The Arruvia Conspiracy - Back to Basics

[WhiteGhost]

10 hours ago, deftona said:

 

What do they taste like?

I don't think they really have much flavor on their own, they pretty much taste like whatever they are flavored with. I have only tried them sichuan flavored, but they come in all different kinds of flavors

[Ensi]

Congrats for doing the thing!!  I usually hear that people freeze, when someone watches them do things, but you did the exact opposite. Well done  And thank you for the grocery store pictures, they're really interesting!

[WhiteGhost]

50 minutes ago, Ensi said:

Congrats for doing the thing!!  I usually hear that people freeze, when someone watches them do things, but you did the exact opposite. Well done  And thank you for the grocery store pictures, they're really interesting!

Yeah, I was the opposite - Frozen with fear until someone showed up to watch

 

Glad you enjoyed the grocery pictures

 

 

[WhiteGhost]

Well, crap   I seen to have come down with some kind of upper respiratory tract infection so pretty much any kind of exercise is on hold. I was originally planning to go for a long (for me) run yesterday but skipped it and just went for a short walk instead. Spent almost the entire day yesterday playing mahjong with the inlaws and today will probably be more of the same.

 

[deftona]

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Well, crap   I seen to have come down with some kind of upper respiratory tract infection so pretty much any kind of exercise is on hold. I was originally planning to go for a long (for me) run yesterday but skipped it and just went for a short walk instead. Spent almost the entire day yesterday playing mahjong with the inlaws and today will probably be more of the same.

 

 

Sorry to hear you're sick again, rest up and feel better soon. 

[Mad Hatter]

Nooo, not again!

[CourtnieMarie]

loved the grocery pictures! super interesting about the meat. I wonder if less meat goes bad that way.

 

noooo sorry you're sick again! I was up all last night coughing so I think I have something similar.  i did do some yoga tho! feel better!

[Ensi]

Aww, get better soon! I hope you have a chance to get a lot of sleep

[WhiteGhost]

8 hours ago, deftona said:

 

Sorry to hear you're sick again, rest up and feel better soon. 

Thanks, I think I may be starting to get better

 

7 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Nooo, not again!

Yep, again

 

1 hour ago, Ensi said:

Aww, get better soon! I hope you have a chance to get a lot of sleep

Thanks! I have plenty of opportunity to sleep but my hacking cough doesn't seem to want me to sleep. I don't think I have had a good night sleep for the last few days, which certainly isn't helping. Hopefully tonight will.be better

 

2 hours ago, CourtnieMarie said:

loved the grocery pictures! super interesting about the meat. I wonder if less meat goes bad that way.

 

noooo sorry you're sick again! I was up all last night coughing so I think I have something similar.  i did do some yoga tho! feel better!

Being sick is awful. Hope you get better soon.

 

I am not sure about the meat. On one hand i think it would.help because you have less orphan cuts that nobody wants, but on the other hand having the meat just sitting out like that can't be great for keeping it fresh. I always worry about how long it has been sitting there.

 

 

Well, didn't do much today. Went with he family to watch a Chinese murder mystery movie called Detective Chinatown 2. It was ok, but it tried to be both a comedy and a drama so that was a bit distracting. Then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing mahjong again.

[WhiteGhost]

Today was a much better day  I had a pretty good nights sleep last night (well, not great, but better than the last few days) and I had tons of energy today.  My throat and lungs are feeling much better, but I still have a bit of a lingering hacking cough.  Today we went to visit the rainforest that we missed a few days ago and it was really neat,  I have never seen so many vines in my life and I kept thinking about @Wolfpool and his Greystoke Protocol.  It would been a blast to try and swing around that place on the vines, but it was clear from the signs along the trail that that kind of behaviour was highly discouraged.   I did climb a bunch of rocks and swing from some branches that crossed the trail, though.

