Fruddled Gruntbugglies

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  • End of 2025 Pool Season

    End of 2025 Pool Season

    Well, it’s that time of year again. I took what will most likely be my final swim of the year yesterday. The pool temperature had been holding pretty steady at 76°F for the past couple of weeks, thanks to abundant sunshine and air temperatures hitting 80° or so most days, but all of that is going to be changing over the next couple of nights. In particular, tomorrow night is supposed to get down to the low 40s. That, combined with all of the leaves starting to fall, is going to finally put an end to swimming in 2025. In spite of a late start (June 6), a week away on vacation, and a week lost to poor weather in late August, it was a great season. I wrapped up with 82 swims, beating 2021’s count of 80, and just shy of 2022’s count of 84. I beat my previous latest swim date, October 4 (set in 2021), by 3 days. I swam 4 times in October, making this my first year with more than 1 October swim. Lastly, I set a record of 58,626 total strokes, eclipsing 2022 by around 4000 strokes.

    No end-of-season swimming post is complete without a mention of our all-time latest date in the pool, October 9, 2007. It’s taken 18 seasons to come this close to matching that date, but it appears that the record is going to stand for another year. Earlier this season, out of curiosity, I took a look at historical climatology data for September-October, and 2007 was an outlier — the weather was warmer and drier over that period than any other year we’ve owned our pool. Our kids were little then, and they were the last ones in the pool that year — this year, it was me, swimming my laps. My wife and I are getting more apt to swim in cooler water as the years go by, so I’d say that the odds of October swimming happening are increasing year-to-year, but who knows if we’ll be in the house long enough to have a shot at that elusive October 10 swim.

    After struggling with calf tightness for most of the summer, I gave up backstroke at around the end of August with the intention of working on my kicking next year. For a couple of weeks, I also gave up front crawl, and was swimming 6 sets of 60 breaststroke/60 butterfly for a total of 720 strokes, which was rather taxing on my shoulders. Eventually, I corrected my front crawl kicking, and switched to 4 sets of 60 breast/60 butterfly/60 front crawl. At the very end of the season, I reintroduced a tiny bit of backstroke, swimming alternating sets of 60 breast/60 butterfly/60 front crawl and 45 breast/45 front crawl/45 butterfly/45 backstroke. At this point, I feel pretty good about my front crawl kicking, but still have work to do with backstroke.

    So long, 2025 swimming season. We’ll see what 2026 holds in store!

  • New Apple Watch

    New Apple Watch

    This week, I finally took the plunge and bought a new Apple Watch. I bought my first watch, an SE, in late summer 2022. It served me well for almost 2 years of regular running, biking, and swimming. Then, last summer, it died a few hours after the first time I took it in the pool. Although I missed a lot of the watch’s features, I was a little annoyed to get less than 2 years out of it, so I held off for a year and a half before buying another one. The new watch is a series 11. Considering what these things cost, I’m really hoping this one lasts longer. I did spring for the AppleCare plan this time around, and I don’t think I’m going to swim with my watch any more.

    The new watch seems pretty nice, and it has a bunch of health features that I will make good use of (EKG, high blood pressure detection, sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, etc). I also prefer the workout tracking on the watch to the Polar app I had been using on my phone. I took my first run with the watch this morning, and quickly realized how much I had missed having one. The first thing I found out was that my cadence has slowed over the past year and a half — I used to average around 180 steps/minute, but today’s run was 160 steps/minute. I enabled cadence alerts for my next run, which will hopefully help me get that number back up. Another thing I noticed was that, like my old watch, this one tracks distance differently than the Polar app. Specifically, with the watch, I had to run about 1/10 of a mile farther to hit 7 miles than I did with the phone and the app. Not sure if it’s an algorithmic thing (e.g. one tracker sampling the GPS more often that the other), a GPS accuracy thing (the watch has its own GPS receiver), or maybe a little of both. I’m also curious which of the two is more accurate.

    Although the watch is 2mm larger than my old SE (46mm vs 44mm; the other option was 42mm, which seemed too small) I was happy to learn that it uses the same size bands. I bought my SE with a silicone adjustable sport band, so I changed things up and ordered a textile “sport loop” band with the new watch. Initial impressions: I prefer the look and feel of the textile band, and its hook-and-loop closure allows for more fine adjustment than the pin-and-holes closure on the silicone band. The latter, though, is easier to put on and take off, and more sweat-proof. I ran with the textile band today, and when I was finished, it was wet from perspiration, which means that it would likely get “funky” after a few runs in the summer humidity. I suspect I’ll end up using the silicone band for workouts, and the textile band for everyday wear and potentially sleeping. I also have a handmade leather band for more formal occasions.

