Storm!

 

Weather radar,
 after the power went out.

A huge wall of thunderstorms came through here Thursday afternoon, around 4 pm. The power went off a few minutes after the leading edge came through. Both dogs were perturbed - Bixby was shaking and trying to burrow under me (I hugged him swaddled in a blanket, it seemed to help). The storm lasted less than an hour, and cell phone service worked all along. So I knew the power outage was widespread. I reported on Pepco's app, and they initially estimated "restored by 6 pm". Their estimates got progressively later and later over the next couple of hours, ending up at midnight.

After the storm had passed, reports of trees down throughout the neighborhood came in via Whatsapp and email. I couldn't reach my brother-in-law, and there was a report about a huge tree down across his street. I set out to walk around and check.

I once was chased by a falling tree, and fell and split the back of my head open (the tree never touched me, it turns out I can run faster than a tree). I had been alerted by the distinctive "CRACK" noise that comes - we have enough big trees around here that I've heard this before and since. I also had a huge tree fall in my own yard, with a glancing blow to the house - I wasn't home when that happened, but it was a very big deal.  I'm a little skittish about things falling on me. But, after the storm, the air was clean and fresh, there was no power in the house, and I was craving a chance to stretch my legs. (I'm really working at getting those walks in, upping my steps!)

Hilltop Road

The tree(s) down were really impressive. One house had the whole end ripped off, as the tree fell between the chimney and the side wall, and took them both out. It then toppled another tree, and they both fell at right angles to the road and took down wires and a telephone pole. So one house rendered unlivable. It was a distance from my BIL's house, which looked fine from the far side of the tree. I finally reached him by text - he had been home, but went out when the storm had passed.

I ate a cold supper (one quick dip into the fridge, door closed again quickly). I read on my fully charged kindle with its own light, fired up a couple of solar camping lanterns so I wouldn't bump into things, and considered whether in the morning I'd be able to boil water for coffee on the gas grill in the back yard, what pot to use, and where my pour-over coffee setup was. I actually forgot that I don't have any ground coffee in the house, only whole beans! But I travel with a few packets of instant coffee, so all I really need is boiling water. I have flashlights and charging bricks, so I figured I would be good for while.

Damaged House,
but nobody hurt

The power came back on about 9:30 pm, after only about five hours. I had no raw meat in my fridge, and I figured everything in there was fine. The freezer, untouched and completely full, was even in better shape. 

We'll be having more of these high-energy storms, I'm sure. The number of big trees in my 'hood are decreasing, but I was recently hit with an insurance company inspection that suggested I had too many big trees near me. I think there is only one killer tree left, a 3-foot + diameter white oak, and some tall but slim other oaks and tulip trees. But I've planted trees destined to grow into big canopy trees, if they live that long. The benefits of the canopy for cooling and water management still outweighs the danger, in my opinion.

How Active Am I Really?

Or, Keeping Myself Honest

One of the reasons I started this blog is because I know how fallible my memory is. I cannot rely on my memory of how active I've been, what I've eaten, or how much I weighed in the past. I've been thinking that I'm pretty content with my fitness level. For a while this spring, I felt strong! This feeling is absolutely real, but it has faded over time. Now, I feel mostly ok, but I know I'm doing so much less than I used to do.

When I retired, I developed a report card for myself.  It tracks a variety of things about my life, from how many steps I take to how many books I read. I don't keep it up rigorously every month, but I actually do keep track of all of the components to be able to bring it up to date whenever I decide to update it. The last time I posted about the report card was about a year ago, where I only posted the comparison to the year before. Because I was still within six months of knee surgery, I gave myself a pass on the activity statistics, which at that point were looking not too bad.

Well, yesterday's comprehensive review of the data revealed a different picture. I looked over a longer period time - basing everything on 2019, when I retired halfway through the year. Pretty much every single way I look at activity has gotten significantly worse, trending further down each year. Sigh. I slice and dice my data, looking at different measurements, averages and peaks and valleys, but it pretty much tells the same story. 

What do I track? Here are my activity measures:

• Average daily calories
• Days with more than 2,200 calories (very active days)
• Average daily steps
• Days with less than 5,000 steps (very inactive days) 
• Stand time in minutes (new in 2023 with Apple)
• Minutes rowing (new in 2023)
• Minutes stationary bike (newly tracked last year after knee surgery)
• Minutes Nordic Track  (new this year)
• Miles walked (while "taking a walk", not incidental distance) 
• Gym workout days (tracked manually)

All but the last of these are from my Apple Watch. When I switched from the Fitbit in 2023, I noticed the calorie counts were substantially different (higher on Apple). I don't really care what exactly the number is or how accurate it is - but I do care that it correctly captures trends up and down. I redefined "active days" to not overstate them with the more generous estimates.

But all of that detail just above can obscure the main fact: I am substantially less active now than I was in recent memory.  I want to tell that story clearly and unambiguously, to convince myself that I need to get off my butt and move! 

So, after bringing the data up to date, digesting the big impact, I took a long walk. Then, I picked up the computer again and made an infographic to show the sad, sad, facts. Remember, I worked in data analysis all of my working life, and using data to tell a story is something I enjoy. So I amused myself quite well, learning how to make a totally new type of graph, and how to present it so it tells my story. So below, here it is:

So what is this?

I simplified my measures to the five comparable measures since 2019 (clockwise from top): Calories, Steps, Active Days, Miles Walked, and Workout Days. I scaled them all relative to 2019, as if that year were perfect. (It wasn't bad.) I display them on a "radar" chart. 2019 forms a perfect pentagon. Each year since then is another pentagon, with this year's data so far in red. We see that calories don't vary much, and neither do gym workout days - in fact, both are slightly better than in 2019. But daily steps and active days are only slightly more than half of what they were back then, and miles walked is less than 25% of what they were. 

Steps, miles, and active days are all increased by getting off my butt more. The more I get up and move, the closer those red corners of the pentagon move towards the 2019 pentagon. 

So it all boils down to this: make the red pentagon as much like the big blue one as possible.