Practice Session #22

Thanks for checking out my show notes! I’ll be utilizing this to clarify and elaborate on points that I didn’t convey as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

We record these weekly sessions on Sundays. Please note that I try to publish episodes the day after recording: Mondays. I generally will have the transcript and initial notes published on Mondays as well. From there, I may continue adding and modifying the show notes throughout the week.

I’ll be interspersing all my notes with the transcription from the audio, which will be displayed like this:

Intro.

CK: What are you doing?

Pam: Waiting for you to start.

CK: What’s your hand on?

Pam: Oh, I’m just getting my windows comfortable. It gives me anxiety to see the recording in the background. But I also need to be able to make sure that it’s still recording. Cause I get anxiety about it not recording.

CK: Alright, here we go. Heyo! I’m CK, and you’re listening to Practice. I’m your functional systems integrator, and this is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of the show, but the whole purpose behind it. I’m using this platform to practice podcasting as well as speaking in general, while espousing half-thoughts and providing unsolicited advice.

As always, I’m fortunate to be joined by my practice partner and partner in life, Pam.

Pam: Hey, that’s me.

CK: Pam is also my pattern awareness manager, and every week we talk about my progress with this practice, along with other lifestyle practices, as well as theories and ideas behind the virtues of practice itself.

Our conversations are unscripted and unedited. We’re really doing this on the fly. So don’t hold me responsible for what I say here. Make sure to check out my show notes where I’ll provide some fact checking, self psychoanalysis and commentary on things I could have done better. You may find this in more information about practice@forcesofequal.com.

Today, we’re recording on Sunday, July 26, 2020. I believe it’s our 22nd practice session. I keep forgetting to notate what session it is.

So let’s get started right off the bat with our physical and mental status. And I’ll start today by listing off my supplement protocol. And today I got totally off my routine. So I forgot to take my Qualia Mind as a nootropic. I haven’t taken any ketone – no esters or salts today. I didn’t take my molecular hydrogen.

I didn’t take anything today. I just had my morning smoothie and I’m sipping on coffee right now. I got a hot coffee going today. And I did take a teaspoon full of honey, so we’ll see how well my voice lasts throughout today’s session. And otherwise I’m feeling pretty good.

My sleep schedule this week – this past week – is kind of transitioning. So I’m transitioning off my summer nap schedule. So that’s- it shifted things, some things here and there. So I’m in that transitional phase. So there’s some work to be done with my schedule on that end, but I don’t know. I might need to take a nap today. I’m not sure.

The past two nights, I haven’t slept as much as I think I need to, but I mean, yesterday I felt fine. I thought I might’ve needed to take a nap yesterday too, but I felt fine. So maybe I can power through today and get a good full night of sleep. So we’ll see how that goes, but I feel pretty good now.

And my week’s, my week has gone well. So I’m in a pretty good mood. How about you, Pam?

Pam: I’m doing good. I just, um, went out for a two and a half mile run and ended up doing three and a half. So…

CK: yeah, killing it still. Still doing more than you set out to do.

Pam: I am. And the really big thing about it was that I did it alone today, which is the first lone run that I’ve done in months. I usually have you there as my external motivation, but you hurt your toe out at the trails on Friday So you were not able to run with me.

CK: Yeah, in terms of my physical status, I guess I forgot about that. I forgot to mention that I went- we went trail running on Friday and within the first mile, I totally bit it going downhill.

And I was- there’s a little downhill trail that meets the first climb on this trail, and I was going basically full speed.

So when I go trail running and I go downhill, I basically just let it go and let it loose, and just let my body fly. And this is pretty a pretty haphazard strategy because there’s very little control when you’re going downhill this fast. But the thing is I’ve never wiped out in my history of trail running.

Yeah. Like, I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years, maybe. Since 2011. No, that doesn’t sound right. Like, maybe 2013. So like seven or eight years.

So, yeah. Over that time of running on the trails and racing on the trails, I’ve never wiped out like this. I’ve- I’ve fallen and slipped going downhill. You know, my feet’ll just come out from under me if the hill’s to sleep- steep, and I might be going too fast and I might slide- my feet might slide out from under me and I might fall on my butt.

But this time I totally went heels over head and tumbled over. And it could have been bad, but fortunately I came out of it fine. My palms got a little scratched up, my legs got a little scratched up.

And I think what happened was I stubbed my left foot on something that was sticking out of the ground. And I- even turning back, I couldn’t really tell. I mean, there was a rock sticking out, but it wasn’t very high.

And I saw it when I was approaching. So I don’t know how I got caught on it, or maybe I just made a wrong estimation or something. Or maybe it was how the sun was hitting the rock because the sun was pretty much overhead at that time. So maybe I didn’t see how much the rock was sticking out.

