Birthday Chellenge (Detailed List)

My biggest post ever. It toke me a week to write all of this. This is my detailed list. Explaining each item; some rules for some of them, why I'm doing, and my prediction of how well I'll do to accomplish it. All feedback is appreciated.

Community
1. Donate 30 hours of my time, to help someone else or group. This could be organized or un-organzied. Someone I know or someone I don't know. This will be hard, it's definately do-able.. I could volunteer for 4 days, but it also eats away the majority of those 4 days. I am working the night shift. If I do one of these morning-afternoon organized events.. I'll be useless that night since I'll be awake from like 6am to 6am (need to maintain my night shift hours). I'm doing this because I think it's important to give back. We (as humans in a developed society) use huge amounts of resources. If your not doing something usefull to give back in some way.. it just seems like a waste. I do feel like I give a positive influence in my normal life, this task is just to give a little extra back.


2. Do 30 acts of random(-ish) kindness. I'm not going to get all technical with what a random of kindness is. If someone refuses a rational proposition.. I'm just going to count it anyways. Cause really, the effort is the most important part. I may also plan ahead of time. This is questionable if it will be completed or not. I've seen people attempt to do this, just to rejected by the people they try to help. A sub goal here will be to try to be versatile. See how many different types of acts of kindness I can do. I'm doing this again, because I think its important to give back, but also to see how well I can do.


3. Identify 30 Local Businesses. Kind of a strange one. Orginally I was thinking surveying local busineses, but that sounded a bit to ambitious. It could happen though.. I might have to see how awkward and time consuming that would be. This shouldn't be to hard, unless I actually attempt the survey thing. I'm doing this... First, because I'm loosing my job sometime next year and I want options, even though I'll likely just transfer with the company I work for. I also want to know what kind of an impact I could make in other jobs. Lastly, I want to see what these business bring and potentially, how they survive amoung larger operations (Are they a more specialized service that is cheaper?). This is one of my lower priority tasks.
   




Creative


4. Blog Entry everyday including a pic or video. If I miss a day due to the internet being down, it won't count against me. The majority of the blog entries will be posted the morning of the next day. I'm doing this to keep people interested, to hold me accountable, and so the "event" is recorded.. you know.. something I could back on. Including pics and videos is important to help me make better blog entries in the future and maybe to also get me used to the idea of having a video of myself out there. This should definately be accomplished.


5. Write 30,000 Character of Text for my book(s). Currently I have 4,000 characters. So by the end I should have 34,000 characters worth of text. I'm doing this, because I want to get my ideas out there. I enjoy thinking about plots and characters and such. I would also love to have a complete book, written by me that I could hold in my hands.. even it no one liked it (except me) and made absolutely no money. This is do-able, I think. I just have to be in the right state of mind, and know how to get my story into words so other people could understand the ideas in my head.


6. Develop and Deploy 3 Games. These being computer games, written in C++. I've been programming a long time, and alot of who I'am is influenced from my programming experience. It's probably had one of the largest impacts on my life. I'm not a great a programmer, but it's a great medium to get my ideas (games mainly) into a format that very directly connects my ideas with the user. I'm doing this because I rarely finish a game.. and aside from making dirty applications for my work, I haven't done much programming especially in C++. Knowing how to efficently program 3 different games in the OOP style would be great to have for the future. This is probably going to be a hard. I rarely finish games, I have never distributed a C++ games, and I'm not sure how much time I will have to do this.


7. Create 30 good quality sprites. Sprites being a background tile from an RPG, or a single frame of a guy in a Street Fighter type game, etc. . A little history... I grew-up playing (or watching other people play) games. I imagined myself in games and how I would make a game. Eventually, I learned programming and saw the possiability that I could make a game. Sadly.. my art wasn't that great. After completing high school I tried to put alot of effort into studing how to make really good sprites. So the images in my game could reflect the details that I felt was neccissary to express in my games. Present time.. my sprites can be.. pretty good.. not great, but up to par with some of the lesser SNES graphics games. It's time consuming though... and really eh.. I don't enjoy it that much. I hate making animations.. so tedious. I want good sprites though, and the best way to reflect my ideas is to draw them myself. It's also alot cheaper then paying someone to do it or bothersome to try get an "pixel artist" to commit to your project. How hard or really time consuming it's going to be is going to depend on what I make. Hopefully, something I could use in a future project.


8. Design and Prototype a Game that lasts for 30 minutes. This refers "most likely" to a board or card game. Really.. a Social type game played actively between players, that could be played again.. creating a new playing experience. I've design and created games like these before and it's something I never regreted doing. I'm doing this because I enjoy thinking about the game mechanics, theme, and creating a quality or unique game. This shouldn't be to bad to finish.. sometimes creating all the stuff for it, can.. take some time.


