One of the nice things about the Concept2 rowing setup is the PM5 computer and its ability to record your workout data. You can use this as seriously or casually as you like.

My first round with a Concept2 rower found me using my dad’s Model D with the older PM3 computer. This computer kept your rowing data: stroke rate, power, distance, split times, and all that–but it didn’t sync with your iPhone over Bluetooth. I didn’t mind one bit at the time; I’d keep my basic stats in a markdown file, appended via a Drafts action. I rowed for maybe a year, not very intensely, just kinda steady state for a half hour, around a 2:30 split. I still have the log file that I wrote to, and I have data from March 2015 through January of 2016. That’s around when I got into lifting weights.

Fast forward to 2023, when I decided to start rowing again. I had the same Concept2 Model D from my dad, and I started pulling again. I used the same Drafts action to log my stats.

And then we got another rower.

Rhonda had seen me make some impressive gains (as in losing weight) over a short stretch of time, from January 2023 through April of 2023. (Looking back at Apple Health, it was 30 pounds.) She suggested that we get another one so she could join me. I was happy to oblige, and the newer models available at the time came with the upgraded PM5 computer. I started using it when she wasn’t rowing with me, and it eventually became my machine.

So my seasons, such as they are, are calculated from May 1st of each year through April 30th, coinciding with my first usage of the PM5. 2023-2024 was my first season, and I rowed just over two million meters.

I looked at the app on my phone recently and realized that this year, season two, is almost up, and I’m pretty close to hitting two million meters again. After some quick math, I think I’ll make it with room to spare.

I had been wondering about this, because my seasons correspond with my switch to my new job, which I started last April 29th. I continued to row each morning before work, but I did have to cut back my time a little, and row earlier in the morning. At my Vineland gig, I was able to row later in the am and often rowed longer than I do now (although not entirely). I’ve also ratcheted the intensity down a bit; I no longer row like a demon driven, but like someone trying to maintain fitness.

I guess that’s a way of saying, weight-wise, I hit the bottom. I’ve written about it before, and I’d say that the only way from here is to maintain. Or (gulp) go up. Which actually I have a little, I guess owing to more generous consumption on the weekends, and hopefully all of the pushups I’ve been doing. I’m inclined to eat more of my meal when we’re out, depending upon what it is and how good it is, and I enjoy more cheese and crackers at the winery, I suppose.

It’s hard to see but the cinnamon pear jelly is irresistible

So two million meters… that’s like 1200 miles. I could have rowed to and from Miami.

Jonathan Malesic, the author of The End of Burnout, told me that work defines many people. “We just can’t imagine that a person is worth something if we aren’t working,” Malesic said. “You’re anxious about your worth. And the only way you know how to prove it is you’re working all the time. As soon as you’re not, your value is in question.”

Why You Should Work Like Its the 90s

Go down to your local basketball courts and yell at all the non-NBA players who are playing basketball.

Jason Snell, Waxing Ecstatic About NaNoWriMo 

This is nothing new, but I found it delightful after hearing about it on Upgrade. You answer 25ish questions about how you pronounce words or specify a regionalism (“soda” vs “pop,” for example), and the quiz guesses where you’re from. Fun.

One of my favorite questions asked about “dinner” vs “supper.” I wanted to choose multiple responses; ultimately I went with them meaning the same thing, but another choice was that I didn’t use the word “supper,” which is absolutely true. My paternal grandparents were the only people I knew who used that word instead of “dinner,” but I had heard it plenty of times and it was equivalent in usage.

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk

We may live our lives in parallel, but at the most fundamental level we experience aliveness alone, in the solitary chamber of the self, our experience a Möbius strip of consciousness folded unto itself, our becoming the most private, most significant work we have.

Rhonda and I were talking about this Saturday, that irrespective of the circle surrounding you, you live in your own head, hearing your own thoughts. Far from an existential burden though, Whitman, in his style, celebrated this.

