  12. Spotify. I signed up for Spotify early in 2017, then moved back to Apple Music after a few months, and now I’m back to Spotify. I am pretty deep in the Apple ecosystem, so AM is nice for seamlessly working with most of my technology, but that’s the only advantage it has over Spotify. The music discovery side of Spotify has helped me diversify my listening habits a lot last year. It helped me find some of my favourite music of the year, like...
  13. Rainbow by Kesha. This is my favourite album of the year, and it probably jumps up to my top 10, maybe even my top 5. It’s incredibly diverse and moving, and the title track, Rainbow, gave me one of the most visceral reactions to a song I’ve had in a long, long time. Fantastic work from Kesha, who I’ve always liked since the first time I heard an acoustic version of one of her earlier songs.
  14. Ulysses. This is the app I’m using right this second to write this blog post. It’s helped me become a more consistent writer, and it’s got extremely powerful features that will really help me out in the future when I go to edit manuscripts. If you do any major long form writing I would highly recommend it.
  15. iPhone X. I was the kind of person that would always buy a new phone every year, so the last three with my iPhone 6 have been a big change. But that phone finally started to crap out, so I was very happy when Apple announced the X. It’s a truly amazing phone and I am so in love with the camera on it. I bought a DSLR in the summer of 2016 and I barely even think about it since getting my X.
  16. iPad Pro 10.5. This iPad has possibly changed my life more than any piece of technology. I use it to read the news more often, keep up with blogs, write notes with the Apple Pencil, watch videos, play games, and more. It’s a wonderful piece of tech, and if I end up going back to school, it will be invaluable to me.
  17. Olivia Mabelynn. I became an Uncle this year. My sister had her first baby, Olivia, on November 24th. She’s incredibly adorable and my whole family, me included, is infatuated. Plus this takes the pressure off of me to have kids right away, so bonus!

Thanks for reading. What were some of your favourite things from 2017? And what are you looking forward to in 2018? I’m going to do a resolutions post soon and talk about my plans for the year ahead. Until then, Happy New Year, and have a great day! Text here

The Times, They Are A Changin’RantMetaIra YakeWed, 13 Dec 2017 03:24:28 +0000 takes the liberty to spew word vomit all over his own platform. Also there’s some kind of blog update information or something.
 This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.
— Winston Churchill after being told not to end his sentences with prepositions.

Bob Dylan is pretty good.

So I’m changing up some things in my life. Namely, basically everything I do and how I do it. Nothing drastic or anything, I’m basically just completely overhauling my entire existence. I’ve decided that for the past half-decade (which just sounds so much longer than “5 years”) I’ve been doing, well, everything wrong to put it bluntly. I feel like I’ve been actively working against my best interests in favour of doing things the easy way. Really, when I get down to it, I did whatever I wanted within my means and to hell with anyone who might get hurt by that, including myself.

If you read that last paragraph and thought to yourself “My, this is an awfully shitty person”, I wholeheartedly agree with you. So that’s where the changes come in. I’m not going to list everything I’m doing differently here (although I’ve learned that list articles do pretty well on the internet (lookin’ at you, Buzzfeed)), because that would be long and boring, and frankly showing my hand far too early in the round. I’m going to keep all these amazing life pro tips I’m sitting on over here in my back pocket for a rainy day. To sum up the idea behind the changes though, I’m working towards becoming more efficient and less selfish.

Ok, so this post got a long, long way off the rails from my initial plan going in. I started out wanting to just outline some of the changes that would be coming to the blog, and instead went on a miniature rant. My bad.

I want to post more. I know, I’ve made this promise before. Well, I think it will stick this time. And if it doesn’t, it will stick the next time. That’s my new attitude going forward. I may fall off the wagon at some point, but rather than wallow in the dirt I’m god damned well going to stand up, chase it down, and hop back on.

There will ideally be more frequent but slightly shorter posts, going over a musing or a thought that I couldn’t get out of my head. I’m planning some template type posts that I can have at the ready to bust out if I haven’t written in awhile.

Then comes my passion projects for the blog: the in depth post. I want to do more analysis, review, opinion, etc. Long form, researched posts. This is part of the reason I’ve barely been posting at all over the last 18 months, because all of the ideas I come up with for the blog require some decent amount of effort to be put in, and I keep making excuses to procrastinate from doing them. Hell, I sat down at the keyboard just before 7 to write this word vomit, and it’s past 8 now. I am a master of procrastination. I am a pro-master-nator. No? Master-tinator? Procrasti-master!... I’ll work on that one.

So that’s the quick little update I wanted to do. My goal for going forward from 2018 onward (well, most of it (more details on that coming soon (I fucking love nested parentheses))) is to do 2-3 posts a week, so ~120-150 total. It will be less in 2018 for reasons that will become apparent in a future post. Unless you’re a family member, you already know. Or if I’ve posted about it on the blog before. I have a terrible memory for that kind of thing. Seriously, I have to write everything down now otherwise it falls out of my head in like 3 seconds. I literally forgot something I wanted to do while I was in the process of picking up my phone and opening the notes app to jot it down. I feel like I have the memory of a centenarian. Anyway, I digress...

Thanks for reading. Oh, and another teaser, I have something special coming up, starting on the 16th. There will be a post a day about something I really enjoy, and it’s leading up to something. I’ll leave it at that ;D

The Times, They Are A Changin’
Remember when I used to blog? MetaIra YakeThu, 13 Jul 2017 01:03:29 +0000 goes Community. That is, he goes meta. Talking about the blog and the future.  I sometimes wonder if I hold the record for the MOST inconsistent person in the world...

But hey, at least I'm still here. At intervals. Widely, WIDELY spaced intervals. Although apparently my writing is getting worse because I just used two caps locked words within one line of each other.

I don't really have an excuse. I've always been a bit unreliable in this regard. I want to do better though. I want to write books and stories and reviews and blog posts. I want to have a schedule, to have certain types of posts that go up on certain days. I want to review a podcast every Sunday (or maybe every other). I want to take more pictures and post them to interesting write ups about something cool I did.

The issue is that I want these things, but I have a really hard time making myself want to do the work that goes into them. I spent the last 1.5 hours doing essentially nothing, when I wanted to be writing. And you may think that's an exaggeration, but I really did do almost nothing for an hour and a half. I laid on the couch for a bit thinking about how I should be getting up, then when I sat down to write I realized my wrist rest was annoying me, so I put it on the side of the desk. That clearly wasn't good enough though, as I chose that exact moment to decide that I always put it on the side of the desk, and it never got used. So I proceeded to walk aimlessly around the house for 5 minutes looking for somewhere to store my wrist rest before I ultimately threw it in the garbage. Then I had to use the washroom, then I had to clean up something I saw on the floor that wasn't really a big issue. Seriously, if procrastination was a marketable skill I would be a multi billionaire.

It's not though, so if I want to achieve all the things I listed above as wanting, I need to do something about it. First thing I need to do is get a new god damned chair, as I've been fiddling with this one every other line. It's cracked in the frame, I'm pretty sure it came that way when I bought it, and I've just dealt with it but it's getting worse. I'm on like a 12% lean to the left right now...

Anyway, there's going to be some restructuring coming. To my life, to my work, and most importantly to anyone reading this, to my blog. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to happen yet, just that there are going to be more frequent posts, possibly shorter posts for the most part with super long ones sprinkled in, more structure, and (I assume to everyone's delight) less whinging from me about my horribly depressing "problems".

Remember when I used to blog?
There and Back AgainRecapIra YakeTue, 20 Jun 2017 03:44:48 +0000 finally gets an update up about the last leg of the Euro Trip 2017  Alright, so technically I didn't write anything as soon as the trip ended, but I have a kind of valid reason, I promise.

