In these challenging times any kind of good news is welcome. I recently received outstanding updates from three separate crowdfunding campaigns I have supported. I’ve backed nearly thirty such crowdsourced funding campaigns over the years, and some have worked-out better than others.
In the two years I’ve been wearing a Fitbit I’ve found it’s a great way to keep track of my activity. That’s what a fitness band is, right? Unfortunately, its attempts at encouraging movement are sometimes counterproductive.
Keep Moving
Thanks to the tracker logging every move I make, I learned to keep moving to make it happy. In the process I joined the “My Fitbit will be happy today” chorus.
This weekend I was running around a convention center. Made my #FitBit very happy. #NostalgiaChat
In the best of times shopping carts are covered with germs, whether or not you can see them. Annoying as it is to find all of the carts are wet (which is common here in the Pacific Northwest) the silver lining is that you know the rain water has given them a rinse.
I generally think of the belt at the cash register being the biggest health risk. One grocery store chain said they are now cleaning the belts at least every 30 minutes. That is less frequent than I’d like to see during “normal” times. I tend to stack things on the belt to reduce the number of items that actually touch that belt.
Now with social distancing the checkout line is an even bigger concern. Standing in a line of strangers, and setting my groceries on checkout belts that I’ve never trusted to be squeaky clean, I can’t help but wish there was an Amazon Go store in my neighborhood. No checkout line and no checkout belt means nobody and nothing touches your groceries except you and the employees that stock the shelves.
I’m not much for New Years Resolutions, but the fitness tracker I’d been given had been sitting on the desk, staring at me for over a month. The box begged to be opened, and the band placed around my wrist, never to be removed.
Then again, this Fitbit model is only water resistant, so at least we would have some time apart while I was in the shower.
Here’s what I discovered, about the technology and myself:
Black Friday has another meaning this year. November 29, the day four Lakewood police officers were killed south of Tacoma a decade ago, lands on the same day this year as the kick-off of Christmas shopping season.
Of course Black Friday marks the day when retailers’ finances traditionally get “into the black” for the year. This time of remembrance for fallen officers is also a good thing.
Folks who know me know I give blood, and do it as often as I’m allowed to. (That’s every 56 days, which means six or seven times a year.)
One morning the staff double-checked my stats and told me where my unit of blood was going: Straight to the hospital, where it would be used for a baby’s surgery. How can that not warm your heart?
