Jordan, Walking

I think people consider me an artistic guy, possibly owing to my degree in art—go figure. Nevertheless, I’ve never been great at drawing. If I get some regular practice I’m not bad, so I’ve always sort of assumed that if I practiced enough, I could actually be good. And I like drawing. So I’m considering, for June, doing a drawing a day. Lord knows I’ve got enough Moleskine notebooks lying around, I’d just need—well, not need, but want—to get a couple decent pens. And I’ve got a fine scanner, so I could share my drawings here. Thoughts?

Also, I’ve kind of been itching to do more photography, which I take as a good sign. I’ve been thinking of trying film, though—getting back to basics and all that. We’ll see. Here’s a few bonus (digital) shots from this month:

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Yeah, this month’s project went down in flames pretty fast. While I found it beneficial for my photography, it was a little too disruptive and stressful for my life in general. I’ve had a spectacularly unproductive month, but a busy one. I’m thinking about what to do next month. Leave comments if you have any ideas, and stay tuned.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

I was bad, bad, bad this weekend. But I have some photos for you from Friday. Still awful bland, but there’s actually a couple in here that I really like. Even just two days of taking photos on a regular basis has begun to reawaken the part of my brain that looks for good subjects.

Now if only I could get up the nerve to approach people I don’t know, ’cause it’s people photos that really turn me on. On a similar note, I came across this article tonight: Being fun. I think it contains the sort of advice that most people think is obvious to the point of stupidity but people like me really need. That sort of thing—the stupid-obvious parts of social interaction—is the stuff that’s often the hardest for me.

Hopefully this week I’ll be better about taking photos than I was this weekend. I need to get out of the house more, but that’s news to nobody.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Okay, so I was having mobile upload issues today. I don’t know. So I uploaded them all tonight. Which is preferable insofar as it gives me the chance to clean them up a bit beforehand. Here’s what I captured today:

Some interesting wrinkles that appeared in my plan: 1) I was in the shower when one of my alarms went off. I actually didn’t hear it, even though the phone was sitting just a few feet away, but I probably wouldn’t have leapt out to take a photo anyway. I did take one immediately after emerging, though (try to guess which!). 2) I actually went to a movie tonight—Iron Man—which I don’t do especially often, and I opted to turn off the alarm during it. But I did take one immediately before it started, and one immediately after.

In practice this first day was kind of a pain in the ass. It reminded me a lot of my very first photography courses, and not just because I’m so terribly out of practice. Just like having to have a certain number of photos to show off on a certain day of class in high school, having to take a photo at a certain moment can be a little stressful. And as I predicted, some of them are pretty boring. I spent most of the day at home today, which is particularly challenging because though there are things to photograph in and around my building, I don’t see them because I’m so used to being there and, well, not seeing them. I predict that it will be easier on days when I’m out of the house. Or I may just go crazy.

I still have to come up with a better timer mechanic. Using my phone’s calendar kind of spoils the spontaneity because the phone’s main screen tells me when my next appointment is coming up.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Well, that was fun. Kinda. I’m glad my month of walking is done (and so are my feet, I’m sure), but I’m proud to have walked five miles almost every day for 30 days. I think I’m marginally more fit as well. For completeness’ sake: Yesterday I walked 5.3 miles and today exactly 5.

Tomorrow I start my May project: Photography on a schedule. Roughly every hour an alarm will go off and I’ll within thirty seconds I’ll take a photo. Of what? Whatever I can find to photograph within thirty seconds. This will generate lots of boring photos, I’m sure, but if there’s one thing I know about great photographers it’s that they throw away hundreds, even thousands of shots for every one they bother to print. An interesting side-effect is that it will give you a snapshot (no pun intended) of where I am and what I’m doing fourteen times a day. Fourteen? Yeah, roughly once an hour from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Why do I keep saying “roughly”? Because I’m trying to ratchet up the randomness. The easiest thing would be to set a timer (or my $10 digital watch) to beep every hour on the hour. But then I’ll end up saying, “Oh, it’s just about X:00, almost time to take a picture” and start looking around for things to photograph. If, however, I make it random—get an alarm to go off near, but a random number of minutes before or after, the hour—I won’t know when it’s coming. I won’t be able to prepare for it and spontanaety, ironically, will be compulsory.

