Because I am a HUGE DORK I wore three pedometers today: The Omron HJ-720ITC Pocket Pedometer, the Fitbit Ultra, and a brand new Withings Pulse.
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Today’s word is: statistics

I wasn’t kidding about how much I love collecting data on things. Somewhere around here I have a sheet noting the cold water temperatures over the course of six months.

But this is pedometer data, specifically, the number of steps taken. FitBit didn’t give me any other particularly useful data, so I worked with what I had.

Total Steps: May 2009 – July 2013

Note that there are no steps June 2010. And really, there are only steps for half of May. Because that’s when I broke my ankle. You can see it took a year and a half before I got back to where I was before the break.

Yearly Totals
2009: 2507143
2010: 2117909
2011: 2410617
2012: 3645755
2013: 1761365
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So, Michael pulled out my data. I have to say what he could get wasn’t impressive.

What interests me is the activity data: how many steps, how many miles, how many flights of stairs, steps over the course of the day, what time of the day I’m most active…

So. I got daily totals for steps and distance.

Yeah, not really impressive. But, at least it’s something to play with.

Here we have weekly steps. That peak in July 2012 was our vacation. The trough immediately following was the discovery of my cousin Ben’s death and his funeral. Talk about literal highs and lows…

The low point of the end of Dec 2012 / start of Jan 2013 was vacation week, where I laid around and read books and didn’t do much of anything else.

The lowest point was when I got pink eye AND some kinda virus the same week, and my only activity was getting up to go to the room of resting.

Here is the data presented by month. Please note that I removed the partial months of January 2012 and July 2013.

Interesting to note that the drops from October through March correlate with a rather nasty bout of depression. That was kind of a vicious circle: I didn’t walk because I was depressed, and the less I exercised, the more depressed I got. But you can see I’m slowly getting back on track.

Something else I’d like to point out, is that FitBit didn’t give me any steps for bicycling, so a 20 mile bike ride counts for nothing as far as FitBit is concerned. But as far as my MOOD is concerned, it’s exercise, and definitely counts.

Once I figure out the best way to do so, I’m going to take the data from my Omron pedometer and combine it with the FitBit data, and that should give me close to five years of data. What I wish I had was some calculable measure of my depression over those five years, so I could see how my exercise and depression relate over time.

Not sure how to do that, however, since typically I don’t even realize I’m going through a bout of depression until I’m well into it. And it’s very hard to gauge “how depressed am I today” since that tends to be a comparison only to the previous day or two, which isn’t a very accurate measure.

So, there’s the first of my data crunched. Once I figure out how to combine this with my Omron data, you can expect EVEN MORE EXCITING data, looking at steps over an even LONGER period of time!

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:

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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.

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

Lindley Point

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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.

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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.