7 posts tagged “list”

I just finished Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I didn’t particularly enjoy it despite staying up late to finish it. I had hoped it would at least distract me from thoughts I’d rather not dwell on alone in the dark. Since it didn’t, I’m reluctant to go to sleep just yet. I was meaning to write this blog today anyway so here goes. One thirty in the morning seems a good frame of mind for it anyway.

Last night I looked through my June 2008 and 2007 posts. I was curious to see what was on my mind back then, to see if I have progressed based on the goals I made during the Junes past. Appropriately and amusingly I found that today is the one year milestone of my 101 in 1001 list. I know that’s not really irony, but it’s at least what everyone likes to call irony.

The short version is that on June 9^th, 2009 I decided to make my life better. I took an idea from a friend’s Vox and created a list of 101 things I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days. I picked things I knew I would do, things I knew I needed to do, and things I never would think to do but just might if it meant crossing a number off the list. It was just an idea, a promise that nobody could hold me to. But it was progress for me. I was hopeful.

Then a month later everything fell apart and the list was no longer important.

I didn’t give up on it completely. It just wasn’t something I cared to consider at the time. Up until this early morning, when I took out the original pen on paper list, I had forgotten why I really put aside the list. There’s an item #102. It’s not really a part of the list but an inside joke. I had written the list while talking to a friend. I realize now a good many of the items were thought of because it was something we could do together. It’s too late now. But not for me. I’m still here. These were things that were important to me before, to say I don’t’ care about them anymore would be to say I don’t care about who I am. I’ll finish it.

Here’s the list, with items that I’ve completed or half completed marked out with a line. The rest of the week I’ll blog about the ones with lines. I won’t talk about the others, because I’d just be making excuses.  At the bottom of the list I’ll write the completion percentage. I have until March 06, 2011 to finish. Think I can do it?

