Week 6, Run 3

Last night's run was a barefoot 6.2km, and... educational.

The biggest lesson I learned was in preparation. My distance for this run was going to be a new peak for me for this year. As a result, I had to expand my route. I'd drawn up on a map what looked like a good route, and proceeded to follow it.

My feet weren't ready for what I threw at them. It wasn't the distance, it was the terrain that doesn't show up on Goole Maps. Several blocks of new construction means a mix of nice new sidewalks, and nice new sidewalks covered in debris. Then there's the older houses which have sidewalks made rough by years of erosion. And then there were sections where the just was no sidewalk where I expected it! My only choice was to share the gravel littered street with vehicles. Not fun.

Because of my feet, I ended up cutting some of my intervals short. It was supposed to be 3 minutes running, 1 minute walking, 10 times. A few of my runs were 2 minutes and a few of my walks were 2 minutes. But some of my runs were 4, and I did about 13 intervals in total. So I think I made up for the 2 or three cheat intervals.

As this is my 5th run using RunKeeper, I can now start seeing patterns in my results. It looks like my first and second intervals are by far my fastest. During these intervals I actually reach my goal speed of 10km/h. Based on my notes, it seems the longer I maintain that pace during the run, the more likely I am to refer to it as "brutal". In other words, I'm not quite at the point where I could sustain that pace comfortably. It's hard to be building up distance while also trying to increase my speed. Things will get better. I'll be making sure I pack my VFFs when I'm uncertain about the terrain. My goal of finishing the Sun Run in an hour is higher priority than finishing it barefoot. Besides, FiveFingers get enough funny looks and comments already.

Week 6, Run 2

Last night's run was decent. It was raining a bit, so my GPS results are a little wonky. The increased humidity also made it hard to keep cool.

It had been raining most of the day, so everything was quite wet. Wet feet are soft feet, and soft feed get chewed up by street running, so I decided to run in my black/orange KSOs which I haven't worn much. They're a bit thinner on the sole than the Trek, which was good, but I also noticed they were a little heavier. I'll probably continue to run in them when it's too wet for barefoot.

This run was basically the same as my last solo run, minus one interval. My pace was every so slightly faster, based on how far up the hill I got before my last interval was over. I actually felt so good at that point, and was so far from the house, that I threw in a few minutes more running. It was good. I'm getting a good idea of what kind of pace I'd need to meet my 60 minute goal time for the Sun Run. At this point I'm not able to sustain that speed for long enough. Maybe on a flat route, and after I've warmed up, I could keep it for a few kilometers, but certainly not 10. But hey, I'm only at the half way point, so I've got lots of time to build on that distance!

Second Barefoot Run

Just ran my second barefoot run of the season. Finally a good run, and it was 8 intervals of 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk. So one interval short of my run last Sunday that was so rough for me. I'm seriously considering showing up for the next group run without shoes because my feet are handling the distance so well. I've got 7 weeks to go my feet are already good for at least 4 of the 10km of the Sun Run.

You can get all the details from my RunKeeper activity log.

Oh, and it was another nice night run at 5C/41F. That is officially my most comfortable temperature for running. Not looking forward to running in the 30s.

Learning to Run

For anyone interested in the program I'm following for training for the Sun Run, you can get the LearnToRun10k PDF.

It's a great 13 week program to take you from non-runner to being able to complete a 10k. I can't compare it to any other programs because it is the only one I've ever done, but it worked for me last year.

I'm following the same program this year since I didn't run nearly as much after the Sun Run as I'd have liked. I'm also doing it in Vibram FiveFingers this year, so that's a good reason to use a gradual build up program.

I highly recommend this type of training program for anyone interested in getting into running. It may be hard at times, but by the time you're half-way through the program you'll feel like a runner. And by that I mean you'll start to crave your run.

First Barefoot Run of 2010

It's funny how restarting something you've done before can be new ground...

I transitioned to running and walking barefoot and in Vibram FiveFingers last summer and am familiar with that process. Getting back into it, however, is new to me.

I just got back from run 2 of week 5. My goal is to do my mid-week runs on Tuesday and Thursday night, but that hasn't been working as well for me as I'd like. Oh well, better a day late that skipped.

According to the Weather Network, it's 5C/41F outside. Perfect for me. It was a 5 minute warm up walk followed by 8 intervals of 2 minutes run, 1 minute walk, and then finished off with a 5 minute cool down walk before stretching. I carried my pair of black Treks in my hands expecting to slip them on after an interval or two when my feet started hurting or get too cold. I ended up carrying them the entire time!

