Categories
Digressions

The bike that saved me

I never really thought about year-end goals until I checked my Strava account. Ever since my wife got me a bike last year, I’ve been trying to clock in rides every week. Some days I have daily streaks of 20km rides. Other times, every other day but longer distances of 30 to 40km. In the beginning I used to come home with aching legs but as the time passed, I have been breathing better, making less pit stops, and exerting less effort on my rides to go faster.

It wasn’t always like this. I spent most of my 30’s finding an excuse to not exercise — or at best to try to be inspired by those “from couch potato to hero” motivational workout regimen. There was a short time before the pandemic I got into kettlebells, but again, knowing me, I could not last. I fear gyms in general because despite all the movement, I’m stuck in a room.

Fast forward to the pandemic.

Categories
Digressions

Home renovations in the time of Covid

I’m writing this while confined with a mild case of COVID. After two and a half years of evading the virus, it finally caught up with me. Thankfully, symptoms are very mild, with slight cough and fever the first few days. 

Categories
Geek

Resetting my brain with Solitaire (and other classic games)

This afternoon, I introduced my kids to Battleship. It was a game I played as a kid in the 80’s. We didn’t have the ABS plastic set, as most kids during these times transcribed their imaginations into paper. The grid notebooks were the best for Battleship of course — but it was also easy to cheat, as we would often draw odd shapes (an Aircraft carrier shaped like an L!) to confuse our opponents.

Categories
Digressions

Ballantine’s and visual artist Shawna X Team up for a new limited-edition bottle available at top membership supermarket S&R and leading online retailers

Ballantine’s latest limited-edition release with visual artist Shawna X celebrates positivity and community spirit

To spread a splash of joy, color, and positivity around the world in these challenging times, the No. 1 Scotch whisky brand in Europe Ballantine’s has teamed up with New York-based visual artist Shawna X to release a new limited-edition bottle.

Categories
Digressions Geek

The Bike: Kespor GSX 2.0 (Shimano!)

Been on the bike a lot since the pandemic. Been taking this out almost daily for about 20-40km rides. Everything is stock except for the tires which I replaced with 2x Teravail Cannonballs converted to a tubeless set up.

This bike was an upgrade of the original GSX 2.0 that came with SRAM instead of Shimano groupsets. This particular one cost P55,000, which is a steal, compared to the P45,000 counterpart (SRAM Rival).