1.       Find my path

2.       Read every book I own

3.        Pay off credit card

4.       Get a full-time job

5.       Create an organizational method for computer/paperwork

6.       Come to terms with all regrets

7.       Start cooking on a regular basis

8.       Get down to 180

9.       Beat every game you own.

10.   Finish writing Outlaw of the Heart series

11.   Own only clothes that fit

12.   Move out of the house

13.   Get a driver’s license.

14.   Establish an exercise routine

15.   Become a better speller

16.   Learn a programming language

17.   Learn how to use Flash

18.   Bike ride Mt. Charleston

19.   Take a self-portrait jumping into water 

20.   Fill up three Moleskines

21.   Graduate from NSC

22.   Graduate from grad school

23.   Take up archery

24.   Visit the strip just before sunrise and take pictures

25.   Go on a completely unplanned road trip to another state with a friend

26.   Record all home movies to dvd

27.   Make a portfolio website

28.   Relearn math

29.   Relearn chemistry/other sciences

30.   Try a new hairstyle

31.   Run the marathon in Arizona

32.   Learn how to fix my car

33.   Submit a design to Threadless

34.   Start playing the saxophone again

35.   Learn to play the harmonica

36.   Get to expert on Guitar Hero

37.   Make this list into a book

38.   Yoga?

39.   Build a computer

40.   Go on a date

41.   Start gardening

42.   Win a poker game

43.   Watch every Lost episode in one summer

44.   Look suave for one night

45.   Film “tape drop 3”

46.   Bike ride around town

47.   Steal Rick’s hat

48.   Sell a design and/or picture

49.   Wake up early every day

50.   Play kick the can

51.   Make a wind chime

52.   Fill bottle with pencil shavings

53.   Buy a new bike

54.   Draw “When Seth was a kid” comic

55.   Go shopping at Ikea

56.   Create an art/computer workstation

57.   Learn massage…stuff

58.   Rate iTunes songs

59.   See the ocean

60.   Walk the tunnels at Lake Mead to the end

61.   Duel with Ty

62.   Compose a song

63.   Learn to play guitar

64.   Take a ballroom dancing class

65.   Sleep on the roof

66.   Read Moby Dick

67.   Start going to church again

68.   Go to Florida

69.   See Amber

70.   Cary Grant marathon

71.   See three shows on the strip

72.   Go to an art gallery

73.   Learn self-control

74.   Buy a pair of running shoes that fit

75.   Learn how to use an SLR camera

76.   Help people without being asked

77.   Create a typeface

78.   Practice better water use

79.   Animate Birdish-Dragonthing full version

80.   Beat dad at Risk

81.   Learn more about Bartter syndrome

82.   Go kayaking

83.   Play Croquet and eXtreme Croquet

84.   Get a kick-a airbrush tattoo

85.   Have someone drop me off in a random spot in town and find my way back home

86.   Re-season cast iron

87.   Completely watch LotR extended editions (WITH all commentary tracks)

88.   Go to five concerts

89.   Wander

90.   Join/Invite a near stranger for lunch

91.   Roundhouse kick!

92.   Get a suit like Creepy Thin Man’s

93.   Travel out of the country

94.   Paint room

95.   Go into isolation for a day

96.   Free space

97.   Bring back rope boarding

98.   Do a hand stand

99.   Drive on the coast

100. Save a girl from the rain

101.Take a break

Alright let’s see how my math is at 2 AM. I’ve completed 12/101 things. It’s been a year so 1001-365 is 636 days.

That means 10% of the list has been completed in …wait 63% of the time? That’s over half. That can’t be right. NO! Duh. That’s how much time is left. So 10% of the list done in 36% of the time allotted. I’m 20% behind if you forget all sorts of mathematical rules.

Yeah. I can do this.

Another great idea stolen by writebrained. Some of these might be related to the 101 list, but my focus is to work on the tasks that either are nagging me the greatest or are of more immediacy. Think of it as a warm up to help me get motivated to really work on the 101 list.

Picked this up from Writebrained.

1.    What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
-went on a trip with my sister
-paid my own medical bills/set up my own cellphone account
-questioned the belief that I'm untouchable
-Went kayaking!
-Made plans and stuck to them.
-Took a cycling class.
-Walked a half-marathon
-Felt comfortable outside my comfort zone
-Yelled at my mom
-Went to a concert
-Played a console video game online
-Filled up a book with illustrations
-Took a semester off school
-Facebook (meh)
-Shoveled snow (off our roof, no less)
-Interacted with a shopping cart I took a picture of.
-Ate (sampled, really) tongue, shrimp and a few other food I'd rather not try again.
-Fed a cow
-Been on a subway
-Been seriously and completely lost
-Saw the Atlantic ocean (sort of. what you could see from inside a bay anyway)
-Gotten drive-thru fast food by myself.
-yoga
-held a few hours old baby 

2.    Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Maybe? I wrote them down but I don't want to check. I'm over it if I didn't.

3.    Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nik and Beth had babies! Babies!!!

4.    Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.

5.    What countries did you visit?
The..um...United States?

6.    What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
The belief that everything will be ok.

7.    What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 4th, when Kenna went to California to see family and was instead diagnosed with cancer.

8.    What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Becoming more self-reliant.

9.    What was your biggest failure?
Failing to be strong in the face of tragedy and difficulty.

10.    Did you suffer illness or injury?
Now that I think about it, I don't think I did...

11.    What was the best thing you bought?
Probably my camera. No, probably the Woot Lights.

12.    Whose behavior merited celebration?
Nik. She had a baby during the worst time you could have a baby. And my mom for helping everyone out even though she could have used some herself.

13.    Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Library management. Lost all respect for them.

14.    Where did most of your money go?
I haven't organized my Mint.com account to detail everything I bought, but a good amount went to picture frames...

15.    What did you get really, really, really excited about?
If it was at a better time and I was in a better mood it would have been the trip to Massachusetts.

16.    What song will always remind you of 2008?
Chaos-Mute Math. And after reading my sister's list I'll also add Over the Rainbow and the cat rendition of The Broken Road by Nate and myself.

17.    Compared to this time last year, are you:
a)    happier or sadder?
sadder
b)    thinner or fatter?
fatter
c)    richer or poorer?
poorer (yeesh. great way to start the year)

18.    What do you wish you’d done more of?
Working out, spending time with friends

19.    What do you wish you’d done less of?
I'm going to go with Writebrained and say "moping".

20.    How did you spend Christmas?
Doing nothing at all, and that's how I like it.

21.    Did you fall in love in 2008?
I don't pretend to know what love is.

22.    What was your favorite TV program?
Chuck, Pushing Daisies, How I Met Your Mother and Psych. And Burn Notice. Aaaand I think that's it. Oh Big Bang Theory. Monk was good this year too, also....

23.    Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I hate your mom.