This turns out to be a bit technically tricky. I’ve been putting off coming up with a real solution to the “random timer” problem—it will probably involve writing a script that emails my phone at randomly-generated times—but for tomorrow I’ve just rolled some dice and manually entered 14 calendar items into my phone. This is less than ideal for a variety of reasons that are uniformly boring, so just take my word for it. As I’ve mentioned before, whenever possible I’ll be uploading photos directly from my phone to this web site (which involves some dreary memory card-swapping between phone and camera), so put on your voyeur hats and check back often.

As for April, sometimes soon I’ll put together a postmortem post with charts and graphs and stuff showing what I did and did not accomplish. I’m also brainstorming other ways to keep getting exercise without boring myself to death, so expect to hear about that. I can tell you’re on the edges of your seats.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Look at me, once again a lousy blogger.

This weekend myself, Roxy and our friend Tom went to Chicago for our friend Cara’s birthday party. It was a lot of fun, but I was bad and didn’t walk on Saturday in favor of sleeping in after a day of driving long distances, getting poured on by the sky, and partying. It is what it is. I did, however, manage to squeeze in 5.4 miles on Friday despite having absolutely no time for it, and 4.7 miles last night. It wasn’t a full five miles because I just guestimated on the route and didn’t check when I got home to make sure it was a full five. But it’s close enough for me.

Has it truly been five days since I last posted? Here’s the rest of those days’ figures: 5.4 miles on Wednesday, 6.4 miles on Thursday, and more or less exactly 5 miles today. I’m going to update the mile counter over on the left once I’m done posting this.

There are only two days left in this month and I’m glad. Frankly, the past week or so I’ve been pretty sick of walking. Iowa City is pretty but there’s not a lot of variety in the landscape, at least not within walking distance of my house. For May I’ve essentially settled on Photography On A Schedule for my project. I haven’t quite worked out the details yet, but basically I’ll be setting some sort of timer to go off every hour or so (ideally there would be a degree of randomness to this) from some time in the morning to some time at night, whereupon I’ll be compelled to take a photograph within, say, 30 seconds. When I’m able I’ll send the photo to this blog immediately, but when it’s not convenient I’ll save them until it is, or til the end of the day.

That’s the basic idea. I may tweak the parameters as the month goes by. But I’m pretty excited about it overall.

So what about walking? Well, I’m hoping to still walk a lot. It’s just good exercise. But I’m not going to feel compelled to do it every single day. I’ll keep walking to my favorite places—downtown to Fair Grounds or over to the Java House—instead of taking the bus or the car, when it’s practical at least, but for exercise I’m hoping to introduce some more variety. More on that later, I guess.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Today I walked 5.2 miles and yesterday 5.7. Not much to report, except I ran into a friend from college yesterday. The weather has been completely amazing this week. It’s great to be able to walk in short sleeves. I’d like to buy a good pair of walking sandals, though—my feet demand to breathe.

I came across an article, or perhaps anecdote is more accurate, about what the author calls the Optimism Tax. I wear my optimism like a badge, and the anecdote made me smile. It’s short—read it and maybe you’ll think about it the next time you expect the worst.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

My weekend wasn’t that busy, but I feel like it was. I got out of my bubble and spent some time with friends, and got some good walking in. Today was utterly gorgeous. Yesterday was very nice as well. Friday, though, I was bad, very bad, and did not walk but a few blocks. It was rainy out, that’s my excuse. I walked essentially the same route Saturday and today, though: 6.8 miles on each. It was nice.

I’ve been promising you photos. I haven’t got many, but I might as well post a few I’m fond of. They’re by no means the pinnacle of my art, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. As always, click to enlarge.

I’ve been thinking more about my photography on a schedule idea and still think it might be a fun project for May. I haven’t gotten much feedback about it, so now’s your chance.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

An idea just popped into my head regarding photography. I’ve been kind of having a photography block for, well, longer than I’d like to admit. Much of this is related to habit, i.e. I haven’t made a habit of going out and photographing things. So here’s an idea, or the germ of an idea at least: Take photographs on a schedule. Carry a camera everywhere (which I’ve been trying to do anyway) and set my watch or phone to go off at an arbitrary interval throughout the day and at when it does stop whatever I’m doing and take a picture of something. It could be anything, but I’d have to do it within, say, thirty seconds (thus forcing myself to take a picture without wandering around for half an hour looking for “inspiration”).

