4 numbers:
150,000 miles
31 marriage years
55 hip years
9 dog years
a soft light against a puddle
a woman aims a car
peace pulled from night
we turn around
website birthday
I was so busy Monday that I forgot to wish happy birthday to my website, sampost.com.
It just turned 11 years old.
We say a dog year is equal to seven human years.
FatDUX.com calculates an internet year as equal to 4.7 human years.
This would make this website almost 52 years old. I’m 54, so we’re almost the same age.
It was born on February 7, 2000, when I made a call to Hosting2000.com, a web hosting company in Oregon. This company has since changed it’s name to synapseglobal.com, and it’s still my host.
Two years ago I started using WordPress and changed it from a static website into a blog. That’s been fun. For all the years before that, I made changes, but not often. My html skills have never been too swift.
The traffic continues to grow. It now consistently gets over a thousand unique visitors a day. I used to list a couple of pages of my short plays and then invite readers to email me for the whole play — respecting copyright, permission, royalty payment, etc. When I switched to a blog, I started listing the whole plays and giving permission freely. It’s not a money making endeavor anyway — so that’s probably been the best move I ever made. Most of the site’s visitors seem to be students who are searching for a quick ten minute play. I get emails almost daily asking permission to use those plays for a class project or student production. Each request warms my heart a little more. Thanks, guys!
I realize there’s not a whole lot of interest in what I had for dinner or what my dog did that amuses me or how much I enjoyed my daily walk or what little poem just popped into my head — but every once in a while, a blog post gets a lot of attention, usually when I write something about a certain former governor of Alaska.
I enjoy it and am looking forward to sharing more and possibly making some changes — perhaps adding a guest blogger or two, or blogging more often, linking to more stuff. I don’t know, something. Just thinking…
2009 goals. 2010 goals.
Today is the last day of the year.
My resolution for 2009 was to walk 10,000 steps per day, each day of the year.
I’m happy to report that I did this.
There were a few days that fell short, usually by just a few steps. But I always made up the difference the next day.
Once, I was tired and accidentally fell asleep and came up 4,000 steps short. The next day, I walked 14,000 steps.
A couple of times, my odometer pressed too hard against the other stuff in my pocket and reset itself. This happened late in the day when I had over half the steps complete. Because the goal of 10k steps per day has become such an obsession, I went ahead and walked the extra steps until the device hit 10k.
There was also the day my odometer battery died and I was too far along to start over. I did some estimating that day and feel confident I was over the required number.
It’s interesting how I developed a real sense for how many steps I had walked. When I check my pedometer, I’m never surprised. I can almost always get within a few hundred steps of how far I’ve walked that day.
I developed a sore toe about two or three weeks into the year (last January). Almost one year later, it’s still a little sore, but improving. I rarely notice it.
I did have to get a new pair of shoes in July, for my birthday. Probably will do so again in the next couple of months.
Next year, I plan to keep the same goal.
Problem is, I didn’t take time to stretch and, with all that walking, had a few creaky days wherein I did not feel so young.
I’ve always loved yoga. Started when I was 19 years old, as a sophomore in college, where I took a class in a wonderful studio in Reynolda Village in Winston-Salem. But with all the walking this year, I neglected taking the time for yoga.
So this year I’m adding daily yoga in 2010 to the New Years Resolution. This goal comes with some qualification. In order to make it count as a daily practice, I won’t ask myself to do a full routine — 30 to 90 minutes — if things are too busy. I’ll do ten minutes and call it yoga. I started this a week ago and it works out well. Ten minutes is not ideal, but it still makes a huge difference. When time allows, I’ll practice longer.
As for today, the last day of the year — time for a walk.