It was another brutal run for me, effort wise. I felt sluggish and tired for almost the entire time. The hills are particularly hard on me this year. Either I'm pushing myself harder this year, or I've fallen further than I thought from my peak. In either case, this is the tough period. I'm looking forward to it getting easy again like it was near the end of last year. I'm also looking forward to doing it at a faster pace than last year.

In addition to easing back into running in general, I guess the only other thing I need to watch for is how much skin I'm wearing off. Now it's time for a shower and thorough foot scrubbing before crawling into bed for the night. Hope my feet are still happy when I wake up.

First Barefooting of 2010

Nothing big, just a quick trip down the block to put a letter in the mail. The ground and air were the perfect temperature for me. Overcast, 7C (45F).

The biggest surprise to me was how natural it felt after wearing shoes (well, FiveFingers) for the last 5 or 6 months. I expected it to feel like the first time, with my feet overly sensitive and my gait feeling awkward. Seems my feet didn't go back to sleep like after the first twenty-something years of wearing shoes and there was no sensitivity problems. As for my gait, I'm giving the credit to Vibram for the design of their FiveFingers line of "shoes".

I'd been dreading the re-conditioning I'd have to do in order to add barefoot running to my Sun Run training, but not so much now. Things are looking up in barefoot land.

Not Quite Barefoot

My group run on Sunday was brutal, but it shouldn't have been.

We started by walking up a not so short hill and then proceeded to run 9 intervals of 3 minutes running, 1 minute walking. This should not have been so hard. In fact, it normally wouldn't have been. But we had special guests. The UBC race-walk team. We had them come with us last year, and it had the same effect.

It seems being in the presence of people who walk 20km in less than 90 minutes makes some people run faster. Did I mention these are world class athletes? Ya, as in half of the top 5 fastest men and women in Canada. People who hold current national and continental records for race walking... But I digress.

What made this run so brutal was actually the pace at which we walked up that first hill. I'm prone to shin splints. I had a problem with them during last year's training, but my switch to VFF/barefoot running after the Sun Run made them a thing of the past. But walking with any speed over any distance has always triggered them for me (and probably always will). And it did, with a vengeance.

So I started my first run interval up hill, with shin splints, and at a pace that wasn't maintainable. The result? I was limping by the 5th interval and ended up walking through the 6th running interval. During this time I went from the front of the group of 70+ runners to the back. My cardio was not the problem, it was the pain, which lead to total mental failure. I knew it was a mental limitation, and that's the only reason I was able to force myself to run the last 3 intervals.

Our route was shorter than the intervals so we ended up running our last interval on the track and then cooling down by walking around the track. It was at this point I decided my Treks were too warm and took them off. I felt almost immediate relief! I was truly shocked. I didn't even know my feet were being constrained by my FiveFingers and had actually tightened up. My feet immediately spread out over the cold track and released all their tension. It felt so good, in fact, that I actually ran a short bit even though I was supposed to be doing a cool down walk.

I already knew from experience that VFFs were not the same as going barefoot, but I'm going to have to seriously reconsider where on the curve they actually are. I think I'll start by incorporating some barefoot warm up at the start of or before my run.

jQuery Plugins

It may not look like it from my other blog entries, but I really am a programmer.

Lately I've been working a lot with CouchDB as both a database and an application server. As part of getting up to speed, I've jumped into JavaScript. Somewhere along the way I found jQuery and ended up writing a plugin.

Since I'm such a perfectionist and because I'd armed myself with some knowledge of JavaScript's good parts, I wasn't 100% satisfied with the way some jQuery plugins were written.

Below is my take on a jQuery plugin template. You can see it in action in my autoExpandingList plugin (demo). I'll probably put it on GitHub eventually, but for now it's on jsbin (great tool, by the way).