Walt Whitman on Owning Your Life

Via One Foot Tsunami, a great tale of workplace malapropisms:

While we don’t have a full picture of everything on the list, several linguistic pause moments published in the Wall Street Journal stick out to me, like the hilariously redundant “I’m not trying to beat a dead horse to death,” the definitely not food safety-approved “Too many cooks in the soup,” and the unintentionally macabre “He’s going to be so happy he’ll be like a canary in a coal mine!” That last one reportedly came courtesy of marketing manager Mike Murphy, leader of the board.

I’m a keen observer of this kind of verbal misuse, but not in a judgmental way. I like the playful aspect of Ford’s manager here.

One Ford Executive Created A List Of Mixed Metaphors And Malaprops Heard Around The Office And It’s Hilarious

I’m enjoying some seriously warm weather here in southern New Jersey! Here’s this week’s list of things to check out:

Easter Lights

I’ve gushed about Rhonda’s holiday-centric lighting appointments in my office here in past posts, and I’m excited by the newly installed Easter display. Spring!

Bellview Chardonnay

Rhonda and I have been contentedly unable to extract ourselves from a love affair with Bellview Winery’s dry rosé. Last Saturday found me picking up some wine to bring home, as Rhonda was under the grip of a cold, and I grabbed a bottle of their chardonnay. It was great, and we resolved henceforth to add that into our rotation when we visit. Alas, Saturday’s visit did not in fact feature us drinking the varietal, but we did purchase a bottle for a near-future sushi outing.

The Perseus, I am happy to report, was excellent on a warm, if overcast, Saturday.

Sure, there was the ABC movement and all that, but I can’t get sniffish about these things. It’s often the sturdiest white on the menu that will pair nicely with whatever we’ve elected to eat.

Old Shorts

After I rowed this afternoon (shorts, finally), I was keen to slip into a pair of shorts while I fetched the groceries and began the process of wrangling in mother nature’s reassertion of her primacy in our yard this spring. Living in an older home, we don’t have a ton of storage space, and having the upstair apartment vacated, it has turned into, among other things, a seasonal wardrobe rotation space.

Prior to dropping some weight, I had a pair of tan hiking shorts that bought back in maybe 1999 that, somehow, managed to survive year after year of oil changes, lawnmower blade changes, and half-baked plumbing repairs. Each year, I’d drag them out of the drawer, and wear them around the house for all manner of duty.

Those shorts are gone now, and last summer found me in possession of (needed) new sizes. Lacking the orientation of the good-ole-standbies, I didn’t really know which shorts I was even looking for. And the ones I extracted from the closet upstairs? They were nice. I needed grubbies.

Happily, Rhonda recalled that I had, in fact, fallen into the exact same pattern as before, wearing a pair of cut-off black denim shorts (which were once hers). I have to hitch them up with a belt, as they’re my size but I guess made to be loose. So I hitched them up and hit the road. Glad to have them back in my stable!

Manton Reece:

The act of writing itself helps us think, helps us learn, helps us discover how we feel about a topic. It’s creative and has value even if no one is reading. It’s a snapshot in time to look back on later.

No one cares… for now

I’ve wondered and pondered existentially here on more than one occasion. What is the role in our lives of pursuits outside of work? What is their priority? What does “work-life balance” even mean?

And then, in the Atlantic, Arthur Brooks writes:

Doing leisure well will generate the sort of growth in our well-being that work cannot provide. We need to take the time to dwell on life’s big questions without distraction, to learn to appreciate what is beautiful, to transcend our workaday lives and consider what is divine.

Leisure, in other words, is far from the modern notion of just chillin’. It is a serious business, and if you don’t do leisure well, you will never find life’s full meaning. Properly understood, leisure is the work you do for yourself as a person without an economic compulsion driving you. For Pieper, this work of leisure—no contradiction, in his view—would not involve such “acediac” activities as scrolling social media and chuckling at memes, getting drunk, or binge-streaming some show. Rather, true leisure would involve philosophical reflection, deep artistic experiences, learning new ideas or skills, spending time in nature, or deepening personal relationships.

