Today, I lost my Fitbit.

Which isn’t really that surprising, since it was falling apart to the point that I had ordered a replacement pedometer.

Which was not, incidentally, a FitBit.

Why my new pedometer is not going to be a FitBit goes back to a complaint I’d made early on after jumping on the FitBit bandwagon: I paid $100 for a pedometer, and I couldn’t get my own data without paying them an ADDITIONAL yearly subscription.

This annoyed me. So right now, Michael is attempting to get my data for me, via this. (http://citizen-statistician.org/2012/09/30/getting-data-from-fitbit/) Because the thought of having to read and follow instructions was making my hyperventilate.

I’m not sure that the Withings Pedometer I have on pre-order will be better as far as the data goes, but I’m willing to give it a try.

And in the meantime, I found my old Omron Pedometer, replaced the battery and SHAZAM! Working pedometer!

And I grabbed my Omron database from my old computer, and KAPOW! All my old data from the three years I used Omron, right there for me to look out.

But because I love statistics and data so much, here are my Fitbit totals (this is for about a year and a half, from late January 2012 to mid-Jult 2013)

Lifetime Stats
Steps: 5,289,030
Floors: 13,470
Distance: 2,661.12 mi
Active Score: 408,160

Bests
Steps: 32,271 on 2012-07-18
Floors: 152 on 2013-05-26
Distance: 16.26 mi on 2012-07-18
Active Score: 2,280 on 2012-07-18

Steps
Lifetime: 5,289,030
Best: 32,271
7 day ave: 10,110.29
30 day ave: 9,725.57
1 year ave: 9,613.49

Floors
Lifetime: 13,470
Best: 152
7 day ave: 27.43
30 day ave: 25.87
1 year ave: 24.93
Previous: 16.71
Previous: 34.33

Addendum the First: Michael got my data, so I now have my own copy, with which I can do as I please. So yay!

Addendum the Second: the above totals came from StepStats, which I’d hoped to be more useful in letting me get my data, but wasn’t.

This just makes me giggle.

“Because you had so much to say about the product itself…”

We walked to town for ice cream Saturday evening, and I took a DSLR, instead of just relying on my cell phone camera.

Looking over the demolished block.

New houses slated for destruction:

(more…)

Friday we took the day off to visit my family who were spending the week in Blackwater Falls. The skies were grey, and it was rainy, but we were there to see my family, so that didn’t much matter.

(more…)

It was grey and rainy, but we still got a short hike.

Lindley Point

(more…)

It was strange to go out to the Cheat Lake Park, to see a place that used to be a secret, exist as a public park with a playground and a public boat launch.

I can’t say I have much desire to go back any time soon. The rail trail is relatively short and blocked at both ends.

But it was pretty.

Cheat Lake is the “expensive” area of Morgantown, where the doctors and lawyers and other well-to-do live. The trail runs along the access these wealthy home owners have to Cheat Lake.

(more…)

One year ago today, my cousin Ben died while climbing in Peru.

I didn’t learn he was missing until two weeks later, and then there were three long miserable days until his body was discovered.

It took another week and a half after his body was recovered to return him to the US and bury him.

After all this time, I’m still mad at him, and probably always will be to some small degree. But the anger isn’t the greatest part of what I feel.

 
 
If you love somebody,
Better tell them while they’re here, ’cause
They just may run away from you
You’ll never know what went well
Then again it just depends on
How long a time is left for you
I’ve had the highest mountains
I’ve had the deepest rivers
You can have it all but life keeps moving
Now take it in but don’t look down

‘Cause I’m top of the world, ‘ay
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
‘Waiting for this for a while now,
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for awhile, ‘ay
Take it with me if I can,
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world

I’ve tried to cut these corners
Try to take the easy way out
I kept on fallin’ short of something
I coulda’ gave up then, but
Then again I couldn’t have, ’cause
I’ve traveled all this way for something
Now take it in but don’t look down

‘Cause I’m top of the world, ‘ay
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
‘Waiting for this for a while now,
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for awhile, ‘ay
Take it with me if I can,
Been dreaming of this since a child

And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now
And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now

Nothing like constant flood warnings to keep you on your toes. Today’s word is: deluge.

