Walking with Bob

DATA DATA DATA

Right out of college with majors in speech and economics I had 45 days to earn a bit of money before being drafted. I worked for a great company that put me in the industrial engineering department on the night shift in a weld shop counting welds made by welders. The reason I counted welds was so they could use the data. I know you think this is crazy, but the soldier who kept data on draftees wrote in my folder that I was an industrial engineer with four years of College and a diploma. 

For two years I was in the office of the Quarter Master General Far East located in Tokyo, Japan. This is the bunch that gets food and supplies to armed forces when and where it must be and it is all based on data. The dictionary says data is the accumulation of facts and statistics for reference and analysis. In my case nobody ever checked the facts or conducted an analysis on me.  

Since June 12, 2006 I have walked over 28,000,000 steps and have recorded this daily data on a program called Walkertracker. Today there are better ways to accumulate this data on other applications. Keeping data and not using it is stupid, but keeping data and using it efficiently and effectively is priceless. I use Google for research in this fast field changing the search field to Health and Wellness.

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