First of all, I'll get the small talk niceties out of the way. Yes, the trip was great. I had lots of fun. My favourite part was probably a tie between London and Switzerland. I know I sound kind of robotic now, but the worst part of travelling is definitely having to say the same things over and over to people when you get back who want to know how it is. And I know I probably sound a bit ungrateful. Don't get me wrong, I know that each person that asks me probably doesn't think about the 20 people before them that asked the same thing, but it doesn't make it any less tedious.

I guess I didn't write anything right at the end of the trip for two main reasons. Firstly, I was being a bit lazy. I had plenty of time in airports and stuff to write, but I just didn't feel up to it. Plus I was playing my Nintendo Switch, which by the way is one of my best purchases in quite a few years. Secondly, I didn't really feel like my trip was over yet. I was only home for about 2 weeks before I got on another plane. I flew down to Kamloops to help my mom pack up her house so I could drive it back up to Fort St John where she bought a new one.

But I'm back from that now. Well, I have been for 3 days. But I'm finally writing something today because I'm back at work, so it really feels like I'm back! You know, it that horrible soul sucking way that work makes you feel like you're actually back to the grind. But I do have a lot to look forward to I guess. I've only been half-assing my New Years Resolutions up to this point, so it's time to turn up the heat.

I've got some interesting ideas for how I'm going to reformat the blog posts and change things up, but you'll have to wait and see how they play out. I've made the mistake before of talking about plans that never end up going through, so I've started a new practice of keeping my cards close to my chest.

I want to talk a bit about the second half of the trip though. Allow me to start off by saying that 30 days is a long damn time to travel. Especially the type of travelling we did. Since we were both still under 25, we couldn't rent a car, which threw a bit of a wrench into our plans. I won't go too much into the details, but let me just say that for my future travels I am really glad I'll be able to rent a vehicle. Training and planing between cities is a lot of fun... the first time. It get's pretty (for lack of a better turn of phrase) old pretty quick. I feel so ungrateful when I say stuff like that, but really all the big cities are mostly similar except for a few landmarks, so the longer you travel the harder it gets to find fun stuff to do.

The second half of our trip kicked off with a 6 day stay in Amsterdam. I really, really love that city, but 6 days was too long for just tourist stuff. We did a bunch of walking around on the first day, saw the museums and parks and stuff, and then we were basically done. Neither of us are big on the party scene, so a lot of Amsterdam's more well known attractions were not entirely enticing. We did end up renting some bikes and going up to Zaan to look at all the old windmills and things, which was definitely my favourite part of the Netherlands. We got to see one that was still a functioning sawmill.

So after our long stay with the Dutch we packed up and headed south to Switzerland. This was probably my favourite week of the trip, for many reasons. Switzerland is super beautiful, we got to visit with an old friend from grade school (who so very graciously let us crash for 3 nights on her couch, for which my wallet is eternally grateful), and since we got the Swiss Rail Pass travelling was a complete breeze. It was about 300 francs upfront, but we didn't pay for a single train the whole time, and most if not all of our excursion transportation costs were covered as well.

We started out in Lucerne, which I had been to briefly last summer to visit the same friend, and it remains my favourite part of Switzerland. Beautiful town, huge blue lake, enormous snow-capped mountains... what's not to love? On the second day we were there one of my friend's friends from school serendipitously was in Lucerne on the same day with a tour group, so we spent that day hanging with him and his girlfriend, doing touristy stuff. That was a really fun day, but it was by far the most expensive! Those tour groups may be cheap upfront, but all those excursions start to add up.

After Lucerne we went to Montreaux, near the French border. Countries like Switzerland and Belgium are so weird to me, where depending on which bordering country you are closest to determines what language the towns speak. So we went from Swiss-German speaking Lucerne to French speaking Montreaux. I have a hard time imagining what school is like, having to learn 3 official languages.

Montreaux was very nice, but it was nothing compared to Lauterbrunnen. It's a little town situated in this valley with sheer cliffs on either side, huge snow capped mountains towering above. Waterfalls litter the cliffs lead by one giant one right beside the town itself. Unfortunately we were there a bit early in the year so we weren't able to climb to the viewpoint under the waterfall, but it was still a spectacular view nonetheless.

After a bit of hiking around the area, including a gondola ride up to the top of the cliffs to the town of Wengen, plus one day of sickness where I laid in bed most of the day, we left Lauterbrunnen and went back to Lucerne for one night before heading to Copenhagen, and eventually home. It was my first time in Denmark, and I have to say that for as much as I heard about it, Copenhagen didn't impress me all that much. It wasn't a hole or anything, just not nearly as nice as some of the other European cities I've been to.

After a short 19 hour layover in Iceland, a flight across the Atlantic, and 2 more domestic flights I was home. And I was ready to be. 30 days is a long time to travel; to live out of a single bag. It was so nice to wear different clothing and to sleep in my own bed again. I would (and will) do it again in a heartbeat though. Travelling is something that only the last couple generations of humans have really got to experience in full, and I love it.

There and Back Again
Midway PointRecapIra YakeTue, 09 May 2017 14:35:07 +0000 brings you up to date on his travels at this, the halfway point.  I'm writing this from a train, which I suppose is a touch cliche. We've been travelling for 15 days, which means this is the official halfway point. Somehow, it both seems like it's been ages and no time at all. That's just typical for travelling though I think.

Trying to post lots of picture from the shoddy wifi I usually have to connect with isn't really possible, so I'll try to sprinkle a few throughout the post, but there will be a big dump when I get home. And there really will this time. The reason I wasn't able to do the big picture post last time is because I took 1600 photos and never did any kind of sorting. I've learned from my mistakes and am sorting as I go this time. It works pretty nicely with my new iPad, as I can just pop in the SD, import all the photos, then sort and edit really easily from the photos app. Maybe I'll do a breakdown of my workflow for that one day. Consider it in my "potential posts" list.

So our trip started in London. It's really one of my favourite cities. This is the third time I've been, and I'm still not tired of it yet. The first time was in 2010 with a school trip. We did most of the super touristy stuff then - Big Ben, Westminster Abby, the Changing of the Guard, the London Eye, etc. There were tons of us in the group, so it wasn't very personal. The second time I went was at the end of last summer, and that was a super laid back visit. I spent lots of time in the hotel room watching British TV, walking around and checking out the streets and markets, and visiting a few smaller museums like the Wallace Collection (which was, by the way, a really fantastic visit). I was by myself on that visit, so it was easy to just be a bit lazy. This last time was just with one of my friends, so it was a totally different experience.

It wasn't completely packed to the brim with events and tours, but it also wasn't nearly as laid back as my solo trip. We did a shit ton of walking, which I was NOT prepared for. It wasn't really more than I did on the first couple days of my trip last summer, but I think the reason it was more painful this time is because I hadn't spent the last 2 months in Germany, getting outside, eating well, and walking around lots; I spent the last 2 months sitting in a truck for 14 hours a day eating garbage and sleeping in on the rare day off. So, needless to say, my feet were absolutely screaming at me within the first few days.

It wasn't so bad though, as we were doing tons of fun things to take my mind off it. Trying to think about it right now everything kind of blurs together a little bit, so I may not get the exact days and activities right, but it will be close. We started out by checking into our hostel and just walking around a bit that evening. Unfortunately we wandered into the financial district while looking for a restaurant, so we had some issues that first night. Eventually we found a place that was open and had seemingly edible food, and all was well. The next day we did some touristy stuff, like the National gallery and the British Museum, both of which were very interesting. Seeing the Rosetta Stone especially was a highlight for me. It's kind of amazing to see such an important artifact in person.