/**
 * jQuery.PLUGINNAME
 *
 * @author YOUR NAME
 *
 * NOTES/DESCRIPTION
 * 
 */
"use strict";
(function ($) {

    $.fn.pluginName = $.fn.pluginName || (function () {

        var defaults = {
            //Default configuration
        };

        // Utility functions that you use inside your plugin that
        // don't rely on per-invocation closures should go here.
        // This is also a good place to keep track of any global
        // state information that your individual plugin instances
        // may want to make use of.
        // This is your plugin function, what people will call
        // with $("li").pluginName(...);
        return function (settings) {

            // Settings are cached per selector/invocation,
            // not per affected element. This is a bit of a memory optimization.
            // If you need/want your settings to be per element,
            // just move this line to inside the each() below.
            settings = $.extend({}, defaults, settings);

            this.each(function () {
                //Cache 'this' because it may change with scope,
                // depending on what you do below.
                var that = this;

                /* Insert your special sauce here.
                 * Perform your operations on 'this' or 'that'
                 *and it will affect each element in the selector.
                 */
            });

            // This is important in jQuery land.
            // It allows chaining. Even if you don't make use of chaining,
            // people using your plugin may.
            return this;
        };
    }());
}(jQuery)); //Pass in the jQuery object by name in case $ is used

Some other things that I found to make things better were JSLint (which the above template passes) and js-beautify (which was used to format the above).

js-beautify had a small bug where it would make things ugly if you were using an empty object literal ($.extend({}, defaults, settings)'), but a one-liner patch was all it took to clear that up and I've already submitted it and had it applied, so it's ready for you to use!

I've also been teaching myself Python, so maybe I'll have some posts on that in the future as well. And maybe some thoughts on CouchDB.

Barefoot Followup

So it's been a little while since I talked about my barefoot adventures. I've come to a few conclusions.

Being barefoot is awesome, but having to carry shoes around for when public transit officials tell me I can't ride the train barefoot is a pain in the [expletive].

Vibram FiveFingers are very comfortable as an all-day, everywhere shoe and attract far more positive attention and next to no negative attention.

As you can imagine, FiveFingers are what I've been wearing lately. I managed to go a solid few months barefoot and my feet were getting quite tough. There were very few surfaces that I found uncomfortable, and none that I walked on regularly.

For my Sun Run training I've been running in my new FiveFinger Treks. I find the sole to be a little thick for my liking, but I love the leather they used for the rest of the shoe. I took a long break from running barefoot and pseudo-barefoot because it didn't feel right. I did some more research while I took my break and found I'd ignored one really important point.

Relax. Seriously, let your legs from the knee down go almost limp. Don't try to position your foot so you land on your forefoot. That was my mistake. If your knees are bent enough, your foot will land forefoot first. Let your feet relax too. If they are tense, you'll hurt yourself.

In other barefoot related news, I've finally converted my wife! Partially, at least. She's now wearing her own pair of FiveFinger KSOs and enjoying them. I've been watching closely to make sure she doesn't repeat any of my mistakes, like starting off too aggressively or running wrong.

Since I'm not keeping my Sun Run training a surprise this year, I'm going to try to post regularly about my progress. Stay tuned..

Great Week

I've had a few things going on lately and this last week seems to have ended on a high note.

My project at work paid large dividends over Thursday and Friday. I was able to get a couple week's work done in only two days thanks to my design decisions early on in the project. I love it when a plan comes together.

In fitness land, I finally got in both of my midweek runs for my Sun Run training. This was week 4. I'm still disappointed that things kept getting in the way, but I'm very happy that I was able to fit them in this week. I'm already at that point in the training where I'm finding it difficult to hold myself back and not over do it. I'm hoping to expand my route next week to up the distance to 2.8km/1.7mi from 2.2km/1.4mi. It's a small increase, but it should be. I'll expand it the week after that again I think.

And then there's this other project that I've been working on. Let's call it Project With A View. The most recent meeting I had about it was a blast and was a great way to cap off the week.

Actually, that's not quite how I capped off the week. We found a babysitter for Arland and I went out for dinner with my wife. Sorry, Project With a View, the wife wins.

I'll see if I can write up a couple other entries to follow up on some things in the near future. Tie up some loose threads from previous entries.

Barefoot Experiment: Lessons Learned, Questions Asked

Continuing on, as promised, with my thoughts on life without shoes: What are some of the problems with going barefoot? What kinds of things have you had to work around that you didn't expect?

Obviously, there are some problems with going barefoot. If there weren't, I like to think most people wouldn't wear shoes. It turns out that shoes are deeply ingrained in our society. (Wow, really?) I'm speaking of what is generally referred to as the Western World, here, as that's where I was born and where I continue to live.

