Pondside Planner – Page 52

#50by50ish #50 – Lose weight – Part 1, the decision

October 25 2018

I am a big advocate and personal user of goal-setting and monitoring. Every year, I take stock of my life across a variety of areas and come up with a long list of things I want to do that I feel that I either need or want to do in order to improve my life. Some of them can be quite small like sorting through a bookcase of stuff that has accumulated or quite large like redoing a kitchen. Some of them are quite personal like spending more time with my son or having date nights, others might be more abstract or impersonal like reading more non-fiction. But I analyse and sort, set a goal, commit, and then, I go. I’m not always 100% successful, but I commit and I go. I’m not afraid of failure, it is just one way I found that didn’t work, and besides, I have lots of other items that I’m moving forward on anyway, so one “failed” goal does not often affect me too much for the year.

And yet, while I want to lose weight and probably have wanted to do so since around 1981 when I became aware that I wasn’t like “other kids” in that regard, when I have gone to set my annual goals (in earnest since 2000/2001 or so), I have only incrementally come closer and closer to setting a weight loss goal but never quite reaching the commitment point. The question of course is why? What is holding me back from committing to THAT goal when almost any other area is fair game?

I have had some insights over the years…the intrinsically psychological nature of it; the complicated link between my psyche, my self-image, my ego / arrogance for most things cerebral and no confidence in anything physical, and food; the need to feel like my goals when set and committed to are actually individually achievable. Not necessarily all of them in a year, as I mentioned above that failure on any one is okay, but I have to at least feel like I can do it, that I’m being honest with myself that I’m really going to put forward some effort to try and reach the goal in the year. It has to not only be possible in theory, but possible in practice. I wouldn’t commit to climbing Mount Everest or K2, for example, but I committed to climbing a small mountain while hiking in the Atlantic region (an old bucket list item) because I knew I was planning to go there that year. Realistically achievable.

But, for me, weight loss has always been a “possible in theory” goal, not one that I felt was likely in practice. Eating a bit healthier, being more active? Sure. But I never felt like I was “ready” to go hard on my weight. Like I said, it’s a complicated interplay of issues that I wasn’t sure I could unpack and address. If I could “just do it”, I would have already done it. Something was holding me back, and it was holding me back not only from achieving the goal but even setting it and feeling like I would/could commit to it a given year. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve put it on the draft list many times. And each time I’ve removed it or changed it to something wishy washy yet potentially achievable.

When I set my 50by50 list, it was front and centre in my thoughts. With my 50th birthday and everything, I thought a great target could be to lose 50 pounds. Literally 50 by 50. Challenging certainly but achievable in a year. But would I actually commit or balk again? In my lead up to turning 50, I balked. I did lots of other things, but I again felt like I wasn’t realistically ready to commit to it. That I would do it in a lackluster way, self-defeating as I went, and to be brutally honest with myself, likely to completely crash and burn as I descended into a deep depression with my likely failure. I could shake off other things, but I knew this one would be devastating to my mental health if I failed. It’s just plain different, several orders of magnitude harder and of a completely different type of goal than any of the others.

It’s a hard perspective to describe very well. I felt like I had to fully commit, to be “all in” for the goal or that I would have zero chance of success. Yet every year, when I set my goals, there have been and still are always LOTS of other things going on. Some of them health related, like my sleep apnea (partially but not completely caused by the extra weight), and a few other things too, not weight-related, that would “crowd” out my focus simply because they were easier to deal with in the short-term. Some were even more urgent “FIX ME NOW” issues.

Maybe that reads like a cop out to you. Maybe a rationalization. But I know my psyche pretty well, having stripped it down like a nostalgic mechanic rebuilds old engines, and put it back together on my own. I knew not only that I wasn’t ready to commit but also that I wasn’t ready to go all in on my weight loss.

Not yet. Someday, I told myself. Maybe soon, as I knew I was getting closer, but apparently not yet. I was working on a bunch of psych issues to help me get ready, but I wasn’t there yet. I was disappointed in myself, but well, that has happened before too. And so I removed it from my “pre-turning 50” goals.