But yeah, I totally jammed my middle toes on my left foot into the rock going full speed downhill. And went heels over head and totally did a couple rolls, and yeah…

Pam: I’m sad that I didn’t see it, but also glad that I didn’t see it. Cause I would have been really worried about you.

CK: It was pretty crazy because, like, time slowed down while it was happening. Like, as soon as I hit my foot on whatever I hit, I totally- like, I think I started looking back as I was tumbling to see what I hit.

And then- and then I was also thinking, “Oh, man, this fall’s not going to be good. Like, where is the best spot?”

Like, I tried to stay up, but then realized that there’s no way I can keep myself up and, like, “I’m going down.” And then, so I was, like, looking for where I can land. And, like, at the bottom it was kind of a pretty rocky area.

Pam: It’s really rocky there.

CK: Yeah, so I was a little worried, but whatever ended up happening, I was able to roll out of it… pretty fine.

Pam: There was very little blood. You were pretty scraped up, but didn’t really bleed too much.

CK: I lost quite a few layers on my right palm,

Pam: And your elbows.

CK: Yeah, that’s right. But yeah, I rolled out, and I kept running – I ran two and a half more miles. Like, I felt okay… and this is kind of- uh, I guess we’re kind of free talking already about some stuff…

But this is kind of an issue, I think with athletes in general, in terms of pushing oneself past the point of where you should stop. Especially when it comes to injuries.

Pam: Yup.

CK: And so I’ve definitely become a lot better with that, and during this ordeal, I was pretty mindful. The thing is, I felt really good that, uh, approximately one mile – that first mile – and my cardio was feeling really good, which I felt was kind of slacking the past couple of weeks. So my cardio felt like it was improved.

And so I wanted to run, and I decided that it didn’t hurt enough to stop. And I was- I felt like I was able to keep my posture and alignment straight and proper enough that my run wouldn’t affect the rest of my body in terms of compensating for that injury. So I made it through the three and a half mile trail run, and it was a good run.

I made it- I mean, yeah… I made it through. Probably- I might’ve even gotten faster than I would’ve if I didn’t take the tumble just ’cause I was more motivated to get through it, and I was chasing some mountain bikers too.

But yeah, so after dealing with what I think was a fascial issue in my right foot over the past couple of weeks, I decided to injure my left foot on Friday. And so now I’m dealing with that.

And I couldn’t run this morning. I did bust out my old roller blades. Because yesterday I didn’t get out very much because I couldn’t- I wasn’t very mobile. And so we didn’t go on our daily walks and, you know, we didn’t have our normal movement routines, while I did go downstairs and put my barefoot feet on the grass and got some sunlight.

But I was itching for some wind on my face and you know, some movement. So…

Pam: Yeah. So I’m on the last quarter mile of my run and I’m cruising down the sidewalk, just trying to get back to our complex and, you know, with the pandemic and everything, I’m trying to stay as far away from people as possible when I’m out running. And I look up and I see someone on the sidewalk and I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to have to move.”

And then I’m like, “is this tool wearing roller blades. Like why is this guy rollerblading down the sidewalk?” And then I realized that it was you. I’m like, “Oh, it’s my tool.”

CK: Yeah, I didn’t expect you to be done with your run already by the time I got out there, but yeah, you’re running too fast these days.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on with me physically. But the thing is normally, I think before I would be a little more annoyed about these ailments that I’ve been dealing with the past couple of weeks. But, I don’t know, I feel okay about it, and I’m getting through them.

And they’re- they’re obstacles, but I’m finding ways to overcome them and do other things in place. And finding other avenues, you know, that may- that I may have forgotten about, or that may turn out to be more beneficial in the end.

So like, you know, I haven’t rollerbladed for years, and remembered that I had those, so maybe I’ll take them up- take them out a couple more times this week. We’ll see.

So anyway, let’s get moving along.

Let’s move on to our podcasting segment where I talk about my practice… my process… Where I talk about my process with this practice of podcasting.

And let’s see… over this past week. Oh, so- Oh! So, last week’s session of Practice, you didn’t hear Pam except for the little bit that I edited in, in the outro.

And that’s because we had an issue with Pam’s audio recording last week. And do you want to tell them what happened?

Pam: Yeah, so as soon as I saved the Audacity file, I got an error that said that the disk was full. Which we know it’s not because we have unlimited storage on the cloud service that we are using for all of our file storage. So,

CK: And not only that, you have plenty of space on your computer too, right?

Pam: Yeah. ‘Cause so then I tried to save it locally and it got the same error. So no matter what I did, I got the same error.

And we looked on the message boards and everything, um, indicated that if you use a period in your file name, which I accidentally did instead of underscores, it will send Audacity into a loop, and it won’t be able to figure out what is happening with the file. It will basically lose your entire project.

