Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 4­

Yet another new pop song reached Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” on March 30, 1985: “One More Night” (video up top) by English singer, drummer, songwriter (etc.) Phil Collins. It was the first US single (and second UK single) from Collins' third studio album No Jacket Required. It was his second Number One song the first was “Against All Odds”, which was the subject of Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 on April 21 of last year).

Something I didn’t say about Collins last year was that I first became familiar with him when he was lead singer for English rock band Genesis. specifically their 1978 album ...And Then There Were Three.... I had that album and aslo it’s follow-up album, 1980’s Duke. As far as I can remember, I never bought another Genesis album, nor any Phil Collins album. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I actively disliked any of the music from either in those eras, thought I also didn’t necessarily like it all, either. The early-to-mid 1980s was one of the periods in which my musical tastes were changing the most, as I’ve mentioned before, and that meant that I didn’t always like bands or artists I once did. That’s just part of life, I think.

All that said, I actually kind of liked this song: It had a pleasant sound, and sometimes that’s enough. While it wasn’t a favourite song, I thought it was okay. Sometimes that’s enough for me, too.

“One More Night” reached Number 2 in Australia, Number One in Canada, Number 5 in New Zealand (Gold), Number 4 in the UK (Silver), and Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” and their “Adult Contemporary” charts. It was also Number 4 on the Billboard “Mainstream Rock” chart. The song was certified Gold in the USA.

The album No Jacket Required reached Number One in Australia (Platinum), Canada (Diamond), New Zealand (Platinum), the UK (6x Platinum) as well as Number One on the Billboard 200” (12x Platinum).

This series will return April 13 with the next Number One from 1985.

Footnote: Back on schedule! But I still wrote this on Sunday, the day I published it, and did so only after I fixed the messed up links in Part 3. The journey continues.

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1985” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 1 – February 2, 2025
Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 2 – February 16, 2025
Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 3 – March 12, 2025

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 418 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 418, “Podcasting for 18 years”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode. The site is not “https”, so you may need to tell your browser to let you through, anyway.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Podcasting for 18 years

Eighteen years ago today, I posted the first episode of my AmeriNZ Podcast. Today, as is usually the case, Facebook served up a “Memory”, and one of them was a post for my 15th podcast anniversary in 2022, something that I turned into a blog post. Everything from that post is still true. However, what I haven’t made clear enough, I think, is how much Nigel was my muse—and so much more.

Nigel first encouraged me to start a blog in 2004 or 2005 (I finally did in 2006), and then he encouraged me to start a podcast (they were audio-only at the time). He then bought me all kinds of equipment—an XLR microphone, mixer, studio headphones, and gave me very useful feedback after I was on Paul Armstrong’s “ArcherRadio” podcast for the first time a couple days after I posted my first episode.

A little while later, Nigel and I were shopping for audio mixers for him (he tried several…), he got a microphone, headphones, and monitor speakers. At the time, he was interested in recording and mixing music, but the only song he actually seriously worked on was a vocal by our niece.

That, then, led to two different Internet radio shows, the first alternating with Daniel Brewer, and the second was on his own Internet radio channel. Our friend Brian (who I originally met through podcasting) also had a show on Nigel’s station. I still have recordings of some of our shows on Nigel’s channel.

Things changed, Nigel’s job got busier, we shifted to South Auckland—then it all ended when he did.

I’ve struggled with podcasting and blogging ever since, and it’s pretty common for me to think about formally quitting both. Even so, I persist for some reason—mainly because whatever appealed to me about them at the beginning is still there, though more low key than it was.

I have no idea whether I’ll attempt to continue either, let alone both, or if they might evolve. But I know for sure that Nigel would still be encouraging me to do what feels right to me, and probably quietly proud that I’m still doing what he encouraged me to do so long ago, however imperfectly I’m currently doing it.

In keeping with my tradition, I’ll post a new episode this evening my time [the episode is now uploaded].

Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 3

A new pop song reached Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” on March 9, 1985: “Can't Fight This Feeling” (video up top) by American rock band REO Speedwagon. It was the second single from their 1984 album, Wheels Are Turnin'. It was the group’s second, and last, Number One. The song would be at the top spot for three weeks.

The song was written by lead singer Kevin Cronin, who began writing it around a decade earlier, and was based on a what was at the time his unrequited feeling for a woman who was dating a friend. In an interview with “the Professor of Rock” posted on YouTube last year, Cronin talked about one line in the song lyrics that he “caught so much crap for”WATCH/LISTEN to the short on YouTube:

It's time to bring this ship into the shore
And throw away the oars, forever

I can certainly see why he “caught so much crap”. The phrasing is clunky, but pedants at Genius Lyrics, linked above, pointed out that boats have oars, not ships, but that’s kind of beside the point for me and many others: It’s just kinda lame. Having said that, I’ve never written song in my life, so what do I know?