The next day my sister and brother-in-law landed, so we went out to greet them and had lunch. Afterward my friend and I walked around Hyde Park a bit while they got settled into their airbnb, and we met up again for some touring of Piccadilly Circus and supper at a pub. Afterward we did a bit of pub crawling until we found some live music, which I thought was at least somewhat decent but everyone else wasn't very impressed, so we left back for our hostel. All in all that ended up being a pretty laid back but fun day.

We had planned a day trip to Brighton the next day. We had considered originally going to see the cliffs of Dover, but ended up nixing that plan, which was all well and good as there were cliffs in Brighton that were plenty impressive for me. It was nice to walk around the smaller town after being in the metropolis for so many days, and we had one of my favourite meals of the trip thus far at a little American style restaurant. We also went up in this huge tower view deck type contraption, so we were able to get a birds eye view of the whole city. It was a pretty good day trip.

Finally we've come to the whole reason this entire vacation happened in the first place. In October of 2015 my brother-in-law got tickets to the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play in London. Even though he managed to order them within minutes of the sales opening, it was an 18 month wait until the date of our showing. April 29th, 2017. That morning was super chill. We took the tube to my sister's place and walked around Notting Hill for awhile, found a nice little market down Portobello Street, and had a traditional English breakfast. Then we made our way to the theatre, as the play started nice and early at 2pm, and got our tickets.

I'm not going to do an in depth review of the play, I'll just say that overall I really, really loved it. The production itself was so far above anything I expected, they really went above and beyond to make an amazing experience. The acting was superb, and while the script had a few issues, it was overall good. It definitely felt like a Harry Potter book.

The play ended around 10 that evening and we pretty much just went back to the hostel and crashed. The next morning we got up and went to Bristol for 2 days. It was a bit of an in between destination, as our original plan was to rent a car from there and head up into Scotland and the Highlands. Unfortunately, I was born a year too late, as renting a car before you're 25 is literally more than double the price. I'm 24. I also have a class 1 licence and have more miles under my belt than probably 99% of the 25 year olds renting cars, but insurance is unfortunately quite black and white in this regard. So, instead, we headed for Paris.

This was my second time in Paris, the first having been on the school trip I mentioned earlier. We did some of the same stuff I did then, like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, but we also did lots of other things too which I never did, including Versailles. I had alway heard stories about how beautiful Versailles was, and it truly was an amazing palace, covered in gold and crystal and mirrors, but what I found the most beautiful were the grounds. The garden behind the palace stretched on and on, and it was absolutely gorgeous. We rented bikes and pedalled around the canal. We had impeccable timing as the sun had just come out when we got to the palace and the rain began just as we were leaving. It was an unforgettable experience for sure.

After some more time in Paris, doing things like the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame, we hopped on the train for Ghent, Belgium. This was another last minute decision. We had considered maybe going to the south of France, or Italy, but in the end those all looked to be much better experiences with a car, and so we settled on Belgium, then The Netherlands.

Ghent was a really pretty town with a huge, very cliche looking medieval castle in the middle of it. It was mostly quiet which was nice, but the main thing I wanted to see in Belgium was Bruges. There is a movie called "In Bruges", which is a dark comedy that I've loved since I first saw it probably 5 or 6 years ago. Since seeing the movie I've wanted to visit the "fucking fairytale" that is Bruges. And 2 days ago we took a day trip there, and it met and exceeded every one of my expectations. I was worried that it might be a bit over hyped, but it really was fairytale-esque. There were windy cobbled streets, tall church towers, windmills, canals, alcoves, everything. We climbed the 300 odd steps to the top of the bell tower, which had fairly predictable views, but was a fun thing to do and a good story nonetheless. The steps were so narrow and windy, and you would meet people going up and down and try to shuffle by. It was incredible.

Yesterday was a bit of a rest day, we didn't really do much at all. And now we are on the train to Amsterdam, which I was in last summer as well but am excited to return to. It's a really unique city, and very beautiful, with so much history. I might do another update before I'm home, but I'm not making any promises.

Post Script: I'm sitting on the train from Antwerp to Amsterdam right now. We got first class tickets, and I can say this is by far the best way to travel. Nice, big seats, armrests, room to type. It's amazing. I've been ruined for all other forms of train travel!

Midway Point
#VagabondLyfeDailyIra YakeSun, 23 Apr 2017 21:10:48 +0000 promises the backpack review again, and talks about his upcoming EuroTrip.  I'm taking off across the Atlantic again tomorrow. This time though I won't be going alone, I've got a friend to travel with. It will be interesting to see what's similar and what's different. I really enjoyed the alone time last summer, but I think having a buddy who will get you out and about when you'd rather just take a zero day will be beneficial. I came back last fall with a small sense of missing out a bit, because sometimes I would just spend most of the day in the hotel room. Now I don't think there's anything wrong with that, sometimes a vacation needs to be just that: doing nothing for extended periods of time. But, I do wish I had done more last time, so with someone else there to keep me from being lazy will be good. And this isn't just a one way street. I'm sure there will be times when he wants to just lay by the figurative pool, but I'll bring up this really interesting museum that's just a few minutes (read: miles) from our hostel.

 Everything I'm taking with me for 30 days abroad.

Everything I'm taking with me for 30 days abroad.

I've been packed for days, but yesterday I took everything apart and repacked it just to be sure. This is the first time I've travelled using a checklist to keep track of my stuff, and somehow it just gave me more anxiety about losing something. I would second guess the checklist, and then second guess my second guess. I think in total I must have packed my bag about 8 times over the last week and a half.

I'm travelling with the same backpack I took last summer. You know, the one I've been promising a review of for nearly a year! Well, I don't mean to sound like I'm crying wolf here, but it's coming this time. I've decided the best way to write a review about it is to keep a running document about my thoughts and impressions as I go.

It's not like I'm chomping at the review bit here to get in early for those sweet, sweet views. This product has been out for ages, and has plenty of reviews you could easily peruse besides mine. Mostly I want to get this done for two main reasons.

  • Practice. I plan on writing plenty of reviews in the years to come, and some of them will probably be for new products, which means I definitely do want to get in early to capitalize on all the people searching for reviews. I need to be able to write a competent review in a slightly shorter timeframe than one year.
  • I really like bags and travel gear so partly I just want to write a review for this bag out of passion. Taking pictures of the bag, writing out packing lists, I really just enjoy the meticulousness.

So my plan is a running list of things I like and don't like about the pack that I can easily update on the road. Then, when I get back, the post is already written, I just need to format and post it. Flawless idea. I'm sure nothing will go wrong. After all, I have such a tremendous track record of keeping my promises and fulfilling all of my blog related goals.

In all seriousness, as I said in my resolutions post, I'm focusing more this year on getting back on the wagon rather than beating myself up for falling off. Will I write everyday while I'm travelling? No, and I don't have any allusions that I would. But I will write when I can, and I want to post at least a few times to the blog. Last year I took 1600 photos, and never took the time to sort them, so most haven't seen the light of day. I want to try and maintain organization as I go this time, and I'll hopefully get a photo post up. Who knows, maybe some of them will even find their way to my neglected Facebook page.

So that's the mindset I'm going on this trip with. Have fun, try to write as much as I can, but don't stress out if I don't. So with that, I'll leave you with this neat timelapse video I took of packing everything in my bag. I'm a little obsessed with it, and timelapse videos in general. There's just something about them, man...

