Tag / New Year’s Day

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Fitbit XI – Week 50

Things slowed down as we saw the end of 2025 and the start of 2026, though I did barely manage to extend my streak of 30,000 step weeks to six.  Things got off to an ok start on Sunday, needing 39 more steps to reach 4000.  A slight drop on Monday left me with exactly 3800 steps.  An additional 35 steps on Tuesday would have put me at 4400.  A date with the snowblower on New Year’s Eve pushed me up to 5700 steps.  A slow New Year’s Day on Thursday left me 40 steps shy of 3600.  I had to go back to work on Friday, finishing the day 17 steps away from 4000.  Leaving the house on Saturday ended the week with 4900 steps.

Total steps: 30,347

Daily average: 4335.3

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Welcome To 2026

For the first time since 2011, I don’t have a calendar to ring in each month of the new year, so we will have to play things by ear throughout the year.  Today, we celebrate the completion of an arbitrarily selected rotation of the Earth around the sun and look forward to a new year ahead.

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FB10: Week 50

The third and final full week of my year-end vacation helped keep me above the elusive 30,000 step plateau.  Sunday got the week off to a decent start, finishing just 4 steps shy of 4000 steps.  Things improved on Monday as I rose up to 4700 steps.  Things were a little slower on Tuesday as the final day of 2024 ended needing 26 steps to get to 3700.  New Year’s Day on Wednesday finished with 4200 steps.  Some errands on Thursday helped push me back up, finishing just 2 steps shy of 5800.  Friday dropped back down again to 3500 steps.  A trip to the Frankfort Public Library to procure a library card on Saturday helped finish the week on a high note, surpassing 5000 steps.

Total steps: 31,135

Daily average: 4447.9

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2023: The Year In Travel

As we ring in the new year, it’s time to take a look back at the trips out of Illinois that I took last year.  Things got off to a fast start, as I traveled down to Orlando on New Year’s Day to see Purdue take on LSU in the Citrus Bowl.  While the game did not go well at all, it was a good change of pace to get out of the cold weather.  I stayed the entire week, working remotely to kick off 2023 and enjoying the hotel pool.

My next trip out of state came in early February, when I picked up Danny and headed down to Bloomington, Indiana to see the #1 ranked Boilermakers take on their hated rivals.  Once again, things did not go well for the boys in gold and black, which led to a long drive back to West Lafayette.  The next day, the two schools did battle again, with the women taking the court at Mackey Arena, but the outcome was not any better.

A few weeks later, I returned to the Lafayette area to watch Danny’s band concert.  After lunch with him, his friends, and their parents, we headed over to the Long Center for the Performing Arts to take in his performance.  Thankfully, his section was first, so we were able to take our leave early and head back home.

I stayed home for a few months, until Danny finally cashed in his high school graduation trip, and, in mid-June, we headed west to Seattle.  We arrived on Friday morning and headed to Pike Place market for lunch before attending the White Sox and Mariners tilt that night at T-Mobile Park.  The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the ballpark for another exciting game.  After an hour-plus wait for an Uber after the game, we rested a bit at the hotel before heading back out to see the Space Needle and enjoy a nice dinner.  On Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day by flying home.

The start of college football season brought with it three consecutive weekend trips to West Lafayette to close out September.  The first saw Purdue do battle against Syracuse, falling 35-20.  I headed back down the following Thursday night thanks to a rare Friday night tilt.  After working remotely from the hotel, I headed over to campus where Purdue tried valiantly to end its losing streak against Wisconsin, but it was not to be.  The next morning, I met Danny for breakfast before heading home.  The following Saturday, I returned once more to see Purdue earn its first home victory of the year, defeating Illinois handedly.

In late October, I took my somewhat-annual quick trip to Boston to celebrate birthdays with Angelina.  I arrived on Saturday, headed over to her apartment in the afternoon, and then we went out to dinner in the North End.  The next morning, I was on a plane headed back home.

My final three trips of the year were all, once again, back to West Lafayette.  Purdue faced off against Minnesota two days before Danny’s birthday, so we had a post-victory dinner at his house.  Two weeks later, we headed down the day after Thanksgiving to prepare for his senior day against IU.  As part of the festivities, he got to conduct the band during the pre-game show and then hit the drum with the rest of the seniors during halftime.  The day concluded with a trip to the Olive Garden for a celebratory dinner.  My final trip of the year came just days before Christmas, when Danny and I headed to Mackey Arena to see the men’s basketball team hold court against Jacksonville.

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2023 Final Standings

The 2023 college football season, and Danny’s marching band career, came to an end yesterday, after Purdue squeaked past the Hoosiers 35-31.  After winning the Big Ten West last season and making a New Year’s Day bowl game, this year’s 4-8 finish was a bit of a disappointment.  Yesterday’s game brought my total for the year to six games, a new high point.

