Late-season swimming report

lpaulriddle

It’s that time of the year where I’m wondering where summer went. I figure we have at worst 4 weeks of swim season left, and at best 6 weeks. Our record for latest swim of the year (October 9), was set in 2007, and still stands after 16 years. Will it ever be broken? We’ll have another shot at it in a few short weeks.

I would guesstimate that I have been getting in the pool and swimming laps about 4 days a week on average this year, which seems like plenty to me. It’s less frequent than I swam last year or the year before, but I’ve got more going on nowadays than in 2021 and 2022. I am still swimming with a tether, and tracking the workout by counting strokes. I typically do 720 strokes, which consists of 3 sets of 60 breaststroke, 60 freestyle, 60 butterfly, and 60 backstroke, in that order. It takes me a little over 30 minutes. This is the first year I’ve swum backstroke regularly, and it is still decidedly a work in progress. For some reason, I struggle with coordinating the arm movement and the leg kicks. It reminds me kind of like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. I also occasionally splash water into my nose, which is not the most pleasant sensation, and staying straight (with the tether perpendicular to the pool wall) can be a challenge. I expect that I will improve over time, but it may take a couple of seasons.

We have a new winter safety cover this year. The old one lasted a long time — I installed it in fall 2002, and we used it through this past winter. It was in rough shape by then, and we really should have replaced it last year, but I’m not going to complain about getting 20+ winters out of it. The covers have more than doubled in price since 2002, but with any luck, this will be the last one we have to buy while we’re in the house. Next season, it’s looking like I may finally have to replace the pump. The current pump is a 1hp Hayward Super 2, and the previous owner installed it, so it’s at least 22 seasons old. It’s on its second impeller and second or third shaft seal, but now, the motor is finally starting to go, so I’m going to have to replace it before it gets loud enough to annoy my neighbors and then eventually freezes up. I may try to take care of that in the early spring, but I first need to decide if I want to swap out the entire pump, or just the motor, and then there’s the question of whether to go with a variable speed (VS) motor. Lots of stuff to think about there.

Biking Report

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I rode my bike into Baltimore today, for the first time since May 14 (according to my geocaching logs). My usual route into the city has me picking up the Gwynns Falls Trail at Wilkens Ave. about 0.6 mile east of Caton Ave. Then, I follow the GFT into the city and past Carroll Park, where I can go north towards the B&O Museum, or east past M&T Bank Stadium, towards Federal Hill and the Inner Harbor. To exit the city, I usually go south through Federal Hill, over the Hanover St. bridge, and through Brooklyn and Harmans to Linthicum. Both routes are roughly 14 miles one-way to or from home, so I’m guaranteed to get 28 miles plus wherever I go within the city. Today’s ride took me through downtown along Light and Pratt Sts., and along the waterfront promenade to Fell’s Point, one of my former stomping grounds which I hadn’t visited since probably before COVID, and never on a bike until today. I had mixed luck looking for a few geocaches along the way — I found a couple, but struck out on several others. That’s kind of the way it goes with me with urban caching.

Baltimore really gets a bad rap nowadays, even amongst people I know who grew up there. It’s kind of depressing. The city has its problems for sure, but there are parts of Baltimore that are still very nice. The city has added two-way protected bike paths in a lot of downtown areas, and when I was there, the whole harbor area was busy with walkers, joggers, and bikers. There were lots of folks out and about in Federal Hill and Fells Point, as well. I will grant that some areas along my routes in and out of Baltimore leave something to be desired. Parts of the GFT between Wilkens Ave. and Carroll Park are secluded and a little bit creepy, and Brooklyn is not a great neighborhood, in spite of being along the East Coast Greenway. It probably helps that I usually ride through these areas early on Sunday mornings, but I’ve never had a problem after 3 years and 15-20 rides. Once I’m in the city proper, I stick to nicer neighborhoods like Downtown/Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, Locust Point/Port Covington, and Fells Point, and I have always felt safe.