Brought to you by the flash.  Ahh-ahhhhh

iPad ProRecapIra YakeThu, 20 Apr 2017 03:33:45 +0000's back, but not from outer space. Talking about his new iPad, resolutions, and plans moving forward.  I'm writing this post from my new iPad Pro, which, just to state it for the record, I am really overall loving. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are some pretty frustrating problems popping up here and there, mostly to do with iOS software and how it's not quite at the level of Mac OS or Windows yet, but overall the experience is really nice. It has the one overarching advantage over my 6 year old laptop in that it doesn't freeze up if I type at more than 50 words per minute.

Right now I'm writing in an app called Ulysses, and it's one of my favourites. It's a very simple word processor that uses markdown, which is a writing "language" for lack of a better word that I like to type in. Basically it uses simple symbols and shortcuts to do things like make bold text or italics. I did that by using the asterisk symbol. "**" on either side of a word or line for bold, and "*" on either side for italics. You can do lot's of stuff with markdown, like

  • Lists
  • Are
  • Fun

And so are block quotes.

Squarespace, the site I use to host my blog, has a built in markdown block that allows me to convert this stuff straight from my word processor to the blog. If it didn't have that, then Ulysses has an export feature that let's me export my document as markdown, rich text, plain text, HTML, PDF, etc.

Don't get me wrong, all of this stuff was available on the mac, too. It just seems, I don't know, nicer on the iPad. Maybe it's because there is a novelty aspect that is still in the process of wearing off. For example, I have my extremely nice $300 mechanical keyboard sitting on the desk beside me, yet I type this from the fabric, butterfly switch using Smart Keyboard cover for the iPad. Partly to get used to it, as it is what I will be using exclusively when I travel, and partly because I just got it, and I haven't put any serious mileage on it yet. It's surprisingly much nicer to type on than I was anticipating. It's still miles worse than the mechanical board, but it's still decent.

It's been a weird few months since January. I told myself again and again that I wouldn't bring up the huge gap that I had between posts, but here I go doing it anyway. I know it's basically just family members reading this, but I still feel bad for not posting more often. Then when I get a bit of a gap between posts, the anxiety of having gone so long without posting sets in and I worry about what I will post when I do eventually post. Should I acknowledge it? Call attention to it? Ignore it? I never know, so I've settled for this, a single paragraph in the middle of the post, acknowledging it, and nothing else.

In 5 sleeps from the time of posting this I will be flying across the Atlantic again to Europe. I'm going with a friend this time, so it won't be quite so lonely. I did really enjoy my time travelling alone, being able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and not feeling guilty if I spent a whole day in Rome laying in my hotel room, eating junk food, and watching Netflix. But, it will also be great to travel with someone as well. I didn't do a lot of the things I might have liked to last time because of anxiety and worrying that I would embarrass myself. There's something about being with a friend that just lets you let go of your inhibitions just that little bit. At the absolute worst, you both make an utter fool of yourself and you can laugh at each other later.

I guess I should do a quick update on my resolutions. I learned to solve a Rubik's cube like 4 days into the year. Since then, not so much has been done on the list. I haven't been meditating at all, my health is fluctuating, I haven't been working on languages and I've barely been writing. Overall it's been a poor showing so far, but hey, we're only 1/3 of the way into the year. Relax, I've got time.

Speaking of writing, this is the first substantial amount of it I've done in weeks. One of the main reasons I wanted an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil is so that I could take my writing, export it to a note taking app, and do handwritten markup overtop for editing and brainstorming. I'm a guy who likes his digital stuff, but there are certain things that just help my brain work better at creative stuff, and having a pen (or stylus, in this case) in my hand and writing stuff down is just one of those actions that gets the juices flowing, what can I say.

I'll try to wrap this up to avoid boring most of you. One thing I want to do is take more pictures of the stuff happening in my day so that you aren't assaulted with a wall of text every time I post to my blog. It would be nice to have some stuff in there to break up the monotonous droning of my self indulgent rambles, wouldn't it? I'm planning to take a page from other bloggers and do stuff like list posts and topic posts more often too. Basically, let's throw all of the shit at the wall and see what sticks.

Oh, and the podcast Sunday posts will make their return. Eventually. Once it had been.... eeeeeeaaaarrrnnneeedddd

iPad Pro
Anger ManagmentDailyIra YakeTue, 03 Jan 2017 19:00:32 +0000 explains his absence on New Years Day, and his problems with technology.  So on the first I sat down to write my new years resolution post, similar to the one that I posted yesterday. It's not exactly the same, because I got 3/4 of the way through the post and my computer shit the bed.

Granted, I sat down to write it at 11 pm, so not ideal for the first day of the new year. What can I say, the rest of the day was quite lazy, and to be completely honest I actually forgot about doing a blog post until I was about ready to go to bed. All of this lead up to me trying to get the first post of the year out in less than ideal conditions. Mix that with my 6 year old laptop that has been acting up lately, and we have a recipe for disaster.

Anyone reading this at the time it goes up is probably a family member, so you know about my temperament when it comes to electronics and anger. I have a problem where if something isn't working the way it should be, I get incredibly angry and more often than not end up breaking something. I've lost countless phones, game controllers, monitors, and other devices to this character flaw. Lately, in the past year or two, I've really been focusing on controlling my anger, mostly because I think it's a terrible flaw that could have some serious consequences in the future, but also because I was spending a fortune on replacement electronics.

So last night I started to write around 11:10pm. It was going well, and by 11:25 I had the bulk of the post written and I just needed to write out my resolutions. The computer had been a little slow up to that point but it was nothing major, and nothing I couldn't handle. Once I started opening up new tabs though, to get links to my new twitter profile and the read harder challenge, things really started to slow down. I was tired, and I was literally spending minutes watching the clock tick closer to midnight as the little rainbow pinwheel that mac users hate spun away. The fans on the computer were running in overdrive, and things were freezing up badly. I was getting worked up, and it was exacerbated by the fact that I needed to be quiet, since my mom had already gone to bed and the dogs were sleeping in their kennels beside me. When stuff like this starts to happen one way I vent my frustrations is by swearing loudly, or just letting out an exasperated grunt or sigh. I know lot's of people think this is ridiculous, and it's just a placebo, and lot's of other reasons why I shouldn't do it. It helps though, but I do agree that it's probably not the best way to deal with frustration, so I've been focusing more on controlled breathing exercises to calm me down. So far these have been really effective.

Regardless of the tactics I employ to calm myself down, they weren't working. The computer was getting slower by the second, and I was starting to get really angry. I felt like I might have an anxiety attack, and several times I cocked my arm back to punch the screen, or grabbed both sides of it with the intention of snapping it in half. I managed to calm myself down though and stop myself from breaking anything. This is the part I'm conflicted with. Do I feel proud of myself for controlling my emotions at a basic human level? It seems weird to pat myself on the back for that.

I decided to just save what I had as a draft, and finish it on my phone. It was too late though, the blog post page completely died and I had to force quit chrome. I reopened it again immediately with the desperate hope that some cache was able to keep all of the data that included my writing, but it was a fruitless effort. In the end I lost everything at about 11:54 and, defeated, went to bed. I actually started up my laptop to write yesterday's post and it was still being slow and freezing, so I shut that down immediately and switched to my phone. I wrote yesterday's and today's post on my phone, and I'll probably be writing many more of them in the future until I get something figured out for my laptop situation.

So that's why I didn't have a post up on January 1st. I really wanted to, I would have loved to have 365 posts in 2017, but it's clearly not going to happen now. That's ok though, because the main message of that post was focusing on my ability to get back on the wagon when I fall off, so I'm not going to dwell on things like that. Nothing can ever be perfect, it can only be as good as I make it, and the more I work at this blog, the better it will be!

