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Fitbit IX – Week 48

Week two of my annual end-of-year vacation kept me on the good side of the 30,000-step plateau for the second consecutive week.  Things got off to a slow start on Sunday, finishing with only 3500 steps.  Things improved on Monday, as I finished up above the 5100-step mark.  Things were slightly worse on Tuesday, falling down to 4500 steps.  Another drop on Wednesday put me down to 4000 steps.  A trip to West Lafayette on Thursday to see the Purdue men’s basketball team put the screws to Jacksonville led to my best total of the week, coming just 35 steps shy of 6800.  A trip into the city for shopping and lunch on Friday left me just over 3500 steps.  Another slow day on Saturday was just slightly worse, needing an additional 37 steps to get to 3500.

Total steps: 30,986

Daily average: 4426.6

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A Year Of Activities

For the first time in my 49 years, I managed to attend a ticketed event in every month of 2023. Let’s take a look back and see what I had going on this year.
The first quarter of the year is typically the quietest for me.  This year started strong, with a trip to Florida for the Citrus Bowl on January 2nd.  College basketball ruled the day in February, with my first trip to Bloomington, Indiana coming that first weekend.  The Big Ten Tournament rolled into the United Center in March, making me three for three to start out the year.

The second quarter brings the start of baseball season, which easily knocked out the next three months.  I added 19 games over these three months, which included the Orioles against the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field in April, the Mets battling the Cubs at Wrigley Field in May, and my first-ever visit to T-Mobile Park in June to see the White Sox play the Mariners. Continue reading →

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Out Of Jeopardy

This past spring, going against the advice of the union, Mayim Bialik opted against hosting the final episodes of the Jeopardy! season in deference to the ongoing strike by the Writer’s Guild.  Sony and Jeopardy! producers did not put up much of a fight, since her co-host, Ken Jennings, was there to step in and take her place.  When the current season started, Jennings continued to host with both the Writer’s Guild and the Screen Actors Guild still out on strike.  With both strikes now resolved, the door was theoretically opened for Bialik to return and continue swapping hosting duties with Jennings.  That door is now closed.

Sony announced last week that Ken Jennings would be the full-time host of the syndicated version of Jeopardy!  There is a small possibility that Bialik could return in the future to host a future primetime special, but that also seems unlikely at this point.  From a show perspective, this is probably the right move.  Having two rotating hosts wasn’t really working, and Bialik never seemed to grow into the role the way Jennings did, instead coming off more as an actor playing as a host.

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Book 57 (of 52) – Happy Place

Happy Place – Emily Henry

Harriet, a surgical resident in San Francisco, arrives in Maine for her annual reunion with her college friends planning to tell them about the end of her engagement.  Instead, she finds her former fiancé waiting for her, convinced into coming as this will be their last summer together in the family cottage and a surprise wedding.  Harriet tries to work through her feelings, for her ex, her job, and everything else, before the week comes to an end.

I had initially skipped over Emily Henry’s Happy Place when I saw that it had won the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance, as that isn’t really my genre.  When I came across it again on the list of best books of the year from the Chicago Public Library, I decided to give it a shot.  Despite the fairly obvious ending (of course they are getting back together!), it was an enjoyable read.  I don’t know how much I will dip my toes back into the romance pool going forward, but this trip, at least, was worth the ride.

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Prolific Authors Wrap Up

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, since I’ve far surpassed my reading output of any year on record, I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  Today, we wrap things up with a look back at the 97 authors I’ve read more than once.

Largest Increase (since 2021)

The Silent Wife – Karin Slaughter

Karin Slaughter – 6
Erle Stanley Gardner – 5
Jeffrey Deaver – 4
Grady Hendrix – 4
Richard Osman – 3
Alex Finlay – 3
Taylor Jenkins Reid – 3

Largest Increase (since 2011)

The Skin Collector – Jeffery Deaver

Jeffrey Deaver – 14
Erle Stanley Gardner – 14
Richard Castle – 13
Karin Slaughter – 12
Mary Kubica – 8

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Fitbit IX – Week 47

The first week of my annual end-of-year vacation saw a healthy uptick in activity, getting back on the good side of the 30,000-step plateau.  Things got off to a slow start on Sunday, finishing 14 steps away from 3500.  A trip to the grocery store on Monday helped push me up over the 5500-step mark.  Things were even better on Tuesday, coming just 12 steps shy of 5800.  A small drop on Wednesday still put me over 5000 steps.  Thursday saw another decrease, dropping down to 4300 steps.  A trip into the city for lunch on Friday left me just 34 steps away from 4900.  Saturday saw another big decrease, dropping down to 3000 steps.

