Eric Tapley

Yes, so I suck. My apologies.

I’ve been very busy with baby Sam and at work. I’m evaluating what I legitimately can do in terms of writing / blogging (we have a 3000k blog that’s neglected, a new one for 3SidedBox that will need attention to help promote our products, this personal blog, Sam’s baby blog, etc.).

Maybe I’ll just keep this around for health news, baby information and other notes to my mom.

Ha!

My Great-Great-Uncle Paul passed away yesterday. He was 93 years old, lived a long and fruitful life, and suffered little before his death.

Uncle Paul was the “cool guy” in the family when I was young. I poignantly remember him from one Thanksgiving at my Grandmother’s house. The whole family had gathered and finished our meal; we sat around laughing, joking, telling stories, and enjoying the warmth of the fire.

“Who wants dessert?” my Grandmother asked. Everyone, of course, wanted to know about the options. Grammy listed off the choices: pumpkin pie, apple pie, lemon meringue pie, pudding, and, of course, a few flavors of ice cream.

“Hell, Rose, I don’t know, bring me a little bit of everything,” Uncle Paul joked. He must have thought she’d pick something and bring it out, not bring a full spread of dessert, but indeed Uncle Paul’s was a plate full of each dessert, generous helpings, while the rest of us had our choice.

At every Thanksgiving after that Uncle Paul, without asking, would get the full selection of desserts. Sometimes one of us would yell out that we wanted “A little bit of everything,” just like Uncle Paul.

Uncle Paul was always a bit of a maverick to me, he was the one who lived as he wished, ate however much dessert he wanted, and who always stood up to others in my family when he believed in something. He spoke with the authority of years and made a great impression on me in my youth.

He was also the last connection I had to Papa and Nana, my Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother, two people who helped tremendously in raising my brother and I after my Dad left and my mom was on her own. They were, in many respects, a second set of parents.

I miss them all.

I used to be really athletic. I would run, cycle, and hike for hours each week. I was the healthiest person I knew.

I used to be great at managing my time and completing tasks. I could take on a ton of different things in a day and I had the energy and stamina to see them all through, and do a good (or great) job at each of them.

Neither of these are true, anymore.

After getting sick with Colitis and spending all of the time I did in the hospital (and the impact of the surgeries I underwent) my life kind of fell apart. Not in the traditional sense of losing a job, a spouse, or experiencing financial problem, but instead I stopped being the same person and doing things the same way.

It’s time to get back to who I used to be. I believe health is the key. So, starting this week, I’m going to do more than just walk and track my steps with a pedometer. I’m joining Bally’s and starting a vigorous exercise routine, complete with assistance from a personal trainer, and I’m going to redouble my efforts on nutrition.

I hope to do some great things with my life, and I have a lot of life left to live. This isn’t a post for sympathy, it’s a public declaration of intent.

Ah, the joys of having a suckass intestinal tract.

I’ve been back in and out of the hospital twice during the last four weeks. I have a stubborn intestinal infection that didn’t clear up with the first round of antibiotics and consequently sent me back to the hospital after I thought all was well.

This isn’t a big problem, in the grand scheme of things, as two three-day stays are a far cry from staying for weeks at a time back when I was battling Colitis. But it still reminds me of how hard it is to be sick, how much illness consumes your life and detracts from everything else, and how we never know what the next day really holds.

So this sucks. I’ll look at the bright side. I had a chance to visit with some of the wonderful nurses I’ve come to know at Boston Medical Center (Hi Chen, Aryn, Debbie, Jane, Sibohan, and the rest of 8 West!). It was a vacation, of sorts, at least away from the stresses of work (and legally drug induced, to boot). And, uh, free hospital TV?

I’m happy to be out and back on the trail to health. Now for that Nike+iPod system so I can kick this medication weight.

I’ve just returned home from a long evening walk. Here on the East Coast of the United States, at this time in September, that means it’s dark. And, given that I walked through a park and the woods, it was eerily quiet.

Life isn’t usually quiet or dark - especially quiet. There’s traffic, TV, the phone, customers, co-workers, meetings, babies, etc., all making noise (be it foreground or background). My walk was different, it was quiet. I could hear wind in the trees. I could hear acorns falling through leaves to the ground. I could hear fish jumping in a nearby pond.

I freaked out. I’m sure the darkness had something to do with it.

The world around us isn’t quiet or dark, especially in cities and populated areas. It’s almost as if the entire history of the human race has been moving away from quiet and dark and towards loud and lighted.

If you get a chance you should try quiet and dark. I think it has potential and is vastly underrated, if unusual and uncomfortable.

I’ve posted a photo gallery from Melissa and Nick’s wedding on August 10th. Lots of great shots. We had a wonderful time, and, as you’ll see, baby Sam did, too.

If you like, leave a comment here. Let me know which photos you like and what you would use as captions.

Enter the Wedding Photo Gallery

Back at the end of July I posted about using a pedometer to track my walking each day. I’ve been doing this since April 10th with the goal of walking at least 10,000 steps per day (about 4.6 miles for me). I had trouble with the first pedometer I purchased, so at the end of July I replaced it with the very slick-looking Sportline Walking Advantage 345.

I had terrible luck with this pedometer. I love the clamshell design but the unit was terribly unreliable. The hinge mechanism broke three times, about once a week, from normal use. I was especially careful of the clip after the first hinge broke, but the plastic mechanism kept twisting and breaking apart, no matter what I did. This final time the hinge hadn’t broken (yet) but the buttons stopped working properly so I couldn’t switch between modes, reset my steps from the previous day or change settings.

Tonight I replaced the pedometer at our local Dick’s Sporting Goods store for the fourth - and final - time. Instead of model 345 I talked the store staff into upgrading my exchange to the Sportline Walking Advantage 360. (It helped that they didn’t have any of the 345s in stock and I wasn’t going to settle for a downgrade, especially after having so much trouble.)

So far I really like this new model. The 360 has some features not on the 340/345, such as:

1. A user-replaceable battery.
2. Seven-day memory to track activity over time.
3. A walk/run mode to operate in different conditions.
4. Separate settings for stride if you’re walking vs. running.
5. The time of day (either 24-hour or 12-hour time).
6. A stronger clip.

Ultimately I just want this to work, and I hope that the stronger clip does the trick.

So, new pedometer, same goals. I hope to have better luck with this one!

On a related note, I’ve been thinking about the Nike+iPod kit and a new pair of shoes. I used to be a runner in high school and college (before I developed Colitis) and I’m really interested in getting back to it. Using the Nike+iPod system to keep track of running seems like a lot of fun and a great way to take advantage of all those tracks I have in iTunes. Cabel Sasser’s post on the subject is a great read on how this tech might make runners out of geeks all over the place.

Product details: Sportline Walking Advantage Model 360: Fitness Pro Pedometer