And then something happened.

For most people, this is where the story would veer into the cliché — the fat guy who has a heart attack and has to change NOW if he wants to live. Or a stroke or a host of other issues suddenly bringing life into focus. That “LIFE-CHANGING EVENT” didn’t happen to me. That’s not how I got to where I am now.

But something strange and unexpected did happen, a confluence of events and timing, and suddenly my wall was gone. I’ll explain what happened in future posts, but the important thing is that the mental block was SUDDENLY gone. I actually felt ready.

And I was. Ready to set a goal and to commit to it. Whole-heartedly.

On June 16th, the day after my birthday, I took the first step. I decided that my one and only goal for the year would be weight loss.

I just had to figure out how I would maintain my commitment, what the actual goal would be, what I would say about it publicly, if anything. And, oh yeah, lose the weight.

And over the last 132 days, I have had to dig deep into my psyche to answer those questions as well as deal with some other issues that came up along the start of my journey. I have thought long and hard about how to share my thoughts along the journey, and I had convinced myself even up until a week ago that I would write — but not publish — a series of posts. And if it was say 10 posts, then I would wait until I had achieved my goal and post it as the last ten days before I turn 51. I would “accomplish” the goal before I publicly admitted that I even had the goal. A mental reservation to allow me to fail in private, if need be. To minimize the mental damage I would do to myself if I failed to achieve my goal.

Except that is an act of a coward. One who is not committing, but hedging. One who is opening up the possibility of failure, however real, and saying, “Maybe I can’t do it”. But that isn’t the commitment I made to myself. Can I do it by my birthday? I don’t know. It’s almost irrelevant though as I have committed that not only will I have only 1 goal for this year, but also I will not set any other new goal until it’s achieved. If it takes 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, I’m all in.

Which means that the only reason not to share now is because I’m afraid to talk about the issues that will go with it until I’m done fixing them. Some really intense personal stuff that is sitting in my notebook and not yet written into anything resembling coherence.

But this post is not just any post. It is my 1000th post to my blog. It is real. It is me. It is the me that I want to be, sometimes the me that I dream of being and can’t quite accomplish without time to edit myself. And I promised myself once before that my blog demands radical self-assessment and honesty from me or it is not worth writing.

This is not the hardest thing I have ever written, that is easily some combination of becoming Jacob’s father or the various eulogy / tribute stuff for my mom and dad.

But it is the scariest thing I have ever posted, and the second scariest thing I have written (the scarier one is coming later). Just in time for Hallowe’en, he says nervously.

Yet there is no choice. If I am to achieve my goal, I have to muster all of my resources and not leave my star player — my blog — sitting on the sidelines twiddling its thumbs.

For the first time in my life, I formally commit to not only losing weight but also to blogging about it openly.

And if that is not worthy of my 1000th post on a personal blog, I don’t know what is.

#50by50ish #37 – Take a photography course

October 10 2018

Back in 2016, I decided to “up my game” for photography, and I thought I would start with a class or two. Henry’s courses are popular, but there are also courses through the city’s annual learning catalog, and even through Algonquin College if I want to get really serious. But I wanted to keep it simple, so I started watching The Great Course’s “Fundamentals of Photography” series (Fundamentals of Photography – Class 01 – Making Great Pictures).

Recently, as part of my lingering 50by50 commitments, I wanted to get back into photography learning, but even in the last two years, my approach has changed. I have a decent camera — a Canon Rebel T5i aka the 700D — and it works well for me. It is considered a high-value entry level DSLR, but my needs are relatively modest, with just a couple of quirks.

My primary need is outdoors photography … waterfalls, landscapes, flora and fauna, hiking through nature, and friends and family doing both active and passive activities.

My secondary need, like most people, is indoor photography … birthdays, parties, events, holidays.

My quirky needs are both related to astrophotography — first, attached to the scope (body only) or second, straight Milky Way sky shots (with and without zooms).

