Had to drop the vehicle off to get an oil change after my early morning meetings. So it gave me just enough time to run home as well as adding a couple miles as well. Not a bad day out today at all but the legs were feeling tired.
JSON to RSS for Micro.blog
This started out long ago from a post I saw from Sven Dahlstrand (@sod) where he had posted or replied to a post that he created a JSON feed that included at the bottom of each post where you could reply in Micro.blog. This was a great news for me as I got to the point where I like to catch up every now and then on what is going on in my Timeline of Micro.blog but with out some sort of sync I wanted everything to just live in my RSS reader of choice. However, I was quickly sad that my current RSS process / application (FreshRSS) did not support JSON feeds.
So I turned to searching various rabbit holes on the internet until I found what I was looking for where you could hardcode a JSON feed into a PHP script (note you have to have this running on your own server) and then it would give me back a RSS feed. This was a great start and I appreciate all the help I found from the Dave Jones and his jsonfeed2rss.php script. However, it was missing the crucial part I now wanted thanks to Sven where I could actually click on some sort of link and get back to the Micro.blog post where I could leave a reply.
So I went to hacking together from what I could figure out how to get an JSON feed from Micro.blog to somehow give me a link to where I could get back and leave a reply if I wanted. I was able to figure it out and have been running that v1.0 since back in March 2023. The only downside was that I was hardcoding my username in the script so I couldn’t really share anything out at that point. Also, I found out the discovery feed was a JSON feed too but I couldn’t quite figure out how to get that to work either.
So I finally took the time to get the Discovery Feed to work not only the main one but also the emoji specific searches. However, I was still kind of stuck at using multiple copies of the script as I was still hard coding it. Easy enough solution, more digging and figuring out how to easily hack* together a passthrough so if anyone wanted to use it they could by just including the old get at the end of a link.
The only catch is you have to have the PHP script on a web server somewhere. If you are interested or find yourself in need of a JSON to RSS script links to both version are below. Also, the list to find available Micro.blog RSS and JSON feeds is included as well.
Versions of my Hacked together json2rss Script
- v1.0 - Hardcoded user names in the script
- v2.0 - Allowing the pass through of username, discovery, or emojis
- v2.0 GitHub - Same as above but on GitHub 🤷♂️
**Micro.blog Support
05/24/2024 Update: I am going to write a little bit more on this topic I think as rereading it again as I just hit publish I think I could expand more but I wanted to keep this article intact. Since my phone issue (self inflicted last week) I have started really doubling down on only using the RSS side to consume and post to Micro.blog. More on that in another week.
Was an interesting run with the changes in weather. It went from storming (thunder and lightning) to sunny outside with blue skies (see the picture), and then back to stormy-looking and cloudy when I finished. At least the run felt good.
It is going to be a pizza kind of night after a rainy cool day. 🍕
Going to have a long day of sitting in the car today so I figured I would get up on the earlier side and put a couple miles in running. Found this nice little pond that had a paved trail all the way around it which was perfect.
Sun was shining and it was “nice” out overall for this run. I couldn’t believe how fast this little creek was running where sometimes there is very little water here. Looked neat enough I stopped to take a picture I guess. 📸
The rain from yesterday finally stopped and allowed for some cooler weather today even with the sun out. Pretty uneventful but with my watch settings a little out of wack from the reset I wasn’t sure of my pace so this run was quicker than I planned.
It was a treadmill run today due to the rain… 😑
Made the most of it and got some elevation so flipped it at a 1/2 mile of 1 elevation and then a 1/2 mile at 7. Also, I somehow was not paying attention and stopped short of 6 miles at 5.99 miles. 😱
This will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I am not going to lie this is pretty darn refreshing…
Was humid out this morning during this run. I am sure if I wouldn’t have gotten it in earlier it would get worse later today. However, I had some time in the AM before taking my son to the doctors so I took advantage of the time the best I know how.
So proud of these girls for battling all weekend. They should be very proud of what they accomplished in this weekend’s tournament and this spring season! 🏒
Got this one in before my daughter’s hockey game. She was up and ready to go and gave me a disapproving look when I said I was going to get a quick run in and told me I had 25 min to get back. I got back in 25:26 because I had to take a photo (of course) and slowed to get around a family.
Hills and Heat was the theme of today’s run. I even knew the heat was going to get to me but I pressed on and of course the sun was up high beating down on me. I was glad for the miles in the middle to be back at the Richard T Anderson Conservation Area.
Of course right before I jump on a call nothing connects… Come to find out we are having internet issues in the area. This is where I am thankful I have a little backup service for now that I didn’t disconnect from our camper. So all is good and meetings / work can continue today.
100 days an counting...
Something I didn’t do when I decided to run a 5k a day was talk about or even mention it. Thinking back I believe I told only one person over coffee one morning. 😉
Taking a step back, my goal was at first a week, then a month, then a couple of months but I never was thinking 1 year being the goal.
However, it was never a goal when I started so maybe that is why I didn’t but I know at some point I got it stuck in my brain and I could have talked about it.
