Hospital Joy

Today, I was at the law library doing some research when my cell phone starting going wild. Dorey was in an ambulance being taken to Kaiser. She had passed out after giving blood. Her blood pressure was 70 over 50. So off to Kaiser I went to sit with Dorey while she was filled with fluids. Thankfully, she is now back to normal, and at home. I was able to sneak out for a few minutes to get in some walking.

So the stats: Yesterday, I walked 11,324 steps. As of this moment, 7:12 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30, 2009, I have walked 61,084 steps in five days.

Note: The picture is from a small village near Dorey's hometown of Red Wing, Minnesota.

Monday, June 29

Just the stats, ma'am. Yesterday, I walked 11,454 steps. As of this moment, 8:39 p.m. on Monday, June 29, 2009, I have walked 49,431 steps in four days.

Note: The picture is of a closed general store in Ontario, Canada, taken in October 2008.

Hot Sunday Afternoon

Summer hit the San Francisco Bay Area yesterday, which makes for poor sleep and is a poor walk motivator. I walked yesterday morning before it became hot. Last night, however, I could not sleep. So my thought about getting out the door at 6:00 a.m. before the heat became unbearable died out. I finally arose at about 6:45 a.m., and strolled through the neighborhood for about an hour, finishing half my walk.

After church, the temperature was 85 degrees. I came home and walked in the house to finish the day's walk. Now I am sitting around, doing nothing.

Today's stats: Yesterday, I walked 13,581 steps. As of this moment, 2:08 p.m. on Sunday, June 28, 2009, I have walked 37,919 steps.

The picture is of our neighborhood in much cooler times--January 2009.

First Kiss

Today's stats: Yesterday, I walked 13,814 steps. As of this momement, 11:22 a.m. on June 27, 2009, the second day of this 1,000,000 step walk, I have walked 26,707 steps.

This past week, a couple of celebs have died: Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. They were strangely in my past, although I rarely thought about them. Charlie's Angels was becoming a hit my freshman year of college. I never watched it, but I could not escape the poster of Farrah in dorm rooms. I wasn't impressed then--she wasn't my type of gal.

I was out of touch with the world during the "Bad" phase of Michael Jackson's career--kids, graduate school, and starting a career--but the Jackson Five certainly provided a backdrop to earlier days. I was in the Sixth Grade. A few of us, boys and girls, including Robin Lancaster, were sitting in Chris Empky's backyard. Robin had lived in Alaska, and had experienced the big earthquake there in 1964--so she was exotic to us when she moved into our town. During that wet February Friday afternoon in Chris Empky's backyard, I reached across the great divide and kissed Robin. The Jackson's Five's ABC was playing in the background. "Sit down girl I think I love you/No, stand up, and show me what you can do." A nice kiss and nice music. I wonder if Robin thought about this moment when she heard that Michael Jackson had died. Wwhere Robin is now? Now Robin was my type of gal.

The picture is of a bench along the path we walked this morning.

Day One (Round Two)

We celebrated the end of the first million step march by going to Fentons last night. I had the caramel sundae with Swiss Milk Chocolate ice cream. It was terrific.

So now on to Round Two. As of this moment, 8:48 a.m. on Friday, June 28, 2009, I have walked 10,758 steps on my first day.

Done

Today's stats: Overall, as of this moment, 6:16I have walked 1,000,000 steps in 90 days. Yeah!

Tour de France

First the stats (and why doing the stats first will make sense as you read the rest of the post). Yesterday, I walked 11,463 steps. Overall, as of this moment, 8:41 p.m. on June 24, 2009, I have walked 995,323 steps in 89 days.

I love the Tour de France. Actually, I don’t know anything about the Tour de France, other than it is a long bicycle race. But I love the final Sunday of the Tour de France. Saturday is the last true day of competition, and Sunday is spent in a short bike ride into Paris. It’s bad form to compete on that day, so the riders ride, sipping champagne and taking the cheers of the crowd.