9. Develop 30 improvements. I've made alot of improvements at my work. Mainly with my programming, but also with aesthetics and design. The defination here is to provide an improvement that has sustainability. I imagine this would mainly apply to work, but it could translate to home as well (or elsewhere). I'm doing this, because I've received massive reconigtion on my ideas to improve job process. I get a great feeling when I could just push button and let my program do the work for me. I also feel I'm very capable of my abilities, which feels good. Sometimes I'll have a really bold idea, explain it to the manager.. get them all involved.. and then half hour later be like "What was I thinking.. Can I really do this.. Isn't this beyond my expertise", but you know what? I'll usually push through and make things work 90% of the time. This will be a challenge. If my job is going good (not alot of work).. I might be able to use some of my work hours towards accomplishing this.




Development




10. Learn a new word every day for 30 Days and at the end of the 30 Days take a test to confirm my knowledge. I'm not quite sure how I'll go about this... Maybe I could browse an online dictionary for a word I don't know. I should know the spelling of the word and defination. Maybe I could record the pronuciation of the word, so then on test day I could manually spell and list the defination of the word. I'm doing this because I'm think it would be good to increase my vocabulary. Why? One word... Bannagrams. No.. not really. A better vocabulary would make better writing for both the book and my blog. I don't want to get stuck using the same word over and over again. For example in this entry I use "Maybe" to a start sentence twice. Also my spelling isn't that great, even though this doesn't improve my spelling or words I know.. it will increase the percentage of my totals words that I can spell correctly. This should be do-able.


11. Play 30 notes on the guitar for 30 Days. Really it should be consecutive days, but I don't want to limit myself. I know it's important to practice everyday to good at it. If I'm behind though.. maybe I could do two different sessions. The 30 notes thing is more abstract.. I'll likely be playing for about 10-15 minutes everyday. I'm doing this to improve at using the guitar. Music being yet another tool to get my ideas/thoughts out of my head and into a more tangible form. I should be able to do this.


12. Workout for at least 30 minutes everyday for 30 Days. I'm more likely to just do the P90X workouts which go over the 30 minute time, but I wanted to make sure this was here. I'm doing this to improve (or at the very minimum maintain) my fitness level. I want to be prepared to handle any situation, to know and accept my physcial capabilities, and repersent physically to others what I am capable of (via punch to the face.. just kidding). There are also alot of benifits to working out.. that I won't go into details over. This should be done daily, unless it's after 7am. I'm going to commit myself to doing this when I first get home. If it is very late, I'll just do the minimum 30 minutes to check this off.


13. Learn online 30 seperate Math Lessons. This being... watching a 10-20 minutes long video lesson and making whatever notes I feel I need to take. If I ever were to go back to school I would want a firm understanding of all prerequisites for whatever I was really after. Math in particular applies to programming. This should be fine. I'm allowing myself to complete multiply lessons per day.
    
    
14. Read 30 Chapters of published fiction. Ideally, I should be reading chapters from diffrent books. If I had alot of free time it would probably be read 30 books, but I don't.. so it isn't. I'm doing this to obtain a better understanding of how to write in a way that other people can easily understand.. the way I want them to understand.. what is happening within the story. I enjoy making my own ideas.. fiction allows anything to happen. I could write about how something is or could be, but I would rather have the reader experience it for themselves.. by following the character(s) through the book. This seems do-able, I might end up reading alot of books focused on a younger audience.




Experience


15. Travel a distance of at least 30 miles on my motorcycle. This would be a distance of 30 miles from my home. I'm doing this for a few reasons... 1. Even though I'm comfortable riding my motorcycle, I would like to have that re-insurance that my motorcycle is capable of taking my further. Thirty miles isn't much, but it's first step towards something greater. 2. I'm, maybe.. to local. The fact that I would be fine never traveling anywhere.. is great, but also kind of restrictive. I should be more open-minded towards traveling some larger distance. 3. I could also use more experience riding. If I go somewhere else, I feel I might be so likely to expect what I know.. that I might not be prepared for other conditions which could cause an accident. This shouldn't be hard, my sister lives about 30 miles away. Going there would be an easy way to hit this objective. I never toke my motorcycle into the shop like I planned.. it's running fine. If I end up encountering some issues.. that could end up being a hassle.