Anger Managment
ResolutionsDailyIra YakeTue, 03 Jan 2017 01:30:55 +0000 lists his New Year's resolutions, and talks about how to stick to themSo, this post was supposed to go up yesterday, but due to some technical difficulties that will be detailed in tomorrow's post, it's going up today. Let's just say I had a mixed start to the new year for now.

So I had one of my late night writing sessions last night, which got lost, but I came up with what I thought was some pretty coherent ideas about the new year and my outlook on it. Unfortunately, my mind feels like a blob of goo right now, and I'm convinced I won't be able to articulate it nearly as well, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. Luckily I have a few notes that I can reference.

I think I put a little too much emphasis on the first of the month. I mean, it's only a day, and it's usually a day that you have obligations to other people. You need to call people and wish them a happy new year, and go to parties and dinners. It's actually a bit of a terrible day for organization or getting things done. So I'm not putting emphasis on the first day of the year so much as the first week or two. I think this year I need to focus more on flexibility. In the past, if something went off plan at the beginning of the day, I pretty much wrote that whole day off. That's really bad for productivity. I need to be able to roll with the punches more easily.

For me, this year is kind of like "The Year of Flexibility". I think a lot of people get wrapped up in staying on the wagon. "I can't eat that candy bar, I'm on a strict diet", or "I hurt my knee, but if I don't run this morning my whole month's plan is shot" are the types of things you hear a lot, and you would have heard from me early last year. I've really been looking at the bigger picture more lately, and what I want to focus on is the ability to get back on the wagon.

You always hear about people falling off the wagon, but no one ever talks about climbing back on. I think that's one of the most important skills you can learn. No one is perfect, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to have days where you accidentally sleep in, or forget to go for a run, or eat a few too many cupcakes. It's going to happen, and you can't let it derail everything. The ability to persevere through those times when it seems like you're failing is what seperate the failures from the successes.

My main focus when making this year's resolution was to have tangible, achievable goals. When your New Years Resolution is "Lose Weight" or "Read More" it's impossible to actually quantify that. If you skipped lunch one day and weighed 2 pounds less the next morning, did you complete your goal? I wouldn't say so.

There are two things that are key to motivation. Having a goal to work towards, and having a way to measure progress. I think a lot of people get hung up on the first one of those and don't give enough thought to the second. For example, if I'm losing weight, and in April I have a bad week and spend it eating junk food and watching TV, I've fallen off the wagon. If your resolution was "Lose Weight", then you'll see yourself gaining weight and you'll think you've failed. If your resolution though was "Lose 50 pounds", then you can look and see that you may have gained 5 back, but you're still 20 pounds lighter than you were at the beginning of the year. You have that goal of 50 to work towards, so the little setback doesn't seem like so much.

Anyway, I feel like I've ranted on long enough. Let's get to the list of resolutions, shall we. I don't have terribly many, because I'm sticking with the realism. I'm sure over the next week or two I will think of some things I want to achieve in 2017, and if that happens I'll come back and edit the post. Mostly this list is to have something to reference back to at my end of the year post so we can take a look at how I did.

So, without further ado, my 2017 resolutions:

  • Read 52 New Books: The keyword here is "new". I spend a lot of time rereading books, but I want to branch out and focus on reading new material. This segways nicely into the next resolution...
  • Complete the Read Harder 2017 Challenge: This year my sister and I are taking on the Read Harder challenge. Book Riot has done these for the past 2 years, and they seem like a really great way to expand your reading  in interesting ways. I don't expect to like every book I read, but I expect to learn something with each one!
  • Take a selfie every day: This one may seem a bit strange, but bear with me. Every once in awhile you'll see one of those videos where someone has taken a picture of themselves every day for years, and then they make a time lapse of all the photos. I really love those videos, and want to do one myself. Plus, it will go really well with measuring the progress of my next resolution...
  • Weight under 200lbs by 2018: This one seems pretty daunting at first look. The last time I weight I was 268 pounds. I'm probably closer to 280 now after the holidays to be honest. That's a lot of weight to lose in a year, but I'm confident that if I'm able to stick to a meal plan and work out consistently, I will achieve this.
  • Write a novel: Another ambitious one. A first novel is nothing to sneeze at, and if my snails pace of writing is anything to go by, this one will be tough. I'm focusing on getting more productive this year though, so if everything goes to plan I should be able to carve out nice big chunks of time for writing on my days off. I really want to give this writing thing the old college try so I can see if it's what I want to focus on for the rest of my life.
  • Learn to read music: The next few resolutions are some basic, entry level skills. I play guitar somewhat well, and I want to learn the piano as well, but I think the first step to continuing my musical career is to actually learn to read sheet music. It's something I've wanted to learn for a long time, so let's turn this new productivity of 2017 towards it.
  •  Learn to speak basic German: I feel like I'll have to revisit this one and better define what "basic" means. One thing I really regret from 2016 is not putting more effort into my time in Germany, specifically not trying very hard to learn the language. I really took that opportunity for granted, and I want to try and salvage something out of it. I want to learn French and Japanese too, but let's take this one step at a time!
  • Learn to code in Python: I firmly believe that all schools should be teaching coding starting as young as possible. It is absolutely going to be the biggest job market in the future as automation becomes more prevelant. I can think of dozens of small electronic projects I'd like to do, but I can't because I don't know how to code.
  • Solve a rubiks cube: This is just a small fun one. I saw a video about a guy who learned all of these neat little skills in 2016, and one of them was solving a rubiks cube. It only took him like 16 hours to learn, and I have quite a bit of down time in the truck when I'm loading and unloading, so I think this is doable.
  • Meditate every day: Tomorrow I'm putting up a post talking about some anger issues I've dealt with for a long time. Something that has really been helping me with that lately is meditation. I really feel like even just 10 minutes a day is really beneficial for mental health, and it's something that's super easy to do.

So that's it. My resolutions for 2017. I'll be editing this post over the next couple weeks, tweaking and adding, but these are the core ones I have. I'll be checking in at the end of the year to see what I've completed. Leave a comment below telling me what your resolutions are, and have a Happy New Year!

5x5HealthIra YakeThu, 01 Dec 2016 03:41:57 +0000 out is hard. It's harder when you haven't done it in 40 bloody days. I'm using this app called "Forest" on my iPhone and web browser. Basically it's an app to help you focus. You choose an amount of time between 10 minutes and 2 hours, in intervals of 5 minutes, and you plant a tree (a virtual tree, not a real tree. Although you can plant real trees with the app, but that's confusing to talk about right now, so pretend I didn't write this). As the minutes tick by, the tree grows, and provided you don't lose your focus before the time is up, you get a fully grown tree at the end. It's a bit different between the phone and the computer. On the phone, if you even leave the app, it will kill the tree, and you get an ugly, dead tree in your garden. This stops you from using the phone for anything. It's especially good when you sit down to eat with someone, as you can plant a tree and not be tempted to be checking twitter every 2 minutes, ignoring the person you're with. You can get around it by using Siri for some things, which is good as I can still use my phone to play music while this app is running.

The chrome extension works slightly differently. You set up all these web pages you want it to filter out (so facebook, twitter, reddit, youtube, etc), and if you try to go to these pages it will kill your tree. The desktop version isn't quite as powerful, as I can still use any other application on my Mac, but it stops me from dicking around online when I should be working (or writing a blog post).

The reason I bring this up now is because I set these apps for 30 minutes just a few minutes ago when I sat down to write. Unfortunately, I also took some pictures on my phone that I wanted to use in the blog post. I assumed these would sync with iCloud and be available to use from iPhoto right away, but of course, as is the rule with technology, nothing can ever work properly too many times in a row. So now, due to my tight schedule, I'll probably have to stay up 15 to 20 minutes late to get the pictures uploaded and the post up before bed. The things I do for my readers... (all 6 of you).