  • Night Swim

    Night Swim

    I finally got out for an after-dark swim tonight. It only took until the end of the season. I often take night swims in August and September, but up until today, this year had been an exception. I’m kind of amazed that I’ve never had to replace the bulbs in either of the underwater lights in 24 seasons. I have no idea how old they were when we moved into the house. They just keep going and going. The bulbs are something like 300 watts each. When I turn them on, I think the lights on the entire block dim. We probably should replace them with low-voltage LED lights, but we don’t use the lights enough to make it worth the expense.

    It’s been a good swimming season. Today was my 76th swim, eclipsing last year’s total of 75. I’ve also passed 2022’s latest swim date of September 27. If I can swim one more time this year, I’ll set a record for stroke count, passing 2022’s mark of 54,696. Two records that likely will stand are 2022’s total count of 84 swims, and 2021’s latest swim date of October 4. To hit 84 this year, I’d have to swim until at least October 6, which I don’t see happening. Swimming later than October 4 is not out of the realm of possibility, but we’ve got a cool-down coming at the end of this week, so I’d say it’s unlikely. You never know, though!

  • Brewing Good Guatemala F.E.V.

    Brewing Good Guatemala F.E.V.

    • Beans: Guatemala – Finca El Valle
      • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
      • Origin: Guatemala (Antigua)
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 9/2/2025
      • Purchase date: 9/12/2025 at BGCC in Savage Mill
        First cup: 9/24/2025; Last cup: 10/6/2025
      • Process: washed; Varietals: Red Bourbon, Typica, Yellow Bourbon; Altitude: 1500 MASL
      • Tasting notes: Nectarine, dark chocolate, cherry
    • V60 or Switch with Ode:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 2
      • Water at 100°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with Switch or size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 02:50-03:00 — Switch: keep drain closed for bloom and then open
    • AeroPress with JX:

    This coffee tastes almost exactly as I expected it would. It is quite fruity/acidic with light to medium body. The Switch cup had maybe a tiny bit more “bottom end” (for lack of a better description — on second tasting, maybe I’d call it chocolate undertone), but the difference was fairly subtle. After two years of making pourovers, I think I’m finally getting a little better at choosing initial settings (grind size in particular) for brewing different types of beans.

    10/1: My usual AeroPress recipe (link above) yielded a cup that was a little bit roastier and less fruit-forward than the Switch cup. I like it either way. I wonder if a longer steep in the Switch with the drain closed would taste similar to the AeroPress cup.

  • Run and Swim Notes

    Run and Swim Notes

    Today was my first run of 13.1+ miles since May. The weather is finally getting amenable to longer runs, and I’m slowly getting myself back into shape for it. I’m going to try to keep up with last year’s routine of one longer run per week, typically 10-12 miles, and a 13-15 miler once per month or so. Today’s run felt pretty good, with no discomfort anywhere (as long as I stayed relaxed) and I averaged 10:50/mile, which is surprisingly fast for me for this distance. Several hours later, I’ve got a little bit of residual soreness on the outside of my left heel, which is the same area that has bothered me off and on all summer. I’m hitting it a lot with the massage gun, which definitely helps it, but it’s something I’m going to need to keep an eye on. I think it will become less of an issue as I get re-acclimated to running these distances after my annual summer mileage drop-off. The route I chose today was an experiment that took me down Landing Road from Ilchester to Montgomery. I don’t think I’ll be running there again. It is too narrow, with too much speeding traffic and poor sight lines. It was definitely the least enjoyable portion of the run.

    I swam this afternoon, matching my latest swim of 2024. I’m still 4 swims behind 2024’s total swim count, mainly because of the weather in late August that cost us a week of swimming. Based on the weather forecast for this week, I think there’s a pretty good chance I’ll end up eclipsing 2024’s total swim count. Things start to look a little dodgy at the end of the week, so we’ll see if we can stretch the pool season any later than that.

    My right shoulder has been bothering me after swimming lately. I suspect it’s a combination of poor technique and also more breaststroke/butterfly/front crawl strokes since I stopped doing backstroke for the season. Since I seem to have resolved my kicking issues with the front crawl, maybe it’s time to pick the backstroke back up and cut down a bit on the forward strokes. All the same, today I took things pretty easy, trying to stay relaxed and avoid overextending my arms, and it seems to have helped things. Next season, I really want to work more on technique to avoid the various swimming related issues I’ve had this past summer. As with most other activities, I think it’s possible to get away with poor swimming technique to a point, but swimming (almost) every day is another story.