24.    What was the best book you read?
All the Twilight books. MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. But seriously, it's hard to remember all the good ones I read. Probably the Dumas Club or Illustrating Childrens Books

25.    What was your greatest musical discovery?
Mute Math and Kenna (um, a different Kenna than the one with cancer)

26.    What did you want and get?
My camera, and the best food I ever had in Massachusetts.

27.    What did you want and not get?
An XBox 360. Only thing on my Christmas list too.

28.    What was your favorite film of this year?
I thought this was going to be very hard. Then I remembered Wall-E.

29.    What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Had a rock band party at Marcie's house with AJ, Autumn, Jennifer and my sister. 23.

30.    What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Graduating college.

31.    How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Started off good with the momentum built in 07, then it gradually became apathetic again near the end.

32.    What kept you sane?
Nothing.

33.    Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't.

34.    What political issue stirred you the most?
Mostly the immaturity of democrats and republicans treating the election like a sporting event.

35.    Who did you miss?

Uh, I dunno. Eric? He left last year and comes back next year. But really, I miss Nate the most. (And by Nate I mean Bethany)

36.    Who was the best new person you met?
Autumn! And not..you know...because she was the only new person I met.

37.    Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
You can't wait for life to turn out ok.

Ok not really.

If I was still in a bad mood it would probably be from from Ok Go's 'The House Wins'

"If evil were a lesser breed than justice all these years
The righteous would have freed the world of sin
The house wins, oh, the house always wins."

But since I'm a little more hopeful than that, let's go with Ingrid Michaelson and Be Ok

"Open me up and you will see
I'm a gallery of broken hearts
I'm beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts"

For the past decade or so I've been dead-set against making New Year's resolutions. It's for the same reason that I'm against the concept of cleaning your act up to impress someone or dieting for swimsuit season.For a personal change to stick, really stick, you have to want it. New Year's resolutions are known for being broken- not achieved.

Having said that, I'm going to make a list of New Year's Resolutions. I finally have to admit that I'm the kind of guy to obstinately refuse even a good idea if I think it's popular for the wrong reasons. And instead of waiting for the inevitable Vox QotD I'm going to make the list now, while I'm still slightly nauseated from the various excesses of the holidays. Mmm. Fried burritos. I don't think I could ever cope with a "traditional" Xmas dinner. 

1. The Generic "I have to get in shape" Resolution

I bought my mom Wii Fit for Christmas. We did the profile set ups and our family isn't in great shape. (I will point out, however, that while I was in the "obese" weight category, I was a mere 35 while my sister, in the "normal" weight category was 38. We think it was because of her poor balance).

Getting in shape isn't hard for me at all. Unfortunately it's even easier to not do anything. We have a 3-month program going on the Wii Fit, so we'll see how that works out. Unfortunately I'm broke and my rec center subscriction to the excersise room expires Jan. 1. Which brings us to the next one...

2. The Not Quite But Almost As Generic "I have to save money" Resolution

I'm broke. 'Nuff said.

3. The Whiney "What the heck am I doing with my life?" Resolution

 Ugh. There are a couple job openings at the new library we're obtaining that I need to apply for. But I keep putting it off for tomorrow. Partly because I'm lazy, partly because it's going to be horrible over there, but mostly because I don't want to leave Gibson. And I have a feeling that when I leave, I won't be able to come back. I've learned from experience that it's futile to attempt to ignore the tides of change, I get that. But this is the first job I've had that I didn't want to quit in the first four months. If I go to the new library I'll be back to working for a paycheck and a paycheck only. I'll be miserable, and I hate knowning that.

But I still gotta apply.

4. The Obligatory "I need to work on my creative side" Resolution

I'm just about done with all the long-term projects on the crafty/artsy side of things. Now I really need to focus on improving what I do, and that means practice, practice, expensive trips to the bookstore.

5. The Probably Pointless "It's time I started being more sociable" Resolution

I've finally come to an understanding that there's a difference between stepping outside of my comfort zone and forcing myself to go to places I don't like with people I don't enjoy. The only way to figure out which is which is to actually go out and do stuff.

6. The Last Minute "Oh yeah and get rid of stuff too" Resolution

I almost forgot to add "get rid of stuff". It's been a theme of mine for the past couple of years so I need not go into details. Long story short I'd like this to be the last year I even have to question if I own something I don't really need.

Life keeps getting worse, or so it seems. It's come to a point that I fell I've lost any enthusiasm for future goals and achievement. That's kind of scary. In an effort to kick start my motivation, I'm going to review my 101 in 1001 list and see what I've done. I already have goals, I just need to want to do them. By all rights each of these should have their own Vox, but I'll get to that later.