In this conception, leisure done correctly is equally important, and a source of generation, rather than a solipsistic, selfish pursuit.

You Can Do Leisure Better, Seriously

The grill is outside, down the ramp, and then back around again. It's a lot of steps to clock in before dinner.

Happy Sunday! Here’s this week’s list of things to check out:

Scratchpad

On the /macapps subreddit, Sindre Sorhus’s apps are often recommended for a variety of use cases, but also due to their high level of design quality. I recently read about Scratchpad on MacStories, and while it didn’t necessarily resonate as something I needed immediately, the gushy review gave me pause. I have, on many occasions, tried a simple text or markdown document on my desktop as a quick place to jot notes, a quick inbox for latter consideration. There is no shortage of solutions like this: Stickies, Drafts, Notes, and even your favorite text editor.

Scratchpad, like Tot, enforces some limitations that are likely for the good of parsimony: it’s one window, and one window only. It’s plain text. It runs on all of your Apple devices, though, so unlike something like Bike, which would be a great use case for such an outliner, you can open Scratchpad on any device and be right back where you were the last time you used it. It’s so simple that it threatens to be useless, but I suspect I’ll end up using it all the time.

Another note: Scratchpad is another inbox. In GTD, you should use as many inboxes as you need, but no more. I’m circumspect about adding any more, but again, I have flirted with this idea so often that I suspect I’ll get a lot out of Scratchpad.

Cool features include iCloud sync, translucency (toggle-able), and theme switching. I set the font to IBM Plex straight away.

Apple Polishing Cloths

As with black input devices, Apple is known for comically high prices on items that raise eyebrows. Case in point: Apple’s polishing cloth. The notion of paying $20 for a polishing cloth is at once laughable and curious. I’ve always been pretty happy with the black microfiber ones they bundled with their kit for a while, and like to scrub my screens when I’m talking to someone in my office.

Woot recently had them up for sale for $6.99, so I bought three, almost entirely out of curiosity. They came yesterday, and I opened one for Rhonda and wiped her iMac screen with it, and then opened a second for myself, which I used on my 32” Samsung attached to my Mac Studio, and then my iPad.

I don’t think I’d pay $20 for one, but after using it, I’m more likely to pay that much than before. They have a structural rigidity to them that I didn’t expect, and a thickness that allows you to wipe without putting quite so much pressure on the screen.

Spring

March has always been a vexatious month, teasing with occasionally warmer temperatures of April and May, but mercurial in its expression, with cold, windy days preponderant. I dislike the extremes of summer and winter, and appreciate the moderate weather of spring and fall. Spring especially resonates in our collective unconscious, inspiring a feeling of hopeful rebirth and thawing of our wintered, cloistered selves.

I remember talking to my grandfather, late in his life, and he said, “I made it through another winter.” There is something about winter that calls for survival; it’s surely connected to our evolution as a species and culture. Our bodies remember that this was a time when survival was not a matter of sweaters, scarves, and one-pot dinners, but rather a time when things might get both scarce and hostile to our mortal, but no less clever, selves.

Whew: all of that to say that I’m excited Rhonda put up some Easter garland. I love the pastel colors.

In American Philosphy , philosopher and professor John Kaag, beset by personal circumstances, undertakes to catalog the neglected personal library of William Hocking. As he combs the stacks and chronicles the delights and challenges he faces, Kaag peppers his reflections with references to philosophy. It works well as a non-textbook-style review of the philosophy without coming across as a survey or critical examination, and explicates a larger point: the place for philosophy in daily life. It is, in structure, similar to his excellent Hiking with Nietzsche, trading the Nietzschean hikes in the Swiss Alps for climbs among the library’s stacks.