Tomorrow is my Sunday at the Tour de France. The competition is over. I will have made my 1,000,000 steps in 100 days. In fact, I will have beat that aim by 10 days. Tomorrow, I am going to get, take an easy stroll, walking off the last 5,000 or so steps. Since I don’t drink alcohol, I will celebrate with my drink of choice–Diet Coke. As I walk, I will accept the accolades of the people who stand there watching me walk. (Ok, it is a rather small and puny crowd of no one). That night, I will celebrate by going to Fenton’s Creamery, and eating the biggest Swiss Milk Chocolate and Carmel Sundae that exists.

Friday morning, the celebration will be over. I will be back out there, walking my 10,000 steps, hoping to reach 1,000,000 steps in 95 days. That means that I will need to average 10,507 steps per day. That’s an extra three minutes a day. How am I going to do it?

Oh, come on, Jon. Worry about that Friday. Tomorrow is to celebrate.

The picture was taken in Regents Park in London in October 2007. It has nothing to do with the entry, but we were walking through Regents Park on a Wednesday afternoon when we ran across this sculpture. I guess the guy is relaxing, which I plan to do tomorrow after finishing my walk.

New York City, Part Six

Stat for today: Yesterday, I walked 10,534 steps. Overall, as of this moment, 7:24 p.m. on June 23, 2009, I have walked 981,803 steps in 88 days. Getting close to that million mark.

After the tour, we hopped on the subway. We had a problem on the subway. Make that two problems. No, make that two and a half problems.

Problem Number One: We had purchased all day subway passes. I put my pass in, but the turnstile stopped halfway through the lot. Now here’s the problem. You can only use your all day pass once every eighteen minutes. It makes sense, to limit the use to that time frame to avoid fare jumpers.

But I am claustrophobic. And I could see myself caged in this turnstile for 18 minutes. I was scared to death. I pushed my fat body out of the turnstile and was on the outside. Now I would have to wait 18 minutes before I could go through the turnstile again.

Problem one-half: I could not wait 18 minutes. I was at that moment having severe stomach cramps, and was silently farting up a storm with every step I took. I needed a bathroom immediately. I know that I would not be the first to pull down my pants in the Union Square Subway Station to take a dump, but I did not wish to join that throng.

Problem three: So I decided to spend the two bucks to get a new ticket. I reached into my pocket and my wallet was gone. Great, it’s lost, and I am going to have to cancel my credit cards, etc as soon as I get to the hotel, but I can’t get to the hotel because I don’t have any money for the subway, and pretty soon, I am going to either poop my pants or get arrested for public defecation and I won’t be able to prove who I am as I have lost my wallet and I am going to spend the night in the drunk tank near Union Square, and this is not how I planned the weekend.

A lady walked up to the turnstyle just then. She reached down and picked up a wallet. Who is this, she said. It’s mine, I shouted. She looked at me as if I were some stupid hick from Arkansas overwhelmed by the big city. Other than the Arkansas part, she was probably right.

She returned the wallet, but made us hold her flowers as she fished out her subway ticket. Fair deal, all in all. I bought my ticket, and we headed to 42 Street Station to find our hotel.

Usually when we go on a trip, we are very organized. We have everything printed out, sometimes twice, in a nice folder. Not this trip. We failed to print out our hotel room information and had failed to print out our plane tickets. I guess we were adopting the theme that we were going to be irresponsible on this trip.

So we called Marriott to find out where we were staying. They were not all that helpful. They told us it was a Courtyard on 40th Ave. After getting off the subway, we walked into the first Courtyard on 40th Avenue we came across. We asked if we had a reservation there. The guy behind the desk looked at us as if we were hicks from Idaho. He, too, was right, except for the Idaho part. His computer did not have us staying there. He recommended that we walk up a block and a half where there was another Courtyard. It was a long block and a half, especially with the silence gas passing going on between by legs.

We went into this one, and, joyfully this is the Marriott in which we were staying. But not before yet another person–the guy behind the desk–looked at us as if we were hicks from Indiana. All these looks were deserved.

