So let’s chat a bit about what I’ve been doing lately to keep busy, as I’m sure you’d all love to know. These dark winter months suck. I still haven’t quite gotten used to the Summer/Fall transition in Seattle. In my native Hawai’i, I seem to recall it was a seasonal variance of like five degrees, whereas here in the Pacific Northwest the changes can be measured in a 256 a gray scale gradation.
All kidding aside, it’s been a pretty nice fall up here thus far. There have been some nice and sunny, brisk days to break up the cloudy ones. It’s just that once daylight savings hits, it’s dark at like 4 PM… .
This means that the evening workouts are done in the dark, and that includes paddling. Yes, outrigger paddling in the NW gets extreme come November. Let me start by describing the gear.
- Booties. ‘Waterproof’ Kokatat lovelies that come up to the knees. And sometimes that’s not high enough, so I supplement that with:
- Waterproof socks. Gore-Tex. These smell a lot now. They may breathe, but breathing inside of a sweatbox still sucks.
- Neoprene pants. .5mm if memory serves. It’s the perfect amount of insulation for working out and the occasional splash. I haven’t had a huli (flip/capsize) yet, so I don’t know how long they’d keep me warm in a wintry lake. Here’s hoping I never find out.
- PFD. We wear these during the paddle. You don’t want to try locate and then put one of these on once you’ve hit he water.
- Long sleeve rash guard and over shirt that wicks. This keeps me warm until I get moving.
So all of that to go out for a workout. Throw in the headlamp for stumbling around in the dark, and you can imagine it’s a bit much. I hark back to paddling in high school in Hawaii. I’d run two miles to practice, barefoot and in shorts. Quite a contrast, eh?
Speaking of differences, I recently came upon a new old way to shave. That is to say I am now shaving with the tools our grandparents used. Figuratively, and soon, literally. Let me explain.
I’m not one for reinventing the wheel, so I’ll of course provide a link to Wikipedia’s article on safety razors. To me, safety razors are gorgeous hunks of old-school metal. The process of using a safety razor is quite satisfying too. Wet shaving at first takes a bit longer than the current goo in a can shaving cream, and a single pass of the latest vibrating, five bladed wonder.
It takes patience, and time. Time to learn your tools. Time to warm up your badger haired shaving brush.
It’s also time to head to bed, but I’ll write more about wet shaving when I have a moment.
Goodnight kids.