And to finish up the abandoned series posts…

Charles Finch‘s Charles Lennox

The only reason I read the second, was because Grandmom liked the first so much. I may have bought the third for her, but not bothered to read it myself.

Lenox is a dabbler and a man of leisure, which is how he can afford to investigate crime as a hobby. He also has some ideals that seem far more modern than seems likely for the Victorian era and a man of his class. Not that there weren’t people at that time who held what I would consider to be modern ideals, I just find it strange that historical mysteries are simply littered with open minded men and women.

 
 
Sue Grafton

I didn’t abandon these as much as I just kinda stopped reading them, and then found the thought of going back and re-reading all the books to get caught up rather daunting.

 
 
Michael Jecks

I had such hopes for this series I bought the first three books. But the writing was terrible.

Okay, I give up. At least for now. Michael Jecks is a good storyteller, I will give him that, but his writing… The Merchant’s Partner was slightly better than The Last Templar as far as his writing style, but A Moorland Hanging is just as frustrating to read as the first book.

Point of view changes from paragraph to paragraph, and not always clearly, so once again I kept having to stop, to try to figure out who was thinking and observing. It served as a major distraction from what was otherwise a very good mystery.

 
 
Sara Paretsky‘s V.I. Warshawski series

I know a lot of people love the V.I. Warshawski, but I am not a member of that group. Mostly, I thought V.I. Warshawski was an asshole.

 
 
Arturo Pérez-Reverte‘s Captain Alatriste series.

I just could NOT get into the series, which is too bad, because I love most everything else he’s written.

 
 
Anne Perry

This is kinda complicated. I think it’s possible that if not for the internet I might have blissfully continued reading her books, but unfortunately, this is a case where learning about the author’s personal life ruined the books for me. (See also Orson Scott Card)

 
 
Kathy Reichs‘s Tempe Brennan series.

This series ran into an entirely different problem. I liked the mysteries a lot. What eventually drove me away from the series was Tempe’s personal life.

Break No Bones (2006)
First and foremost: Good GRIEF is this woman EVER going to get her love life settled?! GAH! I’m really tired of her relationship with Andrew Ryan–not because of him, but because she can’t make up her freaking mind. ENOUGH ALREADY! Poo or get off the pot already!

ahem.

Bones to Ashes (2007)
First things first, I have had it with Tempe and Ryan. Really, I would just as soon not read another word about the relationship.

Devil Bones (2008)
I am beginning to feel like the Ryan Tempe saga WILL NEVER END. The only good thing I have to say on that front is that I didn’t have to listen to endless descriptions of how good looking Ryan is this book. Unfortunately, that’s the only good thing I have to say about it.

I’m beginning to think they deserve each other, since neither of them seems to have an ability to commit. Or even have a clue what they really want, for that matter.

So GAH!

So, that’s why I stopped reading THAT series.

 
 
Randy Wayne White‘s Doc Ford

I read through Ten Thousand Islands (2000) and then just kinda stopped picking up books in this series.

Looking through mystery authors, there are several series that I really like, that I need to pick back up again. I just wasn’t in the mood to read mysteries for a couple years, and so lost track of the series. But I think I’ll try and get back into the following:
Elizabeth George‘s Thomas Lynley series
J.A. Jance‘s J.P. Beaumont and Joanna Brady series
And I need to START reading Steven Saylor I’ve read and liked several of his short stories, so I don’t know what I’m waiting for.
Peter Tremayne‘s Sister Fidelma series.

Continuing from the abandoned series: fantasy, here are some comic series I’ve abandoned. (This will be a LOT shorter, because comics aren’t my primary genre).

For the sake of simplicity, I’m NOT going to list a series I started and then gave up on because the series wasn’t for me.

 
House of Mystery

What I liked about the first volumes were the stories told by the various patrons of the House of Mystery. The subsequent volumes spent more and more time on the Fig story line, which I didn’t like nearly as well.

 
Jack of Fables

I love Fables so very much. And I hate Jack of Fables to almost the same degree.

