Fitbit-versary

As of today, I have had my Fitbit for one year, and other than one hike in Kodachrome State Park, I think I've worn it for pretty much all my steps. Since we all know I like to see the numbers, here they are:

• 4,681,146 steps


• 2,062.34 miles


• One day with more than 30,000 steps (Oct. 9, 2011)


• Five days with more than 25,000 steps


• 13 days with more than 20,000 steps


• 140 days with more than 15,000 steps


• 292 days with more than 10,000 steps. This was my initial goal. I was actually surprised there were that many days that I did not have 10,000, but I haven't had a day lower than 10,000 since Nov. 1 until this week. Not bad for winter!

So I figure that's probably at least 30% more activity than I was getting before I got the Fitbit. I'd say it is a success!

[Note: While I am still excited about these results, they are tempered by my less than stellar results for the past six days as my injured ankle has greatly suppressed my activities. My lowest daily total ever, 2818, was this past Friday. Grrr!]

Please Yield to Goose Fights

This morning as I was navigating my auto across our campus, I came upon a trio of gooses. Geese are very common around campus this time of year, along with goose poop, but they are usually in a large group or a pair. A trio is rare and indicates trouble. This particular trio was having a very vocal spat, and they were having it in the road. I had to yield my progress until it was safe to go into the oncoming traffic lane, leaving them to sort out their difference, hopefully in a safer location. No idea what the argument was about, but I'm guessing somebody was moving in on someone else's territory and/or goose.

Cheese Control

This is old news and I meant to post it forever ago, but you need to know about the inequality of string cheese. Just look at the variance in the five string cheeses pictured. They vary in length from 3.25" inches up to 4.5". That's craziness!

Milest00000ne

What, two posts in one day? Well, I knew I needed to start posting on the kitchen, but I can't miss sharing this milestone that was reached yesterday.

And I drove nearly every single one of those. Only 9 miles on the car when I bought it!

Plastic Bag Shadow

I was actually going to post about something else, but then this happened to me so I changed topics. This afternoon I walked to the library to return my books. I decided to put them in a plastic Walmart bag for carrying. After I dropped the books off, I walked to Lowe's and recycled the bag. [I try not to get plastic bags in the first place, but sometimes it happens and then I use them to empty the litter box.]

Anyway, I recycled this one in the bin at Lowe's. When I got home from my walk, there it was, white Wal-mart plastic bag back at my house attached to my rose bush. "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag"... is following you?

The 2010 Found Money Project

I've always wondered how much money I make from picking up coins off the ground. Well, this year I found out. The grand total of money I found for 2010 is $31.02. This includes one wheat penny, and after some spot checking, wheat pennies can be worth about $.03.

I should mention this includes a one-time haul of $20 from a $20 bill I found blowing in the Price Chopper parking lot. As it blew past me, I stepped on it and looked around to see if anyone was chasing it. No one was evident and I couldn't tell where it might have come from. Alas, I had to keep it. So perhaps this year was not a representative sample.

In other news from 2010, which does not warrant its own post, I have now flossed my teeth for 364 days in a row. This is probably more times than I have flossed in the rest of my life. How's that for great achievements?

Happy end of 2010 to everyone!

Disruptions

I am on vacation, and I did not plan to get up early today. Several forces united to thwart my plans. First, Bailey got her head caught in a plastic bag around 4:30. She proceeded to paw at the bag until I got up and freed her. I lured both of them downstairs and "let" them go play in the garage.

About 20 minutes later, after I had fallen back to sleep, the low battery alarm on the carbon monoxide detector went off. It is right next to my bed, and it beeps until you take the battery out. I don't know why that battery drains so fast, since the thing is plugged into the wall. I left it in pieces on the floor and went back to sleep.

Finally about 6:00, I woke up to find Boo (a squirrel who lives in my yard) standing on his hind legs, looking in the bedroom door, and tapping on the window. Not sure what he wanted, but at least everyone was in the garage or it would have been a wild time.

Alas, my early morning was not as restless as planned.

The Reverse Bucket List

As I've been preparing for my trip, I thought of a few things for my bucket list. As I was browsing the interwebs looking for more cool things to put on my list, I came across lots of things that people had on theirs' that I had already done.