16. Cook 30 meals using at least 30 different ingredients. Meals require some cooking time and using more then 1 thing.. cooking ramen wouldn't count. I'm doing this because I eat the same foods everyday. When I go to the store I buy the same foods. From a health point this might be good, but.. when I see my olddest brother who hasn't worked for nearly 10 years. Yet, still manages to buy and cook some nice meals... it really makes me wonder. Also making your own meals is cheaper and usually healther(no preservatives) . Being that I currently make my lunches for work.. this shouldn't be to difficult. Though, I don't have much of plan going into it.


17. Experience 30 new tastes. This is a secondary goal. It draws from the same as the previous task. This will be a little bit harder I'm not sure what really counts. Does a new meal count.. or does it have to be an entirely different food? I don't know.
    
    



Physical


18. Give 30 Piggyback rides(consecutively). This kind of a fun one. It potentially gets my nephew and neices involved. This is quick ride from one end of the house to other, running. I'm doing this because it seems like something fun and challenging to do. This also serves as a reminder of one of the reasons to work out. At most I've probably done maybe 10 back to back piggyback rides.. I think I can do it though. Hopefully, I don't crash at any point during this task.


19. Jump kid(s) 30 times. Sort of a lifting exercise, except alot more force on the upward motion. Having the kid leave my hands and catch them is optional. I must lift them about 3 feet off the ground, minimum. I don't think I'll have a tape measure and judge hold me to it though. I'm doing this for the same reason as above, except this is more personal and requires my arm strength. This should be do-able.


20. Do 30 consecutive Pushups. Suprisingly, I haven't done this yet in P90X. I'll get around 24 and stop, even though in that one workout I might be doing over 100 pushups. I'm doing this because it's something I know I can do and is a way to test my physical strength. This should definately be do-able. If I think I could do better.. I'll try a harder pushup style. Don't expect me to be doing planche push ups though


21. Within 30 minutes do 30 Pullups. I'll have a timer going on my computer and attempt 30 pullups from a dead hang position. I can take as many breaks as I want, but I must start at a dead hang. I'm doing this because I used to be really good at pullups and I enjoy pullups. It's one of the key tests to measure a person's overall fitness. If you can do 1 pullup your an okay shape, but if you can do 30 pullups your in great shape. Heck, it's even on the Presidential Fitness test. I think I can do this.


22. Within 1 day travel 30 miles on my bicycle. Distant doesn't matter, this is about ground covered (ie. Riding around the block 8 times works.. I won't be doing that though). Another little Frod History lesson.. for the majority of my adult life (and a lot of my pre-adult life) I've relied on one from of transportation.. my bicycle (cue Queens "Bicycle Race"). Every workday I would ride 5 to 10 miles to work, work, and then ride 5 to 10 miles back home. Physcially and mentally, it felt great. If it was 120 degrees outside, it meant my throat would be dry.. but I did it. If it was raining, it meant I come into work soaked and freezing near the end of the night. If it was cold, it meant my fingers would be numb when I rode home. If it was windy, it meant I had to push myself more (the wind allways blew against me). If it was humid, it meant I would hit little swarms of bugs that would fly towards my eyes (their like magnets for them).
    
    If it were not for the bad drivers that would cut in front of me, high school/college kids throwing stuff or yelling at me from their cars, and the fact that I would end up smelling of sweat.. I probably would still be riding my bicycle to and from work. I still ride my bicycle almost every week when I go to recycle the recyclables I accumulate throughout the week and/or when I go to the store. This will be tribute to my bicycle riding and a test to see how well I can go the distance within a day. I'll have to do it on an off day, but I can do it.
    
    
23. Run 30 miles within the 30 days. I've been slacking. I haven't been doing any running training. Running is a great way to expand the lungs and get your heart rate up. It is also a practical skill to have for many activities (ie. "Ninja Warrior") and unexpected conditions (ie. Zombie Apocalypse "28 Days Later" version). This is do-able, but requires me to stick on it.. and get my mileage up quick. I'm not likely to be running every day or that much at the start. Potentially near the end I could have a nice 10k long run every week.
    
    
24. Complete a competative 5k earning a 3rd (or better) place medal. This being a public race, pay to enter race, usually for some cause. I'm doing this because I enjoy completing a race and knowing I did well. And that my training beforehand helped me get the results.. that I achieved. To do this.. I REALLY need to start training immediately.. I'm already behind. It's questionable.. I need feel that I can do well, find a 5k to run, and then be able to get there in my gear without worrying about anything outside of the race. I can drive my motorcycle to a race, but have no clue were I can safely store my stuff. I can use a bicycle lock to secure the helmet and potentially the jacket.. but what about the boots? I'm not sure I can ride my motorcycle in running shoes. It requires a lot of force to shift up. My brother supplies some support here, as he enjoys running and has ran every race that I've ran with me.
    