  • Brewing Good Bright-Eyed & Bushy-Tailed

    Brewing Good Bright-Eyed & Bushy-Tailed

    • Beans: Bright-Eyed & Bushy-Tailed (blend)
      • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
      • Origin: Varies seasonally
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 8/26/2025
      • Purchase date: 9/12/2025 at BGCC in Savage Mill
        First cup: 9/16/2025; Last cup: 9/26/2025
      • Tasting notes: Toasted almond, cherry
    • V60 with Ode:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 3
      • Water at 99°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes around 02:55
    • AeroPress with JX:

    First of all, driving to Savage from UMBC in the mid-afternoon on a weekday was a mistake. Traffic was terrible, especially trying to get back home. Next time I decide to drive here, I need to do it in the late morning. Biking is definitely the way to go, although they tend to be really busy on Sunday mornings when I typically bike through there. They were not busy at all when I bought these beans.

    I really like this blend. It’s very well-balanced, and the 5 or 6 cups I’ve brewed so far have been very consistent (I can’t discount the fact that my brewing technique has also gotten more consistent over time, though all bets are off in the morning when I’m half awake). If I had to drink the same coffee every morning, this wouldn’t be a bad choice. I’m curious how much it varies from batch to batch, given that they choose the beans in the blend based on time of year and availability. Not that I’d ever get around to doing this, but it would be interesting to buy a bag in the summer, freeze it until winter, then buy another bag and compare the two.

    9/21: My last couple of cups at grind 3 have tasted a bit over-extracted, so I think I’m going to try backing the grind off to 4 for my next cup tomorrow. Either that, or I can try dropping the water temperature to 95.

    9/23: After a little bit of experimentation, grind 3+2, water at 99, and 300/21 (1:14.3) was a pretty good cup this morning. Later in the afternoon, I brewed it the same way with the Switch, keeping the drain closed during the bloom and open the rest of the time. This was a more fruit-forward cup than anything I had brewed with the regular V60. Hard to say which of today’s cups I preferred. I liked both of them better than the previous few days’ cups.

    I took the final 34g to work and brewed my last 2 cups with the AeroPress on 9/24 and 9/26. Both were full-bodied and less fruit-forward than the Switch cup. I’d compare them to the first few V60 cups I brewed.

  • Zeke’s Market Blend Decaf

    Zeke’s Market Blend Decaf

    • Beans: Market Blend Decaf (blend)
      • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Central and South America
      • Roast level: Medium (5/8)
      • Roast date: 8/25/2025
      • Purchase date: Late August 2025 at Green Valley Marketplace (Elkridge, MD)
        Freeze date: n/a; Thaw date: n/a
        First cup: Late August or early September 2025; Last cup: TBD
      • Process: Water processed decaf
      • Tasting notes: Rich, bittersweet chocolate
    • V60 with Ode grinder (1 cup):
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 4
      • Water at 95°C
      • Size 1 V60 cone
      • Single Cup V60 Pourover with 60g bloom and 60g pulses – Finishes around 03:10

    This is a perfectly good decaf, though based on my notes, I think I slightly prefer Zeke’s Tell Tale Decaf. I brewed those identically to these, with the exception of the water temperature (90°C vs 95°C).

    I wonder if this is the same blend as regular, caffeinated Zeke’s Market Blend. If so, it would be interesting to compare the two side-by-side. It has been over a year since I’ve had the caffeinated version, so my memory of how it tastes/tasted is a little hazy. I suspect that they change things up with this from time to time, as the web site’s version is different from the bag I have now: It shows a darker roast (6/8) and includes beans from Africa, which this bag doesn’t mention.

    9/22 or so: Adjusted grind from 4 to 5, and I think it is better at the coarser setting.

  • This year’s pool hack

    This year’s pool hack

    Pool season is winding down. This year, we added a Betta SE robotic skimmer to our arsenal of pool gadgets, and it has worked out pretty well, although it is definitely most useful in July and August, when it can run 24×7. It can’t quite keep up with the massive onslaught of Tulip Poplar leaves in late summer, not that I really expected it to. It also can’t run when the Polaris is in the pool, as it gets caught on the hose. Next year, I may consider adding a cordless robotic vacuum like the Aiper Scuba S1, which I’ve read extensively about on troublefreepool.com. I don’t foresee getting rid of the Polaris, but it would be great to have something that can run at the same time as the Betta for day-to-day cleaning.

    Speaking of the Polaris, it wouldn’t be a proper pool season if something didn’t go wrong with it. This year’s issue was mostly our fault, as we’ve been connecting and disconnecting the hose a lot more often (because of the Betta) and instead of using the quick release, we’ve been screwing it in and out of the wall fitting. I think over time, this has worn the threads down on the fitting, and when I went to run the Polaris a week or so ago, the fitting would no longer stay screwed in to the wall. As a cheap fix, I went to Lowes and picked up a 1.5″ PVC male and 1.5″ female adapter, and cemented them together to make a short extension. I screwed the Polaris fitting into the female side, and the male side into the pool wall fitting. I’m not sure if the issue was with the Polaris fitting or the wall fitting, but either way, now the hose no longer ejects out of the wall when I turn the booster pump on. I suspect that the new fittings provide a little bit more good thread for everything to screw together securely.

