Birthday Challenge (Overview)

This is the follow-up my Birthday Challenge (2010).

For whatever reason I lost my momentum and motivation to continue and basically did nothing the last 3 days. Which is a little bit disappointing, because I looked forward to doing alot leading up to those 3 day (for the most part) free days. I think I felt a little overwhelmed with other people's expectations as well as my own. I wanted to be in great spirits and with great energy.. so I relaxed and rested.. and then on the last day I was like "eh.. screw it". My final score ended up being 59.80% (or 56.06% if you counted the 2 bonus tasks I added)

For my Word test I got a 59% on spelling, 59% on word type (noun, verb, etc.), and 40% on defination (25% of the answers I had no idea on, 53% correct, 22% I answered wrong on). Not that great of a success...

Completetion of Tasks (including 2 bonus tasks):

• 9 tasks I completed.. completely
• 8 tasks I completed over 50%
• 9 tasks I completed under 50%, but made some trackable progress on
• 6 tasks I made no noticeable progress on (attempted or not)

So.. what did I not make any trackable progress on?

• Identify 30 local businesses. I don't think I really cared about this one to much. It seemed like something I could easily do in my free time.. maybe I just forgot about it. This was also something I thought about doing while doing the "Bicycle 30 miles within 1 day" task.
• Write 30,000 characters of text for my book. This something I wanted to do, but also was something I wanted to do after completing the "Read 30 chapters" tasks.. which I didn't finish until Day 27. This is something I'll definately do in the future, so I'm okay that this on is here
• Develop and Deploy 3 games. This was probably to ambitious for me, alongside with the other tasks. I would of liked to see myself complete 1 of them, but I didn't. This is another thing I should focus on doing in the future.
• Do a combination of meeting 30 girls and/or going on 30 dates. I'll just say that although I made alot of attempts (every week minimum), not much progress was made. This kind of killed my moral too.
• Ask 30 girls on a date. Never attempted this one by itself as I attended to. I sort of forgot about it.. and focused more on the previous mentioned task.
• Read 30 words worth of text in front of 30 people. Orginally, I had no idea how to go about doing this. On my last work week I had the idea of writing a nomination to read in front of my co-workers (~20 people) for an.. at least attempt, which I never got around to. Then I had the idea that I could read something off at my niece's Birthday party.. which transformed into singing a 30 word song at said birthday party, but I ran out of time on that as well.

What unexpected challenges occured?

• Limited free time on a work night. I sort of expected this, but I wanted to get more done on these nights then I was able to. I also didn't up working over 40 hours every week, which I didn't want to do during this personal challenge. For example.. I really wanted to finish the "Reading 30 chapters" challenge within the first week or two.
• Not staying focused for the full 30 days. By day 15 I was feeling a little tired of placing all of my free time in the tasks. I think after Day 15 I would allow myself to occasionally watch a show on a worknight or a movie on the weekend. On Day 22 I completed nothing at home. And then the last 3 days.
• Lack of BC Synergy. Hearing that my brother might do a Birthday Challenge of his own, when I was explaining it a month before I started I was expecting to get some positive energy from him he started. Whenever we were together, I would go over BC with him and help him gather his thoughts on it. I redesigned my spreadsheet and placed his list on the spreadsheet. I also constantly tried to push him to get his own preperation work finished. On Day 20 I wanted to get re-inspired by the start of his challenge and by family at that family gathering that occured. I was also expecting to work with him on Day 28 or 29 (when we were both off) to clean the house or something. I didn't really occur though
• Volunteer Rejection. My work does a great job at promoting outside volunteer oppertunities. After doing Habitat for Humantiy that 1st Saturday and not having things planned the next Saturday I was suprised to see the slot of the house I was working with was closed with less volunteers then when I worked it. I also looked for other oppertunities, but couldn't find anything that worked with my schedule.
• Lack of motivation on unplanned off days. If I had something planned on an off day then that planned activity definately got done. On unplanned days, not so much got done.

What could I have done to better prepare?

