This blog just isn’t fuzzy enough, so here’s a sketch by pipesburrow of me enjoying a cup of coffee, probably planning my week ahead and staying positive and cozy. 🐾
Categories
Planning the Week Ahead
Category: Personal
Categories
Life Update, March 2019
Hello everyone! It’s March and I’m still alive, and that’s good. I had such a productive January that last month looked like it might be barren and unproductive by comparison. Not so! I managed to make some good progress despite the lighter outlook.
Goals Completed
- Exercise at the gym: I went to the student gym several times in February and even sometimes at work! Also got to play some ping-pong with Rob and Erik too.
- Front door plants: Erik made us a really nice bench for the front door and we wanted to spruce it up, so we bought a couple of nice pots and plants for the front door area.
- Trailer hitch: Got a hitch for my CR-V and tested it out by taking the bikes up to UCF. Works as expected, if not a little noisy; had to fish a bolt out of the sub-frame the installers “forgot” about.
- Eye exam and new glasses: After taking a little tumble at work that scuffed up my glasses (and forehead), I popped over to LensCrafters for an eye exam and updated lenses and frames I’ve been putting off for far too long (since I lost my last pair in a lake in New Hampshire). Not a huge change in prescription and no eye problems, woo!
- Aeron chair: After putting it off for a decade of working at a sit-down job (and coming home to sit the majority of nights), I finally took the time to try out some Steelcase and Herman Miller chairs. Thanks to a super helpful staff member, I specced out an Aeron chair and put some savings toward it. Thanks to Erik for buying an IKEA chair off of me to help fund it. No idea when I’ll get it but I’m excited!
Categories
Life Update, Feb 2019
I like writing small updates around the turn of the month, but this time I want to deep dive into what goals I tracked for January to give a sense of how varied and granular it can be and still be super helpful (to me).
I track my goals in Trello with a very simple board layout: columns for To Do, Upcoming, Doing, and Done (cleared out once a month at our goals dinner). I keep the mobile app on my home screen, keep visible bookmarks to the board on every browser, and remind myself to check the board in my habit tracker daily.
I completed over 30 goal cards on the board this past month (which is crazy) and I’d like to share all of them to show how even the smallest goals can add up to a real feeling of self confidence and success.
Categories
2018 and 2019 Goals
It’s that time again! Halfway through January in the new year, it’s time to look back at 2018’s goals, see how they turned out, and use those lessons to set new and better goals for 2019. Let’s go!
Categories
Year 33 Status Report
Every year I get older, and every year I try to write a little about what I’ve learned, how my thinking’s changed, or what I’m looking forward to. I’ve been poking away at this and putting it off week after week, but I’m making sure to get this up before 2019. Onward!
Hey all! For anyone interested in some Blue Ridge hiking guidance, here are all of the hikes Rob and I did on our annual October Blue Ridge trip this year, ordered chronologically and labeled with our distance and elevation gain. These differ a little bit from the published info (we sometimes combined trails and extended them).
We accomplished a pretty large increase in our hiking distance this year: 79.5mi, up from 55.4mi. I don’t know if my poor aching IT bands could take much more, but it didn’t feel all that crazy!
- Sam Knob (2.5mi, 557ft)
- Cat Gap Loop to John Rock (6.2mi, 1154ft)
- Grassy Creek Falls (1.8mi, 400ft)
- Crabtree Falls Loop (2.6mi, 577ft)
- Trout Lake Carriage (3.3mi, 300ft)
- Rich Mountain Carriage / Deer Park Loop (5.3mi, 756ft)
- Cascades / Tompkins (2.3mi, 272ft)
- Rough Ridge (1.5mi, 362ft)
- Bass Lake Loop (1mi, 20ft)
- Black Ridge Loop (3mi, 574ft)
- Fisher Peak Loop (2.2mi, 233ft)
- Bass Lake Loop Extended (2.8mi, 170ft)
- Price Lake Loop (2.2mi, 72ft)
- Elk Knob Summit (4mi, 971ft)
- Green Knob Loop (2mi, 515ft)
Categories
Halloween Suiting
For many years I’ve had the privilege of donning an amazing costume on Halloween at work and parties. In college, I received a custom mascot costume for doing some website work for a friend that created the costumes (thanks Spain!). I don’t exactly have many opportunities to don it, but it’s always a blast when I do!