    We’ve got a coastal storm working its way inland just to the south of us, so it’s been kind of a dreary, breezy, rainy day. In spite of that, I managed to get in the pool for my laps. I’m not sure what the water temperature was, but it felt warm compared to the 67°F air with chilly drizzle. There’s a warm-up coming later this week, so I’m hoping for a couple more weeks of swimming this year.

  • Mid September Musings

    Mid September Musings

    We could definitely use a bit more rain, but the dry weather has made for good mountain biking conditions in early September. Unfortunately, the summer growth is still pretty thick, particularly on the Baltimore County side of PVSP, and I’ve picked some poison ivy up the past couple of times I’ve ridden on that side of the river. After sparing the eastern part of PVSP for several years, wavyleaf basketgrass is now flanking the trails almost everywhere, so I have to be mindful not to bring the seeds home with me, lest the crap end up in my yard (I’ve already got some coming up near the pool equipment, which I pull up diligently every summer, and [knock on wood] have managed to keep from spreading so far). The trail that runs east from Belmont Woods Rd down to Rockburn Branch is in extremely poor shape nowadays, having suffered from severe erosion for years, and it’s becoming difficult to ride cleanly. But other than all that, everything is great. 😊 Today, instead of my usual commute to work, I took a 14-mile round trip through the Howard County side of Avalon, including the Bloede Dam Trail and Bloede Extension, which runs from Garrett’s Pass down to the river west of the former Bloede Dam site, and then out to Ilchester Road. This was only my second time riding this trail. It’s definitely one of the more technically difficult trails on this side of the park, featuring a lot of rock gardens and rocky descents. I did fairly well on it today, staying on the bike more than I did my first time out (a couple of winters ago). I think it will be good practice to try riding it a little more often. I also rode Ridge Trail eastbound from River Road, which is another butt-kicker. It’s nice to be getting back out on my mountain bikes more regularly.

    We’re also getting into peak paddling season, and I’m trying to get out on the water every week or so, although I haven’t been all that successful recently. This past Tuesday, I went back to Marley Creek with the paddleboard and went 4 or 5 miles, which is my longest outing on the SUP thus far. On the return leg, the headwind was kicking up to 20-25 mph (about 10-15 mph more than forecast) and I was really struggling against the wind. The board handled the choppy water fairly well, but I had to kneel down for the last 1.5 mile or so, which was a bit hard on my knees. Had I known it was going to be that windy, I probably would have gone another day instead. Next week, I may try to take my annual paddle on the tidal Patapsco. The tides look most favorable later in the week, so we’ll see how that works out with my schedule.

    The sunny weather has also been good for swimming. September can be a fickle swimming month, as all it takes is 2 days or so of overcast, dreary weather to kill the season. My front-crawl kicking seems to be improving, which I say because my calves don’t seem to be getting as tight any more. Next up is to try to improve backstroke kicking, but that’s a project for next year.

    Lastly, most of the issues that dogged my running over the summer (as chronicled in earlier posts) have cleared up, so I’m back to running 20-25 miles a week, and slowly upping my mileage for my weekend long runs. My goal this season is to try to run an 18-19 miler by early spring. We’ll see if it happens.

  • Gracefully The Jukebox

    Gracefully The Jukebox

    • Beans: “The Jukebox” (blend)
      • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
      • Origin: Brazil, Costa Rica
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 8/14/2025
      • Purchase date: 8/28/2025 from Gracefully curbside café
        Freeze date: 8/29/2025; Thaw date: 9/5 or 9/6/2025
        First cup: 9/7/2025; Last cup: 9/16/2025
      • Tasting notes: Dark chocolate, almond, caramel
    • V60 with Ode grinder (1 cup):
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 3
      • Water at 99°C
      • Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom and 60g pulses – Finishes anywhere from 02:50 to 03:10

    These beans look like they’re kind of on the light end of a medium roast, and there are no visible oils on the beans. I started out with the water just under boiling, and Ode at grind setting 4. This had kind of a nutty/almond taste, which was pleasant enough, so I brewed several cups at these settings. Today, I tried grind setting 3, and I believe it brought out a little bit more of the promised chocolate/caramel. I think I prefer it at this setting. The web site mentions that it’s good in the French press, so if I ever have occasion to brew more than one cup at once, I might give that a try.