 
Lucifer

I really like Mike Carey‘s writing, and I enjoyed the character of Lucifer in Sandman, but I just couldn’t get into the comic.

 
Runaways

This was one of my favorite series, until Brian K. Vaughn left. Then I just didn’t like it at ALL anymore, which I found VERY sad.

Huh. Guess I haven’t given up on that many long-running series. Most of them were read one and didn’t care to go on.

iO9 recently did an interesting article: When is the right time to finally give up on a series?

I’m of the school where I’ll rarely give up on a book, and that completist bit will keep me reading a series long past when I should give up–I keep going for the love I had of earlier books. But The fact I hate cliffhanger books makes it both harder and easier for me to give up on a series. (I have to know what happens, so I’ll often buy the next book to find out what happens, but if a series starts going downhill, I can abandon it in fear of the dreaded cliffhanger possibility.)

So, what series have I abandoned? As I am a voracious reader, this will probably be a long list, so for the sake of brevity, try not to list too many books where I read the first book and then gave up.

 
Piers Anthony‘s Xanth series.

And I almost gave up on the Incarnations of Immortality. Xanth just got inanely repetitive, to the point that even as a young reader I just stopped reading.

 
Jim Butcher‘s Harry Dresden series.

I might eventually get back to this, but when I got to Changes and Michael told me it was a cliff hanger, I said ‘screw it’ and gave up.

I really loved the early Harry books: he was struggling and kind and generous and had complicated friendships, plus: mysteries! But then, as the series wore on, the fun stopped making up for the fact that I knew that Harry was always going to win.

 
Rachel Caine‘s Weather Warden series.

I liked the idea of the fantasy, but waaay too much focus on fashion and boinking. Here’s what I wrote in my review of the last book I read (Chill Factor):

She’s gorgeous and dresses well and can walk in high heels. So what? Rachel Caine writes about this like it’s a good thing for a woman to be obsessed with fashion and looking good and remaining thin and spending all her money on clothes. All I can think is, “What a waste.”

 
Gail Carriger‘s Parasol Protectorate.

I loved the first book (Soulless) in this series so very very much. I read to the third book based on that initial love, and then just gave up. Here’s an excerpt of the last review I wrote.

All in all, I found Blameless disappointing. Most of the characters were flat, the bad guys were one dimensional, and there seemed to be a lack of logic in the way she was treated in Italy.

 
Karen Chance‘s Cassandra series.

This was where I started to discern that there was urban fantasy and there was paranormal fantasy, and the paranormal was filled with boinking, so I was going to have to be more careful about picking up books.

I mostly found myself annoyed with Cassie, and tired of the fact the she was constantly surrounded by hunky, gorgeous guys. Please. It’s as if absolutely everything in this story related in one way or another to sex. Either Cassie thinking about sex or sizing up every guy some comes across as a potential partner for boinking. Even when she was in danger she couldn’t stop thinking about sex.

Whatever.

 
Carole Nelson Douglas‘s Delilah Street series.

Book two ended with a HUGE cliffhanger, so I read Vampire Sunrise to find out what happened and then never went back.

 
Jennifer Estep

I’ve read two series by her, the Elemental Assassin series, of which I read one book, and the Mythos Academy series, of which I’ve gotten to Dark Frost.

The Elemental Assassin series was just chock full of boinking. So I read one book and gave up.

The Mythos Academy series I really really liked, even the last book I read , but I keep reading the synopsis for the next book and thinking, “Really? No.”

I know I shouldn’t base a book by the synopsis, but it just sounds so unappealing.

 
Yasmine Galenorn‘s Sisters of the Moon series.

This was a very strange one, because each book is written from the POV of one of the three sisters, and I really liked the books written from the POV by Delilah and Mennoly, but hated Camille so much that after Dragon Wytch I couldn’t read any more.

 
Charlaine Harris‘s Sookie Stackhouse series.

You knew this one would be on here, didn’t you?

I loved this series so very much for the first few books. And I was very much Team Eric.

