Counting my steps

My last name-brand fitness tracker, a Garmin, went south on me back in late September or early October. Looking ahead to holiday expenses, I decided not to try to get a new Garmin or FitBit at the time; instead, I went online the first week of October and ordered a dirt-cheap no-name model.

At first, I thought I’d gotten a good deal; the display was more colorful than the Garmin, and there were a few additional features. But by the end of December, the battery life — which had originally been OK — started going south fast. And I also hated the way the unit charged — you had to pull the electronic unit out of its plastic wristband, revealing a little plastic tongue that you would insert into a USB port.

Without the metal housing that holds a normal USB plug in place, the plastic tongue did not fit very well, and you’d often have to keep checking it to make sure it was still making contact and charging. Sometimes, with little provocation, it would simply fall out of the port.

Anyway, I got fed up with the fitness tracker earlier this month and stopped wearing it.

This morning, I got to thinking that I’d like to have a tracker of some sort before I go to Warmth In Winter this weekend, if only to know how many steps I take traipsing back and forth between Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, the Gaylord Opryland Event Center, and Opry Mills shopping mall. You can rack up a pretty large number of steps without ever leaving the Opryland Hotel. A wristwatch would also be helpful, an alternative to…