2023 Team Records

University Won Loss Winning Pctg
Wisconsin Badgers 1 0 1.000
Syracuse Orange 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 3 2 0.600
Minnesota Golden Gophers 0 1 0.000
Indiana Hoosiers 0 1 0.000
Illinois Fighting Illini 0 1 0.000
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Fitbit VII – Week 49

And yet another disappointing week to wrap up 2021.  Things got off to a slow start on Sunday as I finished with only 1900 steps.  A nice bounce back on Monday left me just 9 steps shy of 4500.  Tuesday fell back down again, dropping to 3900 steps.  Wednesday started heading back in the right direction again, finishing with 4100 steps.  That momentum stopped on Thursday, coming 24 steps away from 3600.  Friday was the big day of the week, as a trip out for breakfast and to the grocery store, not to mention staying up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, left me with 5600 steps.  A New Year’s Day snowstorm got 2022 off to a poor start, with only 3400 steps on Saturday.

Total steps: 27,133

Daily average: 3876.1

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Fitbit Year 6

A year ago, I set a goal of 2,730,000 steps, an average of 7500 steps per day. Thanks to the corona virus becoming a concern in March and the complete abdication of responsibility for managing the pandemic by the Trump administration that led to much of the country still being shut down today, I fell quite a bit short of my challenge, finishing more than a million steps behind with only 1,711,727, the second straight year I’ve failed to surpass my yearly goal for the only times since 2014 under the old GlobalFit program. My average step total per week was 32,917.83, which comes out to about 4702.5 per day. The median weekly total was 31,765.  My best week was Week 27, where a concerted effort to get out during the summer propelled me close over to 56,000 steps for the week.  My worst week was Week 49, the dreaded down week between Christmas and New Year’s.

For the upcoming year, I’m going to keep things as is, in the hopes that I can finally reverse this downward trend. I am leaving my goal for steps per day at 7500, which would again bring me to a yearly total of 2,730,000 steps. Hopefully the third attempt, now that I’ve got this WFH thing down pat, is the one that sticks.

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Fitbit 6: Week 49

The hell year that was 2020 comes to an end and 2021 gets off to a bad start.  The week started slowly on Sunday, where I came 5 steps away from reaching 1700 steps.  Monday was better, getting all the way up to 3100 steps.  Tuesday fell back off again, down to 2500 steps.  Wednesday bounced back up and managed to just surpass 3400 steps.  Thursday, New Year’s Eve, fell back down again to 2200 steps.  Friday rang in the new year, and a trip to my aunt’s house for a super spreader event pushed me to my highest total of the week, with over 3400 steps.  Saturday fell back down once again, falling 5 steps shy of 2500 steps.

Total steps: 18,898

Daily average: 2699.7

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2019: The Year In Travel

Once again, I thought it would be nice to look back at the many trips I took this year.  As you may recall from last year‘s wrap-up, the year began in California.

New Year’s Day was spent in Pasadena for the Rose Parade, where Danny and the Lincoln-Way Marching Band were performing.  Lucky for them, they were slotted right after the float that caught on fire and eventually mucked up the entire end of the parade.  However, they were able to march around the disabled float and keep things moving for the time being.  The next day we went to the California ScienCenter, where we were able to see artifacts from King Tut’s tomb and the space shuttle Endeavor, and the beach before heading home.

And home is where I stayed for a whole month before heading out to Hawaii in February.  I arrived that first Saturday in February, checking out my surroundings around the resort and down Waikiki Beach after the long flight.  Monday, I took a tour of the island of Oahu, with stops at Hanauma Bay, Nu’uanu Pali lookout, Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, Sunset Beach, Waimea Falls, and the Dole Plantation.  Tuesday, I took in a whale watching cruise, where we were able to see multiple whales surfacing during the excursion.  Thursday, I traveled over to Pearl Harbor and all of the associated attractions and museums.  Come the following Saturday, it was time to head home on an overnight flight that got me in town very early Sunday morning.

Come June, the whole family headed east to celebrate Michael’s graduation.  We flew into Baltimore, where Dennis, the boys, and I went to breakfast before heading to Camden Yards to see the Orioles take on the Giants.  On the way to the stadium, we stopped at the grave site of Edgar Allen Poe and the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum.  After the game, we walked to the local bus depot, where we caught a bus to Washington DC for the remainder of the trip.

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And Never Brought To Mind

A new year is upon us, and, with it, a new decade!  We kick off 2020 with the first group of photos from this year’s calendar, featuring Danny, Angelina, and Michael from last year’s trip to California.  Appropriate for New Year’s Day, Danny is shown from last year’s Rose Parade and at the marching band festival 2 days prior.  Angelina and Michael are posing in front of a Happy New Year sign we came across in Beverly Hills on New Year’s Eve.