So I had the idea to make a list of all the cool things I've already done or have happened to me as a way of reflecting on the successes and opportunities I've already had. Kinda like a gratuity journal on a grander scale. Turns out I've had more fun thinking of things for the list I've already done than what I want to do. Now, there are probably lots more places I've been that could be added, but I tried not to go over the top in that category. So, here's what I've come up with so far, in no particular order.

1. See a platypus in the wild.
2. Go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef.
3. Be in a parade.
4. Learn a second language.
5. Be in a wedding.
6. Attend a Final Four.
7. Live in another country.
8. Swim in the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Gulf of Mexico.
9. See a show on Broadway.
10. Be on TV.
11. Get a master's degree.
12. Own my own house.
13. Go backpacking in the mountains.
14. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.
15. Be in a circus.
16. Swim with stingrays in the Caribbean.
17. Go to an authentic Hawaiian luau.
18. Play three musical instruments.
19. Be a camp counselor.
20. Be president of an organization.
21. Go skiing.
22. Win an award.
23. Meet Bob Dole.
24. Go on a cross country bus trip.
25. Get Mickey Mouse ears with my name on them.
26. Learn to hang drywall.
27. Go to Europe.
    
28. Tile a bathroom.
29. Sleep outside under the stars.
30. Give a sermon.
31. Page in the Kansas Senate.
32. Ride an elephant.
33. Go zip lining.
34. Tour a brewery.
35. See a moose.
    
36. Travel by ferry.
37. Go water tubing.
38. Fly first class.
39. Read the Bible all the way through.
40. See a drive-in movie.
41. Visit the National Football Hall of Fame.
42. Take ice skating lessons.
43. Learn archery.
44. Have a white Christmas.
45. Go to a Monday Night Football game.
46. See the Penguin Parade on Philip Island.
    

I keep thinking of more things to add, and it's been a lot fun reflecting on all these things. It just goes to show that life happens when you're making other plans!

Green Day

Not as in When I Come Around and 21 Guns fame, but as in small environmental footprint day. I had to work from home today and I had the opportunity to air dry my laundry on the deck. After work I decided to make it a no-driving day and walk to the library to pick up a book I had on hold. Well, when I got there, there were 5 books waiting for me that I hadn't received notices for yet, and one of them turned out to be a large coffee table book! I opted to only take a few that would fit in my bag and pick the others up tomorrow. Go figure!

Happy Winter, I Mean Spring!

Spring is here! And so is a good 8 inches of snow, with more on the way. I went out to take a few pictures because I could see this crazy snowdrift from the window and wanted to check it out. It doesn't look nearly as dramatic in the pictures as real life.



It is reassuring to know this snow won't last forever like all the others. So if I skip shoveling the drive, it won't still be there in three weeks!

Seasonal Weather Irony

Spring is Coming

After 18 months of winter, I do believe spring is actually coming. While I do enjoy snow, I also really enjoy spring and am glad it is coming. You have to pay very close attention to all the trees and see them changing. Here is how I know spring is coming:

• There are baseball scores on my dashboard.
• I was able to walk at lunch for the first time since December.
• There are hurdles out on the track at the park.
• The seasonal nursery by my house is getting set up.
• I saw a bug on my windshield. I don't particularly like bugs, but you don't see them in the winter.
  
• It is light in the morning when I wake up, although not for long.
  
• There are almost no piles of snow left.
• I have daffodils peeking up and one crocus.

I probably have more, but that's it for now.

Guess I Lost Money

Right now Cerner stock is showing as having dropped about $16 million. Hmmmm.

Not this time!

Today, for the first time in many months, I got gas BEFORE the gas light came on. For whatever reason lately, I've been waiting for the light to make me stop for gas. Part of my theory on why - Mom always told me to never get below a quarter tank of gas, and I followed that advice for years. But the car I have now doesn't have a quarter tank mark, only half tank. So it isn't as obvious. Or maybe I'm just lazy...

Spatially Challenged

Phase 10 is complete! For those of you not tracking phases, that is the sheetrock on the ceiling. But this phase pointed out one of my most serious skill gaps. I consider myself a fairly capable person and I can figure most things out. But I am seriously challenged when it comes to "spatial" things. Not that I bump into things. But if one side of the sheetrock needs to be shorter than the other or one edge needs a hole cut out, I can not visualize the sheetrock going up to the bathroom and onto the ceiling well enough to know which side is which.