I’m not certain about this idea yet, but on the surface it seems like it could be positive. The biggest problem I foresee so far is that it would be disruptive in obvious and non-obvious ways. Consider: Driving, watching a movie at a theatre, carrying on a conversation, etc., etc. An interesting side-effect of my absurdly connected lifestyle, however, is that I could, with some fussing, get photos online almost instantly, though I might be tempted to eschew that when it would be additionally disruptive.

So. Thoughts?

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Well. Monday I did a stupid and didn’t realize until the next morning that I had only walked four miles. So that’s a four-mile day. But on Tuesday I walked all over downtown—sort of trying to break up my routine—for a total of about 6.8 miles, and yesterday I did 5.5. I’ve done three today and will probably do another three on the way home.

Roxy sent me an interesting article today called How to Overcome Apathy (If You Can Be Bothered…), not because I’m apathetic—though I certainly have my moments—but because it has this to say about goals:

The time spent working on a goal isn’t wasted, even if you never reach the goal. This is because the whole point of setting a goal is to connect you with what you desire. Actually finishing the marathon, earning a million dollars or starting your own business are less important.

I have goals that aren’t finished today. I might achieve them in the future. I might not. That doesn’t matter. What really matters is that my goals fill me with enthusiasm right now. Even if I never reach the end, thinking about my goals makes me enthusiastic about life. That’s the point.

So, if you give up on a goal midway, that isn’t a failure. The goal still served it’s purpose. It made you enthusiastic at one time. When it can’t do that anymore, you’re probably better off finding a better goal.

Another friend told me much the same thing the other day, even citing the sunk cost fallacy as the article does. I already know most of this on some level, but being reminded of it is particularly reassuring.

The rest of the article is worth a read, especially if you’re feeling apathetic today.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

It’s been a pretty lousy week for walking. Tuesday and Saturday I didn’t walk five miles. I don’t remember why I didn’t on Tuesday—weather, I think—but I only made it 3.6 miles. Yesterday I did 2.5 miles with Roxy and then got caught up in other stuff and didn’t have any downtime until about 1 a.m. and yeah, I chose sleep instead. And Thursday, well, I didn’t walk at all on Thursday. But unlike the other days I think Thursday is defensible: the weather was really nasty. It rained without cease morning, afternoon, and evening, and we were under a tornado warning for some of it. If it had just been raining I’d have gone out anyway, but it was downright seek-shelter torrential at times. Blah.

Today it was finally kind of nice out. A little chilly and windy, but fine enough. I walked 6.3 miles, making for an average of 4.1 miles for the last seven days. This week I’ll be better, especially if the weather forecast is to be believed.

Since my trip was in its planning phase I’ve been thinking a lot about geography and location quite a bit, and I’ve got some ideas regarding how I could turn my daily motions into an interesting web experience. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but you might hear more about it in the future.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

I finally got around to updating the mile-counter over there on the left. That’s how many miles I’ve walked since March 10. Nearly 50 of those miles have been in the month of April, though I admit having had to guess at my total mileage for a few of the days.

Today I walked downtown and back, and not the most direct route, so 6.1 miles.

Tomorrow it’s supposed to be stormy all day. I hope the clouds part long enough for me to walk without getting rained on.

I’ve been trying to think of ways to make this blog more interesting, not just for you, the readers, but for me, so I’ll enjoy updating it more (and consequently update it more). Some photos would help, but frankly I haven’t taken many. Ideas?

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Today it’s rainy out, which is a convenient scapegoat for the fact that I overslept. I was still up by 8:30, but that’s the latest I’ve gotten up this month. It looks like it’s going to be rainy all day, so I guess I’ll have to do my walking tonight, or break out the umbrella.

I’m feeling kind of conflicted over “deliberate” walking versus “incidental” walking. Yesterday, for example, I walked 4.2 miles, from home to a coffee shop and back. I call that “deliberate” since I could have driven (since I happened to have the car) or taken the bus, but chose to walk. I feel good about counting that toward my five miles for the day. I rounded out the last mile, however, while shopping (looking for shoes, among other things, which proved fruitless), which I view as “incidental” walking—I was only walking because, well, that’s how malls work. I most certainly did more than a mile of that, but I’m not sure if I can count it. In terms of exercise it’s lousy compared to walking at a steady pace from point A to B. But it’s still exercise.