Pourover

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I needed to shift gears after using up the last of my dark roast beans this morning, so this afternoon, I decided to finally try making pourover coffee.

  • Beans: Local Coffee Roasting Co. (Roxana, DE) Breakfast Blend (Guatemala/Colombia) light roast
  • 15g coffee / 250g water (1:16.67)
  • JX: 2 rotations or 20 on the grind chart (medium — a little finer than what the chart shows as a pourover grind) Note — better a little bit finer at grind setting 18 (2 rotations minus 6 clicks)
  • Water at boil (100°C)
  • Recipe: A Better 1 Cup V60 Technique (see below)
  1. 0:00: Pour 50g of water to bloom
  2. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  3. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
  4. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  5. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  6. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  7. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  8. Drawdown should finish around 3:00

This went pretty much according to the script, except I maybe waited a little too long before the first swirl, and I completely forgot the second swirl. I will try to improve my swirling technique next time. To preheat my ceramic V60, I went downstairs to the workshop and found a rubber Fernco cap that was just barely large enough to fit around the flange on the bottom of the V60. I took the metal clamp off the cap, put the cap on the V60, filled the V60 up with water from my insta-hot tap, and let it sit while the brew water was coming to a boil. It worked great, and the V60 was nice and hot when it came time to use it.

I have to remember to let the cup cool for a little longer when brewing with boiling water, as I got a little impatient and burned my tongue. 😮 Other than that, I was pretty happy with how this turned out, especially for my first time doing pourover. The flavor and strength both seemed good. I’ll probably brew it exactly the same way next time. I’m curious to see how a coarser or finer grind affects the taste, so I may play around with that a little bit eventually. I hadn’t brewed these beans in about a month, so I’m also curious to try this AeroPress recipe again and see how it compares to the pourover.

Saturday Run

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Today was a very pleasant morning for August, with temperatures in the 60s and dewpoint in the 50s. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “fall-like”, but it was definitely nice late-summer weather. I was a little bit slow-moving, and didn’t get out of the house for my run until around 8:00, but I ran 10 miles for only the second time ever, and the first time since April. Once the weather turns consistently cooler, I’d like to get to where I’m running a 10-miler once a week, so I guess you could call today a “fall preview” in that regard. The run felt great. I was starting to get tired once I hit mile 9, which I guess is to be expected. It was nice not to be completely drenched in sweat at the end of the run.

1:10

lpaulriddle

I’m getting to the end of the bag of dark roast coffee beans that I bought in Shepherdstown this past May. I have been using this recipe with them for the past week or so, and it produces a consistently good cup, but maybe just a tiny bit weak at 1:13 (which I find interesting, because the original recipe has a ratio of 1:16.5). Just as an experiment, I decided to brew it with 20 grams of coffee to 200 grams of water, or 1:10. I used around 58-60g water for the initial pour-and-swirl. The result was very bold and very good… probably the best cup I’ve brewed with the beans. I have enough left to make one last cup at this strength, but now I’m wishing I had more!

This experience begs the question of why I need to use so much coffee to get the taste I like, when almost every recipe I see uses less coffee per volume of water. It could be because the coffee is maybe a little past its shelf life. It could also be a dark roast phenomenon. I remember reading or seeing somewhere (I suspect it was a James Hoffmann video) that there’s less “good stuff” to extract from dark-roasted beans, so you have to grind them more coarsely and brew at lower temperatures to avoid extracting “bad stuff”, but this can result in a weak-tasting cup at low ratios. The recommendation was to use more coffee for a bolder taste, and that certainly mirrors my experience. However, there are a lot of “dark roast” specific AeroPress recipes floating around that use fine grinds and rather low ratios of coffee to water. I’ve tried a few of them, and they all taste weak to me, so I’m wondering what I’m missing. Maybe I just like bolder-tasting cups than most people? Who knows. In any case, I’m going to keep brewing dark-roasted beans like this until someone tells me what I’m doing wrong. 😀

Morning Run

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Crazy week here at the house, with construction out front as the county scrambles to build sidewalks before school starts, and our own driveway paving job starting shortly as well. Should be nice when everything is all finished and re-landscaped, although who knows how long that will take.