The room was small–European small. Further, the hotel itself was funky, built in a building which had C shape. There were only about 7 rooms per floor, and it was not a tall building. It was not a great room, but it was ours.

We went into the room, and I was able to relieve myself. We showered, and I relieved myself again. We then took care of some fun stuff. We then decided if we did not get out the door soon, we would fall asleep until morning. We left for a walk around the Times Square area.

Note: The picture was taken on Coney Island.

New York City, Part Five

Spumonis was kind of a fun spot. It was clear that this is the area where the families of Brooklyn lived. Families with kids in little league uniforms were eating outside on the warm day. Lots of the folks were Italian, and I heard some Italian being spoken there. One guy that sticks out in my mind is a fat guy treating three little girls to ice cream. It was the perfect, stereotypical Brooklyn picture.

At Spumonis, we ate lunch with a couple of gals who lived together in Brooklyn. Nice gals. They lived near the botanical gardens. One was an occupational therapist who worked in Manhattan. I can’t recall what the other gal did. We gabbed a lot about San Francisco, where they had vacationed in the fall. They also said that while that had lived in Brooklyn for four years, they never came out toward the area where Spumonis was, and had no idea that this sort of stuff living went on out there.


After Spumonis, we were back on the bus, and riding out to Coney Island. Coney Island is in the American consciousness, even if you have never been there. I recall reading a book, It’s Like This Cat, about a kid who rides his bike out to Coney Island to meet a girl. I always wanted to go there since reading the book. And now I was there.

Unfortunately, not much of it is there any more. There’s the ferris wheel, and the Cylone roller coaster, a few restaurants, but little else. Someone has apparently purchased the area, and is planning to bring it back as an amusement park.

We headed through a section of Brooklyn which is now largely populated by Russians. We then went down a street which seemed to change ethnicity block by block. At that, we crossed the bridge back into Manhattan, and our tour was over.

Walk stats: Yesterday, I walked 13,909 steps. Overall, as of this moment, 6:09 p.m. on Monday, June 22, 2009, I have walked 970,030 steps. Note: The picture is of the Coney Island Boardwalk.

Father's Day Post

Yesterday, after our morning walk, Dorey and I went to the local farmer’s market. We picked up some bread, carrots, celery, oranges, and balsamic vinegar. Dorey went off to attend a baby shower so Christian and I went to see Year One. I fell asleep in the warm theater. I don’t think that I started to snore too loud, as I don’t recall Christian poking me.

I have never been much of a sleeper. Most nights, I wake up at about 2:00 a.m., and am up for a couple of hours. I then go back to sleep, and sleep until about 6:00 a.m. At night, I am so exhausted that I often hit the sack about 8:00 p.m., taking an hour or two to get to sleep.

I wish there was something that I could do to change this sleep pattern, but I have followed it since I was a teen. My siblings follow the same pattern, so there must be a genetic component. When we get together, we talk about the reruns we watched on Nick At Night. We praise the advent of Hulu, which helps kill those early morning hours. We talk about the books and magazines that, blurry eyed and without much comprehesion, we read in our futile attempts to go back to sleep.

You would think that all this walking would help me stay asleep. Nope. If anything, I have a more disturbed sleep pattern with the walking. My legs ache at 2:00 a.m. in the morning--worse than anytime during the day.

All this to say, sometimes when I am sitting in a warm movie theater, my head nods and I get comfortable. Then I sleep, a deep REM sleep. Nothing I can do to fight it. Any why fight it? It’s often the best use of my money.

Here’s my stats: Yesterday, I walked 13,743 steps. Overall, I have walked, as of this moment, 959,945 steps in 86 days.

For Father’s Day, here’s a picture taken a couple of years ago of the two that came from my loins Thanks for being such great folks, Christian and Kate. And Happy Father's Day to my dad, Bob, and to my father-in-law, Les, now deceased.