 

On the way home we had a 2 hour drive and Ghostlet was super bored. He wanted to play on his phone but his mom and grandma wouldn't let him because they say looking at your phone in a moving vehicle in the dark is bad for his eyes.  I don't know if that is true, but I wasn't about to get involved in that.  I mentioned to him that when I was a kid, we used to sing songs on roadtrips to keep ourselves occupied. He seemed to think that was a great idea and started belting out "99 bottles of beer on the wall"  

 

I thought this was so funny I joined in and we sang the entire way down to 0 bottles.  Mi Vieja was not impressed, but she had to concede that if she wasn't going to let him use his phone she couldn't complain if he did something else as she suggested.  Just for fun when we finished we sang "There's a hole in the bottom of the sea" and "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly" as well.  It was probably super obnoxious for everyone else in the car, but Ghostlet and I had a blast  

 

If I can get some good sleep tonight and am feeling pretty good tomorrow morning, I may go out for a run.

[Mad Hatter]

Sounds like a fantastic day! Love that you played on the branches and rocks.  

[WhiteGhost]

40 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Sounds like a fantastic day! Love that you played on the branches and rocks.  

It was, thanks  Ghostlet was playing on the branches and rocks too.  Mi Vieja says we were both probably monkeys in a previous life  

[CourtnieMarie]

i love that you guys were singing in the car!

[GregT.]

12 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

sing songs on roadtrips

I do this all the time!  I am by myself mostly and I do it to my play lists but my road trips are always an excuse for me to sing.  I usually come back hoarse. 

 

  Glad you are feeling better and got to do some non-traditional exercise.  At least you are going to get to finish the holiday healthy enough to do things, I hate when I get sick at the end and it all ends on a downer.

[Lara]

On 20/2/2018 at 5:37 PM, WhiteGhost said:

On one hand i think it would.help because you have less orphan cuts that nobody wants, but on the other hand having the meat just sitting out like that can't be great for keeping it fresh. I always worry about how long it has been sitting there.

In Spain the meat is always displayed like this in the markets and in most supermarkets, but there is a glass on the side of the consumer and the whole thing inside is refrigerated, with a little thermometer showing the people the temperature of the container. Fish is also displayed like this, but without the glass and instead sitting on ice cubes. So I don't find it weird at all, but I would also worry about how much long the meat has been there since it seems there is no cooling system.

 

My boyfriend LOVED the soy sauce aisle picture. He had little starts in his eyes while he looked at it, in fact

 

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

because they say looking at your phone in a moving vehicle in the dark is bad for his eyes. 

I have no idea if that's true, but to me, looking at my phone or reading usually ends in feeling sick and nauseated.

 

Glad to see you're feeling better and that this new cold was nothing serious

[WhiteGhost]

On 2/22/2018 at 1:14 AM, CourtnieMarie said:

i love that you guys were singing in the car!

It is a great ay to pass the time   If eceryone in the car joins it, it can be a really great bonding activity, but if someone isn't into it, it can get really annoying.  In our case I think it was a little of both

 

21 hours ago, GregT. said:

I do this all the time!  I am by myself mostly and I do it to my play lists but my road trips are always an excuse for me to sing.  I usually come back hoarse. 

 

  Glad you are feeling better and got to do some non-traditional exercise.  At least you are going to get to finish the holiday healthy enough to do things, I hate when I get sick at the end and it all ends on a downer.

I will sometines sing along with with my playlist, but I am not a very good singer so I usually get disgusted with my inability to keep the tune so I will just listen and enjoy it.

 

Thanks, the holiday seems to be finishing a lot stronger than it started

 

16 hours ago, zenLara said:

In Spain the meat is always displayed like this in the markets and in most supermarkets, but there is a glass on the side of the consumer and the whole thing inside is refrigerated, with a little thermometer showing the people the temperature of the container. Fish is also displayed like this, but without the glass and instead sitting on ice cubes. So I don't find it weird at all, but I would also worry about how much long the meat has been there since it seems there is no cooling system.

 

My boyfriend LOVED the soy sauce aisle picture. He had little starts in his eyes while he looked at it, in fact

 

I have no idea if that's true, but to me, looking at my phone or reading usually ends in feeling sick and nauseated.

 

Glad to see you're feeling better and that this new cold was nothing serious

Yeah, I have no problems wirh the meat not being individually packaged, but not having any temperature control, and the fact that anyone can (and many people do) grab the meat to select the cuts they want, I can't help but think it nust be a huge germ fest going on there.

