Dad's new walking toolsI have to admit I have been struggling a little with a lot of very little things over the last month or two. It is almost a perfect storm:

  • The kids are moving three thousand miles from home to go to college.
  • My day job company is just about to deliver on the first (really hard) product so I will start on a new, big project that does not require 60-80 work weeks.
  • We lost Lorena’s father(Grandpa Lauro) which did a pretty hard reset on my priorities.
  • I have delivered a ton of new functionality to GaugeCam so my work there will probably just consist of bug fixes for at least a few months and probably a year or so.
  • I am fatter and more unhealthy than at any point in my life.
  • A few months back it seemed like a good idea to “finish” this blog and go on to something else, but I can’t bring myself to do it.  The problem is I realize I do not have anything very interesting to say.

So yesterday, when I was feeling sorry for myself, I decided to try to do something about my weight and health, so I went out for a five mile walk.  About half way through, I realized I was getting a sunburn on my bald head, so I stopped and got some walking tools (a ball cap and some sunglasses) displayed in their full glory in the obnoxious selfie accompanying this post.  This morning, I got up early enough before Sunday morning meeting to walk to MacDonald’s for some oatmeal.  Before I left, I downloaded one of those walking applications from my Samsung S3 (My Tracks by Google) and used it.  It is very cool, but the only direct place to post results is to Google+.  The stats, map, and graphs are cool, but Google+ is not really where I want to post them.

So, I think I got a short reprieve.  It is possible to send the walking results as a CSV file to my Google Drive.  So, to keep me interested in continuing to walk and for a short-term project, I think I am going to try to write an application that takes the results of the My Tracks app from my cell phone and posts them to this blog.  That will give me a little more time to think about what I want to do with the blog, find some new, bigger projects on which to work, get a little healthier, and get my act together again.

Betty Blonde #132 – 01/16/2009
Betty Blonde #132
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