• Planning a day off in the middle might have been good. Having that to look forward to would have been nice, but also could've slowed any momentum I might have had.
• Scheduling more stuff ahead of time, would have been good. Especially if it was a commitment with another person or group.
• Doing more one time things would have been good. They gave me a little boost and gave me something to talk about on the blog. I only had 2 that I didn't complete.. "Speak 30 words in front of 30 people" and "30 miles within 1 day". The second one I was looking forward to do as well.
• If I was able to develop something to automatically upload things complete from the spreadsheet to the blog, that would of been nice. Occasionally I would leave forgot to add stuff on to the blog entry. It didn't happen much and was okay, because it was still on spreadsheet.
• Having a full list of new words (ahead of time) that I was interested in would have been good.
• Having a list of guitar exercises would have been good or (even better) a scheduled routine or guitar exercises.
• Better flexability with some of the stuff. As I was going I ended up changing the defination of "Going to sleep by 7am for 30 days" to not doing anything else by 7am (allowing me to finish what I was currently working on).. unless it was 7:30am in which case I needed to turn off the computer immediantly.
• Knowing exactly where I could get cheap new foods would have been good. Like a sampler sort of thing would have been great.
• Having 6 Daily type goals seemed to work okay

Misc. lessons learned (or re-learned)..

• Working out, allways would put me in a "Get stuff done" mood.
• The spreadsheet worked out really well for tracking stuff
• It's easier to do stuff if either.. A. No one is home OR B. The people at home are as focused as you are (but are not interferring with what you want to do).
• Planning stuff helps to insure stuff gets done.
• Posting videos is do-able, talking in front of them is still very awkward.
• Finding a pic for a blog entry everyday can be somewhat troubling at times
• I can support myself as far as traveling larger distances.
• I should take care of my motorcycle more.
• I might be more productive if I found my own place to live.
• In social situations, I probably think to much
• Though.. I have a reasonablly strong will.. it could be better.
• The distance from entrance to entrance and back (in my housing area) is 2.16 kilometers
• I shouldn't rely on other people completely
• Having it my mind that other people are reading my entries acts as a double edged sword.. helping me to put entries.. some with good quality and giving me more motivation, BUT ALSO also putting extra pressure towards what they might want to see and making me question what I should(n't) post
• Pickled pigs feet do not taste good

I'll be taking a little off time and then figure out what I want to do next.

BC - Day 27 of 30

Sunday morning, I wokeup feeling energized. I had a small breakfast and quickly got my gear on for the 5k I was scheduled to run in. It was a few minutes before my brother and I were scheduled to leave the house that I noticed he still wasn't awake. I knocked on his door and yelled at his name, but.. nothing.

I didn't have much of a clue how to get there. Even with a google map I wasn't sure exactly where the race was going to start at. I had a guess and jotted down some street names in case I got lost.

It was about 15 minutes later then scheduled, that I ended up leaving the house on my motorcycle. I also needed to stop off and get gas ...maybe an extra 10 minutes?

I arrived.. and my intial guess was way off. I did manage to find the entrance into the mountainous region (eh.. mor like hillish). I arrived at the guard station just in time to see all of my competation running by. This crushed any hope I had that I could start on time and made me very doubtful if I could start at all. Maybe I could still get a bannana or something though.. so I continued on to park.

I don't really like "squid"'ing it (running shoes, t-shirt, light workout pants, helment, and gloves), but whatever. I locked my helment to my bike and shoved my gloves under my bike seat

Luck was on my side. One of the racing corrdinators mentioned that the race was chip timed.. so I was able to start. Despite my beaten down will that I had when I first wokeup, I was determined and quickly started my run. This was a bit of a rash decision on my part as I neglected to do any stretching before hand.

For the first mile I wasn't to in to it and had the horrible thought that maybe I should just quit. Ha ha.. I killed thought quickly though. The next mile was mainly up hill. At this point people were starting to come back (it was an "out and back" type of course) return and I was also passing people. I started about 10 minutes lates so the people I passed were mainly walkers at this point. I reached the turn point and knowing what I had left gave me a little boost. With my long stride I was able to make alot of passes on the downhill section. I threw some encouragement to 2 girls that I passed, I like to feel like this gives me a little karma boost for any race I run. Getting close to the end I hear a guy talking to hsi kid "All right this is the last bit. Let's go. You'll thank me later." . I toke that bit of advice I pushed my speed up a notch. I was able to see the finish line and pumped up closer to my max speed (it was a turn to cross the finish line.. no all out burst :( ) . Finished.