Clunky phrasing aside, I actually kind of liked the song. It was one of those soaring rock ballads from the time, and it was pleasant enough to listen to, though I never bought the song or album. I did, however, buy their 1980 album Hi Infidelity, which I also re-bought in digital form here in New Zealand. I was first introduced to them by my flatmate when I was at university when their 1978 album You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish, and I associate that album with good times. It probably helped that the band was largely formed in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois when the founders were at the University of Illinois—even though students at all the other state universities, including mine, tended to express at least mock hatred of U of I.

In 1985, my taste in pop music was still expanding, but still included “adult contemporary” (a much less cringe name than the old “easy listening”) music/artists I’d listened to since the very early 1970s, but by the 80s I was listening to rock music, synth pop, and dance music. Maybe this song shows of the process of how my pop music tastes changed, because the song was also Number 3 on the Billboard “Adult Contemporary” chart. At any rate, it turned out that this gradual expansion has never stopped, and even today I can appreciate—and even like—all sorts of pop music, including contemporary songs that my age peers can’t stand. I take that as being a good a thing, but I don’t think I’d be as aware of this lifetime of changes to my tastes if I hadn’t done these series of posts. I think that, too, is a good thing.

“Can't Fight This Feeling” reached Number 2 in Australia, Number 2 in Canada (Gold), Number 33 in New Zealand, and Number 16 in the UK (Gold). It was also Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” and Number 3 on their “Adult Contemporary” charts. It was also Number One on Cash Box and Radio & Records (R&R)The song was also certified Gold in the USA.

The album Wheels Are Turnin' reached Number 54 in Australia, 13 in Canada (Platinum), and Number 7 on the USA’s “Billboard 200” (2x Platinum). The album didn’t chart in New Zealand or the UK.

This series will return March 30 with the next Number One from 1985.

Footnote: Obviously, I didn’t get this post published on schedule this past Sunday. Because I didn’t write this post in advance—and I seldom do—I was still working on it that day, and intended to finish it that evening. Instead, I fell asleep watching TV, and couldn’t rouse myself enough to finish the post, something that’s happened before, though not usually with posts I intended for a specific day. Still, this “Weekend Diversion – 1985” series is now up-to-date, and it’s also a new addition to my informal “Midweek Diversion” series of posts—maybe I’ll make tag for this and the other posts….

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1985” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 1 – February 2, 2025
Weekend Diversion: 1985, Part 2 – February 16, 2025

I’ve been walking, yes indeed

Today is the start of a new month, following the first complete calendar month in which I did a walking workout every single day. Naturally, I put all the data into a spreadsheet to allow me track my progress and because, spreadsheets. I use them for all sorts of things.

February was a good month overall, especially my goal at this point is still to build up stamina, and I think I’m doing that. I thought I’d share some stats from this February—something I may do again at the end of March, at the end of the quarter, but if I do any updates after that, it’ll probably only be at the end of each quarter.

In February, my walking workouts covered a total of 52.68 kilometres (35.219319 miles), compared to 46.36 kilometres (28.806768 miles) in January. My average pace on my workouts over the month was 14:04 per kilometre, compared to 13:09 in January.

I had an average daily total daily of 7141 steps per day in February, which includes all my steps, not just those from the walking workouts (the workouts don’t track steps for some reason). The average total distance I covered each day in February was 5.78 kilometres (3.591525 miles), again, that’s total distance walked, not just from workouts; I only know my distance from workouts alone because of my spreadsheet. The totals in January were pretty similar, however, the difference between this year and last is significant: In February 2024, I had a daily average of 3,953 total steps per day and an average total distance of 3.36 kilometres (2.23694 miles) per day. February was my worst month in 2024 (after that month, my overall totals were much better.

All of those are just numbers, and honestly probably of interest to me alone. So I decided to have a bit of fun: The map up shows the towns in a 50 kilometre radius of Hamilton [SOURCE]. It’s not necessarily possible to easily walk to some of those towns, and certainly not by me, but it’s kind of interesting to see how far 50 kilometres really is. As a bonus, several places I’ve talked about at one point or another—like Cambridge, Raglan, Huntly, and Matamata—are all within that circle, and others that I’ve talked about, and that had roles in my past life, like Paeroa, Thames, Pukekohe, Waiuku, Clarks Beach, and Te Kuiti are all visible.

