Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Category: Uncategorized

  • Unwanted Pedometer Reviews

    I’ve made a real commitment to walking everywhere I possibly can to improve my endurance. In order to quantify how successful I am being I decided to download a pedometer app to count my steps. I was originally counting them without an app, but I started looking stupid whispering my current number every place I went. Therefore I deigned to test several pedometer apps and post reviews of them here.

    When looking for a pedometer I had a few hard and fast rules in mind for what I had to have:

    1. The pedometer had to be free. I was willing to accept some small, constant ads or infrequent, large ads in exchange for keeping my wallet closed.
    2. It had to work on an Android device. It is possible that the world’s greatest free pedometer app is on the iPhone (it’s not). If so, wouldn’t do me any good because I couldn’t download it.
    3. It had to specifically work on the Android 9.0 version. I know this is not the latest and greatest, but I am not upgrading my phone just for a step counting app. I downloaded a few apps that I couldn’t get to work and I think that compatibility might have been the reason.
    4. It had to work using only my physical activity data. That is the only permission anything was allowed to have. I was not giving my location data to any rando that uploads an app to the Play Store. I know for a fact that some apps I tried would not work correctly because I would not pony up my location and/or biometric data.

    Other than those above, I just wanted an app that could count steps accurately and generally leave me alone 95% of the time unless I wanted to see my daily step number. As I downloaded these apps to test them I immediately noticed one annoyance. All of these apps had names so similar it was nearly impossible to differentiate them. For that reason I will include the name, developer, and Play Store link for each app I discuss so there is minimal confusion.

    Without further ado, here are my thoughts on six different pedometer apps.

    Step Counter – Pedometer
    Leap Fitness Group

    This app requested my age, gender, height, and weight. It had an adjustable step length and the most accurate setting I could get showed 104 steps in the app for every 100 steps I actually took. There were a fair amount of full screen ads, and most of them were the annoying kind of ad like “oh no, you just downloaded a virus” that try to scare you into clicking on it instead of telling you about a product or service that may interest you. There was also a constant small banner ad on the bottom of the screen. It would have cost $11 / year to remove all the ads.

    This app made it easy to set custom daily and weekly goals and it counted calories as well as steps (provided you entered your gender and weight info). It also allowed me to see my daily step total right from the lock screen without having to unlock my phone. One cool feature with this app was that it included a lot of HIIT mini-workouts of 2-5 minutes for when you are in a hurry. For example, there was a 2 minute chest workout you could pull up that cycled through different easy chest exercises like wall pushups that could be done at home or in a hotel or wherever.

    A very solid app that did lots of things I liked. The only real drawback here was the scary ads that were a little too frequent but the bonus mini-workouts were a solid bonus. Four out of five stars.

    Pedometer – Step Counter
    ITO Technologies

    This app requested my age, gender, and weight. It had an adjustable step length and the most accurate setting I could get showed 105 steps in the app for every 100 steps I actually took. The ads were largely TikTok ads that you could skip through after it played for 5-10 seconds. There was no premium or ad-free version that I could see.

    The app let you customize theme and colors in a bajillion ways. I never gave that a second thought because I don’t want that sort of feature. It also counted not just steps but also calories, distance, and time walked. The big negative was the battery draw the app required to work. When you downloaded it there was a warning page about how quickly it drains your battery. And then while I used it I noticed my battery getting sucked dry in real time. It had a sleep mode you could use to minimize that, but then you needed to remember to un-sleep the app every time you went somewhere in order for those steps to get counted.

    While accurate, this app lacked the ability to see your steps directly on the lock screen. That is the second most important feature I found across all the apps. The huge inefficiencies in battery life also made this a less than ideal app. Two out of five stars.

    Pedometer App – Step Counter
    AceTools Team

    This app requested my age, gender, and weight. It had an adjustable step length and the most accurate setting I could get showed 105 steps in the app for every 100 steps I actually took. There were banner ads at the bottom of the screen as well as full screen unskippable ads, and also ads where the X to close it would be purposely hidden to make you unlikely to close the ad without accidentally clicking on it and opening the sponsor’s website. Their Pro plan with no ads cost $30 / year.

    The app counted steps and calories and showed them straight from the lock screen. Which was great because this app took an exceedingly long time to load. Not counting the extra time it took for the ads to get out of the way. It included a sleep logger so you could enter how much sleep you were getting and an AI “Health Pal” that I am not really sure what its actual use was. It absolutely was not able to help me with my property tax questions though.

    Ultimately the long load times and nefarious ads undercut the other quality features of this app. Two and a half out of five stars.