The printout said I got third in my age group, but during the medal ceramony I got a 2nd place medal. I'll gladly accept it :D . I assumed the printout was off, because you'll see them constantly change them during a race.

After eating my share of cookies and with medal in hand I return to my bike. In all the rushing I managed to leave my motorcycle key sitting on my seat. Ha ha.. good thing nothing happened to it.

Returning home I finished up the design for my game and read the last 5 chapters of Fight Club which made me sleepy. After waking up from a 3 hour nap, my brother and I were off to our sister's house. This was the time to finish the task "Jump kid(s) 30 times" (or throw in the air in case of about half of them).


After the kids went down my sister, brother, and I proceed to play my game. It consisted of 100 tiles repersenting 20 tiles for 20 different ingredients, 15 Recipe cards, and 3 player placemats. I two different versions in mind, the first one didn't really work as it required other player to unintentionally help you for you to win. The second idea worked out well overall IMO.

I liked the idea of a quick sort of game.. as my other game ideas become.. increasingly larger and more complicated over time. I also wanted to test out interaction between players by having 'shared spots' were each player could benifit from or a player might try to prevent a player from benifiting from. This didn't work for version 'A', but worked to a degree in version 'B'.
It didn't work well in the fact that players would grab at the same location at the same time. It did however let the players be constantly involved in the gameplay, to the point where players weren't grabbing from the main draw pile.. but instead cycling through their discard piles(each two discard pile and could also take from the player's adjacent discard piles) and then searching for recipies that had ingredients available.

Afterwards I help my sister prepare cupcakes for her to take to her daughter's school, for her birthday.

Came home, wrote this and will workout before going to sleep. Today was good, I raised my modified percentage back over 60%.

Competative in a 5k earning a 3rd place medal or better... Completed.

Ran 3.1 miles

2 Workouts complete (5 Miles + Stretching) and (Bicep, Shoulder, Tricep)

3,810lbs manipulated (No "bonus round" tonight)

Word #22 Chignon, "A roll or knot of hair worn at the back of the head or especially at the nape of the neck."

5 Chapters read, Fight Club finished.

Jump Kids 30 times

1 Meal using 4 different ingredients

Design and Prototype a Game

1 new taste (Black Raspberry icecream)

Practice Guitar once

Super awesome blog entry w/ mutliply pics

Bed before 7am

Percent w/ time adjustment 63.58% Complete
Avergae 53.58% Complete

BC - Day 26 of 30

The present I got for my Niece's birthday party today.

Quick recap of today and yesterday..

• Blog entry w/ pic
• Guitar 2 times
• 2 Workouts
• Bed before 7am both days
• Donate 1 hour of time helping someone else

Tomorrow is 5k and "Design and Prototype game (that lasts 30 minutes)". I have not finished designing the game though. I'm also not sure if I'll be able to medal (less training then I should of done).

Percent w/ time adjustment 58.49% Complete
Avergae 41.82% Complete

BC - Day 24 of 30

Probably the biggest influence a cartoon has had on my life (aside from the anti-drug PSAs),was Ducktales episode... "Once upon a dime". One of the side lessons was "work smarter not harder". When I ever I write a program to automate some tedious task that line comes to mind. Sometimes I have to remind myself to look for a better way.. as opposed to keep doing whatever it is I'm doing. Scrooge McDuck also taught me in school to put my money in the bank (which probably isn't the best investment strategy, but it sounded good to me as a seven year old).

