BUY NOTHING

It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do
Hey baby, I think I will Konmari you

Supposedly that's what I said to my attic, but it's a major work in progress.  Marie Kondo is all the rage these days but I haven't read her book or watch the Netflix show.  What I've done over the years is try to give things away via Yahoo! Freecyle and more recently via my local Buy Nothing Facebook group.  "Local" or maybe even "hyper-local" is the key word with Buy Nothing.  There are Buy Nothing groups in many neighborhoods and members can be in only one such group, among a few other restrictions.  The idea is to give very locally and in the process know your neighbors better.  Find your local Buy Nothing group below and give the idea of giving locally a shot:

BUY NOTHING!

STRAVA CLUB - STRAVA ART

First there was "Strava or it didn't happen", meaning unless you can show that Strava recorded your run/walk/ride it didn't happen.  Everyone is on Strava, so it seems.  Next came Strava Art, the art of drawing pictures or spelling words using the Strava app.  Strava, the company, wanted to be more than just record people's exercise.  They want to be part of the social media phenomenon, thus born Strava Club, where like-minded people can get together and share info.  Surprisingly, there was no club for fans or practitioners of Strava Art.  So I decided to create one.  In the beginning, it was just my "GPS writing" or "gwriting" but lately there are a few good drawings of animals and other objects.  Check out my little Strava Art club in Strava at the link below

Strava Art Strava Club

PPTC GROUP RUN - LOVE RUN 2019

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote, "How do I love thee? Let me count the miles." And count the miles I did, with nine other runners.

Check out the Relive video

https://www.relive.cc/view/2134496363

From the practice run I had a few weeks ago, I learned that the "i" looks better, less slanted at the bottom, if I start the run on the side of the Grand Army Plaza arch. We would basically run along Eastern Parkway, so the closer I was, vertically, to the bottom of the parkway the better.

While doing the left side of the heart, Strava almost messed me up. I just paused it while at the intersection of Park Place, Grand Avenue, and Washington Avenue, ran around the corner of Prospect Place and Grand Avenue, as I was about to Resume, I noticed that the Pause point was actually at Sterling Place and Washington Avenue. Strava does act weird sometimes, in this case it was a block behind where I actually was. Being the perfectionist run-artist that I am, I ran back the intersection of Park, Grand, and Washington, press Resume, waited a few seconds, then Paused again. Ran around the corner of Prospect and Grand, verified that all was good, then pressed Resume. And that's how we had the first relatively rounder corner of the heart. There were many more Pause and Resume, each time I paused the run to show my running mates the progress.

Also from the practice run, I realized that I should take advantage of the width of Eastern Parkway to make a rounder bottom of the heart. It came out pretty good. The group had to be careful crossing the wide Parkway, NOT at the zebra crossing, but we did wait for red lights, so it worked out. Very worthwhile, as we all know round-bottomed hearts make the rocking world go round.

DIY I {heart} U

While I would love to have you join me at the Love Run on Saturday the 9th of February, 8:30 A.M., by Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, should the timing not good for you, here's a turn-by-turn direction on how to get it done.  One slight change I will implement is the start will be on the northern side of Union Street, where the tail of the first arrow is.  (The run starts from the green hexagon and ends at the red hexagon.)  The baseline of the letters and symbol is Eastern Parkway so we might as well start as close to it as possible, vertically.

The letter P means you pause your watch or app at those locations, then resume recording where the letter R appears.  Most of the time, the app or watch would be fooled into drawing a straight line between the two points, so we get a less blocky heart.  One time I tried to spell MISSY but Strava at the last minute changed the Y into a T, so it really happened before.  Hopefully it won't happen to you.

There ya go, have fun spelling "I {heart} U" on your own.  Some people may be able to learn guitar by watching YouTube videos, but others may need Dan Smith to teach them, so no guarantee my little turn-by-turn instruction will get you there but give it a shot and share with me the outcome.

I {HEART} U

If spreading love is the Brooklyn way, you can do it with me this coming Saturday the 9th of February.  I will lead a run for the Prospect Park Track Club that will spell out "I {heart} U", as shown below.  It'll cover about 4 miles, at least that's what Strava recorded when I did the test run last week.  I made a sleight of hand, or rather sleight of foot, to make the lines that seem to cut through the block, like the right side of the heart symbol.  I suspect Strava measured the distance along the straight line.  We'll actually run along the two legs of the right triangle, so it's a longer route.  The shortest distance between two points if a straight line, ya know?  See, who said high school math/trig isn't useful?

PPTC hosts the event but it's free to the public.  Your fellow runners may encourage you to join the club and we may retire to some cafe to grab a much-deserved breakfast, Dutch treat.  An hour or so of your time is all you'll spend.

See you 8:30 A.M. at the corner of Union Street and Prospect Park West on Saturday the 9th of February!