So 100 days of what, well 100 days of not having a drink of an alcoholic beverage. I should be clear on the why this is interesting and I am talking about it. Honestly, it is nothing special or big grand reason as to why, I just told myself I am going to give it a try and that is what I am doing. I have been building up some millage running and I guess part of me wanted to see if it would change how I felt or recovered during the week or after long runs. So 100+ days this is my current take aways both from a good or just interesting perspective from my own personal experience (in no order):
- I noticed about 1 month into this I was very tired and exhausted, I don’t know if it attributed to this but I had a stretch that I was just tired for a good week or so straight almost like my body didn’t know what to do without. I won’t say I was addicted but I do wonder if like taking a week off of coffee (caffeine) sometimes you can get headaches.
- I think from my fitness perspective it has made my longer runs 100% easier and possibly a faster recovery after the fact.
- I have dropped 10 lbs from where I was hovering in all of 2023. Some of this I have changed some eating habits but I do wonder if that habit has been easier by not having some extra endless calories from time to time.
I guess I didn’t really touch on has it been hard ever, the answer to this is yes in fact. As I made the decision to just step away for a little while I was very cognizant that I had a week of business travel where we were with our consultants and had many dinners out. I don’t mind not having a drink but sometimes I think if the server came to me first as I was a more seniored person at the table most of the time I set the tone of not getting a drink and then everyone else followed. There was also a parent Hockey party that I feel like 100% of the time involves drinking so I did get a handful of questions as to why I wasn’t drinking anything. No one really cares but it is something to note that people do notice and you 1000% will get a question. This also was noticed but not really asked as we celebrated my birthday a while back and went out to eat with my parents. Finally, I have noticed as time as gone on and further reflection, I have kind of avoid the easy pitfall places like hockey “safety meetings” or catching up with someone after work for a drink. Both of those places I know I do not have to drink so it isn’t that at all. I think some of with this current habit change and seeing it though for a while it was easier to avoid them. I need to get this part out of my head though as I still need to be social with friends and colleagues if this experiment continues.
So that is all I have for now and as I sit over 100 days I am not going to say I might stop today or continue for another 5, 50, or 100 days. Just a reflection point for myself as it has been an interesting experiment.
This post has been sitting in my drafts since day 50 but it is well past that at this point. I think there is two reasons here: (1) I wrote it and was going to post it right away but got distracted and never really came back to it (2) I still was for some reason not sure about posting it out as I didn’t and still don’t have what that end goal is or if there is a reason to this experiment.
This run was saved by Apple Watch notifications… Well more specifically it got me to my meeting on time that forgot about as I thought I still had another 30 min so wasn’t in any rush. Come to find out I had 10 and Siri gave me the heads up in time.
Sun was really shining down for this run but ducked into the trees for a second to get this photo. Just kind of ran on cruise control today and tried not to check the watch except to see how many miles had ticked by.
I realized a couple miles in today that there was still smoke in the air from the fires but assumed it wasn’t too bad. I did get a text from my wife almost when I was done saying her school was not allowed to have kids out today due to the air quality but here I was out there running. 🫣
Sometimes Single and Double won’t do…. Obviously I needed to buy the MEGA STUF
Portland Observatory
Running the other day I ran by the Portland Observatory which is on my list to actual goto when it is open but I haven’t had a chance as it isn’t open year round.
I find older cities and towns fascinating as the town I live in doesn’t have the same type of historical story or maybe more specifically not as many older buildings still being used today. Granted there is history where I live but not to the same extent as Portland, ME (or other places). There is so many buildings I see during my wandering around Portland that I wonder what it originally was used for and all of that just like the Portland Hey Building and Portland Co. Pattern Storehouse that I only breilfy wrote about before.
So when I saw the picture above on my flight home, I decided to spend some time with this wonderful Free High Speed Delta WiFi while watching movies to do a little digging about the Portland Observatory. This is the summary of what I found.
The tower was built in 1807 by sea captian who turned entrepreneur Captain Lemuel Moody. It was constructed in a remarkably short period of time (4 months from April to July) due to the simplicity of the observatory’s design and the use of local materials and labor. Despite its quick construction, the observatory was a well-built and sturdy structure, able to withstand the harsh weather conditions of the Maine coast.
Photo Copyright of Maine Historical Society
It was a commercial venture to give ship owners a competitive edge if they paid Moody a subscription fee of $5.00 a year to alert them when their ships were arriving. With a telescope at the top he could see incoming ships from as far as 30 miles away and then could hoist signal flags identifying the vessels coming in.
This signal tower also increased the efficiency of Portland Harbor and the Observatory remained a working marine signal tower run by the Moody family until 1923 when the invention of the two-way radio made it obsolete.
The original cost of constructing it was a mere $6000 in 1807 and during the peak of the observation towers services it generated an estimated $1,000 in revenue per year from these fees, demonstrating its importance and value to the maritime community.
In 1866, the observation tower actually survived the Great Fire which destroyed much of Portland. This helped solidify the observatory as a symbol of the city’s resilience and determination to rebuild the town after the devastating fire.
The Portland Observatory is the only remaining historic maritime signal station in the United States.