What kinds of daily activities are different for barefooters? Well, visiting people is different. You know the ritual. You come in the door, scan for a pile of shoes and promptly add yours to the pile in an effort to keep the carpets clean. But what if you can't take your "shoes" off? The most popular and clever solution I've heard is baby wipes. You can wipe your feet off at the door and enter without leaving black foot prints all over the place. Brilliant! In my own home, I'm lucky enough to have exterior water faucets at every entrance. I now wash my feet whenever I come in the house and whenever I leave the house. Especially on my way out to visit someone. My feet get hardly any dirt time when they go from a clean puddle to the car to a clean driveway. It also helps to have a few extra layers of skin on the soles of my feet, so I can scrub them off on the sidewalk and door mat before going in.

Other fun observations: Not all floor tiles are the same temperature. Exposed aggregate driveways are rougher than crushed gravel. Lotion that claims to soften feet actually softens your feet (whoops!).

I'll sign off with a question I've started asking people in response to them claiming bare feet were dirty...

When's the last time you washed your shoes?

Barefoot Experiment: Why?

In my last post I referred to going barefoot as an experiment, but I didn't put a lot of effort into explaining what I meant by it.

I am, generally speaking, a minimalist. I do crazy things like never wear a jacket unless it is below freezing. To me, the effort of carrying around a jacket all day and keeping track of where it is is a pain in the butt and something I'd rather not do. So instead, I condition myself to go without. Similar, I don't like being weighed down by heaving shirts and warm pants that will inevitably be too warm to wear indoors, where I spend most of my time. So I condition myself to be able to wear shorts and tshirts most of the year. No, I don't live in Florida. Yes, it does snow here in the winter. I am one of those few people who know what kind of traction sandals get on ice and in snow (actually quite decent).

Imagine my glee when I discovered that some people put shoes in the same category as I put jackets. Part of my minimalist nature is questioning things that others see as normal. If I only need a jacket if I'm cold, is there some other way I can manage the problem of being cold? If the human foot when millions of years without shoes, are they really needed? If the human foot is as well adapted to walking and running as the evidence seems to indicate, what would happen if I kicked off my shoes for a while?

The common question other barefooters and I often get is "Why go barefoot?" To me, this question is the first sign of a misunderstanding. The question, as far as I'm concerned, really ought to be "Why wear shoes?"

In my quest for answers, I determined that I actually had no reasons of my own. I hate when that happens. The main reason I wore shoes was because I always had and so had everyone else I knew. That's a pretty lame excuse, right up there with "because!"

Why else wear shoes? Safety is a pretty common one, and also hard to ignore. The modern world has a lot of hazards for bare feet. Glass, nails, discarded needles, dog crap, etc. Well that's a bummer, I already found plenty of reasons to wear shoes. Time to adjust the question. If shoes are needed, what part of the shoe's function is really needed? A quick look over my list reveals: a sole. That's not much of a shoe. Once you bind that to your food with something you've got some form of sandal. Interesting. Is that the best we can do? Sandals are kind of thick soled and numbing, though, so maybe there's something better. Leather moccasins? That'd do the trick. Surely the human race has discovered or invented something better than that though. Oh look, an Italian company did, years ago. Vibram FiveFingers are a modern solution to my problem. A thin rubberized sole with just enough covering to keep the sole on. And the sole is so minimal it does absolutely nothing but protect your feed from little sharp things and scuffing. Sweet, problem solved. As a bonus, they're also light, which goes perfectly with my shorts and t-shirt habits.

Part of wearing such minimalist shoes is watching where you are stepping and adjusting your stride based on the excellent bio-feedback from your soles. I made a couple interesting observations during my first month of wearing my Vibram FiveFingers KSOs. First, my feet were losing their sensitivity. I could no longer feel the small details that at first were almost overwhelming. In hind sight, that should've been expected. The second observation was the breakthrough, however.

I saw hardly ANY of the barefoot hazards I was afraid of! I saw some broken glass at a bus stop, and.. actually, that's it. In a whole month, I saw one single hazard, and it was trivially avoidable. Well now... this might change some things. Some of my assumptions were wrong! Time to re-evaluate my decisions on footwear.

Taking into account what I'd observed myself and what others' had described of their experiences, I decided to take the plunge.