(And I have to say that I’m a big Eric fan, since he’s one of the few who has always tended to see to her material needs when others have ignored or been blind to the financial difficulties their demands have placed upon her. [I always appreciated the fact that Eric had her driveway regraded. That sounds like something silly, unless you’ve ever lived with a gravel driveway, then you realize that he was interested in making her day-to-day life easier, not just impressing her.])

But then, it just became Too Much Too Much.

I have discovered that I no longer care what happens to Sookie.

This book didn’t enrage me with plot holes or issues, I just realized I do not care in the slightest what happens to Sookie or anyone else in the series.

And so, for me, here (Dead and Gone) the series ends. Wish it had lived up to the promise of the first few books, but the endless (and ridiculous) romantic entanglements just got to be too much, and the mysteries took a back seat to everything else.

So long Sookie.

 
Kim Harrison‘s Rachel Morgan series.

Michael really liked this series, and I tried, I really tried. But I found Rachel generally irritating, so after reading The Outlaw Demon Wails I never read another. I think I picked up the next couple books for Michael, but I’m not sure if he read them or not, and I decided if he wanted ’em, he could buy the rest for himself.

 
Naomi Novik‘s Temeraire series.

I loved the first three books, and even got my grandmother to read them, but after reading Empire of Ivory I gave up. The story wasn’t as good, the book ended on a cliff hanger, and I never went back. (Weirdly, I thought I’d read further than that, but, I hadn’t.)

 
Kat Richardson‘s Harper Blaine series.

I got to Vanished and then abandoned this series, despite my love for the first book in the series, Greywalker. Here’s why I gave up:

Now, Harper is not just a Greywalker, but a “special” Greywalker.

Bletch.

Can’t we have a fantasy heroine who isn’t all sooper special?

 
Michelle Sagara‘s Cast series.

I haven’t actually officially abandoned this series, I just can’t be bothered to go back and read anything after Cast in Chaos.

I guess since that was in 2010, and there have been three books published since then, that kinda counts as abandoned.

 
Thomas E. Sniegoski Remy Chandler series.

Here are my thoughts on the last book:

One other thing. Upon inspection, this is a really terrible cover. Every time I looked at the cover, I kept thinking Ben Browder was about to be attacked by mini-glowy-eyed hyenas and extra tall, extra skinny jawas. I know that a cover shouldn’t make or break a story, but I really hate bad fantasy covers. With covers like that, small wonder no one wants to take the category seriously.

So although this story does have much to recommend it, it is most definitely not my cup of tea, and in comparison to other books set in Hell or that deal with Lucifer, this was unfortunately a letdown.

And now I want to watch “Farscape.”

I’d forgotten how much I hated that cover.

 
F. Paul Wilson Repairman Jack series.

This is another that I didn’t actively give up on, as much as I failed to continue reading it.

Ah…. now I remember why.

Crisscross (2004)
Jack is still in the Repairman business, despite the fact that Gia doesn’t like the way she never knows if he’ll return safely from his fix-it jobs. And with Gia’s pregnancy (Despite the fact this is a multi-book pregnancy, Gia is only at 20 weeks. She might be pregnant for years at this rate)

Infernal (2005)
Also, Gia’s pregnancy must be the longest in the history of the world. Poor woman. Luckily for her she’s still barely showing. (Excuse me? Bogus!)

 
 
So, any mistakes in there? Anything in that list that got better after the nosedive in quality? Obviously, some series simply aren’t a fit for me (generally the ones full of boinking) but other series I gave up on because it felt like the quality of the series fell off, and I’d be happy to learn things got better in later books.

But I won’t believe you if you tell me the Sookie series got better. I’ve read the reviews.

We went a little further south on the Mon River rail trail this weekend, but as temperatures were in the high 90s, we didn’t go all the way to Fairmont.

Oh, we got a new toy–a Garmin Oregon GPS. It has a camera, which I’m excited about not for the pictures it takes, but because of the precise GPS data attached to that pictures. When I upload the GPS pictures to Flickr, it automatically puts those pictures on the map. I can then drag other pictures taken at that spot onto the map in the same place. So if you have a GPS you can now find a specific spot, which is fun.

(more…)

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
(more…)