They aren't super riveting photos or anything, just some visual aids to go along with the topic of today's post. It's probably going to be short, sparse, and horribly incoherent, as I've only been writing for 13 minutes and am already losing steam. This is what happens when you get up at 4:30 in the morning, put in a 13 hour work day, then exercise. Why did I think I would be able to write a blog post after that? Oh well, this is what I get for not getting organized earlier. I could, I suppose, just continue in the vein of November and let this day stand empty. I've already started though, so why waste all this work?

I can already tell that there will be days this week though when nothing goes up. It's inevitable. I started my productivity changes and schedule planning right before I went back on shift, so there wasn't time to prepare a nice little backlog of posts that I can throw up whenever. The long days are already taking their toll, and there's only been one of them! It was a pretty ideal day too, with very few delays, so I'm worried if I do end up having wait time where I unload the oil, or having to do an extra load or something, it's going to really throw my schedule off. It won't be so bad on days that I don't have to work out, but still, if I'm not in bed by 9, it's going to be REALLY hard to get up at 4:30.

 I used to eat 1680 calories in one meal....

I used to eat 1680 calories in one meal....

At least I won't have to make lunch in the mornings. I managed to get another 8 days of meals prepped out. Chilli and rice. It's simple, but it's delicious. My grandma made the chilli for me, so really all I did was make the rice. Still, like I said, I only just got back into the swing of things, I can't be throwing myself off the deep end right at the start. I think I'm going to need to start eating a bigger breakfast, or having a snack or two in the middle of the day, because even after I finished supper tonight I was 300 calories below my daily goal. And I'm on the aggressive "lose 2 pounds a week" plan, so being that far under probably isn't all that healthy. I'll have to eat a spoonful of peanut butter before bed I guess. Sigh. The sacrifices I make for health!

 Body weight goes up, lifting weight comes down :(

Body weight goes up, lifting weight comes down :(

Ok, this post was supposed to be about exercising, and I'm 5 paragraphs in and haven't started yet. I have a really weird relationship with working out. I feel like I like it, but I can't be sure. I mean, I hate it when I'm doing it. Maybe? It feels good yet super tiring at the same time. Tonight it kind of felt like a waste of time, and I was really uncomfortable, but I'm pretty sure that's a side affect of not having done it for over a month. It will get better, and no matter what I always like the feeling after a workout. Right now I'm slightly sweaty, pretty hot, but content. I'm too tired to be terribly uncomfortable. Plus, my monkey brain knows that in the future, if I keep this up, it will produce results that are extremely desirous. Read: sick abs bruh.

I'm using an app right now called Stronglifts 5x5. It works really poorly, but it's not unusable. Mostly it's just little interface issues that just didn't have a lot of thought put into it. As far as I know it's made by just one guy who came up with the program, so I can't expect too much. Things do annoy me though, like today how I scaled back some of the weights from what they were at since I hadn't worked out in so long. I had to change the weights like three times, and if I left even the dedicated screen for that workout, staying in the app, it would still reset. There are a few other minor things that I can't even really come up with right now, but they bug me when I use it.

On the whole though, I find the app really useful. It's based on 5 simple exercises that workout your whole body. Day one is Squats, Overhead Press, and Deadlift, and day two is Squats, Bench Press, and Row. Notice that squats are on there twice, because (as I have learned) it is truly the king of exercises. Squats quickly became my favourite, as it just feels so good to do. I recently moved the bar to a lower position on my back, and while it's a bit harder on the shoulder blades, I like the results I'm getting. Plus I have a wimpy little pad to put on the bar, because I'm not tough enough yet to put up with the cold metal digging into my soft, fleshy back.

 I didn't choose the fitotron lifestyle, the fitotron lifestyle chose me

I didn't choose the fitotron lifestyle, the fitotron lifestyle chose me

I've changed tactics in the workout attire department as well. I used to run shorts and a tank top, with either bare feet or vibram shoes. To be honest, the only reason I don't still run vibram shoes is because mine fell apart after so much loving, daily use and I haven't bothered to get replacements yet, because they aren't as abundant as they were 4 years ago. I wear converse now, which not only feel great on my feet, but they look super fly. They are high tops, flat bottoms, nice and minimal. My feet haven't really started to hurt yet so far. Other than that it's just a simple pair of black, loose jogging pants, a spandexy / silky shirt (I'm not sure what the material is called, but it's that typical work out shirt material). It's a Hello Internet FITOTRON5000 shirt, which I ordered from my all time favourite podcast, Hello Internet. Over that I wear a regular hoodie. I get a bit hotter while I workout now thanks to all this extra clothing, but I think that's a good thing. It makes me feel better, and I remember hearing something about sweating making you lose more weight. I'm not sure if it's true, but it can't hurt to try.

The best thing about the stronglifts app is that it requires only a few things. I have a squat rack, a barbell, a bench, and some weights. That's all you need for the core exercises. There's a bunch of other stuff you can add on, but really the three exercises each day mentioned above are the only thing you'll have to do to hit every muscle group in your body. Obviously if you want to look like The Rock, you'll have to get a little more technical, but hey, I'm a long ass way off of that for now!

November Was a Bad MonthRecapIra YakeTue, 29 Nov 2016 22:05:00 +0000 many plans, so many failures. November was basically a write off, and Ira goes into some explanation as to why. I haven't been writing. Like, at all. I want to say that the chief reason for my literary absence is a lack of time, but I'm not even certain if that would be an honest statement. I've had time, I've had two off shifts this month. That's 12 days of no work and literally nothing else to do. So why haven't I been writing.

There are plenty of reasons I give myself, some true, some probably not as true, but reasons nonetheless. I won't go into some of the more personal and emotional ones, not at this time anyway. I don't want this to turn into a downer blog full of nothing but complaints and worries (even though, let's face it, a lot of what does go on here is exactly that). I wish there was one word or even a single phrase that could sum up the reasons that I've been absent, but there isn't.

I started out the month in great form. In case you hadn't read my previous posts, or had forgotten, November is NaNoWriMo, which stands for national novel writing month. The goal is to write 50,000 words over the course of November, and by the end of the month you would have a first draft novel. It's actually a little less, most novel's fall in the 60k to 80k range, but it's pretty close, and it's a nice round number for the challenge. It works out to only 1,667 words per day, which is really not all that much when you think about it. Most of my blog posts are around the 1k mark, and they rarely take more than 20 to 30 minutes of serious writing.

That's the caveat though, isn't it. Serious writing. It's so very, very hard to get into that mind-frame sometimes of doing actual, serious writing. The infamous quote is that authors don't like writing, they like having written. And for the vast majority of my writing I would have to agree to that sentiment. It's the feeling I have after I finish writing a post or a chapter that makes me keep going back, but certainly not the writing itself. Like right now, I feel super uncomfortable, I've moved my keyboard around half a dozen times, tried with and without wrist rest. I don't really want to write at this moment. But I want to have a blog post up by the end of the day. In order for that to happen, I have to suffer through some writing. This is probably the biggest reason that there were virtually no posts in November, and literally no posts of quality. I couldn't force myself to write.

I know that sounds bad. What kind of writer doesn't like writing? The answer would probably surprise you. And it's not like it's an uphill battle every time I sit down. Every now and then I'll just be in the zone and I'll slap out thousands of high quality sentences without even breaking a sweat. But those moments are few and far between. It's the in between that separates a writer from a hobbyist. And right now, I feel like a hobbyist.

