Voice of the DBA

This is my last week of the year working (I guess I come back on the 30th for a minute), so I decided to do some analysis of my year. I like data and numbers, so I’m looking at a few aspects of life this year with data I’ve compiled from previous years.

Today we look at my health (somewhat) and exercise. That’s a big part of my life and I dedicate a lot of time to taking care of myself.

Health

I don’t want to disclose too much, but I feel fairly healthy. I have some age-related things that are annoying, but in general, I can live my life. This year (2024) was the first time since ankle surgery (2022), that I felt my balance was really good on the surgical ankle. That was nice to have it feel over the summer that it was back to full strength.

I don’t have history (that I know of) of heart issues, but I like tracking my heart. I use a Garmin Forerunner 645, which seems to be accurate the few times I’m also hooked up to a doctor’s machine.

My yearlong resting heart rate is: 52bpm. Sightly high, as I’d like it at 50 or below, but I’ve had some stressful travel stretches, and I think that’s made things slightly worse.

My avg. high is 128, which is mostly from exercise, though I don’t know what to think about that number as an average.

My one year sleep average is 8h35m a night. Pretty good, though I think the watch sometime catches me at night or in the morning as lightly sleeping when I’m reading. Still, it’s good I’m in bed for a nice stretch most nights.

I struggle with weight as I travel. I was trying to stay 220-225, which I did well with in 2023. This year, with some really long trips, I’ve struggled. I get up around 230 on trips, and then struggle to get below 226-227. This was my year, and the upward trend started with the UK and then AUS trips.

Slowly doing better as I’ve been home since Nov 22. I hope to close out the year at 225 or lower.

I should track BP, but I don’t. The closest I get it stress, which for me is from my watch. The scale is 1-100, and I show an average for the year of 23. My lowest reading was 17, and the highest was 30. I remember it being above 25 and I know why.

In general, I am fairly low stress most of the time, and when I feel stressed, I can see it in the readings.

Exercise

I try to log all workouts on my watch. If I miss one, or it’s not charged, I try to add a manual one. I don’t always log walks, especially days when I’m just walking a lot without dedicated exercise time. Like in a convention center.

In any case, here are the workout stats.

• Indoor Cycling    102
• Yoga    56
• Strength Training    54
• Elliptical    15
• Pool Swim    8
• Walking    6
• Resort Snowboarding    3
• Indoor Rowing    1
• Other    1

That’s a pretty good count overall. I had 246 workouts. Since I often cycle and lift, those can be the same day, but I do a lot of cycling on the road as a quick workout.

The disappointing bits. Being gone a lot this summer only had me with 8 swims, which was sad. Only 1 of those was over a mile

I also only had 3 days snowboarding, which was also sad, but that was a busy life.

Still, I think I worked out about 160 days this year by my best guess. We’re still a few weeks short, but that’s about 40-some% of the days that I specifically dedicate to workouts. Less a variety of things, as last year I had 10 types of workouts. Also less yoga, which is something I need to get better at on the road.

This is my last week of the year working (I guess I come back on the 30th for a minute), so I decided to do some analysis of my year. I like data and numbers, so I’m looking at a few aspects of life this year with data I’ve compiled from previous years.

Today I’m looking at the books I read. I read a lot to get away from my chaotic life and this has been one of the things I’ve tracked for many years. I use GoodReads to track my reading, and I’ve done this since 2018. I used to do some book reviews or track counts on my blog, but I gave that up as Goodreads has great Kindle integration.

The Numbers

The numbers are constantly in flux, as I never stop reading, but as of this writing (12/16), here are the totals by year:

• 2024 – 131  – updated 12/16
• 2023 – 111
• 2022 – 105
• 2021 – 118
• 2020 – 82
• 2019 – 128

This was my biggest year, likely because of all the time I spent in airports and on planes. I tend to read a lot during those stretches.

A book isn’t a book, and I’m not sure how to easily get a count of pages read. Even then, with forewards of different lengths, citations/references/etc. it’s hard to know if I read more of less this year. However, from Goodreads, I could get this:

• 2024 – 51753
• 2023 –  34157
• 2022 –  29517
• 2021 –  29058
• 2020 –  22932
• 2019 –  42349

More pages in books this year.

I tend to read a lot of series, and this year, I had 18 authors of whom I read multiple books. I don’t have a series grouping, but these are the top authors:

• J.N. Chaney    15
• Douglas Pratt    10
• Jeffery Deaver    9
• Jack Slater    9
• Steven Konkoly    9
• Stephen Taylor    8
• Harlan Coben    6
• Robert Dugoni    6
• Brad Lee    6

Harlan Coben has a series (Myron Bolitar), but I think most of these were standalone books. Most of the Deavers were either the Colton Shaw series or ones from Lincoln Rhyme that I hadn’t read. The Douglas Pratt, Logan Ryles, Steven Konkoly, and J.N. Chaney series were new ones I discovered. I ripped through quite a few of these in trips, storing them in my Kindle app and reading offline.

• Devices used: 3

I only used my computer a few times to read during lunch, but almost all my reading is on my mobile phone. It’s a 6”+ screen and it works well. The third device was also a phone, which I replaced this year.

I tried to use a small Kindle device in the past, but my daughter appropriated it last year and I haven’t used it since. I don’t miss it and while I carried a Kindle Fire a few times on trips, I ended up barely using it for video and never for reading.

Genres

I tend to read mostly fiction, as this is an escape for me. However, I do try to keep a few business/career related books in play. This year, by my count, I read these genres:

• Thillers: 81
• Sci-fi: 19
• Mystery: 17
• Legal: 6
• Nonfiction: 4

The nonfiction books were mostly for work, though I did read Geddy Lee’s bio, which I enjoyed. I roughly categorized these by author, so keep that in mind. Some of the thrillers likely fall into mysteries or something else, but I wanted just a quick look at my world.

The Highlights

I’ll recommend a few different items. I read a lot from my Kindle Unlimited subscription as well as a local library borrowing. If you buy from a link, you’re funding my reading habits.

I’d recommend all the non-fiction books I read, which were these:

• My Effin’ Life
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
• The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision

I got lucky as I have a couple others in progress that I am not sure I’d recommend. In the sci-fi area, I really enjoyed the Sentenced to War series. It’s 15 books, so a nice long time to learn the characters. The main one is a little immature, but we watch him grow up, which was neat.

I’ve also been trying to catch up on the Spinward Fringe series. I loved Hunters: Broadcast 16, but if you want to start, Broadcast 0: Origins is free.

In the thrillers area, The Never Game caught my eye. It’s the Colton Shaw series from Deaver, and the basis for a new series on CBS. I enjoyed these 4, though the short story wasn’t great (1.5). These got me to look back for Lincoln Rhyme books I’d missed.

I tried some Crighton’s I’d missed, but didn’t love them. I did, however, really enjoy the Prosecution Force series, book one is Brink of War. It’s a crazy tale, but I enjoyed the character and how he can’t quite trust anyone. I need to get a few more from this author.

In the legal area, I’ve enjoyed the books of Robert Dugoni. This is an area I’ll get stuck in sometimes, usually with a new (to me) Grisham novel, but in this case, the Trace Crosswhite series was good last year and I liked the David Sloane series this year. The first is The Jury Master.

That’s the year in reading, which was a fun one for me. Who knows where next year will go. Right not I’m in a bit of a sci-fi channel, with 2-3 business books on tap.