The T5i came in a couple of configured bundles, and I went with the one that included two lenses — 18-55mm, and 55-250mm. It also has a whack of pre-set modes:

Portrait (blurred backgrounds);
Landscape (wide depth of field so both foreground and background are in focus);
Close-up (aka a software macro option for flowers and things);
Sports (continuous shooting, high speed capture, rapid focus);
Scene mode (several sub-options);
Creative auto (simple mode for quick setting of common features);
Flash off (can’t fire, no matter what the camera thinks is right or not); and,
Scene-intelligent auto (the computer takes its best guess on all the settings, useful if you keep changing setting)

It then has four semi-manual modes:

Program mode (P) — This is a bit misleading, as it is semi-auto (aperture and shutter speed) but you control the rest;
Shutter priority mode (Tv) — You control how fast the shutter is, the computer does the rest;
Aperture priority mode (Av) — You control how wide the aperture is, the computer does the rest;
Manual mode (M) — The full power of the camera is at your fingertips.

For me, I spend almost all my time in pre-set modes, and truth be told, I don’t even do that well.

I have managed to get what I think are some great shots — birds in flight, cousins doing various water sports, flora around various hiking trails in Ottawa. But while I pointed the camera, chose the mode (sports, for example) and captured the shot (cousin waterskiing and spraying up water), I didn’t really know what the camera was doing. I wanted to know how and why it worked, not just the what of the shot or settings. Part of my reasoning is that if I can understand the basics for my primary needs (basic outdoors and indoors), I have a better shot at understanding how to approach astrophotography.

So I signed up in September for a course with Henry’s, the local photography store. I wanted a bit of hands-on experience to get me out of pre-set modes and into manual, but I also wanted to know what the camera was doing. Part of that experience is going back to look at previous photos that turned out well and figuring out, “OH! So THAT’S how I / my camera did that…”. There were a few options available including both “learn about your Canon camera” as well as “photography 101”. With timing and location, I opted for the photography basics course in Kanata.

The course was divided into four classroom sessions, plus one practical session, with each session designed to dive into the key aspects of what you control in photography. I’m going to write separate blog posts about each week, but the overview is show below, although the titles/descriptions are mine, not the official ones:

Camera fundamentals — I hesitate to call this “meet your camera” but it pretty much is what it was about. You learn all the basic controls, what they do, and because it is a generic photography class with everyone having different brands and models, a lot of it was hands on walking various people through THEIR camera settings to get it into a relatively common set of options for everyone to start with.
Understanding aperture — Looking at depth of field, aperture and f/stops, and fast lenses.
Understanding shutter speed — Looking at motion for capture, blurring, and panning techniques;
Planning the photo — Looking at a combination of different lenses, perspectives, sensors, and then the creative side (composition, tips).

It was an interesting experience. For week 1 and 2, I went to the Kanata course on Wednesday nights, and there were about 10 of us in the class. A wide range of interest — older for hobby, younger with dreams of entrepreneurship, a few unique interests. However, the instructor noted he was also teaching on Friday nights nearer my house (earlier time, and on a Friday?), and if we missed Wed, we could catch Friday at the other site. Week 3 & 4, I did just that, because there was only 1 person over there, meaning it was almost like a hands-on class. We asked questions constantly, at least I did, and stopped him regularly when something wasn’t clear. Way more “aha” moments than if we had been in a larger group because it was the follow-up questions that really crystallized things for me. When I do the four blogs for the weeks, I really want to see if I can re-create some of the examples.

I have the practical session tonight, but it isn’t as “practical” as it sounds — we’ll be over by a park in the relative dark. The Friday night class would be great for me, but it’s at a bad time for me this week. so not sure what I’m doing yet.

Am I ready to go full manual now? No, but I achieved my true goal — learning and feeling much more comfortable with making my camera do more of what I want it to and less of what I don’t. Part of a multi-year plan to get me fully conversant before retirement. And a welcome addition to my list of 50 things.