Um, so we actually didn’t discover that the project was gone until Monday morning. After recording on Sunday.

CK: Yeah, we were worried about the file after recording on Sunday, so Pam left it up on her computer so we could deal with it when we were able to but come Monday…

Pam: Yeah, Monday. I tried everything to recover it and there was absolutely nothing that could be done. And there wasn’t actually even any, um, like waveform for the audio qas gone.

CK: Yeah, there was no data.

Pam: It was absolutely gone. And I had a total meltdown about it because, um, you know, this is CK’s project, and for me to do something that so significantly would impact the result for it really bothered me.

And it’s also a control thing, right? I felt like I didn’t have any control in this situation, and there was absolutely no recourse to fix what had happened. And I just lost it and was crying and really, really upset about it. Cause I felt really bad. And also I knew how much time that it was going to take you then to fix the episode and do whatever you were going to do.

Um, so it was- it was a pretty rough start to the week. I would say I- I felt bad for two days. I mean, I still feel bad, but it significantly affected my productivity in my mental state for all of Monday and Tuesday.

CK: Yeah, I felt really bad for you, too, because the error is really frustrating on Audacity’s part. Like, there’s no warning message or anything if you’re including a peri- period in the file name and you go to save it.

And the thing is like today we looked and you have saved previous recording sessions with a period.

And so, yeah, there’s a couple different things that I’ve seen in the forums about this kind of issue. And I don’t know if we’ve actually pinpointed the actual error or failure, whatever happened. But yeah, it’s just something that is frustrating. And, you know, you can encounter it, especially if you’re using free software, like Audacity is, and you know, there’s not like premium customer support or anything like that to get, like, actual answers.

You know, a lot of this is speculation or testing done by users. So, yeah, that, that was frustrating. But also, I mean, for me, I… I mean, I would have liked to, had to have had the audio recording and do my normal process, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.

So I felt bad for Pam because I knew she would feel bad about it. And i-. It’s, I mean, it’s not really her fault. It’s- theirs- I mean, it’s a- it’s a simple mistake that anybody could have made.

And, you know, you make typos all the time. It just happened to be in the file name and this program just happened to not be able to handle it. So, yeah, it was just a stupid, random thing that totally blew everything up.

Pam: But you handling it like this is also very new. If we were doing this two years ago and I had made that mistake, you would have been very angry.

CK: Oh yeah, it would have killed my week. Yeah.

Pam: So I still have that, um, that history.

CK: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that’s true. And I think I realized that as well, so I tried to be extra compassionate…

Pam: You were, and it was- it was very appreciated, appreciated.

So are you looking into software now that does like an auto-save or something? Like, is there anything that while we’re recording it can save or anything like that as a backup?

CK: Yeah. So this occurrence has led me down a bunch of different paths. So one of them is with the DAW or digital audio workstation. So as I’ve said, we use- we’ve been using Audacity and I also use Ableton for some of my music stuff… with, uh, Maschine, uh, which is a music plugin – VST, uh, virtual studio template maybe, or something like that.

And then I’ve also been toying around with Pro Tools, which is like the industry giant in terms of audio recording and music, and even like film and videos and audio and stuff like that. So, yeah, I’m looking into Pro Tools and I think I may go that route for are like podcasting and video stuff if we start doing that.

So, yeah, I’ve been going down the road on that end, and then also I’d like to streamline the processes with this practice podcast a little more. Because what this occurrence made me realize was that, you know, the whole point of this podcast is to practice.

Pam: To make the mistakes.

CK: Yeah, exactly. And I want to just. I mean, keep it minimum- minimally viable. So, you know, it’s just us talking for half an hour and having a conversation and reflecting on our week and our progress with our projects.

And so, I mean, I just want to keep it as simple as that. So I think I may- I’m thinking of standardizing the intro and just recording that and adding the prerecording in for our sessions. And we’ll just start where I say the date and we’ll go into our recap or our physical and mental status and stuff like that.

So yeah, I’m thinking of doing that and keeping things as easy and simple as possible with Practice. Because we’ve been doing this for 21 or so weeks now, and we have- I mean, we’ve developed somewhat of a routine. And so now I think we can make it more efficient and keep it rolling.

And so that is, I think everything that I have to say about podcasting. Um, I mean, I’m still working on little tweaks here and there.

And I’m starting to look into microphones. So we may move on from our Blue Yeti mics to something else. And, I mean, looking into these microphones are- it’s so fun for me too. And the thing is they’re so different and there’s so many.

And I think the biggest thing is you have to test them all out in order to see which one works best for you, because they all have different frequency responses and different features and everybody’s voice is different.