So like I said before my textbook tangent, November started out great. I wrote 3k words the first day for my novel, finishing the opening chapter. Unfortunately, I only had that one day before my shift started again, and November started with one of the worst shifts imaginable. In the truck first thing in the morning, loaded up some oil, and then head to Nipisi, which is a 900km round trip. I literally slept in the truck for 5 days straight. It wouldn't have been quite as bad if I knew in the morning that I was going on this run, since you can do it in 13 hours. My last 3 days I managed to catch up and get onto the schedule of leave the house in the morning and return to the house in the evening, but by that time the damage was done.

For what it's worth I took my laptop and had every intention to write on the road, to keep up my 1,667 words a day. I had given myself a nice days padding with all the extra work I did on November 1st. However, as I soon found out, it's not easy to write on the road. Read: it's impossible to write on the road. At least for the work I was doing. Let's go through a day.

I would wake up in the morning, brush my teeth outside in the cold with a bottle of water, and pretty much hit the road right away. Didn't want to waste time, and a night in the relatively uncomfortable bed of the truck does not allow for a completely present mind in the morning. Any writing I had done before I was several hours awake would have been garbage anyway.

I would drive until I had to stop to use the bathroom, then I would drive some more. After 4 or 5 hours I made it to Nipisi to unload. So far, no time for writing. Now, it takes a solid 45 minutes to unload a full tank of oil, so I know that most of you are probably thinking that I could just write during that time. Technically you're supposed to stand outside and watch the gauges as you unload, but it's somewhat pointless since if there is an emergency I have the PTO shut off and the emergency shut down right at my fingertips. So I probably could have written while I was sitting in the truck, but I wouldn't be completely present, as part of my mind would be focusing on my surroundings to make sure nothing is going wrong. Plus I was all done up in my PPE, my smelly PPE, and using my laptop in that condition is just not comfortable. After unloading I drive back to location, load, and head out again. I drive until I get too tired to drive anymore, so I pull over to go to sleep. Again, after a whole day of mental exhaustion I would be in no state to write a novel. When you're living in the truck, it's just not feasible.

So when my shift finally ended I thought I would be able to catch up. Here is where it's probably 25% the universe's fault I didn't do anything productive, and like 75% my fault. I got sick the very first day I was on days off. I still hold true that this is because my sister was hosting a disease for months and months (as she's essentially been sick since moving back up to the cold, dark north) while it created the perfect bacterial structure to invade my body and infect me. It probably also had something to do with living in the same, small, enclosed space for 8 days, barely meeting the minimum requirements for cleanliness and eating nothing but stuffed buns and chocolate bars. I was not a healthy person.

The remaining reasons I didn't get anything done on my days off are a lot of excuses stuff which I don't want to get into. Working on this side project, catching up on this TV show, spending time doing this and that, basically anything besides the things I knew I should be doing. My room got messy, my work didn't get done, and I started getting more and more depressed. When my second shift came around I was passed caring about how my room looked and whether or not my book would get finished. I just wanted to work, and buy things.

I have a horrible habit of spending money online when I get depressed. So, over the past two weeks, I bought way more stuff than I should have. I've always liked mechanical keyboards, and it's a really interesting and niche hobbyist community when you really get into it, but I bought way more mech key related stuff than I should have, or than I could afford. This caused me to spiral deeper down into depression and anxiety about spending money, which in turn really helped me make excuses for not doing the things that I knew would set me to rights. The perfect analogy for this was put so eloquently by Fat Bastard: "I eat because I'm unhappy. I'm unhappy because I eat." It's the same thing, feeding into itself, all the way down.

So finally, a couple days ago, I said to hell with this and decided I needed to break this pattern. Above this text you'll see screenshots of my schedule, a different one for days on and days off. There's one more template for days off which I don't have pictured, because it's literally the exact same except the "workout" block isn't in there since I only workout on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

My biggest problem, or so I believe from detailed self diagnosis, is that when I have time to do things, I have no direction. I end up not starting anything because I'm never certain in myself that it's the right decision. I think there's always something that I could be doing better with my time, so I end up (ironically) just watching youtube or netflix for hours on end because I'm unable to make a decision. Well, now I have all my decisions planned out for me in advance.

It's still in beta, as I'll have to actually go through the days and live the routines so I can get a feel for what works and what doesn't, but it's been good so far today. I went a little over on my morning routine, and I'm actually into free time territory now, but I procrastinated a little bit starting to write my blog today. The important thing isn't that I stick to the schedule like some sort of autonomous machine. It's there for direction, to push me gently towards something that needs to be done. This system is working in conjuncture with an app that I think will be incredibly important for me moving forward: OmniFocus.

Photo 2016-11-29, 14 50 14.png

I tried to read the book "Getting Things Done", which is the principles that OmniFocus is built on, but I couldn't get through it. Far too dull. But, I digress. The app is really working out for me so far. Granted, like the schedule, it's only been in use for two days, and I still haven't finished watching all the tutorials, so I'm not entirely convinced that I have a full understanding of how to use it. But I do know how I WANT to use it, and that's the important thing. It's a dumping ground for anything and everything that needs to get done. Today, tomorrow, next month, in 20 years. If I think of something I want to do, it goes in the app. That way, whenever I'm feeling directionless, I can open the app, check my inbox, and get an actionable task.

I've learned a lot about scheduling and productivity from one of my favourite podcasts, Cortex. I'll be doing a full review for it sometime in the future, but for now if you're willing to go in blind I highly recommend it. There's so much left that I need to nail down about productivity, and getting my life organized, but I've come to learn that the most important thing is to just start. If I wait until I've fully gotten everything figured out to perfection, and I have everything set up as it needs to be, I'll never actually do it. I've been setting myself impossible goals for too long, so now I've decided to just jump in headfirst and figure things out as I go along. There's going to be off days, bumps in the road, but as long as I don't let myself get discouraged, everything should end up alright.

This ended up going on a lot longer than I thought it would, so apologies for the long post. I have this terrible anxiety about posting something too short because it feels like I'm wasting people's time, but I also worry about posting something too long because I feel like no one will read it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'm already a little off schedule today, so I won't be writing tomorrow's post right now as I had originally planned. If nothing comes up tomorrow, don't panic, I probably haven't fallen off the wagon again, I most likely just had a long day at work and wasn't able to post anything.

Again, thanks for reading this far. Leave a comment below and let me know what your productivity tricks and tips are.

November Was a Bad Month
A Quick UpdateDailyIra YakeSat, 12 Nov 2016 22:44:31 +0000 jots down a few words about the lack of content over the past several days.Man, what a busy weak and a half.

I ended up on a run with the truck that was a 13 hour round trip, and I was just going from the location I was loading from, to the location I was unloading, then back to the loading location again. It was like that for about 5 days, living in the truck, then I ended up being able to get back home for a night and change the schedule up so that I was leaving in the morning and getting home in the evening. Still, a 900 kilometer round trip that took 13 or 14 hours ends up filling most of the day. Even when I got home by 7 or 8 pm I didn't have the energy to write.

Which means I'm way behind on NaNoWriMo. I'm going to have to write about 4000 words a day for the next few days to catch back up. It's looking like my next shift though will let me get home in time to do some writing in the evening, so I can get back to daily updates for the blog, and get my novel finished. Even if I end up having to write the remaining 50,000 words on November 30th I'm bound and determined to finish it this month.

The worst part is the first half of my days off were a bit wasted. I finished work on Wednesday, but I've been feeling under the weather since Tuesday, and on Thursday it turned into a full blown cold. I've been taking it easy though, and today I'm starting to feel like I'm getting better instead of worse.