    StepUp Pedometer Step Counter
    StepUp Inc

    This app requested my age, gender, and weight. It had no way to adjust my step length. That was really unfortunate because this counter registered 80 steps for every 100 steps I took. It didn’t matter if I said I was 5′ tall or 7′ tall it never got any more accurate than that. It also had a serious lag on counting steps. Like, I could walk from one end of a block to the other and the number wouldn’t change. Then after I stopped it would slowly count up until it got everything counted.

    The app itself was very minimalist and bare bones, which I liked because there was no fluff and no battery overuse. It also had very minimal ads to the point that I cannot even remember any negatives from that perspective. The one thing this app would not shut up about was wanting me to go online. It constantly asked me to join a chat group and message my friends — about how much fun it is to walk, I guess.

    One cool feature was that it had “bots” that race you throughout the day. For example, if your goal is 6000 steps there is a bot that slowly counts up to 6000 during the day and a leaderboard with you and another lazy bot that goes almost nowhere, and a busy bot that exceeds your daily goals to motivate you.

    I liked the “bots” idea and the minimalist design. However, the most important feature for me is accuracy and counting only 80 steps per 100 I take was a major negative. Three out of five stars.

    Before I continue with more reviews I need to talk about two things that I saw in almost every app I tested which annoyed the shit out of me. One, so many of them counted my weight in tenths of a pound. Why do this? Who accurately keeps track of their weight to the tenth of a pound? This is the same sort of meaningless hyper-accuracy as you see in rainfall totals to the hundredth of an inch.

    Two, nearly every app I downloaded served me ad upon ad for other pedometer apps. Wait, what? Why does one step counter app try to pitch me a different step counter app? Do they think I need to run two pedometer apps simultaneously? Don’t they realize they are supposed to compete for my business? It makes as much sense to me as if I bought a six pack of Pepsi and inside there was a coupon for a free Coke.

    Pedometer King – Step Counter
    Kingbrain

    This app requested my age, gender, and weight. It had no way to adjust my step length. Despite that fact this app was so accurate it counted 99 steps for every 100 steps I took. This was easily the most accurate of all the apps I tried. Weirdly, this was also the only app that counted in discrete intervals of 9 steps. Every other app I used would count individual steps and I could conceivably end on any number on any day. 4512, sure. 5398, absolutely. But this app only counted in increments of 9. If I started walking I had to go 9 steps before it would count all 9 at the same time. While this annoyed the ever living shit out of me at the beginning, I wound up accepting it since the app was so damn accurate.

    This app had a banner ad on the top and video ads for Temu on startup. It had a premium plan that removed the ads for $5.49 / month. There were lots of notifications, if you didn’t turn them off it could get excessive. The app also showed your steps and calories on the lock screen.

    In spite of the weird counting method and overzealous notifications, the fact that it was amazingly accurate and let me see my steps from my lock screen more than made up for it. Four out of five stars.

    StepsApp – Step Counter
    StepsApp

    This app requested my age, gender, height, and weight. It also had minimal ads with a premium option without ads for $19.99 / year. However none of that mattered at all.

    This app had adjustable step length but I was not able to dial it in anywhere close to my walking stride. No matter what height I used, no matter what step length I used, it remained wildly far off from my actual steps. The closest I could get it was 220 steps registered for every 100 steps I took. I wasted an entire afternoon just walking back and forth in my apartment parking lot trying every possible setting to get it sort of close to almost accurate-ish. Never got anywhere close. One out of five stars.

    Those are my reviews of the six different free pedometer apps for Android 9.0 and earlier devices that I happened to try. I valued accuracy and lock screen step visibility more than anything else, then intrusiveness of ads and battery usage. Least important to me were customization of colors and themes and online features or anything that tried to create the feeling of a “team”. If those sorts of things are important to you, you’ll probably rate these apps differently.

    Even though I had two apps both finish with four stars, the one I decided to continue using was Pedometer King because of those most important features. I reserve the right to delete this app if it starts serving too many ads or gets annoying in some other way.

  • High Rollin

    So I’m going to do a change of pace here and post something that has nothing to do with hiking or fitness or anything of the sort. It’s allowed; I can do that. I can talk about anything I want because this is my fucking blog. I can also swear casually.

    This past Saturday I went to my first MLS game, Austin FC versus the Houston Dynamo. I had never been to a game here in Austin despite the team existing since 2021 largely for two reasons. One, I feel like MLS is equivalent to third-tier European football, which is something I have never paid to watch either. Two, I have a long-standing, entirely one-sided feud with Austin FC’s principal owner Anthony Precourt.

    Precourt is the sort of billionaire asshole sports owner (BASO) that did everything he could to ruin the Columbus MLS franchise before finally getting an expansion team in Austin. Precourt also happens to be one of those private equity dudes who seems incapable of earning money except by sucking all of the joy out of all of the small things that little people like me enjoy.

