blog.erwintang.com

I had a nose hair that was sticking out of one nostril and it was so long that I could see it without the use of a mirror. It was long enough to be caught in my peripheral vision.

Bodies start to get so gross when you get old.

Last week left me exhausted. I believe it was mostly caused by a lack of sleep and having early morning meetings every single week day. It didn’t help that work was a bit stressful for the last three days of the week.

I felt the exhaustion very early in the week, so I stopped my regular workout routine and didn’t start it again until Thursday. That was probably a bad idea because, I was still very tired and working out just caused me to be even more exhausted.

By the time Saturday rolled around, I was running on my empty. I didn’t get up until noon on Saturday and I slept a lot. I had a massage scheduled in the afternoon and I really needed it. My body was probably a tight ball of knots from the whole week. Here’s something interesting you might not know. I seem to manifest a lot of my stress in my feet for some reason. Or I guess, put another way, massaging my feet eliminates a lot of my stress.

The only other thing I had to do on Saturday was to attend my Dad’s birthday dinner which was quite a pleasant experience. My niece, sister, and brother-in-law attended as well. We had a scrumptious seafood dinner at a local Chinese restaurant.

I am not ashamed to admit that I did a whole lot of nothing on Sunday. I woke up very late, close to noon again. I washed some dishes, did a tiny bit of housework, and just ate food. I napped around 5pm and played video games for the rest of the evening.

I hope this week is a lot better because I can’t be that tired again.

I clogged up my toilet this evening. I am fairly certain this happened because I tried to flush too much toilet paper down the toilet at once. I had a particularly messy poop earlier in the day and I really should have flushed less TP down the drain.

Anyways, I went to pee around 7pm this evening and as I flushed, I watched in horror as the water did not go down and instead just started to rise in the bowl. It was just a swirl of toilet water and backed up toilet paper. I didn’t panic at first because the water stopped before it overflowed the bowl and I had a plunger under the sink.

Things took a turn when I attempted to use the plunger over the hole at the bottom of the bowl. As I pressed down, the plunger tore apart. I guess I compressed the rubber part too much and it tore a hole. The plunger was now useless because it had a hole in it and it wouldn’t seal against the porcelain.

It was at this point I sorta had a minor panic because it was now nearing 7:30pm and I needed to figure this out before stores closed and more importantly before I needed to pee or poop again. I luckily live across the street from one of the best dollar stores I’ve ever seen in my entire life. This place has everything and over the course of many years, I’ve probably spent hundreds of dollars there on household items, bits of hardware, and small tools. The only thing they kinda suck at is selling grocery items, like chips, chocolate, and candy but I can get that elsewhere.

Anyways, I hurried downstairs and I made my way to their plumbing stuff. They had lots of plungers in stock and the ones they had were actually better than the one I broke. They also had two different kinds of “snakes”, that you can use to clear out blockages in drains and toilets. These were cheap but I didn’t want to have to come back to get these just in case the plunger didn’t work.

All told, I was probably back in my apartment with the new plumbing tools in less than half an hour. At this point, I could sorta feel the need to pee again. I tried the new plunger first and while I could feel I was making a good seal, it didn’t seem like I was moving the blockage. I then tried inserting the longer and more effective looking drain snake. It was kinda tough to get it to around the bends in the toilet and at some point, I could push it any further. I then pulled it back out but at least to me, it didn’t seem to pull anything with it. I tried snaking it back down and pulling it out again twice. The water was still very high in the bowl and wasn’t draining, so I went back to the plunger.

After two more attempts with the plunger, I heard a gurgle and the water immediately started to drain really quickly, down to the normal level it usually is. I breathed a sigh of relief as I was getting worried that I might have to poop into a plastic bag for the evening.

I’ve peed several times now and flushed without incident all evening but I’m still a little concerned about the toilet. Funnily enough, after all that worry about needing to poop, I didn’t actually poop this evening.

Let’s see if I clog this thing up tomorrow.

My treadmill got delivered on Thursday. The UPS person was nice enough to bring it upstairs, right to my door. Thanks to my ability to work at home, I was able to be there for the delivery. It required a signature, so if I was not at home, it would have been a major hassle to get it to me. While the treadmill is advertised as portable, it is heavy. I’ll have more to say on that later.

After I got the thing out of the box, I realized there isn’t much assembly required at all. You just attached the power cable, put the battery in the remote, and everything is ready to go. There’s an app you can download on your phone but that’s not necessary at all. The app can control the treadmill but the remote is easier to use. The app does track your workouts on the treadmill but that’s the only utility it has. It’s also buggy and doesn’t track all the exercise you do.