The audit is coming up for my department. Apperantley one of the items they were going to request was something we don't use and hence.. never bothered saving the daily report or reviewing it. I browsed through large number of related database generated report, until I found appeared to have the same information. Wrote a program to parse the neccisary data from the Extra application into an Excel spreadsheet and save one for each month. Then I wrote another program to determine when the system closed the entries on the excel spreadsheet via our research system and format the information. Tonight, I'll set a second computer up to run program while I handle my 'real' daily job duties on my work computer. From there I can see what my manager says. Maybe.. print the files out so the auditor's can't see they were generated two weeks ago :D

This stuff would take someone a week do do manually. Good thing I'm such a badass coder and good thing I watched Ducktales as a kid.

• 270 lbs manipulated, only 2 routines with light weights / heavy reps
• Workout complete (Core Synergistics, I cut it down to 40 mins)
• Guitar x2
• Blog w/ pic
• Improvement x3
• Innovation x2

Percent w/ time adjustment 60.47% Complete
Avergae 40.47% Complete

I may not be able to get much done the next 2 days and that 4th day.

BC - Day 23 of 30

So yesterday was a fail. It's fine though.

I would hope to get alot done on my coming days off (I'm off next week), but I'm not sure... About a week left and tons left to do.

• Ran 2.2 miles (need a little over 10 miles still)
• Workout complete (Ab Ripper + Fartlek Run)
• Guitar practiced
• Blog post w/ pic
• Further improvements on "UCF Tool"

Percent w/ time adjustment 62.94% Complete
Avergae 39.61% Complete

BC - Day 21 of 30

Ether was mentioned in Fight Club as an anesthetic. As a chemical..

I only knew the word as a drink the restores MP.

• Ether, "1. element formerly belived to be the upper region of space. 2. a light volatile flammable liquid used chiefly as a solvent and especially formery as an anesthetic"
• Guitar practiced
• 4,190 lbs manipulated
• 4 chapters read
• Workout complete (Shoulder, Bicep, Tricep)
• Blog w/ pic
• Bed by 7

Percent w/ time adjustment 68.75% Complete
Avergae 38.75% Complete

BC - Day 20 of 30

The joy of leftovers...

I want to get back on track with the words, so I'm putting 5 on the list today. When ever I add new words to the spreadsheet.. I can look at the privious entries words, but then I have to hide previous entries that same day. I haven't been doing that great with really trying to memorize the spelling, use of the word, and defination. I'll be interested to see how I do.. being that I haven't really been studying these new words.

• 3 Math Lessons complete, which completes the math lesson task.
• Read 3 Chapters
• Guitar
• Workout complete (Ab Ripper X + Long Run)
• Ran 7k (4.35 miles)
• Cooked 5 meals (0 new ingredients)
• 1 Blog post w/ pic
• Word #16 Echt, "authentic, typical"
• Word #17 Weald, "woodland"
• Word #18 Piker, "A stingy person, cautious gambler, or one who does things in a small way"
• Word #19 Paivd, "Timid, fearful"
• Word #20 Tremulous, "Trembling. Timib, nervous"
• 4 Sprites Drawen (3 still objects, 1 background)

Percent w/ time adjustment 70.71% Complete
Avergae 37.38% Complete

BC - Day 19 of 30

My brother and I opted out of the Breast Cancer 5k (My brother had a bad knee and couldn't run, we didn't register ahead of time, and we had family get-together at 1am). This left me with some extra time. I toke on cleaning the stove top. 3 hours of scrubbing.. and it's still not complete(front section and metal tray things need to be scrubbed more). The funny thing about this picture is that top part was the worst part to clean, but you can't even notice the diffrence in this picture.

• 1 Improvment
• Workout complete
• Blog post w/pic
• Bed before 7
• Guitar practiced

BC - Day 18 of 30

Typical post-workout dinner: Water, Egg, Protein Drink (Bannana, Cottage Cheese, and vitamins not pictured). It varies though.. protein drink is only for Strength training. Bannana is more improtant for carido workouts.

My last free Saturday... and nothing major planned. I do have a run (non-competative) planned with my brother that early Sunday morning though.. so.. thats something.