Elementary School Walk

This morning, Dorey and I walked around the neighborhood. We came to an elementary school, a place we have driven by nearly daily over the past 12 years. Our kids did not go to this school, so we had never walked around it. The corridors were open, and we trekked around the place.

I was struck with how small the school was. When I was in elementary school at Woodside Elementary in Concord all these years ago, the place seemed so huge. It and the cul-de-sac on which we lived was my world. Now I know that my world was so small.

My friends and I would go to play on the blacktop on Woodside Elementary on Saturday mornings. For several Saturdays, we would catch a young couple--probably no more than 15 or 16, spread out on a blanket in one corridor of the school spread out on a blanket making out. Our basketball game came to an end as we watched these guys go for it--whatever the mystery of it was. One week, they were not there, and we resumed our basketball. Actually, the couple provided a better education than anything I learned on the basketball court. Walking this morning through the elementary school, the couple could have been there, perhaps giving me a masters class on the subject. They weren’t, though, dang it.

Actually, even though they will be 16 forever in my mind, that couple would in their mid-50s now. I wonder if they ever told their kids about making out in the halls of Woodside Elementary School in Concord, California.

Today stats: Yesterday, I walked 12,351 steps. Overall, as of this moment, 8:54 a.m. on June 20, 2009, I have walked 945,039 steps in 85 days. Note: The picture was taken of our son of a couple in Rome. At least they, unlike my elementary chums, were upright.

Sitting Around

And I wonder how I became so gigantically huge. This morning I was up at 5:00 a.m., and had walked my 10,000 steps about 6:20 a.m. Since then, I have walked a whole 400steps. Ok, I have been working at the computer all day, but still. You think that I would have put on a few more steps just going to the bathroom. I can be pathetic.

Anyway, yesterday's stats: Yesterday, I walked 10,839 steps. I have walked 930,496 steps in 84 days. Today's photo: Another butterfly at the butterfly conservatory. These big blue butterflies were hard ones to photograph with their wings open. I was really lucky to get this sucker to stand still. Maybe he was dead. In any case, nine months later, he is dead by now for certain. But always in our hearts and photos.

Stats

Today, it's only stats, folks. I walked 10,450 steps yesterday. As of this moment, I have walked 919,832 steps in 83 days.

Note: The picture is from the Butterfly Conservatory at Niagara Falls, October 2008.

Today, I went to the Marin County Courthouse to attend a settlement conference. I like going to this courthouse, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed building. It reminds me of field trips when I was a kid where we would walk through the courthouse, supposedly impressed but mostly bored, and then going outside to eat lunch and feed the ducks. Today was especially nice because my client was a terrific, friendly, easy going guy. And we settled the case.

Today's stats: Yesterday, I walked 13,706 steps. As of this moment, 6:53 p.m. on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, I have walked 909,100 steps in 82 days. Note: The picture is from the Monterey Bay Acquarium. No reason to include it today except I think the jelly fish in the jelly fish tank are great.

New York City, Part four

First, the statistics: Yesterday, I walked 10,816 steps. As of this moment, 1:01 p.m. on June 16, 2009, I have walked 896,815 steps.

Now back to New York.

As we walked around Union Square, we came across the Falun Gong group performing a public display. Rows of men sitting on the ground doing exercise movements. One guy–must have been a new recruit–kept going the opposite way of the rest of the folks on the square. We became intrigued watching whether he would get into following the rest of the group. Never did, as he kept his eyes shut. I would have peeked. Maybe that’s why I am not on the ground in Union Square doing movement exercises with the Falun Gong group.

We walked over to where our tour–the Slice of Brooklyn tour--was supposed to depart just off of the square. A few people were already there, but no bus was present. We waited, not very long, for Tony and the bus to arrive. We left on time.

Tony was a great guide. He grew up in Brooklyn and has an affection for it in only the way that a native can. Several years ago, my aunt Linda, who grew up in Salt Lake City, drove us around the town one early Sunday morning. She kept pointing up sites--places that had meaning to her that she was able to impart to us. That's where the polygamous family lived. That's the house where the man shot his wife. It was a wonderful trip.

