Name	Total Points	Days Logged	Money Given
Jason	128 pts	26	$711.11
Jeremy	29 pts	10	$161.11
Jake	14 pts	5	$77.78
Alysha	7 pts	3	$38.89
Ian	2 pts	1	$11.11

Day 15

Day 14

*No workout Day 13

Day 12

Leader Board Update Day 1-10 (1/3rd in)

Jason	50 pts
Jeremy	14 pts
Alysha	7 pts
Jake	4 pts
Ian	2 pts

Day 11

Day 10

Day 9

Day 8

Day 7

Day 6

Day 5

Day 4

Day 3

Notice
Make sure you log your fitocracy updates for the day you worked, all workouts for a day will get combined to a single entry.

The List of People I have are(First and last letter of first name): Aa, Bt, Je, Jy, In, Ra, Jn, and Myself
The List of People that have worked out so far are: Aa, Je, Jy, In, and Myself

I'll post a leaderboard later on and explain any increase in points for any individuals. I'll probably also post the first name of the individual, let me know if anyone has an issue with that or would prefer to use an alias.

Day 2

Day 1 + Rule Change

Day 1


Rule Change
Fitocracy Update = 2 pt

In addition you may earn additional points for...
Blog, Photos, Detailed Description of Day, Video, Milestones, providing motivation or Entertainment

I wanted to try to even things out some. I'll definatly try to be fair. The video I posted above is like a 3 of 5 in my opinion, it shows the workout, gives some personal reflection, but is a little bland, not edited that great, and not super inspiring. No can earn more then 8 points a day. I would give myself 5pts for today.

Free Money!

That's right I'm giving money away. Well.. not really giving it away as much as I'm investing it.

For the 31 Days leading up to my Birthday (Sept 20th to Oct 20st, Oct 21st will be a rest day) I'm going to put up 31 Dollars, making a total of $961 dollars. Eh.. let's make it an even $1,000 . This will be a contest where the $1,000 will be distributed based on points it's participants earn per day (Total Money / Total Points for all Participants). For Example Joe posts gets 1 point per day and Sally gets 2 points per Day and no one else does anything then... Joe gets $333 and Sally gets $666. To earn points per day you just got to workout, and show it in one of the four ways listed below.

Fitocracy Update 1pt (+1) ( Fitocracy link on my facebook wall (it's limited to 10 people, but those 10 people get 10 of their own links )

Picture 2pt (+1)

Blog Entry 3pt (+2) ( Description of Workout Day + Picture )

Video 4pt (+5) ( Ideally showing a full workout or highlighting a full workout )

The numbers in parentheses are potential additional points. The bonus points are entirely based on my own personal discretion, but things like Production Quality, Entertainment Value, how Hard you worked, Personal Improvements you made, Inspiration, and likely my personal opinion will be considered. You'll notice that a Video has the potential to be worth 10 times the amount of a Fitocracy Update.

Like I said before this is an investment. A financial investment that will hopefully pay off by making its participates more healthy and happy, as well as providing myself with more motivation to continue working out.

RULES

1. To be a participant you have to know me, this is strictly open to my Friends and Family only.


2. You also have to know about this contest to compete in it. (If you didn't know about this contest and happened to be working out, those prior entries won't count)


3. I have to know your competing in this contest. (So I can track it)


4. I have to agree to let you compete in this contest. (People I don't know well, will likely not be able to compete OR may be very limited)


5. I have to know about your workout submissions. Make sure I'm following you on Fitocracy, I'm subscribed to your Youtube, I know of your blog, etc


6. You should have a time stamp somewhere on it. (Most sites automatically do this)


7. You have to try to submit within 24 hours of the workout. (There can be a lot of leeway here, especially uploading good quality videos on poor Internet connection)


8. If you don't live close to me where I can physically give you the money/check. You should be okay with me giving it through Paypal.. if you want money. Though me buying something with the money to send you, could also work.


9. Only the best of the four types of entries will count. If you do a Fitocracy update and a blog entry with a video. I'll count it as a video, though I might give you extra points for the other stuff.


10. You got to accept that I'm not responsible if anything negative happens as result of participating this contest. (ie. You suddenly decided to do a marathon, or your doing some high cardio stuff while clogging your arteries with a bucket of donuts, etc.)


11. Your workout should be at least 15 minutes


12. Your workout is under my judgement. I won't accept things like a Gaming Marathon Session, Watching Tennis, etc. ... but I will accept things like (but not limited to) Walking (in effort to eventually run/jog), playing Basketball, Swimming, Bicycling, Rock Climbing, etc.


13. The rules can change. Changes will be posted here (as well as updates on where the participants are point-wise) (This post was sort of rushed)


14. I may reward bonus points for stuff like most consecutive days, being on the top of the leaderboard (most points), etc. ... or I may not XP

** If your embarrassed about showing yourself working out, you can make the pictures/video private (just make sure I can watch it).

Because updating your workouts can be so monotonous, I MAY also accept other self improvement entries instead of a workout.

Oh.. one more thing.. I'll be participating along side everyone else. So... I hope your ready for this, because I can be very stringent with my money.

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