I woke up to a more humid morning than I had hoped for, but it was nicer out than Tuesday, and I was able to get out for my regular run. I went 8.6 miles, which is a little bit farther than I usually run on weekdays. My legs were pretty fresh since I didn’t run on Tuesday. I ran at a relaxed pace, and it felt pretty good. I’ve had a slightly irritated nerve in the ball of my right foot since Monday or so, and I was a little bit concerned that it might affect my running, but it did not bother me at all. I’m not sure how the nerve got tweaked. My only guess is maybe it happened while climbing on Friday or Monday. I’ve had the same issue with the left foot at times, and it has always just kind of gone away on its own eventually. The only real issue I had today was a touch of queasiness that hit at about mile 7.5. I don’t know what brought it on. It passed after I stopped and walked for a couple of minutes, and I felt fine for the final mile of the run. I do have to say that the humidity is starting to get a little old, but I say that every summer around this time.

Morning Update

lpaulriddle

Not a pleasant morning at all here in central Maryland, so I opted to run in the pool. More storms later today in this already extremely stormy and wet summer. How long until autumn again? 😀 I’ve written before about how the benefits of owning a pool don’t quite make up for the expense and hassle required to maintain it, but I will say that it’s great to have the pool as an exercise option on days when I don’t feel like doing anything else outdoors. If the storms hold off long enough, I also hope to get out to swim later this afternoon.

I’ve settled on this recipe for what remains of my bag of dark roast beans I bought last May:

  • Beans: Lost Dog “Mocha Sidamo” Ethiopian dark roast
  • JX: 2.5 turns (75 total clicks, or 25 on the grind chart)
  • 80°C water
  • 14 grams coffee / 180 grams water (around 1:13)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  • Recipe: “Basikairoo” (inverted: add 50g water, swirl aggressively for a few seconds, top up to 180g starting at 1:00, invert at 2:15, press for 30s starting at ~3:00)

This is only slightly tweaked from when I first brewed this recipe. It produces a good cup fairly consistently, with only slight variations in strength. I wonder if the length of time spent “swirling” makes any difference in the finished product. The recipe specifies 3 seconds, but I haven’t been timing it.

Afternoon Report

lpaulriddle

The “AC Loss” issue with our new alarm panel seems to be resolved, at least for now. After reprogramming the last few zones in the system, I unplugged the system and let it run on battery for several minutes. Then, I swapped out the old Ademco 4300 X-10 transformer, replacing it with the transformer that came with the new panel. When I plugged it back in, the AC Loss condition cleared up. I have a hard time believing that the transformer was the issue. I read the panel voltage across terminals 1 and 2 with both transformers, and it was exactly the same — about 16.7 volts AC. Maybe the panel was just in a confused state, and needed an actual AC power loss and recovery to “reset” itself. However, the problem did persist through several power cycles (although I’m not sure I ran the panel on battery at any point). The only way to find out for sure would be to swap the old transformer back in, and see if the problem returns. However, since it’s working now, I’m inclined to leave it alone.

I decided to try doubling my cold brew recipe this afternoon. I put 2 slightly heaping scoops of Wellsley Farms breakfast blend into the (inverted) AeroPress, added room temperature filtered water up to near the top, stirred for 1 minute, and pressed. Then, I split the concentrated coffee equally into two tumblers, topped them up to roughly 8 ounces, and added ice and a couple drops of stevia to each glass. The extra coffee made it a little bit harder to press, but it turned out just fine. I couldn’t tell any difference from my single cup recipe. The next time I do this, I may measure the total amount of water per glass more carefully, then press into a carafe or pitcher instead of directly into a tumbler.