Tony was just like Linda with Brooklyn. We passed a theater, and he told us about sneaking into the theater to his first R-rated movie, Saturday Night Fever. We passed his high school, and he told us about making out with a young gal. He made Brooklyn come alive for us.

We started by taking the bus from Manhattan to Brooklyn, crossing the Manhattan Bridge. We drove through the Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge overpass) area of Brooklyn, to the Brooklyn Bridge Park. There we were able to obtain views of both the Manhattan Bridge, with the constant El train crossings, and the Brooklyn Bridge, with its view of the Manhattan skyline. We then hopped back on the bus, and went to a waterfront area, and up the street to our first pizza joint, Gribaldis. It was a Neapolitan pizza, with a thin crust baked in a coal burning brick oven. A nice pizza, but both Dorey and I agreed that it wasn’t Freddies.

At lunch, we ate with two couples from Louisiana. Dorey mentioned that we would be going there in September. One of the women, who was, I suspect, completely drunk, started giving us all sorts of recommendations for the trip. She would have been nice, but she was so loud and pushy that I wanted to push back. Her husband and friends were embarrassed to be seen with her.

We then hopped back on the bus, and drove through Brooklyn, seeing some of the sites of Brooklyn. Mostly this was a site seeing tour of nice homes. After an hour or so, we stopped at our second pizza place–Spumonis. Spumonis made a Silician pizza in pizza squares. It’s alleged secret is that it puts the cheese on top of the bread and then puts the sauce on top of the cheese. The sauce was sweeter than Gribaldi’s, and hence I liked it better. Best of all would have been to put that sauce on the beautiful thin crust of Gribaldis.

End of this part. The picture is of a guy waiting on the Brooklyn Pier.

Nothing but stats

Nothing but stats today: Yesterday I walked 10,365 steps. Overall, as of this moment, 6:23 p.m. on June 15, 2009, I have walked 884,990 steps in 80 days. Note: The picture is of Laugharne, Wales, in December 2003. Now getting there was a long walk.

Lazy Sunday

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I am too tired to update more of our recent trip to New York City today. So here are the stats:

Yesterday, I walked 13,035 steps. In total, I have walked, at this moment, 4:33 p.m. on Sunday, June 14, 2009, 874,094 steps in 79 days.

I am starting to get the feeling of closing in on the million steps. It's the same feeling I had several years ago. We were living in Los Angeles. We were driving up the I-5 on a Friday night to visit my family in the Bay Area. We could listen to KQED, the San Francisco public radio station, conduct its pledge drive. They hoped that this would be the last night of the pledge drive and would need to earn just under $20,000 that night to reach their pledge goal. It became hypnotic to listen to the station that night trying to reach the goal. That's how I feel about reaching the 1,000,000 step goal. It's hypnotic.

The picture is of Niagara Falls--the Canadian Falls--which are in their own way hypnotic.

New York City Part Three

Last night, Dorey and I went to see Cal Shakes' production of "Romeo and Juliet." It was one of the greatest productions of the play that I have seen. This production was dressed in modern day--Romeo and Juliet go to the O.C. This worked because Romeo and Juliet come from wealthy important families in Verona, just as Newport Beach has wealthy, important familes. The kids from this type of family are often kids filled with ennui--everything is available and still they have nothing to do. These families also have older hanger ons--guys such as Mercutio and Tybalt can't seen to live town and away from their teenage days. The evening scene where Romeo and Juliet meet was a wonderful dance scene--teenagers playing with adult emotions of sex and longing. The problem with the play is how to make Juliet become an adult while at the same time making her remain a 13 year old girl. This Juliet hit this tension exactly right. I never forgot her age. Terrific stuff.

First the stats, and then New York City, Part Three

Stats: Yesterday, I walked 12,767 steps. As of this moment, 1:04 p.m. on Saturday, June 13, 2009, I have walked 862,025 steps in 78 days.