    All of that said, if the Austin MLS team was an MLB or NFL team instead I’d happily support them. The sad truth is that every BASO is a douchebag. It’s just that if you are passionate enough about the team they own you’ll look the other way until they do something so bad even their fellow BASOs cannot justify it. Jerry Richardson was the founding owner of my beloved Carolina Panthers. He was a douchebag, the sort of douchebag who puts a giant statue of himself in front of the team’s stadium. That alone was not a fireable offense as a BASO. What was fireable was being a racist, sexist piece of shit.

    Who am I kidding? That alone is not enough. The problem is that Richardson was so racist and sexist that there had to be an investigation. The results of which were so bad they made him sell the team. That is how you get fired as a BASO. Donald Sterling was a known shit sandwich but didn’t get booted from the NBA until they caught him on tape being a racist cocksucker. As long as it wasn’t on tape there was enough plausible deniability to look the other way. Once everything became public record he became expendable. See also, Daniel Snyder.

    Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs has been a mean-spirited skinflint and outright spiteful to the very fans that feed his bottom line for as long as he has run the team, but he is still a proud BASO. The Bruins are my NHL team of choice because I am a hypocrite and follow Boston despite Jacobs while loathing Austin FC because of Precourt.

    Well anyway this post is not about why every BASO is a fundamentally bad person, it is about my trip to the game. I got a free ticket from a friend who has seats in an unlimited food and drinks section at picturesque Q2 Stadium. He has two season tickets to this area. He had one free ticket because someone else wasn’t able to go. Why? Don’t know, don’t care.

    Now I’ve known this guy since college and I knew he was doing well financially, but I did not know he was doing WELL, if you know what I mean. After graduation he moved to Austin to attend grad school at UT. He was living the life of a poor college student during this time.

    I remember when the Chicago Whie Sox (my team; don’t get me started on Jerry Reinsdorf’s qualifications as a BASO) faced the Houston Astros (his team; he grew up in Houston) in the 2005 World Series we made a friendly wager. I wanted to do $50 but he said that was too rich for him so we did $20 instead. Chicago swept that World Series and I used the $20 to buy a Pale Hose cap with the World Series logo. This was back when $20 could buy a nice fitted baseball cap that now costs about $45 and is sewn together by the lowest bidder that Fanatics can find. I still own that cap even though the bill is literally disintegrating. I swore I’d wear it until we make another World Series and I can replace it. Hopefully Murakami and Montgomery and the boys punch way above their weight soon.

    The point, though, is that he couldn’t put $50 on his favorite team twenty years ago and now he is tossing fistfuls of cash at cushy seats in a swanky stadium. He also lives in a nice house in a gated community in West Austin with an 80″ television. I’m happy for him, and he is now my “rich friend”.

    So we get to the stadium ninety minutes before kickoff because that is when the gates open. Outside they are giving away free cans of Dr Pepper Creamy Coconut, which tastes just like a liquid Mounds bar. First thing we do once we get inside is head for the unlimited food area. I had some street tacos with sumac onions and tahini sauce. Then I got a Karbach Love Street to wash it all down.

    Later on, still before kickoff, I had a smash patty burger with fries, and a serving of pita chips with a whipped feta dip.

    Come kickoff we head down to the seats which are so close to the pitch I am legitimately concerned that I may get hit by an errant free kick. We get to those seats while both two-fisting beers that we sucked down until halftime.

    one fistful of beer

    Second half included more food and beers and a piece of orange olive oil cake. I’d never heard of olive oil cake before that night but I wish I had because it tasted the same way everything else did. Awesomely awesome.

    Oh yeah, and the team actually won 2-0. And they shot like a million fireworks off. And then I went back to my decidedly non-glamorous life where the food and drink is nether “unlimited” nor “delicious” nor even “passably mediocre”. But for one night I got to live like a damn hell ass king thanks to my rich friend. I have not been converted into a fan of Austin FC or Anthony Precourt just yet, but enough more nights like Saturday may change that.

  • Churning And Burning

    By this point, there is a good to great chance you have seen one of the viral TikTok videos about making butter while you run. There are quite a few out there by now, but I believe this one here is the O.G.

    @momcallsmebirdy

    Churn🧈 and burn 🔥 baby!!! We woke up yesterday and wondered “can you churn butter and run at the same time?” Well, there you have it! Is this an original experience asking for a friend. #churningbutter #farmlife #runningwhilemakingbutter #trailrunning

    ♬ suara asli – Gado-Gado Semesta (Gagas) – Visnarey

    The science behind why this should work is fairly simple. Milk is an emulsion of fats in water. Since fats and water are famous for not getting along well, it is easy to agitate the mixture enough to separate the fat from the water. The up-down and side-to-side motion of running a good distance can be used to do just that. Pour some heavy cream into a bag. Run long enough to agitate the bag sufficiently. Separate the fatty part (butter) from the watery part (buttermilk). Profit.