This and that

lpaulriddle

I had hoped to take a bike ride this morning, but ended up sleeping until almost 9:00. It was probably just as well, as it’s very hot and humid today, and would have been a rather sweaty ride. The reason for my oversleeping was that we got a call around midnight from our alarm monitoring company because of a “trouble” condition. Turns out that the newer Vista panels have “trouble” reporting enabled by default, while the older ones didn’t, and I didn’t think to turn it off when I programmed the new panel. Earlier in the evening, I had popped the cover off one of the wireless contacts to check the battery, which caused the zone to go into “trouble”. I’m not sure why the alarm company called at the time they did, but it does confirm that reporting is working! The panel is still showing “AC Loss” this morning, in spite of the power being just fine. When I get to messing with it again, I’ll try unplugging it, running it on battery for a few minutes, and plugging it back in, to see if it resets. If not, I may try swapping out the transformer, and if none of that works, I’ll contact the alarm company.

The pool SWG is still reading an abnormally high temperature today. At least it’s consistent. When I get to messing with that, I’ll try re-seating the tri-sensor cable and see if it corrects itself. I may also pull the tri-sensor itself out of the manifold and take a look at it. If none of that works, I’ll test it with the tri-sensor simulator to narrow down the source of the problem, and contact my Autopilot dealer to see what he recommends. This is a rather easy issue to work around, either by calibrating the temperature reading down, lowering the Chlorine output, or turning off the setting that automatically adjusts the output based on the water temperature. Assuming I can’t fix this easily, I’m inclined to ride it out for the rest of this season, and buy any needed replacement parts over the winter.

I brewed yesterday’s dark roast coffee recipe again today, exactly the same way, except I used 180g of water instead of 200g. Truth be told, I didn’t notice much of a difference from yesterday. It was a pleasant cup of dark roast. I have enough beans to make 7 or 8 more cups, and I’m probably just going to be boring and stick with this recipe until they’re gone.

Broken stuff

lpaulriddle

The abnormally-high temperature reading on my pool’s SWG that I noticed 10 days ago is back. This morning, it was reading 94°F when the actual water temperature was 80°F. The reading was consistently about 14-15° too high every time I checked today, all the way up until 7:00 or so, when I went out to swim. I’m going to try disconnecting and re-seating the cable that connects the tri-sensor to the controller, and I’ll take a look at the contacts to see if they’re dirty or oxidized. Maybe it’s just a bad connection. I went ahead and ordered a tri-sensor simulator, which is a little widget that plugs into the controller and generates a fixed temperature, salt, and flow reading. If cleaning and re-seating the cable doesn’t do the trick, then I can use the simulator to determine whether the problem is with the tri-sensor or the controller.

In other news, we are preparing to get rid of our landline phone service, but before we can do that, I have to convert our security system to use cellular and/or internet monitoring. The problem is, the panel’s firmware was too old to work with the new communicator, and to make a long story short, I had to swap out the entire panel. It’s kind of amazing that the panel is still in production, and is practically identical to the version that was produced 21 years ago when I originally installed it. All I had to do was move all the wires over and then reprogram the new panel (a tedious, but not difficult, job). That was today’s project. Now, the weird thing: the new panel works perfectly, except for one thing: for some reason, it thinks it doesn’t have AC power. The alpha keypad flashes “AC LOSS”, and the fixed keypad says “NO AC”. This is normally what it does during a power outage, when it’s running off the battery. Get this, though: it does this even with the battery disconnected. So, if it doesn’t have AC, I don’t know how it can possibly be working. Induction? Hamsters? Who knows. The voltage from the transformer is fine: I read 16 volts AC at the transformer itself and the connection terminals on the panel. I’m wondering if maybe I can just ignore this, as everything seems to be working, but I’m concerned that it may not be charging the battery. If it’s not, I’ll find out in the next few days once the battery runs down. As a last resort, I may try unplugging the panel to simulate an actual “NO AC” condition, and seeing if maybe it resets itself when I plug it back in. But I’m not holding my breath, as the problem has persisted through several power cycles. I’m also going to reread the manual and see if there’s anything I missed with the initial setup. If all else fails, I’ll contact my alarm company, and see if they have any ideas.