New York Part Three (and finally we get there):

At about 6:00 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, I woke up, pulled up the shade, and looked out the window. I saw daylight. I thought that we would be over the Great Plains, because the trip was supposed to take about 5 ½ hours. However, looking down, it became clear that we were getting close to New York City, as there were a lot of houses. About 15 minutes later, the pilot came on to wake us up to tell us that we were beginning our initial descent into JFK,, and that he expected to land in about a half an hour. He explained that we had a strong tail wind pushing across country, taking about 45 minutes off of the trip. No one seemed heartbroken.

Because we were going for only two days, we packed only backpacks for this trip. We stopped in the restrooms at JFK, and brushed teeth, etc. Dorey gave me a leftover instant tooth brush from our last trip to England. It’s much better when it’s fresher, but still, it did the trick.

We worked our way over to the Air Train, which goes from the Airport to Jamica Station. We were tired, and confused, and sort of fuzted around, getting on and off the train, trying to find the right one. A woman from San Francisco was also trying to find the station. She was going to lower Manhattan. She had flown all night as well. During the last week, she had purchased a small house in Marin County. On and on she went. I stopped listening after a while, and was not sad to see her go when she hopped off a stop before us. Once we arrived at the Jamicia Station terminal, we found our way into the City.

We were headed toward the Union Square station, where we were going to pick up a tour of Brooklyn. We arrived at Union Square at about 9:00, two hours after we had left the plane. So we did a lot of futzing around in the subway.

As we rode up the elevator, we came upon a great farmers market. Lots of beautiful flowers were out–I thought they were for Mother’s Day, but someone later told me that the Farmers Market in Union Square always had flowers. It was too early for fruit, but many vegetables were available. Several farmers also brought honey from upstate New York. If we were not hoofing it out of town the next day, I would have bought some stuff. But I didn’t because we were.

After a quick tour around the square, we decided to eat some breakfast. We walked around, trying to locate the spot where the bus would pick us up. In so doing, we ran across a Blimpies ran by some Puerto Ricans. We had an terrible egg sandwich for breakfast. But the place had a restroom, so what did I care. We ate, and still had an hour to go before our tour began, so we returned to Union Square, and walked some more.

Just outside of Union Square, several blocks had been shut down for a market. We walked down the street, viewing the wares and taking pictures. One booth was selling scarfs, and we bought one for Dorey for $5.00. I became intrigued with the dresses being displayed in the air, and tried to obtain a good photograph of these dresses. I didn’t succeed.

It was Falun Gong day on the Square. I was able to get the above picture of the group out on the Square.

New York City, Part 2

Working and walking is my life. So back to New York, part two.

After the clean up was complete, Christian fixed spaghetti, and Dorey walked Ariel, who could finally be persuaded to come off of her perch. At about 7:00, we left, stopping by the Borders bookstore to buy the new Cash Peters book. We were going to take BART to the airport, but once we were out of Borders, I decided that I would rather have Christian just drive us to the San Francisco airport. We were there at about 8:30 p.m., for an 11:00 flight. I am nothing if not early when I fly.

We were flying on Virgin America for the first time. I decided to fly this airline because the tickets were cheap, and I had heard many good things about the airline. Last summer, we were in an art store buying some stuff for the float. The cashier, a young 20ish kid, said that he had flown Virgin to the East Coast and thought it was a great trip–a unique airline. I was then sort of excited to try them out.

Virgin America is housed in the international terminal of SFO. So we had to see all these people going to really great places. We, too, were going to a great place, but we didn’t need a passport to get through security. Dang, it put a damper on the excitement of the trip.

We found our gate fairly quickly, and I started my seven trips to the restroom. I always take about that many trips to the restroom before I fly. I sit by the window, and I don’t want to upset anyone to go to the restroom. So I try to expel all my water long before that. I also try to cut down on my water for a few hours before the flight, just to make sure. But it was warm, and I drank a bottle of water in the airport. So I probably went to the restroom about nine times in the two hours we waited before boarding the plane. I had completed by 10,000 steps for the day by the time I reached the airport, but the trips to the bathroom added about 3000 more. Dorey, who had walked around the island that day, had about 18,000 steps when we left. She, however, does not go to the bathroom as often as I do, and only had 20,000 steps when she entered the plane.