Total steps: 32,051

Daily average: 4578.7

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Prolific Authors – 18 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school. This year, since I’ve far surpassed my reading output of any year on record, I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  Today, we finish things off with a new leader, the lone author I’ve read 18 times, a level unseen two years ago.

Jeffery Deaver

In 1999, the first entry of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series, The Bone Collector, was adapted into a film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.  Around that time, I picked up a paperback copy, which I read in 2000.  I slowly added additional titles as I would find them as remainders, picking up new hard covers for $3 or $4.

The Midnight Lock – Jeffery Deaver

Things increased in 2015, when I started picking up titles on deals through the Amazon Kindle store or from the library, leading to thirteen additional books added to my read bookshelf, with The Burning Wire, which I read earlier this year, being the most recent prior to the start of this countdown.

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Book 56 (of 52) – The Woman in Me

The Woman in Me – Britney Spears

After appearing in The Mickey Mouse Club as a young child, Britney Spears made her initial splash in the music world at 17 when her debut studio album, …Baby One More Time, was released.  Portrayed as the perpetual virgin, Spears dated former castmate Justin Timberlake while maintaining her hold on the top of the pop charts.  Following her breakup with Timberlake, Spears married twice in 2004, the second of which resulted in two sons born over the following two years.  After divorce proceedings led to a acrimonious custody battle, Spears appeared to spin out of control, attending rehab for a day before shaving her head in public the following night.  These antics led to her being placed under a conservatorship, where her life and estate would be controlled by her father, in January of 2008.  Fast forward to 2021, when she is finally able to break free from the conservatorship and regain control of her life and her career.

In The Woman In Me, stripped of all PR flaks and under her father’s thumb for the first time in over a decade, Britney Spears is finally able to reveal her side of the story.  She tells the tale of her upbringing in Louisiana, with parents who seemingly hated each other and vacillating between middle class and poor, depending on how much her father was drinking at the time.  How despite losing her virginity at 14 to a friend of her brothers, she was portrayed in the media as a cloying virgin, leading to press speculation about her teenage body and sex life.  How a combination of post-partum depression and a nasty custody battle led to her family turning against her and taking over her life, putting her to work to fuel their own largesse.  One can’t help but feel sympathy for the now 42-year-old. who is trying to find her way back after a decade of abuse at the hands of the people who should have been protecting her.

 

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Book 55 (of 52) – Charm City

Charm City – Laura Lippman

When a spiked story about a local mogul gets printed on page one anyway, Tess Monaghan is hired to figure out who is responsible for hacking the paper’s nascent computer system.  When said mogul apparently kills himself after a second story of his alleged malfeasance, Tess is able to poke some holes in the reporting, if not outright nail the culprit.  However, when the now out-of-work reporter also is found dead by suicide, Tess starts to think that everything is not adding up.  She picks up the investigation, trying to figure out who the killer is before the killer can find her.

The second entry in Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series, Charm City, picks up nearly six months following the previous book. Reading a series in order is a new experience for me, so it’ll be a fun experience to see where this one goes.

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Prolific Authors – 17 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, since I’ve far surpassed my reading output of any year on record, I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  We continue things today with the sole author I’ve read 17 times.

Nancy Holder

My most prolific author first came to my attention in 1998, when I read Halloween Rain, her first entry, along with Christopher Golden, in the series of books based on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Twelve of her 17 entries, all of which are tie-ins to either Buffy and/or Angel, were read between 1998 and 2002.  After a nine-year layoff, she returned to my attention in 2011 with Carnival of Souls.

Heat – Nancy Holder

Another five years went by, before she returned again with two books in 2016, one in 2018, and then, finally, one in 2021.  Seeing as I have depleted my backlog of Buffy novels, she’s likely to stay put for the foreseeable future, unless someone re-releases these cheaply on the Kindle.