#50by50ish #36 – A stress test with a side of manscaping

September 26 2018

My 50th birthday was back in June, and I didn’t complete my 50by50 list, although there are a bunch more subitems that are done that I just haven’t blogged about yet. I’m counting this one though as 50ish.

What this post is not about

So let’s cut to the chase. I’m fat. Yes, there I’ve said it so others don’t have to. That’s not an invite to telling me your latest advice or what your Aunt Martha did to lose weight or any number of other things people like to say when people talk or don’t talk about their weight. I’ll be frank, this post isn’t about my weight as I never talk about it. And I do mean never.

For example: in the entire history of my relationship with Andrea, 16.5 years and counting, we have only talked about my weight in relation to some specific health-related issue (like my knees were sore, or a back adjustment), perhaps a dozen times in total. While I am generally open to talking about anything from gross events or experiences all the way up to extreme emotional intimacy, I generally do not discuss two topics with anyone other than my wife — sex life and weight — and both for the same reason. It seems to me to be the most intimate parts of life for anyone to discuss. That is not a normative statement. I don’t care if others talk about their weight, although I think discussing your sex life in front of anyone other than partners or potential partners is in bad taste.

If you lose 10 pounds, I will not compliment you. Not spontaneously. If you raise it as a goal you were trying to accomplish and you succeeded, I will congratulate you. But I feel uncomfortable doing so in any sense beyond the generic of accomplishing a goal. Why not? Because I would not chastise you if the reverse were true i.e. for gaining 10 pounds. I would not say you look terrible, I would not say you must feel a lot less healthy. Yet if you lose it, people feel comfortable saying the inverse. Going back to my previous paragraph, it would be like complimenting someone on which position they say they enjoy during sex — it’s too intimate, and really it’s nobody’s business, in my view.

I know a few people right now who are reading this and thinking, “Oh, you don’t mean me, I only say it because I’m worried about your health.” No, I do mean you. All of you. It is not your business, so why would you think, spontaneously, that it was okay to comment on it? Does that mean I get to comment on things about you that I think are bad? Like how much wine you drink or how snobby you can be or your romantic choices? No? Then, pardon my french, you should probably shut the fuck up unless invited to comment on something like that. And know that I will likely never invite you to advise me on that topic. (* That’s not entirely accurate. I asked my wife about an Epicure plan she did that she was happy with, and a friend at work recently accomplished a big goal so I was asking him how he did it. Somewhere around twice in about 50 years of life. Just saying.) For me, it is a lot like commenting on a woman being pregnant if you don’t know she is.

And, as an aside, or maybe not, just because I’m male doesn’t make me immune to body shaming concerns, and thanks, I can see my weight and how I look any day of the week. I don’t need to be reminded when I’m spending time with friends. I’m extremely body conscious in certain situations. Like swimming. I rarely have enough internal “don’t give a shit” energy to force myself to swim when other people are around that I know. At a beach in the middle of nowhere, I don’t care; although I might be self-conscious still, it won’t stop me from going swimming. However, at the cottage with family, I’ll likely swim only when not many other people are around, and if I do, even then I’ll wear my rash guard in to hide my whale carcass a little bit. A mental shield. So, to be clear, that’s NOT what this post is about. But I promised myself that I will be brutally honest when talking about myself on this blog, or there’s no point in writing it, and I want to flag this upfront so people don’t get confused about what the post is actually about.

A stress test

Because of my weight, or more pointedly, a recent increase due to my using my BiPap machine (lucky me, I’m part of the small percentage that gains weight instead of losing it with the use of a PAP machine), it was a good time to schedule a stress test and just see if there is anything going on, partly related to family history and partly my own history. I would also say though that part of my desire to check in, do health checkups, etc. is related to turning 50, and part of it is looking ahead to retirement — what health investments do I need to be making now to ensure I have the health I need in my retirement to support the lifestyle I want?