The thing about these stats, and even the map, is that looking at the data visually on a spreadsheet (or even on that map) somehow keeps me committed to the plan. Some of it’s probably that I’m competitive with myself, and I constantly want to do better than I’ve done in the past. I want to try to tap into that self-competitiveness to get some other things done, too, because maybe it’ll work for other plans and goals, too? I know some people get more stuff done when they make things like chores into a game, and, in a sense, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Still, February is my only full calendar month of daily walks so far (plus most of January, of course), so it’s a bit early to take a victory lap. I want this to be a lifestyle change, and not just a temporary obsession. Creating opportunities for me to compete with myself—including my making a spreadsheet with my data—may do exactly that.

My car is fit

My car is fitter than I am, if for no other reason than that it’s certified fit. Getting to that point consumed a chunk of my day yesterday, and yet, it was better than in previous years. It may also have suggested a way forward for next year.

Most vehicles used on the road (including trailers) are required to get a safety inspection, and a "Warrant of Fitness" (usually called a WOF or a Warrant) is the version for cars (there are different versions for different vehicles). It has to be done every year for most cars. The inspection involves inspectors looking for rust in the car’s body, whether the brakes are good, whether the wheels rotate freely, whether the indicators (“turn signals” in Americanese) work, whether the seatbelts all lock (or whatever it’s called…), and even whether the horn works. They also look in the boot (“trunk” in Americanese) to see if there’s a spare tire, and to make sure the metal at the bottom isn’t rusting through (that happened to my previous car, and it failed it’s inspection because of it).

I went to a testng company called VTNZ, because of reasons I'll get to, and the first thing I needed to do was check-in at reception (about which more in a bit). After I was done with that, I went and sat in my car until the inspector was ready for my car. All up, the whole thing was over roughly 1:40 after I arrived, which is actually faster than it’s been in the past. Of that, around 10 minutes was waiting to pay (and it felt like an hour…), and 40 minutes was the test itself (all of which I know because I took notes to ease the boredom). The rest of the time was spent waiting in my car for its turn to be checked, but it’s air conditioned, has a radio, was a good spot for my selfie (above), and that also gave me a chance to charge my phone.

The guy who did the test was VERY nice—they aren’t always—and they had the air conditioning on in the waiting/reception area, where I waited, so I was pleasantly cool.

I think I’ve said before (here or on my personal Facebook) that the most annoying thing about the whole process is how ultra slow the check-in process is, mainly because of slow computer systems. Still, I suppose it’s nice to see that VTNZ found a use for antique CP/M computers, WordStar, and SuperCalc…

I had little choice but to go to VTNZ because I forgot my warrant expired yesterday, so I didn’t have a lot of options. VTNZ recently began accepting bookings for these tests, though I couldn’t do that because it was last minute. There was a guy in front of me who’d booked a test, and he had to go through the same check-in process as everyone else, so at first I thought it wasn’t a big improvement. However, it turned out he was gone well before my car was tested, so it definitely seems like a good option for next year.

After I was done, I went to Woolworths (supermarket) on the way home “to pick up a few things” (yeah, right…), and I went a more direct route avoiding Te Rapa (the main North/South road in my part of Kirikiroroa-Hamilton) and a very busy roundabout. It was so much faster! So, all joking aside, it was a much better experience this year than the past two. I take that as a win.

I think safety inspections are important, though Im not sure that every year is necessary for relatively new cars. However, I continue to be appalled that New Zealand doesn’t do tailpipe emissions testing (or decibel tests for tailpipe noise, especially for motorcycles…).

Still, I do think these inspections are both necessary and important. I do think the whole think could be improved (especially by VTNZ—it’s 2025: Computers should not run so slowly). The important thing is I got my warrant done on time. Another year sorted!

The Warrant of Fitness testing cost me $85 (around US$47), plus an additional $1.70 fee because I used payWave (contactless payment). Using payWave is much faster than swiping a card and entering a PIN, and getting to that point had already taken too long, in my opinion.

My Dad would be 109

This week had my father’s109th Birthday. I remembered to blog about it, even thought I didn’t have time to follow through, only because I decided to get organised: Almost a year ago, I wrote a post in which I talked about setting up a list of certain posts I wanted to be sure to write and publish. When I set up this year’s list, this post was on that list.

Life has been unusual for quite awhile now, and I continue to fins it difficult to find the time to actually get blog posts and podcast episodes done. Nevertheless, I’m getting to this in my dad’s birthday week, which right now, is a huge win.

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately, because of what I’m going through now, a few years older than he ever managed to reach. I’ve talked about how my single biggest challenge emotionally and existentially about aging is that I have NO idea what to expect. My Mom and Dad both died younger than I am now, so I don’t know how they would’ve been as they aged.