I saw Doctor Strange and Arrival this week, so I'm going to talk about both of those on a seperate post. If you're looking for something to see this weekend I would recommend either, they were both brilliant. If you're looking for something easy to watch with great production value and simply entertaining go for Doctor Strange, but if you want a bit more nuance or story building, then see Arrival.

Expect the return of the podcast review tomorrow. I haven't picked which one I will be talking about, but I'm committing to getting that series back up and running.

A Quick Update
Intentional HiatusDailyIra YakeWed, 02 Nov 2016 04:29:22 +0000 comes back after a short, intentional (kind of) break.I'm not dead. Well, not yet anyway.

So I broke my posting streak. This was intentional. It was, in fact, self inflicted punishment. I had a horribly, HORRIBLY unproductive weekend, and come 11pm on Sunday I had not written a single blog post, let alone the podcast review that was promised. I wasn't about to shit out some nonsense little post about a podcast that I liked without doing any serious writing for it, so I imposed a punishment. For failing to meet my deadline, I allowed my streak to lapse. Now, you may think that's not a very good punishment, but I was really annoyed with myself since I was doing so well and keeping the streak up so well. My later posts had been much lower effort though, often it would be spur of the moment writing. To be fair, this is also spur of the moment writing, but I have a reason to be posting this small little post right now.

I downloaded this productivity app called Forest. Basically, it makes sure you stay focused by locking out your phone. There's a chrome app too that locks out specific websites. Ok, locking out may be a bit strongly worded. What happens is you open the app, select a pre determined amount of time, and press plant. This plants a little virtual seedling that will grow up to be a magnificent tree in your virtual forest. You can cancel out of the app at any time and use your phone like normal, but doing so kills the seedling and permanently places a dead tree or bush in your forest. This is undesirable.

It's not the most strict of lockout apps I looked at, but I like this one the best. It fills me with dread thinking about quitting early and having a little dead tree in my otherwise perfect forest. Plus it tracks all your data and gives you these nice little graphs and charts, which it keeps forever, so if you have a dead tree, you'll have that dead tree forever. I don't need that weighing down my soul.

I sat down to write tonight for the start of NaNoWriMo and got a whopping 2800 words on the page. This was partly through the help of the Forest app, which I set for two hours. I managed to storm through almost 3000 words in a little over an hour and a half though, so I had time to kill before I could use my phone or any social media apps on my laptop, so I thought I would write this little post explaining my absence and promising to try harder in the future. I'll be on shift for the next 8 days though, and it's shaping up to be a busy one, so expect lots of short posts or days with no posts at all. Sorry in advance!

Intentional Hiatus
Black MirrorEntertainmentIra YakeSun, 30 Oct 2016 06:26:54 +0000 talks about his latest obsession My meager plans for the day were thwarted when I decided to check out an episode of Black Mirror. I'd heard about the show several times over the last year or so, but didn't really get serious about it until Netflix picked it up for a third season.

The show focuses on technology and how it affects our lives. Now, if you're thinking "hmm,  sounds like an interesting introspective experience", buddy you're in for a ride. This show certainly gives you the social commentary that you might expect given the subject matter, but it takes that commentary and buries it into your chest, rips out your still beating heart, and hurls it against the wall. I probably should not have spent the last 12 hours binge watching the series, because my mind is all over the place right now. I gave myself about 10-15 minutes between episodes as a sort of contemplation period, but that's not enough.

I think, given the nature of the show and the relatively low amount of episodes, I might start a weekly or fortnightly in depth look at the episodes, starting with the first season. I think it will be a really beneficial exercise to dive back into the episodes, one at a time, and really dissect them and try to pick apart all the little things the show is trying to say.

It is a TV series, but each episode is a self contained story. They have the odd easter egg or reference to other episodes in many of them, but it's not necessary to watch them in order. If you're going to try it out, the holiday special White Christmas is very good. Playtest is great for horror lovers, and I just finished watching San Juperino, which was really heart warming. If you want to try to ease yourself into Black Mirror, I would reccommend San Jeperino as a good starting point, as a lot of the other episodes are very bleak. Be Right Back is perhaps my personal favourite so far (I still have two left). I cried extremely (non) manly tears.

Seriously though, you should really give the show a try. The christmas episode and season 3 are on Netflix. As for the others, you may need to resort to more, er, 'less than legitimate' ways of watching them. Series 1 and series 2 are available on iTunes, although series 1 has an episode missing it seems, if you want to spend some money to watch them legally. Because that's totally what I did. Yep, definitely watched those first two seasons in a completely legitimate and legal manner.

... Yarr matey...

Black Mirror
Do I Need To WriteDailyIra YakeSat, 29 Oct 2016 03:53:17 +0000 shoves out a short post to hit his daily goal. On my blog, I mean. Some nights I really just don't feel like writing anything, but I force out a post which usually ends up rambling or boring most likely. Would it be better if I just skipped those nights? How long do I have to write every day for to prove that I can do it?

I've always been a proponent of quality over quantity, so if I have days with nothing interesting to say, is it even worth writing a blog post on those days?

Maybe this is one of those days, and this little post is just filler so that I can get through the day and hope I write enough backup posts tomorrow to cover myself for the next few weeks. Sneaky sneaky...

Do I Need To Write
StructureDailyIra YakeFri, 28 Oct 2016 04:37:01 +0000 goes over his very lazy day, gives us an idea of what kind of structure he's looking to put into his life, and talks about blog promotion. My day today had very little structure. I stayed in town last night so I could watch the Apple event this morning, which was a little underwhelming. After that was over we had lunch, I took my sisters dog for a walk, then I went for a run with her and two of her friends at the track after she was done work. Then I came back to Grandmas (ate an entire box of halloween candy) and am now just kind of lounging around. I did a bit of writing, but not much.

Something that's been stopping me from really structuring my day out is lack of a good application for planning. I know, paper and pencil, la dee dah, but I'm a tech guy. Now, I know this isn't ACTUALLY stopping me from putting structure to my day, it's just an artificial barrier that I've constructed in my mind, but it's there nonetheless. I am not mentally strong enough to just sidestep it, so I'll have to go through it.

I've been considering just using my calendar app, but preliminary testing in that regard is proving fruitless. I've dabbled with a few other apps, but nothing has worked out really well. One app that I purchased several months ago with the intention of using more often is Omnifocus, but it's quite an overwhelming app, and I'm going to need to look up a few tutorials while I'm at it. I think that's what I'll focus on for this weekend, in addition to writing at least 2k words a day, I want to tackle the planning program problem. Maybe I'll figure out how to use mail chimp too and finally get my mailing list open so I'll feel more comfortable promoting my blog.

The idea of promotion is a bit scary. Right now it's mostly family reading (Hi Mom), with maybe the odd passerby. I've had two separate occasions where I've dabbled with extremely small scale promotion, but no one has left any comments yet, and from what the analytics tell me they haven't ventured far off that one single post they were linked to. I wanted to build up some back catalog before I started promoting, and definitely get a mailing list going. Beyond that though, I wanted to make sure this wasn't just some phase I was going through. I wanted to make sure that I was going to be able to keep steady content coming. And even though I've posted every day for the last several weeks now, even though there were a few shaky days that had almost nothing for content, I'm still not comfortable in the thought that I'm producing high enough quality of content to bring in an outside audience.

November is book writing month anyway, so perhaps I'll aim for a full swing promotion after I'm done the book. It will be good timing, especially if I decide to self publish. Until then, expect daily posts, and expect a new podcast review this Sunday. I'll pick a really good one to make up for missing last week.