What I've Done

#19: Take a self-portrait jumping into water- It actually came out pretty good, just have to scan it.

#26: Record all home movies to DVD- I did this a while ago and forgot it was even on the list.

#38: Yoga?- Yeah I did yoga. It feels good if it doesn't hurt. I really should do some more this week.

#64: Take a ballroom dancing class- I already mentioned this one in a previous Vox post. It didn't turn out so well.

#81 Learn more about Bartter's syndrome- Not much to know, really.

#82 Go kayaking- this was done in Massachusetts. I had some awesome pictures but they were lost due to the dumbness of the waterproof camera software.

So that's about 06% of my list and I have....I think about until March 08, 2011. Which is 848 days. Which means I've done 6 things in 153 days, which is 15% of the overall time available.

I gotta pick up the pace!  

The new session for storytimes started today. During my first storytime at 10 I had about 50 people in the room at one time, half of them being noisy, excitable children. I'm glad how well it turned out, and the large crowd effectively squashed any first day jitters I might have had. The second had six people. We'll see if it balances out more next week.

There are a few things that I'd like to get done, if not now then eventually. I haven't written a post like this in a while, so let's make a list.

-Start using my calendar more. For everything. I found out that my bank's website lets you set up a payment schedual for your credit card. I think if I use that it will be a lot more effective than my usual practice of putting a bunch of money on the card whenever I get paid.

-Work out at the rec center. I've been walking again, which is great. It's just not always convenient since it probably won't cool down much until late November. At the very least after the past couple excursions I no longer thing it would be asking much to walk to the rec center.

-Make something with Movable Type. Not sure what, but I'd like to try it out.

-Measure the entire house and fill it with virtual furniture from Ikea. Just for fun.

-Figure out what to get Caprice for her birthday. That's my #1 priority right now. It has to be of equal or greater coolness to the Skullcandy headphones she got me.

Sheep likes tunes

I spent a bit of time cleaning out my del.icio.us bookmarks, another project long overdue. What makes it difficult for me is that I'm never sure what should go where or in how many places. On the one hand it would be nice to add as many tags per bookmark as I could think of, thus making it better defined. But on the other hand I use del.icio.us so I can access the same bookmarks at work/home/anywhere and it's not so helpful when I use one bookmark in a category (like "comm" for communication) up to several times a day (like Vox and Flickr) while the rest I'll use seldom if ever. For now I deleted ones I'll never look at again and made a rough sort of what should go where. I'll refine it as I use it from now on.

As predicted (I don't feel like finding the prediction right now) I lost track of the goals planned for this summer. This time I even wrote them all down with detailed subscriptions, but I neglected to record the "why should I?" bit. Still, progress is going better than usual and it's only been a few weeks since school got out. Here's what I need to be working on:

-Record home VHS tapes to DVD. And find the old video camera so I can record those annoying "not VHS but not quite miniDV tapes" on DVD too."
-Draw draw draw. I'd like to say that I gained some skill or at least USED all of the expensive software I bought before CS4 comes out. And if that's in the near future don't tell me, I'd like to be ignorant of it.
-Clean out my Flickr sets. Even if I can't find a compromise for uploading too many pictures, maybe I can make it easier for the poor wanderer that stumbles on my profile.
-Get some stuff and envelopes/boxes so I can start mailing packages to people.
-Play with my Spirograph.
-Help my mom clean up the rest of the house. Beware clutter and useless possessions, ye servants of run away consumerism. There shall be a reckoning! And a box labeled "Goodwill".
-Work on a logo design for a friend. She might actually be using it in an actual business that actually makes money, so if she uses what I make that'd be quite spiffy.
-Eat some cake. I've heard the cake is a lie, but I know the nice computer wouldn't lie about cake. That's monstrous!

Speaking of computer games, I need to decide what to do about World of Warcraft. I haven't played it in forevers, and even when I did I wasn't a very serious player. The guild from the library is still active even if it never really took off, and I found out a guy I know across the country plays it, so I could get back into it. But should I? Time on the computer could be better spent in Adobe CS3 after all...

Since the semester has ended I've been noticing, seemingly at completely random times, how much my priorities have changed over the years, and even in the past few months. Yeah I've probably mentioned something like this before, and I'll probably mention it again sometime later. I think if we had the ability to remember not only what we were thinking but how we felt at all times of our lives, it would be a lot easier to focus on what's important to us and what we need to do.