Well I made it - 3 million steps for the year with 2 weeks to spare. That's 1500 miles! I could have walked to our new house in Colorado (and back). Or I could have walked to Courtney's condo in Chicago 5 times. But unfortunately, most of those steps (especially the last 9 months) were spent walking around the block in our neighborhood. I've worn a hole in the sidewalk and my shoes. To celebrate my 3 millionth-step, however, I decided to go over to Forest Park. Too bad I picked such a cold day. Even though the sun was shining, my face was freezing.
I took my sketchbook with me thinking it would be warm sitting in the sun, which it sort of was, but my hands got very cold with no gloves on. I had to draw really fast and then I had a hard time taking a photo, because my hands were shaking. I guess I'll have to stick with sketching from photos for the next few months or else just look out the window.
I've set up a series of Zoom sketchouts with my Urban Sketcher group. I'm calling them Virtual Field Trips. Last week, we had afternoon tea at the Ritz in London. Good thing I got some gold paint for my birthday, because that place is covered in it.
I also set up a Zoom meeting with one of my gamer friends. We experimented with playing Splendor online. We each played from our own board game, but told each other what colored chips we were taking. It actually turned out really well. We may try some other games, though I've gotten rid of most of my old board games in my de-cluttering efforts.
This is normally the time of year when I would be immersed in robotics refereeing, but everything has been postponed until February. So I've been spending my time fooling around building robots. One is a cat that meows, wags its tail, and wiggles its whiskers. I should send that one to Brian, since he likes cats so much. The other is a box robot. It's supposed to be very good for competitions, because it can't get caught on the mission models as it tries to maneuver through the playing field. The trouble is its a bear to build. If you put a piece in wrong (which I frequently do), you have to take the thing apart to get to the inside to fix it. I'm not sure I'm sold on this design, but a lot of the winning teams really seem to like it.
Bruce made a quickie trip to Chicago this week to take Courtney her Christmas presents. Too many states are shutting down again with the latest virus spikes, so she canceled her plane ticket home for Christmas. Bruce took her a belated Thanksgiving dinner (leftover turkey, gravy, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce). And he even let her open one present - some wireless earbuds. I guess the rest of our Christmas celebration is going to be done via Zoom. Ho. Ho. Ho.
