Nonsequittal Rumblings

I’m guilty. I skipped my walk yesterday. Day 3 in to the year, and I’m already getting lazy.

But hey, I got pretty good amount of walk today – exceeding 10k. I’m feeling pretty good about it. Of course, it being so warm–in the 40’s–helps a lot too. Getting warm does come with a price – it’s melting so much snow that it’s making good size puddles on the walking paths everywhere.

Walking music of the day was Berlioz’s comic opera, Beatrice and Benedict, performed by London Symphony and Sir Colin Davis. It’s not a bad piece of music. The only thing is… I don’t know French. Not only the whole thing is in French, they throw in some dialogues. So I was listening to a few tracks of non-musical dialogues in French here and there. Well, okay… I guess it’s not going in my “favorites” folder for now.

Having almost two full weeks off for Christmas was excellent. It does make me pretty lazy. Lazy isn’t really a good thing. Just like so many thousands (or is it millions) of people in America, I’ve decided to throw in diet as one of my new year’s resolution for this year. Heck, I even got a pedometer this Christmas. Might as well put it to work. Being lazy is the last thing I need.

So… yeah, I’m now walking around with this pedometer in my pocket all the time. Since a few days ago, I’ve been using it, took it out to walks, etc, to get a feel of how much I should be walking. I decided about 8500 steps per day is a pretty good, not too difficult goal for now. The thing I didn’t know… By the time I came home from work today, pedometer already had 4500 steps on it. It’s a good thing though. By the time I get home, it’s way past sun set. It’s not most pleasant or safe to be walking at this hour for long. So… there we go. This is my tiny start for my goal of losing a few pounds this year.

And this blog is going to be one way to keep myself stick to that goal. More to come.

One of the Japanese traditions that’s still somewhat popular is seeing of the new year sunrise (hatsuhinode-初日の出, not to be confused with hatsumoude). Last year, I think I stayed up all night, then went to see the sunrise before hitting the sack. This year, I actually went to bed by 3AM and woke up by 6:30. Lucky me.

Since I drove toward east, I was planning to drive west to find a good spot to see the sunrise. The sunrise is at 7:44, and I didn’t get to leave home until 7:00. And because I live in the east side of the town, following that plan was obviously not a good idea… And thus I headed south. Man, Kansas has so much windbreak woods. It’s not easy to find a good spot in such a short time.

Another problem—it’s so friggin’ cold! 21F, with wind chill of 11F. Standing out in the cold just for fun? That’s crazy. But here it is. The moment of truth.