Another bathroom issue–one of these trips to the bathroom, I tried to empty my bowels. I placed the sanitary paper on the seat before sitting. As I stood up, a small piece broke off, and became stuck to my pant top. I was walking around the airport with a sanitary paper tail. Dorey discovered it before too long, but I felt as if I was walking around with this beaver tail for a period of time at the airport. This was rather embarrassing.

The plane was happily on time, and we were able to get off the ground. Virgin America–so far, so good. Actually, the airline tried to be a little too hip. The captain came out of the cabin and waved to us. The standard safety precautions was a little too stylized. The flight attendants had a bit of a smug attitude. It is an great airline for hip, art students who work in art supply stores.

But the plane had inflight TV. What more could I want. Plus, the guy sitting next to Dorey was able to move up a row, even though it was supposed to be a row that cost a few dollars more. So Dorey and I sat next to each other without the worry that Dorey would drool on the passenger next to her. After the flight attendant came through with the drink service, I fell asleep, listening to This American Life on my I-Pod. I slept most of the way across the country, waking up every so often to turn on another episode of the podcasted radio show.

End of part two, and we are still not in New York City. How endless is this story going to be.

Anyway, today's stats: Yesterday, 6-11-09, I walked 11,094 steps. As of this moment, 1:15 p.m. on Friday, June 12, 2009, I have walked 848,340 steps in 77 days.

The above picture is an engagement picture of Kate and Jacob taken by a great, young wedding photographer, Valarie Porter.

New York City, Part One

Over the Mother's Day Weekend, Dorey and I went to New York City. We walked a lot during that weekend. Here is part one from my journal. You are in for a long haul if you read these entries, as this is only part one and we haven't left our home yet.

Before the summary, however, here are today's statistics:

Yesterday, I walked 10,097 steps. As of this moment, 7:40 p.m. on Thursday, June 11, 2009, I have walked 837,654 steps in 76 days.

Now Part One of what will be an endless travelogue:

We are back after a wonderful weekend in New York City. It was an escape weekend. We told no one where we were going or what we were doing. We just went.

The weekend did not start out that great. I left my office at about 3:00 on Friday afternoon. At about 4:00 I pulled into the driveway. There was water pulling down the driveway. I thought it was no big deal, though, perhaps Christian [our son] had washed his car. I opened the garage door, and water was in the garage. I still did not get it. Then I walked into the house. Then I got it. There was about an inch of water covering the wooden floor, and the water was seeping into the carpet in the living room.

I looked around for the source of the water, and heard the washing machine running. Apparently, the washing machine had failed to shut off once the machine was full with water, but it kept pumping water. It overflowed and was quickly spreading I ran in the laundry room, and shut the sucker off.

A second hit then came. Where was everyone? I yelled out for someone to come to down, but no one was home. Christian and Dorey were both supposed to be home, but only the dog barked. Interestingly, the dog, who is the most enthusiastic greeter, had not met me at the door, but had not been there this day. She hates water on her paws, and decided to wait out the deluge on the landing.

I was on my own in handling this crisis. How do you get an inch of water out of the house, and out of the house as soon as possible, because the wood floor and water is a bad combination for the floor. I went into the garage, and found a broom. I started pushing water out of the house with the broom into the garage and out the front door.

I stupidly forgot to pick up anything in the garage that might not handle the water well, so I had to interrupt by sweeping to move some stuff to higher ground. No long thereafter, Christian and Dorey came home.

Dorey immediately started apologizing. She and Christian had been gone for just a few minutes, taking some stuff back to Holly’s house. Frankly, at that moment, we did not need apologies; we needed work. I started instructing both Dorey and Christian, telling them to get some towels. Christian brought me two face towels, which, given the amount of water, was like trying to win World War II with a pea shooter. My thought was to get water out of one spot, and then put the towels down to act as a block for water running back into the area. We could also use the towels to wipe up once the water could no longer be moved by sweeping.