The result: I haven't found enough reasons yet to put my shoes back on. At least not full-time. I do wear shoes, of sorts, for certain occasions and locations. Since I'm such a minimalist and pragmatist, I follow Barefoot Moe's advice on backup footwear and I now carry a pair of $2 flip flops in the lower pockets of my shorts. In my case, I use these backup shoes for places that ask me to wear shoes and in public washrooms. Surprisingly few restaurants actually ask patrons to wear shoes. Equally surprising was that local public transit seems to require shoes (even though they don't post it anywhere but claim to). I went through a rebellious phase before realizing it was just too much effort. Especially since the point was to put less effort into my footwear.

What's next? It's an ongoing experiment. As new data is collected, I am regularly re-assessing the situation. I even have my next set of questions and challenges lined up! What about winter? If freezing is my threshold for wearing a jacket, what is my threshold for wearing shoes? And if I do need shoes, what is the minimum required shoe to address ONLY the temperature problem?

Next time I'll ramble on about some of the things I've learned and questions I thought I'd never ask.

My Latest Experiment: Living Barefoot

A couple months ago I read an article about the lack of science behind the modern running shoe. A lucky find in my random surfing. I sent it around and my friends and I talked about it for a bit and mused about what the ideal shoe would be like. Well it didn't take long to discover that several companies were already working on the ultimate minimalist shoe.

In short order I'd found a local retailer for Vibram FiveFingers and had a shiny new pair of KSOs to run around in. It didn't take long to wonder if I could wear the shoes full-time and with that curiosity came more surfing and searching. I was amazed at the number of people around the world who had sworn off shoes entirely, never mind the whole minimalist shoe concept. I was intrigued, to say the least.

I never did like shoes, and it was as if I'd suddenly been told I was right all along. Ya ya, don't believe everything you read, I know... but that begs the question of why do we wear shoes in the first place? I've always been one to question the status quo, so I did. As of this writing, I haven't worn shoes (flip flops, actually) for more than a few steps inside restaurants and public bathrooms in the last month. And that was after a full month of wearing my KSOs full-time.

My feet have changed shape, and I have started developing muscles below the knees the average person has no use for. When I say my feet have changes shape, I'm serious. After wearing KSOs for a few weeks, my Airwalks and New Balance runners started feeling very different. Tight across the toes and forefoot. Almost too tight to put on and certainly too tight to wear for any extended periods. At this point, I can honestly say that I don't even know if my "normal" shoes even fit me anymore!

Where was I? Oh ya... searching the intarwebs..

While in search of local barefooters (running, hiking, whatever!) to meet and learn from, I stumbled upon Al's meetup.com profile, which had a link in it to the Living Barefoot website. There I found forums and a small collective of barefooters from around the world. It's only a few months old, but it sure seems to be picking up in popularity. Oh, and how awesome is this, they are putting together The Living Barefoot Show. If the teaser is any indication, it promises to be a killer show.

After finding several excellent websites about the ins and outs of going barefoot, I was eager to find something in print. I soon learned that, at that time, such a book was mere weeks away from publishing. Born To Run is one of the best books I've read, on any topic. Granted, I don't read a lot of non-programming books, but it's still true. It's an excellent account of the author's journey into the world of ultra-running, minimalist footwear, and the idea that humans are actually natural born distance runners. As it turns out, that first article I read that got me started on this path was actually one of the chapters in this book.

So, if any of the two or three people following this blog have any secret desires to liberate their feet or even just meet some cool people, stop by the Living Barefoot Forums. I post as "Ryan".

If you're looking for great blogs by people on the forums, Barefoot Moe, Tina, and Barefoot Michael are all very active on the boards.

Time For A Change

I've been getting the itch to write again, so I'm starting to jot down notes and ideas for future posts. My first thoughts about the process are what topics and what is my purpose for writing. I think I'll approach it as an experiment, and that ought to cover both questions.

This won't be a proper experiment following any sort of establish method, but more of an open ended self-study. I've got several completely unrelated interests which are different enough that they really ought to be separate blogs. I'm not interested in spreading myself far enough to have multiple blogs, especially when I can't write enough to write for this one regularly. So... the answer to the first part is that I will write about any topic that comes to mind.

The purpose will be two-fold: to scratch my writing itch and to see what my interests really are. After a year or so, or a few dozen posts (sounds daunting already), I'll review what I've written and see how well my topics line up with what I think are my actual interests. I suspect I'll be making heavy use of tagging, or labels as blogger likes to call them. I'm pretty anal about categorizing things consistently, so you'll probably be able to filter out the noise by subscribing to specific labels if that's your thing.

