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[personal profile] gurdonark
This morning I meant to go to the monthly Second Saturday Audubon Society Bird Walk at the Heard Natural Science Center. I got behind, a tad, and was concerned I would arrive late. That concern, combined with a disinclination to bird-walk until Noon, led me to go to Limestone Quarry Park in Frisco to walk on my own.

Soon after I began walking this sidewalk path, I saw a young coyote nearby. Soon I saw two more. The other folks on their walks described to me coyotes they were seeing. I got really good lucks at some of these mostly-young coyotes, but good pictures eluded me. Later in the walk, though, I did come upon a coyote who seemed about as curious about me as I was about it for the moment or two we looked across the distance at one another.

I walked on the Taychas Trail from Limestone Quarry Park to Harold Bacchus Park and back again. In addition to coyotes, I saw sixty Cedar Waxwings (an aggregation termed "an earful" or "a museum", according to taste). I saw thirty American Pipits (these birds nest in the Summer in the far northern Canadian and Alaskan tundra, but winter here). I walked over two hours and had a good time.

This week I've been using the Google Fit android application to track my exercise. The two hour walk amounted to five miles and some 12,000+ steps. I've confirmed my prior beliefs--most days I hit roughly 3,000 to 5,000 steps, but on weekend days, I take substantially more steps. Today I finished out at 18,600 steps, after taking further walks to walk my dog in the new-found sunny afternoon, to look for birds in Bethany Lakes Park and in Green Park, and to go pick up some bananas at a discount store.

I also listened to various Linux podcasts. I enjoy listening to podcasts while I walk.
My wife is under the weather, so we stayed in tonight. We had already postponed our plans to visit a museum in Fort Worth today via train. I went to Boston Market where, through the miracle of a two-for-one sale, I could pick up two meals at a low cost.

In the afternoon, I mailed off a card to a distant virtual friend enduring some challenges. I was reasonably happy with the photo card I had designed at Walgreens.com. So I created a Valentine's Day photo card for my wife. Walgreen's had it printed out in under an hour. I drove to the Walgreen's store. I had one of those casually bizarre encounters in which the man apparently behind me insisted to the cashier that he was first in line and that he was in a hurry. I did not complain, but in the event, I and a third customer were dealt with first, as we were merely picking up and could be handed our products and pointed to the cash register. I found the whole thing odd but not a big deal. The card came out just right, so I will design personalized cards more often in the future.

Now I am in for the evening, and plan to read, listen to music, do practical things, and relax with my wife.

Date: 2016-02-24 01:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toluene.livejournal.com
I was completely unaware of Google Fit, but now I'm curious. I've never logged the number of steps I take, but I never wanted to get a FitBit or whatever.

Date: 2016-02-24 02:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gurdonark.livejournal.com
Though I feel a little bit conscious of giving Google more data points on me, I have to give this app a ringing endorsement. It seems to reach analogous results to my wife's Fitbit but at no cost. It saves me time and money, as far as I'm concerned, and confirmed my belief that I do okay on weekdays and really exercise a lot on weekends.

Date: 2016-02-26 04:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toluene.livejournal.com
Yeah, I definitely feel kind of "meh" on giving more data about myself as well. But again, I also like the idea of saved time and money, so I think I will give it a whirl. I think there will be a huge difference in my weekdays vs weekends. :)

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