 

I am really curious why your boyfriend was so interested in the soy sauce aisle... Does he cook a lot of Asian food?

 

Thanks, I'm feeling much better

 

 

Yesterday was a GREAT day! 

 

I got some decent sleep so in the morning I went for a nice long barefoot run on the beach. I forgot to bring my watch so I don't know exactly how far or how fast, but based on my previous runs here, I think it must have been 6-7 kilometers, which is the farthest I have run in probaly 20 years.  I really enjoyed running barefoot, but it was really hard on my toes when I tried to sprint fro some fartleks. I didn't get more than 4 or 5 sprints in before my toes complained that they were getting scratched to pieces so I just went back to regular jogging. After the run, I did sone handstand and a few of them felt really good. In fact, the last one was really solid -  locked straight into position without any adjustment and kept itbthere for like 30 seconds, using only my fingertips to for minor adjustments. When I came down at the end, I got some applause from a couple of people on the beach

 

When I got back, I still had a bunch of energy so I went and played around in the exercise area. I did a.bunch of bar work but then moved over into the grass and did a bunch of mobility type things like cartwheel, roundoffs and front handsprings. A couple of 3rd grade girls saw me doing it and came to join me

 

After lunch we all went on a helicopter tour. None of us had ever been in a helicopter so we wanted to try it - it was really fun. The scheduled route was just out to a nearby island and back, but our pilot also flew us really low over the beach and then took us over a new hotel.  The new hotel is quite famous here because they built a pool on tip that has an overhang with  glass bottom, so it feels like you are swimming 30 stories up. However, only hotel gueats are allowed to use it, and Mi Vieja had asked them if she could just go up and see it, but they wouldn't let her. We were really happy that the pilot took us over there, because we got a better looj at the pool than we would have if they had let us up

 

After we got back we spent the rest of the day playing mahjong again

 

Last night I slept through the whole night without waking up once, which was the firat time for this trip.

 

I am thinking about maybe going for another run this morning, but my feet are really sore so I haven't decided yet

 

 

[Lara]

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I am really curious why your boyfriend was so interested in the soy sauce aisle... Does he cook a lot of Asian food?

Not at all. He's just a big fan of soy sauce

 

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

After the run, I did sone handstand and a few of them felt really good. In fact, the last one was really solid -  locked straight into position without any adjustment and kept itbthere for like 30 seconds, using only my fingertips to for minor adjustments. When I came down at the end, I got some applause from a couple of people on the beach

Very good!

 

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

After lunch we all went on a helicopter tour. None of us had ever been in a helicopter so we wanted to try it - it was really fun. The scheduled route was just out to a nearby island and back, but our pilot also flew us really low over the beach and then took us over a new hotel.  The new hotel is quite famous here because they built a pool on tip that has an overhang with  glass bottom, so it feels like you are swimming 30 stories up. However, only hotel gueats are allowed to use it, and Mi Vieja had asked them if she could just go up and see it, but they wouldn't let her. We were really happy that the pilot took us over there, because we got a better looj at the pool than we would have if they had let us up

I've never been in a helicopter neither. How does the flying feel in them feel?

Nice pool, woah.

[Mad Hatter]

Ooh nice handstand!!!

[jonfirestar]

14 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

 

I got some decent sleep so in the morning I went for a nice long barefoot run on the beach.

That's something i've not done since I was a kid. Running bare foot on the beach is on my todo list this year! 

 

[raptron]

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I got some decent sleep so in the morning I went for a nice long barefoot run on the beach. I forgot to bring my watch so I don't know exactly how far or how fast, but based on my previous runs here, I think it must have been 6-7 kilometers, which is the farthest I have run in probaly 20 years.  I really enjoyed running barefoot, but it was really hard on my toes when I tried to sprint fro some fartleks. I didn't get more than 4 or 5 sprints in before my toes complained that they were getting scratched to pieces so I just went back to regular jogging. After the run, I did sone handstand and a few of them felt really good. In fact, the last one was really solid -  locked straight into position without any adjustment and kept itbthere for like 30 seconds, using only my fingertips to for minor adjustments. When I came down at the end, I got some applause from a couple of people on the beach

Niiiice! Good work on both the run and the handstand. 