We scheduled the stress test for the Riverside Hospital, and everything was a go. At least, it was a go logistically. Mentally, not so much. Sure, I’m committed to doing the tests, but truthfully I hate hospitals. I know, hospitals are generally never popular with anyone outside of the medical profession anyway, but my experience with hospitals is mostly negative — my dad (from seeing him in bed with tubes and stuff when he was about my age and various hospitalizations up to the end, where he was silent, sleeping, unconscious); my mom (a year of uncertainty leading to palliative care); and the first two traumatic years with Jacob and our constant visits to the Ottawa General and CHEO before things evened out for him.

It’s not really a fear, just a hatred, and I coupled this with not being sure what to expect for the actual stress test experience. I’m winded more easily than I used to be (still not asking for comments), and my cardio capacity has been reduced of late. Plus I wasn’t sure if I would have to run or just on the treadmill, or use the breathing tube to measure oxygen use (often seen for athletes). Neither would be good experiences for me, with my bad knees and claustrophobic feelings of tubes, combined with a huge gag reflex. At least I didn’t have to drink chalk dust. But I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Not to mention I’ve heard stories of people having heart attacks during the test, which to my mind, is the definition of stress.

On the comedic side, if you want to know if I’m stressed, just ask! Check! Having a stress test is stressing me out! Check! Oh, you mean physical heart stress. Well, pooh.

A couple of days before, I get the confirmation from the hospital, with an added note — stop taking any blood pressure medicines that are beta blockers. I don’t know a beta blocker from a football blocker, so I trundled off to the pharmacist to be sure. Yeah, I could have googled, but if I missed something, I would feel stupid. So the pharmacist confirmed neither of my blood pressure meds — amlodipine and hydrochlorothorazide — are beta blockers . Nor my reflux med. Great, good to go. Nothing to stop taking. Dun, dun, dun.

I get there, figure out (wrongly) where to park, find out as I get close to the main building I picked practically the farthest lot from the door, but that is good for my health, right? Meh. We do the check-in, finish my blood pressure pre-tests, and my numbers show I am jacked with nervousness. It drops to regular after a bit, but that’s normal for me, and not unexpected when you put me in a hospital. I make a short preventative trip to the washroom, head back to the waiting room, and the it is on to the test.

First question — did I stop my BP meds? Yes, ma’am. No beta blockers for me. What about calcium-based pills? Wait, what?

Oh, yeah, apparently I was not supposed to take beta blockers OR calcium-based pills i.e. the amlodipine. It basically lowers my BP which makes it easier for the heart to work or something, which means during the stress test, it’s going to be harder to raise it up to my target of 144 bpm, the magical rate of 80% of max.

Umm, someone should have told me that info when they told me about the beta blockers, but okay, now what? Well, we can do the test anyway, it will just be a bit harder. Riiiiiight, because I was looking forward to it being harder.

I get free manscaping of my chest as she promises me I’ll thank her when they remove the sensor pads later. As an aside, I do thank her. And it itches as it grows back in and feels weird, I must say. Those who do it willingly elsewhere? Add that as a third topic not to be discussed with non-partners.

On to the treadmill I go, the doctor okays me to start and disappears, and the tech starts me up. I can stabilize myself lightly on the hand rails, which is good, as my balance isn’t great, as long as I don’t “grab” which will reduce the stress and lower my heart rate. Keep all the weight on my legs. No problem. A simple walk up a hill.

We increase the rate, and then again. My heart rate is NOT going where it needs to go. And I’m starting to puff. We’re only 3-4 minutes in, but my heart rate is stuck at 75% and not very active beyond that, but meanwhile I feel like my breathing is going to cause me to black out. And she wants me to not only hit 80% but to sustain it for another 5-6 minutes after that? No way can I do that. I’m dying and feeling like I’m going to lose balance and fall. And they want me to run? Nope.

I have to stop. I’m embarrassed, but too focused on breathing to care. My vitals are fine, no panic indicators, but my head is pounding and I know my BP is jacked again. I sit down, relax, calm myself, and it goes back to normal.

I can come back again with no amlodipine, or we can do a medication-based test over at Ottawa General (not sure the particulars, but seems kind of like jacking my heart rate with adrenaline for a sustained period). There are apparently a couple of different ways to do it, I’ll have to talk to my regular doctor, but that’s it. I’m done for that part of the day.