Dorey ran to get more towels, while Christian and I moved the furniture. It was actually sort of a good thing that the furniture was moved, as we found things--an old rice cake, tax documents--which we did not know existed beneath the couches. Christian and I were able to get most of the water out in about 45 minutes, and Dorey was able to follow behind to wipe up any remaining water. It appears that no long term damage was done to either the carpet or floor.

During the middle of this crisis du jour, Kate [our daughter] called. I think that she just wanted to say hi. Christian said that it wasn’t a good time, and could we call her later. After the crisis had passed, I called Kate. She said that she and Jacob [Kate's husband] would be going out to see the new Star Trek movie that night. I told Kate that she was a nice woman for going. I then talked to Jacob for a couple of minutes. He said that work was slow, so he was able to take the Friday afternoon off. Classes were going well, and that they did not suck. I said that was a good thing, because when classes sucked after only three weeks into the semester, it was going to be a long semester. End of part one. The picture is of dresses at a street fair we came across in the Union Square Area of Manhattan. So we will eventually get to New York City.

A key to walking is to find a new places to walk. Last Saturday, we were headed off to Mendocino, but I took the wrong off-ramp, and headed into San Francisco instead. After crawling through the City, we finally came to the Golden Gate Bridge. I asked Dorey if she wanted to walk the Bridge if we could find a parking spot on the Marin side of the bridge. Amazingly, there were plenty of spots. So we walked the bridge. The day was warm, and the wind did not kick up, and I didn't need any jacket. That is a rarity for the bridge at any time. We saw surfers, kayaks and crew races out in the Bay. The bridge was not too crowded, so walking was pleasant. One of my favorite moments was watching a young kid take a picture of his grandfather under the sign saying slow traffic. Just a perfect walk.

Today's statistics: Yesterday, I walked 11068 steps. As of this moment, 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, I have walked 826,943 steps in 75 days.

Motivation to walk

Last night, I arrived home from work with 8,000 steps to go for the day, and no motivation to walk. Happily, Dorey pushed me out the door, and we walked the neighborhood together.

Today, I have no need for motivation to walk. I read in the Wall Street Journal this morning how airlines are plotting ways to charge fat people more for their seats. I have an economic incentive to tread the streets--just to get back at United. Question: Do these fish complain about the fat guy swimming next to them?

Today's stats: Yesterday, I walked 11,118 steps. In 74 days, I have walked 806,741 steps.

One million steps starts with 10,000 steps in a day

In March, I set out to walk 1,000,000 steps in 100 days. As of this moment, about 3:14 p.m. on June 8, 2009, or day 73 of my walk, I have walked, according to my Omron Walking Style pedometer count (highly recommended, boys and girls) 797,117 steps. I am, then six days ahead of my goal. Let the countdown begin.

Why do I walk? Because I am 49, flabby (ok, fat, but let’s not be mean about this), with a job sitting behind a desk and little opportunity to perform any real exercise. I love to travel, but I hate spreading across two seats on the ever narrowing plane seats. Once I am at my destination, I love to walk, to see the streets as the natives see the streets. I have found the travel days have to be cut short because my legs are simply aching from spending the days on the sidewalks of London, Paris, or Kauai. So I walk in anticipation of great traveling ahead. We have a trip to New Orleans to celebrate the 50th in September. Then we have a real trip to England and Denmark to celebrate the 50th in October. My legs are not going to go out on these trips.

My wife, traveling companion and oft walking companion, Dorey, is involved in a million step march of her own. We often take our nine year old greyhound, Ariel, on the neighborhood walks. She is not the best walker for walking sake. She is a bit of a botanist, getting to know on an intimate level every flower and shrub in our San Francisco suburban neighborhood.
In these entries, then, I will record my progress toward this round of the million step march. Once completed, I will record the progress of the next march.