The only way I can make it work is to lay it down the exact way it will go up and face the same way. Then I can be somewhat sure I'm right, but I'm never confident enough. Now I know why Joey needs to be "in the map." (Strangely enough, I do okay with maps...)

I also now have a window that doesn't require a trash bag to cover it. Maybe I already reported that.

Clearly Not Everybody Gets It

Today I went to Target and took one of my green bags with me. They even have signs up now that say you save 5 cents if you use your own bag. I laid my bag on top my stuff and the clerk asked me if it was mine. I said yes. I turned to put the pop in my cart and when I looked back, he had put my stuff in a plastic bag and was loading it and my empty bag in the cart.

When I told him he was supposed to put the stuff IN the bag I brought, he did it, but then put the now empty plastic bag in my green bag. I took it out and gave it back to him. I'm sure he threw it away. Good grief!

How Much Does a Scrapbook Weigh?

A ton, if it is in the form of years and years of stuff waiting to be put in a scrapbook. I have, on occasion, had bursts of creativity and gone all out with scrapbooking. However, this rarely happens. Most of the time, I just continue to collect stuff in shoe boxes, waiting for the day I feel compelled to get working, and never able to find anything in all the shoe boxes.

Well, this weekend I was relieved of much of that burden. I've decided it doesn't have to all be at the level of my other stuff. I just would like it to be in order and out of the boxes. So I bought a bunch of 2 inch notebooks and now I'm working on getting everything in the notebook in order. Some things get hole-punched, some things just go in plastic sleeves.

It isn't elegant, but it would allow me to find something if I was looking for it. The three-ring notebooks allow me to add things in if I find something, or move stuff into another notebook if it gets too full. And someday, if I have a burst of creativity, I can move up to something more fancy. And the pictures stay in their photo albums.

I feel like I've been freed from the weight of all these potential scrapbooks. I still have a long way to go to get everything in, but I emptied three shoe boxes and one giant box. So here's to my new plan!

Windmills are Coming!

(In my head this is said to the tune of "Santa Packs Are Coming...")

Apparently interesting things do not happen to me now that I am not traveling, so there has been a dearth of posts around here lately.

But as I was driving home from work, I crossed over the train tracks and there was an entire train loaded with the giant blades of those huge monster-ish windmills. Each blade had its own train car, and there were bunches. Maybe they were headed somewhere else, but somebody is getting a lot of them. They are much bigger than you would think. We passed the blades on oversize trucks on the highway once and they are BIG.

I have all the Europe summary to get written, but I'm not yet motivated to do it. I should before I forget it all...

Retirement

As I have now officially retired after nearly seven years as a road warrior, I figured I spend a few minutes reflecting on where I've been. While I do not have detailed records, I estimate I have:

• Traveled through 37 airports, three of them at least 30 times (Memphis, Midway, Milwaukee).
• Traveled to 20 client sites in 13 states, including 5 in Illinois. (That doesn't seem that much when you look at it...)
• Traveled to three countries (Grand Cayman, Canada, and Australia).
• Only traveled west for work one time.
• Flown on 10 different airlines.
• Lived in two furnished apartments.
• Never missed a flight, despite two near misses, once to Canada and once to Milwaukee.
• Had four flights cancelled, three of them in Melbourne and one due to the Midway plane crash.
• Bailey and Riley made two trips during this time, one to live in Memphis and one to live in Overland Park while I was in Australia.
  
  

I have enjoyed traveling but grew tired of missing out on so many things during the week. Thanks to Bailey and Riley for their patience, and to mom and especially dad for paying daily visits to them for years. Now it is on to full-time cube life.

Milwaukee Summary

As of last Thursday, I am finished in Milwaukee. I figured I'd pull together some details about my nearly nine month stay there.

• 95 hotel nights in 18 different rooms, only having my room cleaned one day, and seven suite upgrades
  
• 31 rental cars, including 13 Ford Focuses (but luckily only one that talked)
• 31000 flight miles on 62 planes, with only one near miss
  
• An estimated 44 Midwest chocolate chip cookies
  
• A temperature swing of about 95 degrees, from January to August
• 4 Brewers games
• 2 shoe-related snafus (here and here)
  
• Long enough to see the Pick 'n Sa
  Publish Post
  ve completely remodeled and the Halloween store re-open for the season.
  
• Regrettably not long enough to see the Panda Express open in the food court.

If I think of more, I may be adding to this post. In the meantime, farewell to MKE!