So, to those that have found my little blog through barefooting, worry not, I've got plans for that topic. For those that have found this blog through programming/Linux, I've got plans there too. For anyone else, you're either a family member or a stalker. In both cases, I'm sure there will be enough personal news to make the blog worth following.

And I'll try to keep the meta-blogging to a minimum, I promise. I wanted to make an exception this time more as a commitment to myself.

So until next time, keep your feet bare!

Talkin' 'bout My Generation

Wow, I had no idea I was part of a generation who's parents have blogs. I just found out this afternoon that my mom has a blog under the name of her business, Bits 'N Pieces. Crazy.

I like the randomness of her first post. She's using it as a companion to her online stores, which she seems to have a lot more of now than I remember her having...

There's knitted and crocheted stuff at her Bits 'N Yarns store at Etsy, her awesome quilting stuff at her Bits 'N Threads store (also at Etsy), and then a Bits 'N Pieces store over at iCraft.ca. All this will keeping her corner of Creative Company full for locals and tourists in Merritt, BC.

So you see, there is very little reason why you don't already own something made by her.

Wonder how long before my dad has one...

Edit: Damn, she's even on Twitter.. I'm not even on Twitter!

Job Change

...but not changing company. I'm still at Fortinet.

Now that I've finally figured out how to describe my job to non-technical people, I go and change teams. I'm moving from development (on the main product) to configuration management (covering all products).

Guess I better start working on how to explain that one to people. CM is such a niche, most IT people don't even seem to understand it. Hell, I probably don't even understand it entirely myself! Then there's the dirty looks I get from some developers. The kind I gave to developers moving to QA (yes, such strange people exist). Maybe it's the office, or maybe it's CM in general, but it's not seen as prestigious as being a hard-core C monkey. Maybe it's a mistake, maybe I'll move back to development after a year. Who knows.

Should be some moderately interesting times. Hopefully not in a bad way. With some luck, I'll have more energy for coding at the end of the day though. And that can't be a bad thing.

Breaking things

Found this draft while writing my previous entry.

My style of poetic wit. May it inspire you in stressful times.

When you find yourself juggling too many things,
take the easy way out...

Drop a few on the ground and laugh at them
after all, laughing is good for the soul..
..but be careful, broken glass is bad for the sole

To avoid hurting your feet, maybe you're better off
jumping on your furniture while you laugh at what you've dropped
surely no one will hold you to your commitments then
...and the ones holding you while you're committed won't expect much of you either!

New Habit

It seems I've picked up a new habit thanks to the Notes feature in Google Reader. Instead of taking the time to write a thoughtful response to an article I read, I just add a sentence or two of commentary to the items I share.

In other news.. Google Sites is now open for general use. I've been waiting for this, and it's really exciting for some reason, but for the life of me, I can't remember what the fsck I wanted to do with it! Oh well, at least I won't have to wait when the inspiration comes again.

KDE4 to the Rescue!

I my last rant I complained about stupid right-click behaviour. I updated my KDE4 install to the latest 4.0.2, so it was time to give it a spin for a day again. Well, lo and behold, KDE4 does not have this messed up behaviour.

I've been using KDE4 for a while, on and off. Unlike, apparently, a lot of other people, I've followed KDE4 development since it was first announced. I didn't have the unrealistic expectation of a finished product. Because of this, I've been ecstatic with it, and 4.0.2 is a good example of progress. I can't wait until 4.1.0 comes out, when KDE-PIM will join the team. I recently upgraded my 3.5.x install to 3.5.8, which includes a branch merge of some really nice "enterprise" features and polish. Very nice, I can't wait.

Why? II

This one has been a major source of irritation lately, as I keep accidentally closing programs because of it...



If I right-click on any of these systray items, a context menu pops up. This is a wonderful feature and I use it extensively. The problem comes in when I release the right mouse button. That's right, unlike any other right-click menu, which persists after letting go of the button, these menus disappear. But wait, it gets worse! When you let go of a button, it activates whatever menu item happens to be selected at the time. You know what menu item seems to be at the bottom most of the time? Exit.

Not only is this inconsistent, the inconsistency isn't even consistent! (say that 5 times fast, I dare you). Of all the apps running in that screenshot, one of them isn't a native KDE app. Guess which one doesn't suffer from this problem? Skype. Skype actually behaves sanely.