But I’m not really done

Sure, I had an #EpicFail on the stress test, partly just me (probably 90%) and partly the meds (10%) that threw it off a bit, but I’ll deal. I really just wanted the all-clear to start a more aggressive exercise routine but I’ll have to start slower while we wait to test the higher range later.

As I’m driving home, I confess I’m not feeling great. My whole body feels “off”. Like I have some sort of low-grade infection everywhere. As I hit Baseline Road, I get a series of little twinges in my chest. Not for long, just short little pinches. On both sides of my chest, underneath my sternum. I reposition, it goes away. I’ve had positional stuff before, but never on both sides. I get home and do a bit of yoga and my back cracks in three places. Oh, that explains the discomfort. Everything goes back into place, and I feel fine. Hmmm. Nothing like being hyper aware to make you hyper paranoid.

Anyway, in the meantime, I also did some bloodwork on the way home that was pending for a month or so. Three days later, I get a call from the doctor on my voicemail saying my bloodwork has anomalies in it and I should come see her. It sounds like “come soon”, but the next available appointment isn’t until October 18th by which time I figure they should have the test results and advice re: the stress test too. Oh boy, oh bliss, oh joyful bliss.

I take the appointment but advise them to check with the doctor if the 18th is too far away. Apparently it is, and they want me sooner. Thursday is apparently soon enough, so I go tomorrow. I’ve narrowed the likelihood down to one of four likely issues based on what they wanted to test for and what I asked them to add. We’ll see if any of the four are right and how serious the “anomalies” are. My rough guesses in order of severity:

There might be signs of an infection…I feel like my two other wisdom teeth are trying very hard to grow in, and my ears and throat have been messed up the last few weeks, including the day of the blood test (it feels like I’m swallowing glass), but I don’t feel it is particularly “urgent” with everything else going on right now;
My body might be showing signs of inching closer to diabetes thresholds, which they always test me for given my family history and my weight, but the test comes back negative generally except for occasional anomalies in the bloodwork — but when they poke further, it comes back clean;
My cholesterol levels, or thyroid, or something similar have spiked, but I suspect if so, it is again temporary; and,
The big potential scary one is last on my list, as I asked them to check some of my protein levels. A couple of my lymph nodes around my neck have seemed more swollen of late; if my wisdom teeth aren’t active, then my tonsils are going wonky; my cluster headaches have increased (maybe just due to my increased weight); I’ve had a bit more cramping, gas and bloating of late; and as I noted, I’m having a bit more breathlessness / winded than normal (also likely weight-related). Almost all of those symptoms point to other things as more likely causes, but what the heck, I had them check my protein levels since we were doing the blood work anyway.

And while the appointment tomorrow is nice to have scheduled, I fully expect that any anomalies they found in the bloodwork will just result in more tests, so I won’t necessarily get answers tomorrow. Just another step in the process.

That’s it. It’s not a pretty story, and I don’t have an ending yet. But I like to be honest about my sharing my experiences, where I can. Basically, in the end, I don’t have the body I need to do some of the things in retirement that I want to do, so I’m upping my maintenance regime. I just wished it didn’t stress me out so much, only intending the pun slightly. But I did get to try free manscaping, so there’s that.

#50by50 #35 – Build my blog – 1000 posts, 1M words

August 14 2018

Back in April 2016, I reached a milestone for my blog — 500,000 words. I was pretty happy with that although, to be completely candid, it’s not that impressive considering I’ve had some form of a website since the early 2000s, and some email-like blogs before that too. But I reached my 500K goal just over two years ago.

This past week? I hit 1 million words and 1000 posts or pages (with this post).