 

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

When I got back, I still had a bunch of energy so I went and played around in the exercise area. I did a.bunch of bar work but then moved over into the grass and did a bunch of mobility type things like cartwheel, roundoffs and front handsprings. A couple of 3rd grade girls saw me doing it and came to join me

I looove when this happens.

 

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

 

I am thinking about maybe going for another run this morning, but my feet are really sore so I haven't decided yet

Ehhh, they'll just get more sore if you do it today, so maybe give your little soft tissues a break.

[WhiteGhost]

20 hours ago, zenLara said:

Not at all. He's just a big fan of soy sauce

I guess there are worse things to be a fan of   Does he have a favorite kind/brand?

 

20 hours ago, zenLara said:

I've never been in a helicopter neither. How does the flying feel in them feel?

It was much more stable and smooth than I was expecting. Not sure how best o describe the feeling other than it was like being in a low flying, very slow airplane...

 

20 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Ooh nice handstand!!!

Thanks! handstands have been eeling pretty good these last few days

 

13 hours ago, jonfirestar said:

That's something i've not done since I was a kid. Running bare foot on the beach is on my todo list this year! 

I had forgotten how runnung in sand uses different muscles in your feet than road or trail running. The muscles in he middle of my foot were really sore after.

 

12 hours ago, raptron said:

Ehhh, they'll just get more sore if you do it today, so maybe give your little soft tissues a break.

Too late   I ended up going for a run anyway, but kept to he trail that runs parallel to he beach instead of running on the sand. I ended up going the same distance as the previous day, but I forgot to start my tracker until the halfway point. It turns out the runs was about 6k

[WhiteGhost]

Today and yesterday were both good days.  I started out this trip a bit under the weather but finished out with a bang.  I will be heading back to the airport shortly for the long trip back to freezingland.

 

Yesterday morning I decided to go for a run again and was glad I did.  I was originally only planning to run half the distance I did the day before because I was feeling a bit sore and felt like I was dragging the whole time.  However, when I got there and took a short breather I was feeling recharged so I decided to do some fartleks on the way back.  I was wearing shoes and one the trail this time so I didn't have to worry about shredding my toes so I decided to do about 75% of my top speed until I was about 75% out of energy, walk for a bit to recharge and then repeat.  However, it only took a couple of rounds before I dicovered that at just slower than the target seep I was feeling really good.  Unusually good.  I finally realized that was my running pace from 20 years ago when I was on the Army run team and it was our normal 6 min mile training pace.  It has been 25 years since those days but my body still remembers.  I decided to do all my fartleks at that pace and my legs, hips and glutes were feeling great.  The only thing stopping me was my decreased cardio endurance, but now I feel like I want to get that back up so I can do this pace longer.  My current long distance pace is really tough on my joints, so if I can get back to that pace I am pretty sure I would enjoy running more.

 

After the run, I came home and helped Ghostlet build the lego car he got for his birthday but took 3 weeks to show up (things get really backed up around the holidays) and then spent the evening playing mahjong again.  As you can tell, we really like playing mahjong in our family  

 

This morning we rented a yacht and went out into the ocean for a few hours.  It was pretty fun and we felt super one percenty lounging one the front of the yacht and just hanging out.  We had a jet ski and got to play around on that for a bit, then tried some ocean fishing.  Unfortunately it wasn't marlin fishing type fishing, but just hanging out with regular fishing poles in deeper water than usual.  We didn't catch anything for 20 minutes, so we got bored and went to do something else.  The yacht had a diving board, but unfortunately it was broken.  I still wanted to try some backflips so I just tred some off the back of the boat.

 

I made sure to get a video this time @Sloth the Enduring

 

 

From the video I can see that I really need to tighten up my tuck if I want to get to the point where I can do these on the ground.

 

OK, time to start packing up stuff and head to the airport.  Time to go back to the grind  

[Mad Hatter]

Video is unavailable.  

 

Nice run though! It's really awesome that you're back to your old pace and that it felt so good! But whoah that pace is FAST  

[WhiteGhost]

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Video is unavailable.  

Should be working now  

[deftona]

Yay for the backflip!