    
25. Manipulate 30,000 lbs of weight. At least it sounds ambitious. This is strictly free weights, my body weight doesn't count towards this goal. For example.. If I did 5 reps curling 15lbs with each arm.. that's 150lbs manipulated. I'm doing this because it does sound ambitious to me and can really test my strength over a period of time. If I follow P90X (which is the default plan) then I'll only be lifting weights 7 times.. and really only lifting weights fully 4 of those days. Hmm.. I guess I could do 75lbs 100 times.. right.. scratch P90X.. I'll think of something.. this is something were I might spend the last days strain myself to lift more weights. I'll need to keep my eye on my progress. It could also be easier then I think. Though I want to check the numbers from my past.. I'm going to hold off and check them after that first week is finished.
    




Real


26. Be in bed by 7:00am. This means.. on the ground(in my case) ready to sleep. Actually falling asleep isn't as controllable. I've been staying up later then I should. Working out I should really be giving my body more opportunity to rest up and fix it's self. This is going to put a little strain on all of the other goals, but is needed. I'm leaving the time I wake-up open though.. So I can do stuff during day.. if I have something planned. So, though I may not be getting 8 hours of sleep everyday.. I should be getting it most days.
    
    
27. Make 30 improvement to my living environment. This could be something very simple like taking out the trash, something with more effort like cleaning the Stove top, or something big like fixing something. I'm doing this because I want to continue to OR improve on the habit of uphold good living conditions. If I get my own house I want to make sure I maintain it. If I live with someone else I want to make sure this sort of stuff is never an issue. I think I do pretty good.. so eh.. shouldn't be hard.
    
    
28. Spend 30 minutes per week working on my motorcycle/bicycle. This is something I should be doing anyways.. but sort of fell out of regarding the motorcycle.. and something never paid to much attention to regarding the bicycle (it's just so reliable and so cheap to replace verse time/money to maintain). Not hard at all. This is an easy secondary goal to complete.
    




Social


29. Read 30 words of text in front of 30 people. Yikes. Not something I'm looking forward to. That's like a speech load of stuff to read. I'm doing this because I don't want to do it ha ha. It's a real world thing that I should be okay at. If I'm ever going to be playing a gig and potentially doing background vocals with Goat Seman.. I should be ready for that. I'm not sure about this one. Maybe I can find a support group to help me with this. Do I even know 30 people? Doubtfully.. I'll have to do in front of strangers, but thats the point now isn't is Mr. Frod?
    
    
30. Do a combination of meeting 30 girls and going on 30 dates. This is the big one. So, for example I could meet 20 girls and go on 10 dates or whatever. A date being spending time at some specific location. So, dinner and a movie... would be 2 dates (I wouldn't go to a movie on 1st date though). Also.. meeting 30 girls.. is 30 girls I'm interested in, were there is one on one time. Going to a meetup and hanging out with a bunch of people.. probably won't work. I'm doing this because I don't have much experience going out with people out of my circle and stuff. This is also going to be the last 30 days where I can say "I'm in my 20's". On those dating sites.. a lot of profiles have Age 30 cutoff point. Probably my hardest objective to complete. This will be a very awkward time in life. Maybe I could get what I need and get out within the 30 days. XP
    
    
31. Ask 30 different girls out (on a date). I just added this one. I thought it could be kind of fun/funny. I'm doing this to sort of lighten the mood. If I'm going in with this objective maybe I'll be less nervous and more relaxed. I might get lucky... by getting a phone number. This could be accomplished. I'm sure guys might do this every weekend.. I'm definately not one of those guys though. Of course if I find someone.. where things look really good, this will be abandoned. For that reason, this a secondary task.
    
    
32. Make 30 phone calls to 30 different people. I could know them, or not. Work calls do not count. It should some sort of conversation, but I'm not putting a time limit on it. No prank calls either. If you could help with this contact me, but DO NOT leave your phone number in the comments. I'm doing this because I'm no good on the phone. It feels very strange relying just on your voice, especially when your just suppose to talk. I could easily call handle a work call were there is a purpose.. but to just talk x.x . I think, I'm much more physical with conversing.. I rely a lot on my expressions and for people to read my physical motions. I also am no good at getting like appointments in over the phone. I don't know, I don't have prediction. I could probably call 15 people I know. The other 15 might have to be business or something. The above two goals might help with this one. This is a secondary task.

So that's the list. Unless I add something else before then. I still got a few days to prepare a little bit more before it starts.