I don’t think there’s a definitive answer. I’m going to try to keep as much of my walking as possible the deliberate kind, though. Incidental walking that I do serves best as a sort of feel-good bonus, like the walking I did in Chicago on Saturday after having walked five-plus miles “deliberately” in the morning.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Back from the Windy City. It lived up to its nickname, but was warm, in the sun at least. I was afforded free lodging with family in Plainfield, which was more than comfortable. Saturday morning I was up by 7:30 and went for a long walk around a nearby wildlife preserve. Very pretty. I haven’t bothered to figure out the miles, but it was at least five. Saw lots of very loud geese, some ducks and a heron.

Of course, I could have predicted that walking in the morning would prove unnecessary–I walked around the city with friends all day. My feet were plenty sore when I got back to Plainfield in the wee hours.

Sunday, I must confess, I’m not sure I really did five miles. There was some walking around an outdoor mall with a friend in the suburbs, but the only deliberate walking I did was less than three miles’ worth when I got back home. So, shame on me.

I got up at seven this morning but didn’t walk; I had an acute desire to sit and rest for a bit, since I had scarcely sat down since Saturday morning. So now I’m out walking, taking a break from work, and typing on this infernal phone keyboard. Unfortunately I walk slower while typing in, I’m sure, a subconscious effort not to misstep and fall on my delicate face. (I have a strong suspicion that said effort will, at some point, prove futile, but that is neither here nor there.)

It’s cold and windy today; glad I brought my scarf but wishing I’d worn a hoody.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Agh. When did I get so bad at this blogging thing? Sorry. I’m walking now, on my way home from downtown. That’ll make 5.6 or so miles for today. Yesterday I did a whopping 6.4 miles in three bursts, and yes, I did go out again Wednesday night for a total of 5.1 miles.

I have been taking a few pictures, just a few when I happen to see something interesting, so expect to see a few of those soonish.

This weekend, though, I’m heading to Chicago; I’ll still be walking, but I’m leaving my laptop at home so chances are good I won’t blog–typing blog posts on my phone is a drag, let me tell you.

Have a swell weekend, everybody.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Nicole just asked me why no posts appeared here yesterday. I haven’t a clue, since I did write one. Somehow it didn’t get published. Here’s what it said:

Good morning! I actually got up at 6:15 this morning and was out of the house by 6:30. I walked 5.2 miles in 90 minutes, with a ten-minute break in the middle. It was cold and windy. My feet complained a bit—believe it or not they’re still not completely healed from my trip—but mostly it was fine. I don’t have much to add, except that it’s kind of fun getting lost in your own neighborhood. See you tomorrow.

Thanks for the heads-up, Nicole. Now, this morning I got up at 6:15 again and walked 3.7 miles. I had to cut it short ’cause I had an errand to run. I’ll make up the difference this afternoon or evening.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

Tomorrow is April Fools’ Day, know increasingly as Internet Jackass Day because of the vigor with which jackasses with internet connections (and, worse, web hosts) have embraced the holiday. An incredible quantity of very unfunny pranks go down on Internet Jackass Day—not unfunny as in malicious or harmful, just unfunny as in, “Really? This is what you came up with? Where should I send the bill for that time I’ll never get back?” I’m not really going anywhere with this—just, if you get online tomorrow, remember that it’s April 1 and there are a lot of jackasses out there. In fact, maybe avoid getting online if you can. It’s probably not worth it.

Okay, enough. Thanks for everyone who left comments on my last post. For April I’ve decided I’m going to start with something easy—well, not easy as such, but something that doesn’t scare me as much as, say, talking to a stranger every day. It may not be the most exciting goal, but every day in April I’m going to walk five miles. It ought to take me about an hour and a half each day, so when I can I’m going to do it in the morning before work and before my shower, so I’ll be getting up at at 6 a.m. Which will be interesting.

As for this web site, I’ll be posting every day with how many miles I walk. Some days that’ll probably be the only thing I write, but other days I’ll hopefully have something more interesting to say–where I walked, what I saw, maybe even some photos. I hope you stay tuned anyhow and keep me honest. If I don’t walk my five miles—and my intention is to do it every single day, including weekends, unless I am somehow physically prevented—I hope you’ll be merciless in your scolding.

That’s all I’ve got for now. You’ll hear from me tomorrow.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

The last time I saw my dad, about a week before I started out on my journey, he told me that one way to better understand a person is to look at what they put the most energy into. At the time I was prepared, in one sense or another, to walk almost 1,700 miles. That’s a huge amount of energy; Dad didn’t know what that signified, and I’m still not sure. But I still have that energy, and frankly I’m nervous about letting it go to waste.