My father’s siblings all lived to be old, though with the health problems of old age, and my grandfather was a nonagenarian. My mother’s parents died relatively young, but her uncle had good innings. So, because I have few examples to turn to, I don’t know if I’ll have mobility problems, cognitive decline, or any of the other things I worry about.

Which brings me back to my Dad. I remember when he was in his 50s how he couldn’t walk far at all. There were a lot of reasons for that, but he was certainly unfit, too. Over my life, I’ve seen several older people slowly decline, and watching them made me wonder how avoidable (generally speaking) loss of mobility and flexibility is.

All of that made me realise that I have some agency here: If I get fitter now, it’s bound to at least help me as I age, and maybe age-related decline might not be too bad. At the very least, it will probably (?) improve the quality of my life now because I’ll be better able to do physical things better.

As I said in my blog post about my walking, I already find it easier to get up off the floor, and even my knees seem more reliable. So, yay, I guess. And, in a roundabout kind of way, my Dad was one of my main inspirations.

Still, I often wonder what my Dad would’ve been like in old age, though I know he’d almost definitely be gone now regardless, and his too-early death left me with no example to look to in order to guess what my own old age might be like. However, there’s also everything that came before his death that’s helped build the foundation on which modern me is still being built, and that’s an important thing. As I said in my 2021 post about my Dad’s birthday:

Mainly, though, I’m grateful for the base he and my mother gave me, the framework to build the me I would eventually become. I get some of the credit for that, of course, as do other family and my friends (and, again, especially Nigel…), but the fact remains that he and my mother laid the foundation on which I would one day build me. Open eyed, aware, and certain that I may be, I nevertheless acknowledge where I come from, and my Dad was an important part of that.

All of which remains true, but it would be handy to have an inkling of what I might be facing over the next 20 years (or so?) years I may have left.

Nevertheless, as always, thanks, Dad. And Happy Birthday!

Previously:
My Dad would be 108 (2024)
My Dad would be 105 (2021)
My dad would be 100 (2016)

Related:
Sunday Quiet (2009) – What Sundays were like when I was a kid
Like father, like son (2009) – A reflective post about sons imitating their dads and the freedom my dad gave me
Easter (2009) – Where I talk about my dad’s stage management
Good Friday Flashback (2011) – More about his stage management, with a photo
Arthur Answers Again, Part Two – Religion questions (2013) – I talk about being a preacher’s kid
AAA-14 Answer 7 – Loss and memes (2014) – I talk about the death of my parents
New Year’s Eve 2014 – In which I talk about one of my favourite memories of my dad

I’m going to live

I can remember the precise moment I realised that I’m not going to die. I was walking down the hallway that connects all the bedrooms to the living areas, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a painting a friend of ours painted and gave to us for our Civil Union. Our friend died from motor neurone disease in the year before Nigel died, and as I paused to look at the painting, I thought about how she was gone and Nigel was gone, and then it hit me: I’d spent all of my time since Nigel died expecting that I could die at virtually any moment, but clearly that was no more likely for me than for many others. I realised that if I wasn’t about to die, then I’d better focus on the business of not merely living, but having a good life. That, in turn, meant redoubling my efforts to have a good aging.

That was the moment everything changed.

I’d been thinking about what government officials like to call “ageing in place”, that is, growing old in our own homes, with support services gradually added as we need them, all designed to help us live long, healthy lives in our own homes, without having to go into care until/unless it’s truly necessary. Seeing the painting that day later helped me focus on what I needed to do.

I chose my house because it’s one storey (no steps), and after I moved in I installed the solar power system so that it could help keep my power bills as low as possible so that I’d have more money to pay for living, not merely existing. I have further plans to upgrade this house to make it even better for me (and, to be honest, for the eventual resale, in case I need or want to sell it, even if that’s not until well in the future).

However, there was more to this planning than merely making my house elderly-me friendly, there’s all the time between now and then, too. So, I decided to work on myself to try and keep mobility and flexibility as I age. This led to my biggest work on myself, probably ever.

Last December, I started walking two or three times a week. Then, on Monday, January 6, I began walking every single day, which means that this past week was my seventh consecutive week of this daily routine. There have been positive results, some subjective, but at at least one that’s clearly measurable.

Before talking about what I did and why, it’s important, if obvious, to note that this is about my personal journey in health and aging, and shouldn’t be taken as advice. I will say, however, that any exercise is better than none, but how much is enough—or too much—will vary from person to person. It’s a good idea, especially for us older folks, to talk to our doctor before starting any exercise programme—but I didn’t do that, even though I absolutely should have.