Over the last two years, I’ve expanded my efforts, blogging a lot more regularly and on different topics, building various pieces as I went. My HR guide isn’t done, I keep getting distracted by some other issues, but it is the most active area visited by people. Second to that, of late, are the astronomy posts, particularly for alignment of the Celestron NexStar 8SE which is a bit finicky. I also get an inordinate number of people visiting one of my book reviews — a Jeffrey Archer short story collection — and if I am interpreting the hits correctly, most of them are doing so because it is on some sort of ESL curriculum somewhere that is used by a LOT of students, hence search engines lead them to me.

But I’ve also expanded into other categories…I stopped being quite so pure in my categories (I used to force-fit my posts into single categories, now I allow them to tag multiple categories), and I have 23 broad topics:

Astronomy (36 posts)
Book Reviews (145)
Civil Service (22)
Computers (80)
Development (27)
Experiences (119)
Family (94)
Goals (168)
Governance (23)
HR Guide (69)
Humour (67)
Ideas (39)
Learning (77)
Libraries (5)
Music Review (9)
Photography (27)
PS Transitions FP (13)
Publishing (28)
Quotes (82)
Recipes (18)
Spiritualism (17)
Television (149)
Writing (21)

That adds up to 1335 posts, but in reality, this post is only # 963. I have another 37 pages on the site such as indices for Book Reviews, TV Reviews, contact stuff, PS Transitions, etc. and of course, the index for my HR Guide.

I have somewhere around 90 posts planned already, and some basic research done for another 200 probably. And that’s just maintenance. I want to start blogging about retirement planning, stress management, and libraries (and no, they don’t have much to do with each other).

But for now, I’ll take my 1000 posts and pages and 1M words and pat myself on my head. I had wanted to blog more often than I was, added it to my 50by50 goals, and the extra 500K words in about 2.25 years seems pretty good to me. Around 200K per year. And that’s not me trying to get individual totals up, i.e. I’m not padding my posts, that’s just being more prolific on more topics, and where I’m interested, not trying to limit myself to 500 words (I thought about doing that, but not really my style…could I get more readers with shorter punchier posts? Sure, but I wouldn’t like the resulting copy.)

Is anyone reading? The short answer is yes. I used to average single digits to my blog per day; since I started blogging more prolifically on topics like Phoenix and telescopes, my hit rate is north of 50 per day (my new normal) and the site regularly pushes the 150 to 200 mark. Not bad for a personal site with no click bait or ads.

#50by50 #29 – Make a photobook – Update

May 16 2018

A little over three weeks ago, I blogged about doing a Year-in-Review book on Shutterfly and submitting, then waiting. The book arrived, and as with a previous book by them, there are some parts that underwhelm. There are a few places where I feel like the printer colour ran a bit. Not enough in this case to send it back (I had the previous one reprinted), just enough to mildly notice.

I was also looking to do a Trip Book for the family trip to B.C. back in 2010. These ones are similar in size to the Year in Review ones, I like the 8.5×11 inches size in landscape mode, but they didn’t have to be identical. And after checking out a bunch of sites, I decided at the end of the post to go with one of Shoppers / Loblaws / Uniprix (they have the same interface software).

Except then I didn’t. I tried loading Costco, just to try it, and this time it worked. Perfectly fine. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Shutterfly, far fewer layouts and themes, or stickers, but still pretty solid. It was however a lot easier to see the full suite of what was available all at once than it is in Shutterfly, where the full list can quickly overwhelm you (20000 backgrounds????).

It is a bit harder to compare the books. The travel book is thinner than the Year ones, but overall, it turned out pretty well. I even found some of it simpler. I’m letting my wife figure out if there is a difference in quality before I do more. The timing with Costco is certainly far more controllable — printed in Canada, picked up in Canada, etc. I got it way faster than the Shutterfly book, and no printing glitches either. But I’d be hard pressed to say the quality of the covers is as solid. Nice, but not quite as good. I just don’t think I care about the difference enough to stay with Shutterfly. However, Shutterfly has some sweet deals regularly, and I don’t think Costco does. Not that I’ve seen so far, anyway.

But I’m happy with the Costco book, which is the bottom line.

The PolyBlog

My view from the lilypads

Category Archives: Pondside Planner