In American Philosophy, Hocking’s private library, still standing as a drafty, neglected museum of first editions and personally imprinted tomes, allows Kaag to leaf through pages and reconsider the cannon.

What’s appreciable about American Philosophy, as with _Hiking with Nietzsche,_is that neither books are attempts at defense or critique (although the latter shoots the occasional dart at Kant). In addition to Hocking’s work, he reviews the writing and thought of James, Emerson, and other luminaries of America’s contributions to philosophy, as well as Hocking’s own life.

As Kaag points out, American philosophy has never been included in the classical cannon of philosophy: “To this day, American philosophy is regarded as provincial and narrow in its focus, just another by-product of the nation’s political and cultural exceptionalism,” he writes.

Rather than a unifying system of thought, American philosophy, in Kaag’s analysis, reveals a cannon that leans heavily on its forebears, borrowing and hybridizing from both the Bible and European thinkers. American philosophy is connected, in its development, to other models of thought, including existentialism. It’s historically satisfying and unifying in showing American philosophy’s evolution from its European forebears.

Wonder and mystery feature heavily in the upshots of American philosophy; there’s an optimistic aura of wonder and mystery that distinguishes it from European philosophy. And while there is not a defense or refutation of American philosophy itself in Kaag’s book, he does offer this:

Philosophy, and the humanities more generally, once served as an effective cult of the dead—documenting, explaining, and revitalizing the meaning and value of human pursuits. It tried to figure out how to preserve what is noble and most worthy about us. At its best, philosophy tried to explain why our lives, so fragile and ephemeral, might have lasting significance.

As a younger man in college growing distant from my religious upbringing, I found in philosophy a kind of replacement: in Nietzsche, the call to forge one’s own values and ideals, and bringing meaning to one’s own life in the absence of one anointed truth. So, too, in writing: polishing my verbal effluvia into structured writing could be, in its own way, a thing that lives beyond me. That continues in me to this day, and is easily relatable to becoming a leader: lacking external direction is a reliable feature of adulthood, and the capacity to generate priorities and values is paramount .

Too, it connects to this post here on Uncorrected, a quick one-off pull quote with a comment, on why anyone undertakes the task of writing and publishing: in the absence of waiting for Godot, instead of waiting for the promises of an afterlife, American philosophy approaches human existence as a mystery:

Gabriel Marcel’s comment that “life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced…

More importantly, it reveals an important feature of philosophy (and, I might add, the arts themselves, and perhaps our entire generative proclivity as a species, echoing Erik Erikson’s description of self-actualizing whereby we evolve, if we’re lucky enough, to generativity):

Philosophy, and the humanities more generally, once served as an effective cult of the dead—documenting, explaining, and revitalizing the meaning and value of human pursuits. It tried to figure out how to preserve what is noble and most worthy about us. At its best, philosophy tried to explain why our lives, so fragile and ephemeral, might have lasting significance.

We often quietly toil in some way unique to ourselves: behind a keyboard, in an office, repairing things, whatever. Our hope is that our efforts spread beyond our own narrow interests, and, in their way, supplant our quiet, desperate hope for an idyllic afterlife with something less fantastical, but no less immortal.

I haven’t had much to say about rowing here, but that’s not because I haven’t been. In addition to often logging meters seven days a week (with the occasional day off), I’ve been doing steady state most days (intervals twice a week minimum, but no more than three), but mostly in zone two. Zone two is the new hotness.

Here are a couple of screen grabs from Concept2’s Log Book. First, a 1K from January of 2024:

So a 2:02 pace, not fast for that low a shorter piece, but emblematic of my longer steady state efforts from that era (including my best-ever 2:02 10K. And the stroke rate: 30 rpm.

Next is a more recent 1K piece, at a slower 2:04 pace, but only 25 rpm:

So that’s what I’ve been after: base meters at a more comfortable pace, but pushing harder on the work side.

Just like rowing!