That out of the way, here’s what I did and why.

My Apple Watch tracks minutes of exercise (the green ring), movement (the red ring, and an estimate of kilojoules/calories burned), and whether I stand for at least 5 minutes every hour fir 12 hours per day (the light blue ring). My progress throughout the day is tacked on those rings, and the goal is to close all three rings every day (there’s an example at left, from February 21, 2023). My Apple Watch’s week is from Monday through Sunday (I have no idea why or if that can be changed, and I frankly don’t care), and that’s why my daily walking routine began on a Monday.

My routine was to walk two kilometres (1.24274 miles) every weekday, and one kilometre (0.621371 miles) on Saturday and Sunday. On weekends, I actually walk a bit farther than one kilometre per day because, generally speaking, my watch requires a “workout” to be at least 15 minutes to register it as a workout, and since my average pace for one kilometre is faster than that, I keep walking until I pass 15 minutes. I also end up walking a bit more than two kilometres on weekdays, too, mostly because I can.

My Apple Watch also sends me rewards badges, first for each ring on my watch as I close them, then another when I close all three rings, plus badges for a perfect week (closing the ring every day), and a perfect month (closing them every day of a month). There are additional monthly challenges, and there was one more I never got: Doing seven workouts over that Monday-Sunday week (the watch can track many different kinds of workouts, including both indoor and outdoor walks). Getting those badges every day and week is a surprisingly strong motivator for me.

For some reason I assumed that the workout challenge was to do workouts on all seven days of a week, but this week I suddenly realised that it’s actually seven workouts total, not per day. So, this week I experimented with doing two shorter walks on both Wednesday and Friday of this week, each walk a bit more than a kilometre. This meant that I did seven walking workouts on Monday to Friday, and, as I suspected, I got my reward badge on Friday (the image at the top of this post). That means I could’ve taken the weekend off from walking if I wanted to (I didn’t, but in the future I may use one of the two days as a “rest day”).

I first felt my walks affecting my calves, then my thighs, and finally my hip flexor muscles, all of which felt stronger. Over time, I noticed my balance had improved, that I was easily able to stand on one foot. My knees seem more reliable, and even my lower back doesn’t get sore like it used to, and I also noticed that it had become somewhat easier for me to get up off the floor (like after I scrub the shower floor). Gaining flexibility and greater balance is precisely what I was trying to achieve, but all of that’s entirely subjective. Fortunately, there’s now an objective improvement.

I’ve been getting annual blood tests for years, and I have a spreadsheet with the results dating back to 2011 (though there’s a five year gap between those first results and the next ones, probably because I lost the forms for some years’ results. Nevertheless, one of the consistent things has been that my HDL (“good cholesterol”) has always been too low. It’s supposed to be greater than 1.00 mmol/L (“millimoles per litre”), however, mine has never reached that. My worst (lowest) reading was 0.64, and my best was 0.90. Last year’s result was 0.88, but my most recent blood drawn on February 5 showed my HDL was at a new high of 0.92—the best reading ever, as far as I know. I’d always been told I needed to exercise more since it’s the only way to significantly improve the HDL level, and my new result came after I’d been doing daily walks for around a month, and doing walking workouts at least some days for roughly six weeks. If I keep walking/exercising, I may eventually finally pass 1.00 mmol/L.

In summary, my legs feel stronger, my balance and flexibility has improved, and I’ve raised my HDL levels, all of which gives me an incentive to continue (that and getting those Apple Watch badges…). However, I haven’t noticeably lost any weight, but that wasn’t goal at this point; that will come over time. This is a process, of course, and I still have a long way to go.

I have a cross-trainer (also called an elliptical) in the garage, but I don’t yet feel anywhere near fit enough to use it—although, it’s been way too hot in the garage to use it, anyway. The elliptical also helps with upper-body work, though I have other plans to help with that, too—after I take off my training wheels, so to speak. My plan is to slowly build my strength and stamina, then add more and different routines to target different areas, all with the same goal of strengthening the muscles associated with balance, stability on my feet, and even pain avoidance (lower back, for example). I want to be as mobile as possible for as long as possible, and I’m the only one who can do anything to help make that happen.

It’s still early days for all of this, but I definitely feel better, stronger, and more flexible, to varying degrees, and that’s more than enough incentive for me to keep going. All I really want is to have the best life I can have, regardless of how many or few years may be ahead of me. I finally understand that I’m not going to die, after all, not right now, and that it’s up to me if I want to be able to live whatever life I still have to the fullest. I think I’m well on the way to making sure that happens, one step at a time.