    With that in mind I bought some heavy whipping cream from Walmart.This shit cost me $2.96 for a pint. That comes out to $23.68 for a gallon. With prices like that I’m surprised no one is blocking a strait or something to control the supply.

    I poured the cream into a one-gallon storage bag and then put that bag into another bag. Got to double bag it to prevent any little accidents from running around nine months from now. No salt added to the bag because I prefer unsalted butter. If you disagree, you can add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of salt either at this step or after the run.

    Me trying so hard not to make the obvious jokes about filling a bag with my delicious cream.

    I slipped that bag into the back of my hydration carrier and took off. I went for a six mile jaunt around town. Once I got back I checked out the results of my exertion.

    It is tough to tell from the picture, but my results were less than stellar. What I found was something definitely solid, but not very solid. There also was essentially no separation and no liquid phase. Whatever I had made was not cream anymore, but was also not butter. I scooped it into an 8 oz container and pondered what had transpired.

    This looks like whipped cream instead of butter. But the ultimate test for any food is the taste test. So I pulled out some brown bread I had also bought from Walmart and smeared this abomination all over it.

    Buttered bread and chocolate milk. Two-thirds of the ideal post-run meal.

    Okay, it actually tasted very good. Tasted enough like butter that in a blind taste test I would have said it was butter. I have no illusions that it is butter or that I could use it in any recipe in lieu of butter, but it does have some value.

    So the whole thing was a failure but not a complete and total failure. Somewhere between “success” and “failure”. A “suck-ure”. From my past life as a molecular biologist, I know all about having experiments go tits up. The important thing is to go over what happened, do research, and try again with some tweaked variables.

    Here are some of my observations:

    • The heavy cream I used was ultra-pasteurized and contained polysorbate 80. Ultra-pasteurized cream is more difficult to separate than pasteurized cream. Polysorbate 80 is a powerful emulsifier that helps heavy cream stay as heavy cream at a wide range of temperatures and other stresses. So, you know, it basically exists in the cream to stop me from getting it to separate like I want.
    • I pulled the cream out of my fridge, shook it up for about 5 seconds, and poured it into the bag. I should have let it get somewhere between 60 and 65 degrees before starting my run.
    • I ran on only improved roads for the entire time, so my up-down and side-to-side movements were limited. I should mix in some trail running to get a good slosh going. Six miles should have been more than enough time, but I could stretch out to seven or eight next time.

    In summation, I was not able to create butter while running. Next time I try (which, I do not know when that will be) I will use a different kind of cream warmed to room temperature and run longer over a rougher trail. I also should have done three minutes of Google searching before I decided to try this. Now I need to go and clean up all this shit in my kitchen.

  • Swedish Ladder Appreciation Post

    There are quite a few outdoor gym setups all over the Austin area. Most of them have these contraptions that look like monkey bars standing erect. I never really gave any thought to what they were for until relatively recently someone I know called one a “Swedish ladder” and said they were great for stretching. Here are a couple of pictures of ladders in their natural habitat.

    I decided to look into these things a little more closely and since then I have incorporated Swedish ladders into my outdoor workout routine. I’m going to talk them up here so you might consider doing so as well.

    Swedish ladders (also called “stall bars” or “wall bars”) are exactly what they look like. They are a wide ladder with rungs up to a couple feet apart. They can optionally have a pull-up bar on top, like in the picture on the left above. They were created early in the nineteenth century by the Swedish (hence the name) “Father of Physical Therapy”, Pehr Henrik Ling. He has an interesting story that I’m not going to recap here, but I can link to his Wikipedia page and save you a Google search.

    The best exercises to do on a Swedish ladder are stretching exercises. You can grab a rung above your head and squat down to get a good stretch through your upper body. You can achieve a similar stretch by grabbing a lower rung and getting down on your knees.

    Another thing at which Swedish ladders excel is static strength moves. Obviously you can do dead hangs from the pull-up bar, but you can also do front or rear support holds. A support hold is where you simply grab a rung just above your waist height and hold yourself up in a straight position off the ground. My favorite exercises are inverted rows and decline push-ups with my feet on the rungs.

    For those of you who are visual learners and those of you who think I do a lousy job of describing exercises with words, here are two very good YouTube videos that show many different exercises being done with proper form. The first one is from VAHVA Fitness, who also have a great write-up on their website.

    Keep an eye out for Swedish ladders the next time you are at a park or a fancy gym. I encourage you to add them to your workout regime if you find them. Even better if you can pair them with rings or resistance bands.