Slalom Swimming isn’t talked about enough. Slalom swimming is the type of swimming you do when you’re one of the stronger swimmers but not the strongest. You’re going fast enough to overtake certain swimmers but too slow to keep up with others. As you overtake some swimmers you’re forced to swim to the side to overtake them.
Linear swimmer As well as having the slow swimmers to content with as you overtake them you also have the linear swimmers.
Facebook and Instagram both have “Stories”. Stories are temporary vertical pictures and video that are only available for a limited amount of time before they are backed up and saved for retrieval once you request your data.
In theory, they are a fantastic way of sharing life as it happens without worrying about something embarrassing being available for an extended period of time. In practise, they are a way for Facebook and Instagram to force users to be active every day if they do not want to miss out on what their friends are sharing.
This morning I uninstalled Facebook and Twitter because most of the tweets I saw were people complaining about things or posts that would fit perfectly as blog posts on a website. We have moved towards the Social Media reflex, rather than towards an open sharing habit.
Before social media, we would have conversations on web forums and within comments on websites. As social media centralised all of those conversations so the engagement between people declined.
I have been studying languages with Duolingo for 134 days.
For 134 days I have been studying German as well as other languages every single day. In so doing my reading comprehension has gone up and I no longer become a “deer in the headlights” when someone asks me a question in Spanish. I was even able to understand the questions people asked, and able to answer.
As I have been focusing on German and Spanish I find it increasingly easy to understand words so I can go through exercises that translate from German to English easily enough.
If you’re looking for a reason to walk from one village to another the practise of using old phone boxes as free libraries are common in Switzerland. This means that if you’re shopping around for books in Switzerland you can either go to the shops and buy them with the car or you can go for a walk and see if any of the nearby villages have the books you’re looking for.
A few weeks ago I broke my arm while cycling. I was indicating that I was turning right while breaking with my left hand and the brake blocked and the next thing I knew the bike was on top of me. I extricated myself from beneath the bike and dragged it to the side of the road and reached into my bag to get a bottle of coke to help with the shock.
Sometimes I stumble across documentaries that I feel excel in their genre. One such documentary is Earthrace: The Power Boat Race around the World. This is a one and a half hour documentary charting the fundraising, awareness building, race preparations and then the actual race, including logistics and more.
I like this documentary because the editing rhythm is in keeping with the story. The story is told in a logical and chronological order with no excessive editing, no breathless commentary, no excessive use of music.
Yesterday I set off for a bike ride planning to go from Nyon to Gland, and then up and around before heading back to Geneva and then from around Versoix riding back to Nyon.
Instead of this I rode from Nyon to Gland and decided to go further and once at Gland I rode a little further and I ended up in Rolle. In Rolle I continued going thinking I’ll turn off and head to the top of Aubonne and ride to Geneva.
When I cycle towards Geneva i often pass by a forest near Chavannes centre. Usually I only skirt the exterior of the forest but I have twice passed through it on a bike on my way back from Geneva. Yesterday I drove the scooter to Chavannes centre and parked it where scooters and bikes can be parked.
I walked from there towards the roads that are closed to traffic and at first i tried going downwards towards the motorway and found a path through the woods but it was blocked by a sign saying, forbidden entry, danger etc.
Rich Kleinbauer - Jun 6, 2019
Hi Richard, I fell upon your blog and I don’t know how that happened. I live in Nyon, I’m a musician, I do vtt and recently rode up the Barillette, gets harder every year. I did 50km and 1400m vertical on Thursday (to Crêt de la Neuve) to prepare for a race next weekend. I’d be interested to meet you to discuss a possible video project for some new music I’m making.