So, one person’s voice is going to come out differently than another person’s voice on the same mic. And then, you know, if you’re switching mics and testing out different mics, it’s going to be all over the board.

So, yeah, I’m thinking about testing out some mics, seeing where we can go from these Blue Yetis.

Um, I’ve been looking into the dynamic versus condenser situation. So these Blue Yetis that we’re using are condenser mics, which are supposedly more sensitive. So they pick up more in general, and also it’s more clear in the upper range, I believe. Versus dynamic mics, which are more targeted and are better for loud- loud noises and loud audio. So it’s better for say stage in music.

But then, you know, the technology these days has come about at such a pace that there’s very little differences between dynamic and condenser mics now, with all the features that they put in. So there’s less of a difference, whereas before there may have been a bigger difference.

So yeah, I’m looking into that. And I, you know, when I was originally looking at mics, we got these blue Yeti’s because they were one of the top consumer level condenser, mics, and I believe back then condenser mikes were a little less expensive because you didn’t have to account for rejecting background noise, as you did with dynamic mics. Because with dynamic mics and the targeted nature of them, you want to pick up what’s right in front of the mic and reject all the background noise, uh, versus condenser mics, which picks up everything and it’s really sensitive.

And so the thing is if you’re in like a home studio or a bedroom that’s untreated, or where there’s some noises, the condenser mic is susceptible to pick up a lot of that background noise. So it’s better to have a very quiet and treated room if you want to use a sensitive condenser mic.

So in that case, it might be better to use a dynamic mic, which can be more targeted to your local area and your voice and reject the rest of the background noise. But then it’s not as sensitive to your vocal quality. So does that make sense?

Pam: Um, yeah, you had me until you said that the dynamic mic was not as sensitive to your vocal quality.

CK: Yeah, because it’s rejecting- so, cause it has to do basically two things in terms of picking up your voice, but rejecting everything that’s not your voice or stuff in the background. And so by doing that, by having to reject all this other noise, it does degrade your own vocal quality a little bit too. I mean, it’s just inevitable- inevitable.

If you’re trying to reject any kind of noise. So, but the thing is like these days they put a lot of qualities in dynamic mics to make them sound more like condenser mics and vice versa. There’s qualities in condenser mics, like having a specific polar patterns where it can focus the range or the – uh, what do you call it? – the area that it’s picking up the noise from.

So yeah, it’s, it’s not as clear cut as it used to be. So there’s a lot of testing that is necessary in order to figure out what’s best for you. So… might be testing out some new mics in the near future. So we have that going on.

So I think that’s all I have about podcasting for this week. And we’re almost up to half an hour already. Let’s see we’ve been free talking about… what have we been free talking about lately? Do you remember?

Pam: Uh, you did waves and how there was a lot of waves in your life. Um…

CK: Oh, so I keep mentioning peadomorphosis and form versus function. Definitely don’t have enough time to go into those this week, but I- man, yeah, I would love to talk about form versus function.

Pam: So do it!

CK: Okay. Uh… uh… yeah, I don’t know. I need more time. But yeah, maybe we’ll just keep it there for this week.

Pam: Okay.

CK: Do you have anything else that you want to talk about?

Pam: Uh, no. Um, it’s Leo season now. So if people are feeling more energetic and active, that’s why. Sun moved into Leo on the 23rd, it left Cancer, which is a very like deeply emotional and like kind of crabby season. And now we’re into Leo, which the sun lives in Leo. That’s its domicile. So the next four weeks will be a very productive and energetic time for people.

So. Yeah, use that.

CK: Well, on that note, I have also been working on Pam’s upcoming podcast called Not Bad Advice. We’ve mentioned that a couple of times, and I’m working on the trailer now. So hopefully we’ll get that out soon and start releasing episodes. And I’m also working on the website for that and some- our other services and projects that we have going on.

So hopefully we’ll have some things to announce pretty soon here. And with that, I guess I will think the audience for tuning in this week.

Pam: Okay.

CK: And I- I still haven’t come up with like a structured outro yet. But since I’m thinking about standardizing the show and having that recorded, maybe I’ll have something for the outtro as well.

And we’ll see, you know, we’re keeping an agile adapting on the fly and. we’re doing what we want to do. We’re getting what we want to get out of this with the self reflection and just catching up with each other… and practice.

And so, yeah, I mean, feel free to hit us up. Pam, where can people find you?

Pam: You can find me on Twitter, where I am at @Pamela_Lund.

CK: And you might be able to find me on Twitter @cKdisco,

Maybe.

Maybe. Trying to get back onto that. Had a couple people hit me up, and wondering if I’m going to get back on social. So we’ll see. No promises though.

But anyway, thanks again for tuning in this week. And I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing!

To-da-loo!