As for using the treadmill, the one thing I immediately noticed is how I am totally used to using regular treadmills with guard rails. Even if you’re not holding onto them, they provide a good measure of psychological safety. You know if you slip or take a wrong step, you can just shoot your hands out to steady yourself. With this treadmill, none of that is there. If you stumble, you’re basically gonna just fall off the side of the treadmill onto whatever surface you’re on. Many times, I’ve used a treadmill and placed my hands on the rails while I’ve lazily looked at TV and the rails keep you within the confines of the treadmill surface. You don’t really need to pay too much attention as long as you keep your feet moving. With this treadmill, it’s not enough to just keep up the pace, if you lazy stare off into space, you can easily not notice you’re veering off to the left or right and you run the risk of stepping off the treadmill accidentally. At least for now, it requires an additional bit of focus to stay centered on the treadmill. I am guessing that you can get better at this the more you use it though.

As for the speeds, I took it from the slowest speed, 0.5 mph, to the fastest, about 3.75 mph. I was worried that this thing wouldn’t go fast enough for me to run or jog but I guess I’ve never clocked my own running speed because at 3.75 mph, I found it impossible to keep up with just a walking gait. I had to jog/run to keep up and I felt like I had to go at a decent clip. This was a great revelation because this treadmill allows me to get in anything from a light cardio workout to something more intense.

The treadmill is advertised as “quiet” but I was afraid this was just a marketing claim but I was pleasantly surprised at how little noise the motor made, even at the highest speed. I prepared to have to use some sorta sound-absorbing mat to prevent my downstairs neighbour from being annoyed but I don’t think that’ll be necessary. If I had to make a comparison, I think a hair dryer is noisier than the treadmill in most cases.

Lastly, I’ll address the portability aspect of this. Yes, it is totally portable, let’s just get that out of the way. If this were a normal treadmill, it would be practically anchored to where ever I put it in my apartment. This treadmill has two wheels on the front that allow you to “wheelbarrow” it to where ever you want to store it. That said, remember that I wrote that this thing is heavy. So when it’s all folded up, it’s very low to the ground and you have to bend down really low to lift up one end so you can wheelbarrow it to your storage location. It also doesn’t have handles for you to lift it with, so the ergonomics sucks. Combine that with the awkward low posture, makes it really uncomfortable to get it into that wheelbarrow position. To solve this, I use a thick and long luggage strap which I wrap around the end of it when I need to lift it. That way, when I go to lift the end, I’m not hunched over. My body is much more up right, and I can lift mostly with my arms, which feels way more comfortable. Now that I use the luggage strap, this isn’t really a problem anymore. It takes me less than five minutes from taking it out from underneath my bed to me walking on the treadmill in front of my TV.

It’s early days but so far, I’m really glad I bought this treadmill and it hasn’t given me any major reasons for me to not like it or to not use it. If this winds up just catching dust, that’ll be solely because of my own lazy ass.

Some dude knocked on my door this morning and since it’s such a novelty to hear someone knocking on my door, I just opened the door without any hesitation or even checking the peephole.

The dude was there to hand me a sheet of information and to tell me that they are gonna start work on my balcony again starting on Monday. If you haven’t been keeping up, they power-washed my balcony several weeks ago, they left it for about two weeks, then noisily removed some weather-stripping, reapplied some new weather-stripping, and then left it alone for a few more weeks.

The whole thing has been kinda taking a while to move along but we’re finally in the last step. The weird thing, is the whole weather-stripping removal left a whole bunch of junk and debris on my balcony, so if they’re gonna be applying new membrane, it almost feels like they’re gonna have to power-wash again.

Anyways, the one bit of bad news the dude gave me is that they’re gonna have to limit how far my patio doors slide open to only 4″. That blows chunks because I can’t use my A/C because the hose opening is larger than 4″. We’re in the middle of summer here and I’m being forced to restrict the air flow coming into my apartment and render my A/C useless.

I asked the dude how long my sliding doors will be restricted and he said that it’d be at least a week but possibly up to two weeks. Again, that’s kinda unacceptable to me. Keep in mind, they’re restricting how far the doors slide open after the membrane is laid down, just to ensure I don’t step out onto the balcony and ruin it while it dries and cures. They are essentially treating me as a child, as if I can’t be trusted to not go out there, even if they tell me I can’t. I think that’s fairly disrespectful.

It got up to 29 degrees Celsius in my apartment before I decided to turn on the old air-conditioner. Most people would have turned it on long before it got that hot but I’m a sucker for heat punishment.

I get all my sun in the late afternoon and early evening and I knew it was gonna be a hot day because it was already 26 or so in my home around 2pm. When I finally turned on my A/C, it had trouble getting the temperature down. Usually, it’s powerful enough to get it down to whatever I set the thermostat to but today, it couldn’t do any better than 26. Yes, 26 feels a lot better than 29 but 23 feels even better than that.

