Blogging during TV Turn-off week

In response to a post earlier in the week, "ALT" asks whether I should be blogging and whether blog readers should be reading during TV Turn-off Week, which includes being "screen free."

Good question.

Since the computer replaced the typewriter, which replaced the pen, the keyboard/screen has become the dominant writing/publishing tool. So what I am doing, as I gaze at this screen, is writing.

This is not Writing/publishing-Turn-off Week. Nor should it be Reading-Turn-off Week.

The problem isn't screens per se. It's how we use them, and, yes, how MUCH we use them. If I had been fixated on this screen all day, I might have a problem, although many jobs are "screen-centered."

Cut out screens for a week and you lose your job.

My former livelihood as a journalist was screen-dependent, but no longer, ever since I became semi-retired. Still, the screen has its allure. I've taken steps to control my use of it.

Literally steps.

Since starting the 10,000-steps program recently, I've extracted myself from my screen-perch. My pedometer calls me the way the computer once did. The little step-counter clipped to my belt tells me that I'm actually averaging 12,000 steps or six miles of walking a day.

I have no idea whether I could do that after an eight-hour, five-days-a-week job, but it seems entirely possible. I find that with normal walking and then a planned one-hour walk (early in the morning, at lunch, in the evening), I can hit my 10,000-steps goal. Where to find that one hour?

That's where TV-Turnoff comes in — not just this week but every week.

(Sodden after-thought: you can have it ALL — if you insist — by buying a treadmill and putting a TV in front of it.)

As for writing, researching and staying informed, I'll keep using this little tool they call a computer.

10,000-step addiction

For the second day in a row, I’m posting photos from a Portland park. This time it is Albert Kelly Park, just a 15-minute walk from my front door.

I’m out and about on foot to feed my pedometer.

A week ago I signed up for the 10,000 Steps program. In the morning, I zero out the pedometer from the previous day and then check periodically to see how I’m doing on my beginner's goal of 9500 steps by bedtime.

So far, I’m doing just fine, no small thanks to Albert Kelly Park, the Fairmont Loop, Marshall park, a meadow of flowers, a skeletal tree at dusk, luxuriant cherry blossoms and a few choice trails (clearly marked by SW Trails signs).

In fact, I’m about to increase the daily goal to the full 10,000 steps. Amazingly, that's roughly five miles.

I think this could become addictive.