In my last post I wrote, “This week certain facts about myself—social, physical, and artistic ones, for a start—were brought into sharper focus, and when I decided to come home I also resolved to keep them in focus, and I’ll be using this web site for that purpose.” Vague resolutions don’t work, especially not for me, so I want to do this in a methodical way. Here’s what I’m thinking: Focus on that word “focus.” When I started this project I felt ready to focus on doing just one thing every day for 70 or more days: walk. “Walk 25 miles a day,” I thought, “I can do that.” Now I want to take that same focus and apply it to other areas of my life.

So. Thirteen days from now is April 1, the beginning of a new month, and for that month I’m going to focus on a single thing to do each day. I haven’t decided on the thing yet, but it’s going to be a simple but challenging task. Here are some ideas I’ve had:

• Walk five miles
• Take five photos
• Write a page of prose
• Get up at 6 a.m.
• Talk to one stranger
• Practice guitar (didn’t know I have a guitar, did you?)
• Draw a picture
• Write 20 lines of code
• Make a video

You get the idea. These are all things that I want to do more of, but have not, historically, taken the time to do. So for April I’ll pick one of those things (or some other thing), do it each and every day, and—this is an important part—post about it on this blog.

This isn’t a new idea by any measure. People were doing it long before that silly word “blog” was coined, I have no doubt, and since then every variation one can imagine has been attempted. But this is my attempt and this blog—or rather you, its readership—is my method of accounting. If I don’t complete my task on a certain day, it will be reported here just as if I do complete it. And anything I create in the course of my task, it will be posted here as well.

Then, at the beginning of the next month, I’ll choose a new task. What I’m hoping to accomplish, really, is to build habits. That is, put myself in the habit of taking photos, of walking, of writing and talking to strangers and so on, and one at a time making them natural parts of my life rather than “tasks.” My hope is at the end of each month to have a new habit to keep and a new task to work on.

Here’s the part where I ask for feedback: First, the general: What do you think? Good plan? Bad plan? Something missing? Second, the specific: What should by my first task, to commence on April 1? What would be interesting for you to read about? Something from the above list, or something else? What do you think I’m most likely to be successful at or satisfied with? Please, have at it in the comments.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

• Sorry to say, I’m back at home. Details here: http://tinyurl.com/358cj8 #

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.

I made a really hard decision yesterday: To come home.

Almost as hard is writing this post. It’s hard not to be defensive or apologetic to the hundred-plus people I urged to follow this web site as I walked—would have walked—to Key West, FL. I got a lot of people excited about my project, everyone from my little niece to my hair stylist, and the worst part of coming home was imagining how I would explain to those people, one after the other, why I’m back here and not still Out There.

My fear, of course, is that I’ll be viewed as a quitter, or even a failure, someone who talks big but doesn’t follow through. I don’t believe I am those things, but neither am I, in this particular venture, a success. The next time I tell any of those people that I want to attempt some grand project they will, even if they don’t want to, remember this one. That’s one of the most painful things about this.

While I believe I don’t need to justify it, I would like to explain my decision to come home, but it’s proving almost as difficult as explaining my reasons for attempting the trip in the first place. It feels important, though I’m not sure why, to assert that my reasons weren’t physical. There was pain, but I’m confident that my body could have been made to go another day, and another after that, and on until it became physically effortless. My true reasons are psychological and even philosophical, and consequently less well-defined. What I can say for certain is that this was not the right time for this endeavor. I’m very sad that that’s the case, but in my few days Out There I did learn a lot about myself and about the nature of this kind of journey, and I can say with confidence that, though I don’t know if I will attempt to walk from Iowa to Florida again, my trekking days have just begun. What an odd way to begin.

I’m not through with this web site. This week certain facts about myself—social, physical, and artistic ones, for a start—were brought into sharper focus, and when I decided to come home I also resolved to keep them in focus, and I’ll be using this web site for that purpose. Jordan, Walking is no longer about a 1,700-mile journey, but it’s still about a journey, and I hope it remains something that the people around me are interested in.

Many thanks to all of you who encouraged me and gave me advice and cheered me on. I am overwhelmed by your number and enthusiasm. I did not complete my trip, but it is absolutely true that without your support it never would have begun.

I’m leaving comments on this post open, for awhile at least. I’m most emphatically not looking for sympathy, and the words “I never would have made it as far as you!” are particularly sour to me. But I would like to know your sincere and unabridged thoughts if you are interested in sharing them. Thanks.

Originally published at Jordan, Walking. Please leave any comments there.