After showing up for work in a red-herring beach bum outfit, I changed into the costume and had my usual fun eliciting surprise, nervous laughter and many questions. This year, I also met up with a small group of suiters on campus and strode around with them for a few hours. After we snagged dinner, I tagged along for a chill Halloween hangout that included the requisite round trip through weird YouTube, a little impromptu jamming, and after-midnight baked cookies and ice cream. I felt welcome and really enjoyed the opportunity to hang. 🦝
Sneaking in quick updates for the month of November:
- Met with a lovely and helpful friend to talk stocks and investing and get me rolling in the right direction with my money.
- Oil changed in the Fit! Erik did most of the work this time. It passed 90,000 miles a couple weeks ago. Feels like I just bought the thing.
- Physical therapist recommended me to get an MRI of my hip area if it wasn’t too expensive or a hassle. Spoilers: it’s a hassle.
- Started tracking my sleep with my Apple Watch and AutoSleep in an effort to be more aware of how much I actually sleep so I can take steps to improve. So far it’s working out pretty well and is actually really interesting to see the results every morning.
- In that same vein, I’ve also been trying to establish a simple bedtime routine of sitting with my laptop in bed until around midnight with lights out shortly thereafter. It lets me regularly focus on writing and organizing things just before bed, leaving me with a good sense of contentment and preparedness.
- After hitting a little snag in therapy, it’s been going pretty well since. I’ve got some homework that I actually look forward to doing and it’s translated into a good bit of hope for a future progress.
Before October, I’d never been to a real concert. There I said it. I’m lame. Sure, I’ve piled into a church bus to see Steven Curtis Chapman as a kid*, joyfully attended Rockapella’s Christmas special last year, and saw Hamilton with Rob in Chicago, but I’d never had to slip plugs into my ear holes and rock out in a large venue.
I’ve also been a big fan of CHVRCHES lately. I gained an interest in the band through the Rebel FM podcast, the Forza Horizon soundtrack, and their stellar remix of MS MR’s Hurricane. They were one of the first bands I binged heavily when I first adopted Spotify, and their Every Open Eye album dropped into my life with a bang.
One day this Summer I noticed their upcoming tour dates on Spotify. I’d missed them in Orlando around my birthday a few years back (chickened out on going alone) so I clicked through. One jumped out at me: Asheville, 10/9. We would be in Blowing Rock (a couple hours north) the week prior…maybe this could work? But no—we planned to drive back the Saturday prior to this Tuesday night concert. Drat. On a whim, I checked Kayak for flights to Asheville and was surprised to see extremely cheap seats from Sanford and back surrounding the exact time of the concert: departing at 5pm and returning the next morning at 9:30am. Could this work?
Our captain and his plane
I took the controls (very) briefly.
Smiling and terrified
The giant bridge to Brunswick between Jekyll and Saint Simons
I look like a tool :D
Another year, another birthday! Because it worked so well as an alternative to the Super Bowl, I held another limited Halo LAN party to celebrate. The afternoon and night were filled with Slayer, Hog Heaven, and terrible attempts at custom game types we always found some way to break. Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer continues to feel like one of the best LAN experiences available.
The next morning Rob and I woke up early and met up with Ty at the Sanford airport to graciously accept an offer to fly up to Saint Simons Island, GA in a small prop plane—the first time I’ve flown like that since I was in single digits (and the first time ever for Rob).
It turned out to be a complete blast! Literally—it was the day after a cold front moved through, leaving us with beautiful weather and strong winds. After a thorough preflight inspection, we squeezed into the cockpit, ran through a takeoff checklist, taxied to the runway, and, with my stomach in knots, floated into the air.
We fought strong headwinds all the way to Georgia, taking a detour to Cape Canaveral to see the shuttle building and landing runway. Our direct path was up the Atlantic coast, and along the way we spotted many familiar landmarks as Ty spoke another language to every major tower we passed.
Once into Georgia we spotted Jekyll Island, the barrier island just south of our destination (and where Rob first showed off his just-acquired bike-riding skills only 18 months ago). The approach to the small, tower-less airport on Saint Simons was winding and fraught with turbulence—the plane pivoting from side to side all the way to touchdown (we survived).
Categories
Life Update, September 2018
It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these status updates! My home and work life have been kind of turned upside down since the end of Spring and I haven’t devoted much time to writing, so let’s catch up!
Ringtail Quest 