It’s gonna be just as hot tomorrow, so we’ll see how the A/C fares then.

My team at work is trying something new this week where no one has any meetings for the entire week. I’m sure there are some exceptions but everyone was told to cancel meetings this week if you were the organizer and that you should decline any meeting request that falls on this week.

I had Monday off, but so far this no meeting week has been great. I often get interrupted by meetings because it’s not practical to work right up to the last minute before the meetings. Often, you have to prepare for the meeting, so that would require going over notes and such. Then after the meeting, you have to remember what you were working on, and it takes a while to get back to where you were before the meeting.

I’m looking to be super productive this week. I hope they repeat this experiment more often.

I bought a treadmill this evening. The purchase was made online, so it’ll take a few days to get to my home. Autumn is rapidly approaching and the days are getting shorter and soon it’ll be rainy and cool. Sure, global warming might allow us to be wearing shorts up to Thanksgiving again this year, but there’s no guarantee of that.

Having a treadmill at home doe make it easier when the weather sucks but it’s also convenient. You can jump on it, get some exercise, and immediately go back to whatever you were doing. You can also watch TV or even play video games while you’re on it.

Now, if you’re like me, when you think of treadmills, you think of the giant, and bulky devices you see in fitness centers. Technology has advanced enough that they make they ultra-portable treadmills now. They’re the fraction of the size of traditional treadmills. Some of them, including the model that I purchased, can even fold in half for storage. Mine is small enough that it can fit under my bed.

Of course, these things can’t be that small and portable without some compromises. Most of the new fangled things are not fast enough for you to run on. They’re made mostly for walking or a brisk walk. I think if you had a really short gait or if you were child, these things could enable you to run on. I think mine tops out at 6 km/h, which isn’t exactly jogging speed. Who knows, I’ll have to see.

My model also doesn’t have handrails, so if for some reason I lose my balance, I’m gonna take a header to the ground. I think that’s gonna be ok because I’m just going at walking speed.

Since this is a modern day fitness device, it of course can connect to an app on your phone or tablet. It’ll track how far you’ve walked and you can set some of the options using the app. There’s also a dedicated remote you can use to control the speed.

I imagine I’ll be using this during the fall and winter months, when going outside is less pleasant. I can park it in front of my TV and watch a movie or a show, and get a brisk walk in during the evening.

Lastly, I won’t even have to pay for this thing in the end. My employer has a global fitness benefit that gets topped up every year and it’s currently at around $600, so that’ll be more than enough to pay for this thing. Treadmills qualify for reimbursement under the benefit rules.

I can’t wait to try this thing out!

After more than a week of no progress on my balcony repairs, I was awoken this morning by the sound of some dude on my balcony. It wasn’t even 8:30am and I could hear him moving about. All my sliding doors were open because it’s summer and it’s hot as hell. He closed them from the outside for me. I soon would find out why.

He started off using some sorta industrial strength Dremel tool to cut out what looked like the weather stripping seals around my windows. It was loud as hell, like shockingly loud, enough to make me put on some earphones to protect some of my hearing. This lasted for an hour or so.

While this was happening, the air began to get stale in my apartment. For better or worse, doesn’t leak air from anywhere. If all my sliding doors are closed, my apartment can almost be airtight. I have a CO2 monitor in my apartment and it started to rise above 500ppm. This is still acceptable but it just feels gross. In fact, I have some sorta ability to feel stale on my skin. I can’t describe it fully, but my skin starts to feel weird when the air becomes stale.

In response to this, I turned on my bathroom fan, which takes air inside my apartment and vents it to the outside. I also opened my front door and shoved a shoe in the way to keep it open. I could feel cool and fresh air rush into my apartment. Because my front door and bathroom are close together, I began to wonder if the hallway air was just entering my apartment and then being vented right back outside by my bathroom fan. The air felt fresh near the back of my apartment but it still felt a bit stale in my bedroom. The CO2 level stayed near 520ppm in this configuration. In comparison, it’s usually around 430ppm or so when I have proper ventilation.

Once the dude was done ripping up stuff, he did much more quiet work. My blinds were down but it seemed like he was replacing the stuff he cut out earlier. At the time, I guessed it was some sorta sealant. He took off for the day well before 4pm. After making sure no one was left on my balcony, I threw open the sliding doors again and a rush of fresh, delicious air came in. I stuck my head outside and I saw that there were these large strips of freshly applied grey sealant around my windows and other parts of my balcony. I guess he took off since this stuff needed to dry and he couldn’t do anymore for the day.

I have no clue what the next step is but I fear it’s gonna involved ear-shattering work again.