I’m one third through the year on my exercise routine, and so far I haven’t lost any of the promised ten pounds. Maybe it all comes off at once at the end.

However, I’m not discouraged. Instead, I’m pleased that I’ve stuck with an exercise regimen this long, as I usually burn out about the sixth week. But this particular program is relatively easy, so I’m hoping it will be productive as well in the end.

On March 13, 2005, I began walking a mile a day after reading what one exercise guru had to say about doing this. He professed that if you walked a mile a day, briskly, and didn’t change anything else about your routine, that you would lose ten pounds in a year.

The trick is to do the walking day-in and day-out. It isn’t about seven miles a week, all at once or in various segments; it’s really about a mile a day. For me, it’s about two miles a day, as I extended the distance a few weeks ago. Does that mean I’ll lose twenty pounds? Probably not, since I’m in that age bracket where gravity is claiming its due.

But I’ve found I enjoy the walking, and maybe that’s what the designer of this exercise program intended. I’ve probably missed about ten days since March 13, so maybe I’ll have to extend my year that many days to give the weight loss its best chance of occurring.

Nevertheless, I recommend this exercise to anyone who can walk briskly. It’s not just about the weight; it’s about taking time to think about the day (I walk first thing in the morning.). It’s about time to be alone, to gather one’s thoughts on any subject that one needs to gather thoughts on, to relax, and to get ready to work. Try it.

I’ve taken piano lessons for almost three and a half years, and – in effort and time — it has been an education comparable to the years I spent in college. In the latter situation, however, I graduated after a four-year stint. With piano, there is no such celebration on the horizon.

I don’t feel discouraged. Rather, I revel in what I have learned and in what there is yet to master. And, believe me, there is a world to master.

This week’s lesson is a case in point. I have three pieces to work on before I meet with my piano teacher next Wednesday afternoon. One is a finger exercise that helps the student put the right finger on the right piano key. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. The second is an arrangement of Chopin’s Opus 10, No 3, a classical piece that I would never be able to undertake, except that it’s slow . . . a change of pace for its composer.

And the third is a swing piece designed to help me practice seventh chords while feeling as if I’m making progress with them. It’s taught me that I like swing and blues best.

Long term piano study isn’t for the faint hearted. It requires daily practice, the acceptance of slow progress, and the acknowledgement that one learns more via mistakes than from the final mastery of a piece. It’s about the process and not the end.

In a way, learning the piano reminds me of traveling. You get a lot more from the adventure if you accept the journey as the destination, rather than pinning your hopes on the actual destination. This is a help because, in piano reality, I will never reach the ultimate destination.

Oh but the joy along the way.

It was my first experience caulking anything, and it probably wouldn’t have happened at all if Earl’s son, Rich, hadn’t pointed out the flaws in our shower.

“You might want to put some caulk here,” he said, pointing to never-before-noticed places where there were gaps between the tiles. “If you don’t do it, water could seep in and damage the wood underneath.”

Even though we plan to gut the bathroom for an updated version in four months, it sounded like a good idea to me. So off I went to the local Ace, about three miles from our home, to learn about caulk.

I found the caulk aisle but was in over my head immediately. There was caulk for this purpose and caulk for that. There was epoxy and acrylic and other names that escape my memory. Mostly there was Ace’s signature helpful hardware man, only in this case it was a woman, who told me what to buy for a short-term remedy.

So I purchased one tube of white caulk for less than five dollars and went home to read the label. I’m an avowed label-reader, and what I read made me wonder if damaged bathroom infrastructure was safer than risking the hazards that befell anyone who opened this particular tube. In fact, the label read like a warning on some medical prescriptions I’ve taken.

In a nutshell, there were precautions to be taken against breathing the caulk, having it settle on the skin, accidentally dropping some in one’s eye, or swallowing it. The caulk user was also encouraged to wear safety eyeglasses and gloves when handling the product and to make sure there was adequate ventilation. But the final warning was about potential liver damage.

Now I enjoy a cocktail every night, so my liver is an important body part. I don’t want to subject it to any more unnecessary dangers, because I want it functioning for the daily vodka on the rocks. Consequently, I wondered what the phrase “potential liver damage” really meant.

In the end, I decided that the amount of exposure I would have to the caulk, once I clipped the tube’s opening, would be minimal. It wasn’t as if I caulked for a living or intended to use it day-in and day-out. It was merely to patch about three feet of defective tile.

In addition, I followed all the other instructions on the label: cleaned the surface, rubbed alcohol on it to eliminate soap film, made sure it was dry, and then applied the caulk. It wasn’t as easy as I’d imagined because, among all those label disclaimers, there was no instruction about how to hold the tube so that the caulk went into the assigned cracks and not all over the wall. I had to experiment with a couple positions, knowing that time was of the essence.

In the end, I saved our infrastructure, but I must admit I didn’t do a very professional job. I probably saved my liver too, since the entire experience has taught me that I’ll not want to become a professional caulker.

I ran across a favorite saying of mine this morning: “Living well is the best revenge.” And the person who quoted it was asking, “The best revenge for what?”

Dictionary definitions of revenge revolve around inflicting punishment of some sort on another. They rely on vindictiveness and retaliation; by association, they imply a meanness of spirit, a get-even approach to life. At the same time, these definitions don’t go on to explain the time and energy a vengeful act requires, nor do they analyze whether the person exacting the revenge feels better for it in the end.

I’m inclined to think not. I’m also inclined to think that the energy expended in planning revenge is better harnessed improving one’s own lot. In looking inward rather than outward. That’s why living well is the best revenge.

It isn’t about money, although it certainly can be. It isn’t about fancy things, although those are nice. It’s more about rising above the occasion and ignoring the person who otherwise might be the object of revenge. It’s about treating others as you would like to be treated, rather than allowing the behavior of others to dictate what you do. Some might say it’s about turning the other cheek, but I prefer to think it’s about taking the higher road.

Music can do things politicians and promises and platforms don’t seem able to do. They can move people to come together and, in doing so, make the world a better place.

For today’s younger generations this was probably most evident during the recent Live 8 around-the-world concert that happened this past weekend just prior to the Group of Eight summit meeting in Scotland. The goal of the concert was to encourage the world’s most powerful nations to consider debt forgiveness, trade concessions, and $25 billion in aid to Africa, where many of the world’s poorest countries are located.

Only time will tell if the rockers and legends and country singers and rappers made a difference, but at least they were out there stumping for what they believe. By doing so they provided witness to some problems and also reminded me of another concert, Live Aid, that happened twenty years ago.

Maybe older generations don’t relate to these two events, but had their own moment when music played an emotional role. As the story goes, it was Christmas Eve during World War II. American and German soldiers were camped near each other in some cold region of Western Europe, each group in its own foxhole hunkered down for the night. For all purposes, fighting had ground to a halt.

Then the Americans began singing “Silent Night,” and when they finished they heard the German soldiers singing it in their own language. For those few minutes there were no warring factions; there were only individual humans joined together by the power of music.