• Word #15 Rectitude, "rightness of principle or conduct. Morale Virtue"
• Guitar in morning and evening (1 day behind where I should be)
• 3 Math lessons
• Workout Complete
• 4,050lbs manipulated
• Blog entry w/pic
• Bed by 7am
• 1 Chapeter read

Percent w/ time adjustment 73.64% Complete
Avergae 33.64% Complete

BC - Day 17 of 30

It's been usefull going over the more basic math lessons. I'm up to high school math now. I don't think I ever learned long division.. I think I just failed it or and made up for that fact by doing good with the other math stuff. Maybe.. they just let us use a calculator.. and that's how I managed to skip past it.

As a student, school work was mainly just a distraction. Personally I wasn't interested in it and really didn't get any of sort of feedback or encouragement to improve my grades. As a result.. I allways forgot to do my homework, rarely studied, and probably ended up taking an educational guess on roughly half of the tests at school. I graduated High School with somewhere around B- . I definately had the potential to do much better if I had some desire.

Realistically, all students should pass every test with 100%. If thats not the case, then something is wrong. School allways seemed more about teaching social situations then education. I wasn't to interested in things like.. learning how to put up a front and how to not be called on in the classroom. Throughout most of my school life my interest was in game development. Luckily, programming unintentionally forced me to be a slightly better student.

Blah.. blah.. blah.. Running out of time..

• Worout complete
• Guitar (morning.. I keep running out of time to do it before bed as well)
• 1 Improvement, further support on work program
• 2 Math videos
• Bed 7ish

Percent w/ time adjustment 75.51% Complete
Avergae 32.18% Complete

BC - Day 16 of 30

I tried to do first person perspective, but it didn't turn out to good. The lighting was really bad.. and you couldn't really tell if I was doing a pullup correctly or not. Whenever I was down in a pushup or up on a pullup... nothing but black could be seen. I accomplished the 30 pullups within 30 minute objective (easily), but I'll do it again with some better footage. I might try this first person perspective thing again some other time.

• 3 Math lessons and time spent revising the progress on the http://www.blogger.com/www.khanacademy.org website
• Workout complete
• A few improvements on the main prog and got the printer setup for my co-worker. My manager gave her approval and offered to even order another printer to support my program.
• Lifted 1,870 weights
• Do 30 pullups within 30 min task complete
• Completely missed the bed time goal today, was working on my dating profile. Which is all sorts of awkwards. Also trying to edit this first person perspective workout video.. which I'll probably just trash.

Percent w/ time adjustment 78.11% Complete
Avergae 31.45% Complete

BC - Day 15 of 30

Half way point. Taking a personal day. Need to get motivaed again.

• 4 Math lessons
• Guitar (in morning)
• Sleep at 7am-ish
• Blog w/ random pic

BC - Day 14 of 30

Today I (occasionally) tried to land on the ball of my feet instead of the middle area or heel of my foot. It felt kind strange. It sort of felt like I was exerting force against my momentum, even though I wasn't loosing speed.

Physcially it's better to take shorter strides and land on the all of your foot. It feels very un-natural, but is something I should continue working on.

• Rotund, "Round in figure OR Having a full rich sound"
• Crapehanger, "A morose, gloomy, or pessimistic person"
• Morose, "Gloomy or sullenly ill-humored, as person or mood"
• Workout complete, (Ab Ripper X + Long Run)
• Ran 6k (3.7 miles) at a light-ish pace (heart rate under 160) in around 30 mins.
• Practiced Guitar in morning
• Read 2 chapters of Fight Club
• Bed before 7am
• Blog post w/ pic

Percent w/ time adjustment 80.00% Complete
Avergae 26.67% Complete

BC - Day 13 of 30

Today I did my.. "ride a distance of 30+ miles on my motorcycle". About 13 miles in, I wasn't able to hear my engine anymore which made me think that maybe my engine died out. However, It was just because of the constant wind noise though (and potential hearing damage.. o.o ). It was kind of neat to pass through an area that is kind barren. It reminded me of entering into the next town in SNES game Earthbound, seeing stores and houses start to appear.

