• Disclaimer: I used to stand outside the first REI store in Seattle in the 1970s with my now incredibly old REI card and number and wait in line for the amazing products that I was sure I needed to camp/hike.

    I get REI. I get it in downtown Seattle. What I didn’t see for so long was not everything I yearned for I actually needed. I finally got it.

    I want this store to continue as long as I do and I am more than willing to see all manners of changes in order that it does.

    A friend checked all the greater Seattle area REI stores and only downtown had the item in stock. So it was that just yesterday I wandered diagonally across the store and down the stairs to find where house elves lived and stocked items. Everyone at REI was unfailingly polite and customer focused, easy peasy pickup.

    AND YET

    I had to go up and down a large number of stairs, including the near circular stairs in the center of the building which do a wonderful job of displaying all the people and products in the store. I enjoy stairs and looking at the merchandise is always fun. If I truly had a Christmas List, everything at REI would be on it. OK, maybe not downhill skis …

    On every single stair I went up and down there were a line of people, like on the Chilkoot Pass trudging up and down. That is when it hit me, these people were not setting Strava on fire. One must always be aware of able-ism, not everyone has the same physical capabilities and yet…that couldn’t have been the case for all of them…there were too many ages and too many differences. Or were there. Is it possible that some folks merely shop to look like they exercise and optoutside? Or is trudging the new norm, facilitated by looking at cell phones when walking and even without cell phones everyone moves slowly through the world.

    What about the person I picked up the headlamp for? Out the next morning in the dark running with it…

    One response to “Strava segments at REI”

    1. John Avatar

      This was harder than expected, I trimmed all of the humor out in order to not offend anyone. And I have no readers. Awkward to decide what may or may not follow me forever and haunt me. Lessons!

  • I saw this on DailyInfographic and was going to use it for a quick review of points. Then I notice on point #8 that I don’t agree with it, and then I noticed a few others and as always the lists aren’t much more than a massive set of ideas that can’t be processed or attacked in a reasonable fashion. Overwhelming. So I pick one and think about how I do that activity and if reviewing it makes sense.

    My current microhabit change is to not read Email the hour after I get up in the morning. Hard and fast rule? Nope. But a start nonetheless. I am saying I am doing #17 and #10.

  • I note it is a thing to use a social media platform to express concern about how social media platforms and posting of events (running) has taken over just enjoying oneself.

    Things that resonate with me this morning: https://zenhabits.net/drained/. The point on being drained brought this out of my stack of things to read, but what I am working on is #5:

    “What do I need to do to get myself to where I’d like to be?”

    I am a little put off about the short time frames, but as I approach the one year anniversary of the beginning of what turned out to be an unplanned year and change in life force … I am thinking about steps to take in the direction of where I want to go.

    That leads me to outside, and the forest.

    Unexplained phenomena: I find the most fun in the fact that part of my regular loop, the very first part, makes it super hard to get started. Other parts are just fun for familiarity. Why run a regular route. To make it easy on myself to take a small step in the direction I want to go and when I am more ready, I will run more unfamiliar trails and locations.

  • I have spent many hours this summer working on my household coffee ritual. I have added a dosing funnel and learned to use a paper clip to remove hidden voids by stirring the freshly ground coffee in my portafilter.

    Some steps forward I have made with the advice of Peter, some I have made on my own.

    Some have been planned, and some, like relocating the entire coffee setup and adding a knock box, came about serendipitously as a result of other projects such as painting the cabinets.

    It is odd that the coffee beans I am currently using are a bit dark and sometimes OK, and sometimes too much for me and through it all I get the sense I am moving along in a successful manner.

    And so this article I ran across today resonated with me. I am similar to the author in that I find myself in my journal writing ” I never feel like I am doing enough” but more importantly, I know my journey is the same ” to learn to love each day”.

    The author’s subtitle is “it takes a lot of percolating to become your own person” …

    Agreed

  • I ran across this trip diversion tool to Make My Drive Fun

    https://makemydrivefun.com/

  • I ran into recent prescription and treatment medications including a COVID OTC test which had trouble with my B Vitamins which were a fairly normal OTC combination. Nothing unusual or fancy. It did get me to thinking and I tossed out those and I am now running through the remainder of my D and C Vitamins and then going to focus on eating healthy.

    So this outline from PamperedChef crossed my RSS reader and got me thinking: HERE