Well, my gaming channel is still living up to its name: Unfashionably Late.

I figured out last week’s issue with the glaring white TV screen:

This is why you test things first!

As it turns out, simply turning the TV’s backlight down solved that problem. No other changes in setting required.

There is still the matter of the room’s ambient lighting (curtains closed for sake of consistent lighting, but with no overhead fixture my only light sources are movable lamps like the one placed behind the camera in the above photo), and I can’t help but wonder if it’d be worth getting a bigger TV for the purpose (which would first require a bigger entertainment center), but the current setup will do while I continue to explore my options.

But the lighting is not the reason for the lack of footage this time around. Instead, I was once again distracted by things that shouldn’t have been distracting under the circumstances.

On Monday, I was told to expect my nephew to come over at some unspecified later point so I could help him with his homework. Instead of getting into a workout and risk the occupational hazard that is being interrupted while I’m recording (forgetting, as always, that these workouts are only a few minutes long so that risk is practically non-existent), I watched some movies with my parents while I waited, and waited, and waited some more for him to let us know that he was done with whatever needed doing at home so he could come over.

He never came over.

And on Wednesday, I spent most of my “not sitting on my butt” time running all of the errands I would have done on Monday in between my planned workouts had I not been waiting around for my nephew, in addition to the ones I would normally do on Wednesday.

That doesn’t mean I spent all of my free time sitting around, though. While I still need to work on sticking to the plan for my camera-recordable games, I have gone out on each of my days off and walked another session on Zombies, Run, though my walking speed was somewhat dependent on how icy my road was.

The introductory chapter and the next workout were fairly simple, in terms of weather. The roads were clear, very few patches of ice to navigate, things like that, and my pace was typical of what I walk in the summer. The “w1w2” workout required a bit more care as I kept having to backtrack slightly, alternating from presumably clear pavement, to presumably clear patches of ground on the side of the road, to simply walking on top of the piles of snow. The final workout for the week was the worst, as all of the ground, visibly clear or not, was slippery enough to send me sliding a few times before I regained my footing.

For the record I was wearing trail shoes the entire time. I bought them a couple of years ago to keep my feet dry when I go for walks when it’s raining out, but the soles have proven worthwhile for winter walking… as good as my nicer looking boots, anyway.

There is one matter of safety that needed addressing, however. Each of these times I was going outside, walking up and down my road, in light that was dim or foggy due not to the time of day but entirely to the weather. There have been some days that are nice and bright out, but for the most part my walks have been in questionable conditions… grey winter skies, grey winter coat, not really the best combination.

So I needed to find a reflective vest of some kind, maybe even lights that I could use for added visibility.

I didn’t want anything super special; a simple reflective vest, large enough that I could throw on no matter what I was wearing, would suffice, but finding something wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. Nothing in my store’s sporting goods department (they had plenty of hats and sweaters, but no vests), nothing in hardware (not unless I wanted to take a reflective strip meant for mailboxes and attach it to my coat). When I finally found a bandolier-style vest with straps made for attaching lights, I thought it was perfect!

Until I tried it on.

One size fits all… unless you’re wearing a coat.

The worst part wasn’t even the fit. The worst part was that my dad had to attach the velcro fasteners for me because they’re behind me (seriously, why did someone think that was a good idea?) and I couldn’t reach them with the coat on (not sure if I could reach them without the coat on, to be honest), and relying on the elastic to let me take it off without undoing the velcro resulted in the velcro undoing itself without anyone’s help.

I finally located the more traditional variety of safety vest, easy to fasten and more than large enough to fit over my coat, in my store’s apparel department. I may still visit a sporting goods store to look for other options, but that one will do until I find something I like better.