Song is "Save my soul" by Remi Sinato (http://www.hiddenninja.net/)

As I said before, the Ninja 250 is not good bike for traveling long distance. I do have more confidence in my bike's capabilities though. If an apocalyptic senerio were to occur.. I belive the ninja would be an excellent tool for local travel with a distance going to at least 30 miles.

As I was following my brother home, he toke fairly sharp turn on a two-lane elevated interchange(NB 101 to WB 60), going 20 miles over the speed limit. Being on the motorcycle, I knew I couldn't really slow down in the turn (If I slowed down in the turn.. I probably would of crashed, possiably going over the side of the ramp). I had to trust my abilities and really lean far to my left (I've never leaned that close to the ground). So that was definately an experience.

I also made two dishes. My brother-in-law photographed them, but I forgot to get those pictures before I left.

• Read 4 Chapters of Fight Club
• 1 New Taste, Dried Beef
• Rode over 30 miles from home (~38 miles) complete
• Cooked 4 meals using new 15 ingredients (2 dishes)
• Cooked 5 work lunches
• Blog entry w/ video (a numer of issues encountered on this)
• Bed before 7am-ish
• (Missed a workout today)

Percent w/ time adjustment 82.01% Complete
Avergae 25.34% Complete

BC - Day 12 of 30

So... not that productive today. I did bought a voice recorder and some ingredients... but thats about it. Tomorrow should be better.

• Guitar twice (morning, evening)
• Workout (Bicycling), was going to do the 30 miles.. but wasn't sure about the weather
• Bed before 7am-ish
• Blog entry w/ pic

BC - Day 11 of 30

I managed to implement 2 major features for my "UCF Tool". It now automates the card closing procedure, which save around 20 minutes and removes that annoyance of being handed other peole's work since the tool will now do it for them on the spot. The other function is it automatically enters entries that are created with the "UCF Tool". This will save about 30 minutes end of night, every night. So, come Christmas Eve.. I'll be leaving a 'little' bit earlier then normal. It also ensures that all information is correct and legable for encoding (as long as the User entered the intial 3 variables correctly).

It's main functionality for the Day 1 process is finished, but I could allways add more functionality. I should also add funcionalty to cover uncommon, unique conditions. After I test it a bit more. I'll show it off to management next Monday or Tuesday. From there, I could work to get my peers using it. Confirm everything is going good. And finally, submit it on the company website... where other similar departments can use it.. even though it's very specific to our department and our tools.

If work is going good, I'll probably start on a new project related to improving the Day 2 process.

Short little clip, showing a little bicep curling action.

• 3855 lbs manipulated. 300 more then my weight day last week.. but still way behind the 30,000 goal..
• 2 major Improvements on "UCF Tool".
• Guitar practiced once when I woke up
• Blog w/ short little video
• workout complete
• Bed before 7... eh.. close enough. I'm counting it.
• Word of Day Probity, "integrity and uprightness; honesty"

Percent w/ time adjustment 81.91% Complete
Avergae 18.58% Complete

BC - Day 10 of 30

I ending wasting lack an hour of time, once I got home. I ended up way behind today. Since it was light out.. I thought I would try filming me running. Yeah... it turned out really bad. I'm still posting it, just so I can make the blog /w video or pic goal. I seriously tried to keep my arm level. I guess I need to wear some harness thing or something.. I don't know.

EDIT: Apperantly, the blogger video quality is awful as well.

Saturday I was going to volunteer for something, but they need me and the Habitat for Humanity thing was full by the time I checked last Monday. I might have to wing it and do some at home stuff.

• Word 1 Diffident, "Hesitant in acting or speaking due to lack of self-confidence"
• Word 2 Fiduciary, "A person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benifit of another"
• Only ran 2k
• Workout complete (Ab Ripper X & Fartlek Run)
• Guitar when I woke up (Was going to do it again before bed, but ran out of time.)
• Made some noticeable improvements to my program, it can now replace my old productivity tracker program.. just to add an auto-save feature.
• Bed before 7
• One math lesson complete

Percent w/ time adjustment 84.12% Complete
Average 17.45% Complete
Third of the way in.. at this rate.. I'll be lucky to reach 50% of my Goal.