Last year I did an obsessive experiment.  Every morning, as one of the tabs in my browser (then Firefox, now Chrome) during my daily information routine, I opened up a clever application called Daytum.  In it, I tracked four things: the number of miles I ran, the number of books I read, the number of segments I flew on which airline, and where I slept.  Following is the summary and some commentary.

I had a disappointing running year.  I usually cover over 1,000 miles / year.  I lost about four months this year to either injuries (silly ones) or a cold (I had a multi-month bacterial infection that took a while to figure out and nail.)  Also, I didn’t run any marathons which, while a bummer, was something I expected would happen sometime on my question for 50 marathons by the time I’m 50 years old.  So – 2009 will be known henceforth as “the lost year for Feld Running.”  My goal in 2010 is six marathons and 1500 miles.  And I’ll be tracking it obsessively with other software.

I typically read one or two books a week so 78 seems about the amount for a typical year.  I always find the categories interesting – I read less SciFi this year than normal (I’d expect it to be on par with Mental Floss).  The business books read are higher because I’m getting so many in the mail as “pre-release” or “review” copies so I’m trying to at least read some of them.  No different goals for 2010 – just “read what’s in front of me that looks interesting from my infinite pile of books.”

Airplane travel in 2009 was totally fubared.  I eventually decided to try to stop flying United and shift as much travel as I could to Southwest.  I expect the ratios to be very different in 2010.  I also took way too many short trips in 2009 and have decided to completely change my travel rhythm in 2010.  Specifically, I’m only going to travel every other week – my goal in 2010 is to spend every other week in Boulder.  Now, I know there will be exceptions, but I’ve already scheduled out my weeks in Boulder for the year so all I have to do now is be disciplined about scheduling.

I was fascinated to see the distribution of “where I slept in 2009.”  I expected Eldorado Springs (my main house) to be at the top, but I also expected Keystone (my mountain house) to be ahead of Boulder (my city condo).  The business travel is as expected – San Francisco, Boston, New York, Seattle, and LA.  Vacations and weeks off the grid were San Diego (tennis), Mexico and Nassau (beach), and Santa Fe.  The balance are short trips for specific things.  The one think that I will not do in 2010 is “30,000 Feet” – I’m completely done with redeyes.  And – no Alaska in 2009 – I expect I’ll spend 31 days there in 2010.

In 2010, I’m going to track an entirely different set of data – namely, all of my health and fitness data as part of my exploration around the idea of “human instrumentation.”  I’m currently using a Zeo, Withings Scale, BodyMedia BodyBug, a Fitbit, and a Garmin 305.  Look for more on this soon.  And – if you make a device that tracks anything about the human being, drop me a line – I’m interested in talking to you.

Speaking of brilliant photographs, my mom sent me two yesterday.  The first one is her dressed in PJ’s reciting “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to her kindergarten class.  I remember having to sing Christmas Carols as a kid but I stopped in seventh grade when I started declaring to my teachers “I’m Jewish – I don’t have to do this.”  But kindergarten was probably fair game.

The second was her class picture from kindergarten. 

I love looking at these old photographs, especially in digital form.  In addition to being photogenic, my mother has integrated photography into her art.  Regularly readers of this blog probably know that my mom is an artist (see a nice collection of her work on line at Studio 7310) but you might not know that she is a master with a camera and Photoshop.  If you are into photography, take a look at two of her exhibitions: Faces and Places (4/5/08 – 5/3/08 at the Mesquite Art Center) and Near and Far (9/4/04 – 10/1/04 at 416westgallery).

I really miss Jack Bauer.  Hopefully he’ll be back on my giant screen in my living room soon.  In the mean time he interrogates Santa Claus.

You can see that Jack is getting soft.  Santa Claus has always stood up to a lot of scrutiny.  We all know that one day the Santa Claus Sex Scandel will hit, but I expect Ms. Claus will stay by his side.  Jack – I was hoping for better from you on this one.

I love having steel balls.

Amy and I discovered Mark Castator about a year ago.  He’s a Boulder based artist that does amazing stuff with steel.  Here’s a few other things in our house in Eldorado Canyon.

The metal painting on the wall is by Mark Cesark who is an Aspen based artist (and another Mark) who we’ve fallen in love with and are collecting aggressively.  The steel towers by the window are Castator’s.

  
The next time you are in my office feel free to ask to see my big steel balls – I’ve got some there also.  Yeah, all of this kind of reminded me of Pete Schweddy.  Sorry.  Oh – and please remember the legal disclaimer on this blog.

How to be a Jewish Star.  I feel like some potato latkes this morning.

When I was a kid, everyone said that Hanukkah was better than Christmas since we got eight gifts.  My view was that we got eight shitty little gifts while all my friends had a giant gift orgy on Christmas.  At some point I stopped caring completely.  Really, I don’t care.  Really!  Well not really.

As 2009 heads into the home stretch, I’m feeling techno-restless.  I’ve got two big end of year projects that I’m working on that will keep me in front of my computer a lot, along with a pile of new toys that have shown up in the past few weeks that I’m playing with.  So – yesterday I decided to start trying to use new stuff and see if I would switch.

I thought I’d start with some Googly stuff so I grabbed Amy’s new Droid to play with Android and downloaded the Beta Chrome browser.  24 hours I’m back to my iPhone, but I’m sticking with Chrome.  Here’s my reaction to both so far.

In theory, the Droid is a great idea.  AT&T service in Boulder has been terrible all year and it doesn’t really seem to be getting better.  I’ve really settled into using the iPhone comfortably for a data device, especially in reach of Wifi, but the dropped calls (and call quality) are maddening.  I know Verizon is happier here and I figured the number of folks saying positive things about the Droid meant the software would be “close enough” to what I’m used to on the iPhone.  After one day of fighting through the email client, the marginal keyboard, the terrible on screen keyboard, and generally feeling a massive loss of “speed” as I tried to jam through email, I gave up on it.  The screen is beautiful, but the hardware isn’t anywhere as nice as Apple’s.  I guess I’m just going to suffer through AT&T’s service for a while until they eventually either improve it or I give up or Apple opens up the iPhone.  At least for now.

Chrome is a whole different story.  I’ve been a Firefox user for at least four years and – while I generally really like it – I’ve noticed it getting slower and slower with each major release.  I’ve tried Chrome a few times in the past and always found it snappy, but the lack of plugins – most notably bookmark sync – but others that I use all the time like Glue – caused me to sick with Firefox.  Well – the Chrome beta now has bookmark sync and extensions – and it just kicks ass.  It is so much faster than Firefox, both with Google specific stuff as well as general web pages.  I’m now firmly in Chrome.

So – Google got one out of two switches from me today.  Not bad – we’ll see what new toys next week brings.

Another awesome APOD photo.

I wonder how evil and scary the blue horse looks when backlit like this.

Sorry – I couldn’t help myself.  I doubt this will be repeated anytime soon.

I know it’s a little self-referential for me to put this on my blog, but it is my blog after all.

I continue to love the Astronomy Picture of the Day. 

As a result of looking at it first thing in the morning, I insure that I’ll learn at least one thing each day.