Asset Management or Idiocracy

All entities, from massive governments and multinational corporations, all the way down to the individual, have processes and procedures, a bureaucracy if you will, in place to manage their day-to-day as well as long-term operations smoothly and effectively.

On the individual level this starts each day, based on the amount of grocery store aisle-space dedicated to this single commodity as well as the number of business establishments that specialize in it, with a coffee of some sort, and finishes with a ritualized bed-time routine designed to make sure we take all our pills and brush all our teeth.

Though I'm standing over here pretty much on my own by not being part of the coffee-klatch, I too have my share of processes and procedures and one of them involves footwear.

In the spirit of the first of the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) I own a total of 3 pairs of boots and 0 pairs of shoes. (Unless my 2 pairs of slippers, one in the living quarters and the other in The Van, count as shoes. Which, according to The Wife every time I try to wear a pair beyond closed doors, they do not.)

One pair of boots is my high-topped snake boots, one pair is my go-to-town-and-serious-hiking boots, and the last pair is my hang-around-the-property footwear.



In the interest of asset management, (as well as the second R) that last pair are actually retired go-to-town-and-serious-hiking boots with the laces cut short and permanently tied off just above the instep to transform them into slip-ons.



But there just might be a flaw in this asset management process of mine.



As the log in the pre-loaded app on my phone shows, I do tend to rack up some foot-borne mileage. Eighty five miles in March and, as of noon April 5th (when I'm writing this post) 20 miles so far this month.



The majority of these miles end up being pounded out by my hang-around-the-property boots which were already tired when they became my hang-around-the-property boots.

Needless to say (Yet here I am saying it so just how needless could it have been?) while I'm waiting around for my lightly used go-to-town-and-serious-hiking boots to reach that not-acceptable-for-public-wearing stage so they can be moved down the list to the next level, these hang-around-the-property boots continue to be seriously abused on a daily basis.

Fortunately for me I am blessed with genes that give me tough feet. I've never been plagued with foot-issues, other than a few smashed toenails over the years, and have probably had less than a half-dozen blisters in my 65 years despite the abuse.

True, by this point these boots have virtually no ankle support left in them, the soles are worn down to the point of minimal balance assistance,



and the trails around the property where I do most my daily minimum walking (My goal is 3.5 brisk miles per day and I usually exceed that.) are mostly either up or down and generously salted with 1 to 4 inch rocks that roll like marbles when stepped on, but I actually consider all that to be an asset.

After all, a significant source of injury for old farts like me is falls. Walking this terrain with these boots ensures I'm constantly working on my balancing skills while building strong support muscles in my lower legs, strengthening my core, and keeping my staying-upright reflexes well honed.

Of course, all this is hell on socks. . .

(As for the 3rd R, by the point it's time to retire my current hang-around-the-property boots there's virtually nothing left to recycle. . .)