A couple decades ago, during my Livejournal days, I tried doing the 101 Things in 1001 Days more than once. A few years ago, when I was casting about for shit to blog about in here, I opted to jump in and try it again. New, older Dan with better time management skills, more money, and more free time (yeah, but not really more free time) should be able to make a good go of it, right? Well, sort of right, I guess. The construction of this list had a lot of great ideas, but it also reflects my “got ADHD, have zero ability to estimate time” and I definitely tried to cram way too much stuff into too little time. And thus, the list did not get completed.
However, it’s also important to note that the list got completed far further than the two attempts I made at this in the early 2000’s.
Basic Bitch Metrics
Duration: 1001 Days
| Total | Percentage | Days Per Item | |
| Completed Items | 62 | 61.3% | 16.14 |
| In-Progress | 11 | 10.8% | |
| Failed | 28 | 27.7% |
This is far and away the most of a list I’ve ever accomplished. One of my previous attempts, I didn’t even make 20% complete, and the other was about 15%. So I am feeling pretty good about things here.
That said, let’s take a peek at what I accomplished (or didn’t) in 1001 days:
Relationship/Family
- ✅ Marry this girl. This one was so damn good, I did it twice. Di and I snuck off to the courthouse in December of 2023 and got ourselves hitched, yo. Then we did it again with family and friends present in June of 2024. We honeymooned in the Bahamas (where Di accepted a new job offer and I got laid off), and we couldn’t be happier. It was a great day both times and I couldn’t be happier to be married to her.
- ✅ Buy a house together. We started looking in January of 2025, even though I was still unemployed from the layoff mentioned above — we had the money, my interview frequency was ramping up, and in-general, things went really well. We put in an offer for a place in Eagan that we loved, but it didn’t get accepted, which was a bit disheartening. In the end, though, it was for the best — small yard, smaller space, etc. We looked at a couple more places, and we put an offer in in February, which was accepted. We now live in Rosemount, and while the house didn’t get us every item on our checklist, it did hit a lot of them, and we’ve only had to (thus far), reinforce the deck, buy a new stove, replace the garbage disposal, and the AC and furnace are both on their last legs. But yeah, we’re in. We’re happy, and we’re making the space our own.
Bike
- ✅ Finish the century-length Tour de Tucson. My first shot at this was in 2023. I drove down to Tucson to ride it with my brother, and the drive was, to put it bluntly, fucking exhausting. A really bad idea all around. First day, I got to Wichita, Kansas somewhere around midnight, and I got a hotel. The next day, I finished off Kansas, drove through the Oklahoma panhandle, and part of Texas, on my way to Albuquerque (insert Bugs Bunny quote here). In the hotel, I worked on stuff for my college class and ordered a pizza. On day 3, I woke up super early, had breakfast at a Waffle House (mandatory on long road trips), got some snacks from a Target nearby, and then hauled ass to Tucson. Got there, got settled in, had a bunch of pizza with my brother that night, and basically chilled. The next day, Friday, we did a small ride around the Loop, which was fun. I’m sure there was a subtext of sibling rivalry because neither of us was particularly good about keeping our speed in-check. We went and checked-in after that. By about the 50-mile mark, my back was acting up horribly, and we bailed out on the loop that included the Duvall Mine Road climb. At the end, we were sitting at about 75 miles. My back was excruciating, and I was pretty pissed without how things turned out.
In 2024, we did it again — this time I flew out, rather than exhausting myself behind the wheel — and it went better. It wasn’t perfect, but I used CBD/CBG gummies to manage my back pain, and I did bonk hard on the lengthy climb up to Duvall Mine, and had to gather my shit for a bit, but managed to pull it together and get to the summit. After the long descent, I was able to keep it together, and motor to the finish. We got it wrapped up about an hour earlier than I’d hoped. - ❌ Finish the Filthy 50 with a 4.5-hour (or less) time. This was a fail, and it shouldn’t have been. I just missed it in 2023, and then either missed registrations or had scheduling conflicts. I’ll definitely be making another shot at this in the future.
- ❌ Do three brevets of increasing distance (200km, 300km, 400km). Unfortunately, this was another fail. I’ve been battling some sort of health issues this year that I’m still trying to get sorted out.
- ✅ Build up a new road bike. I got this done in March of 2024, and built around a BMC RoadMachine carbon frame that I got a good deal on. In the end, I wasn’t happy (at all) with the BMC and its poor design choices. After 200 miles of unimpressive riding, a seatpost clamp giving me tons of trouble, and the seat clamp bolt breaking, I opted to strip all the parts off and ordered a new Specialized Tarmac SL8 frame not long after we moved into the new house. Once it arrived, I built it up, and I’m extremely happy with it. She’s lightweight, aero, and fast as fuck. (Too bad I’m not.).
- ✅ Buy Didi a new full-squish mountain bike. January of 2024! I ordered it in December as a Christmas gift, and it arrived in January. A quick build and she was ready to rock. She’s riding a Specialized Stumpjumper Carbon Comp, and she’s loving it.
- ❌ Get the kids into the Buck Hill race series (with me). This was a fail. Eddy and I were going to do it in August of 2026, but with his lack of training (long story) and my ongoing issues with exhaustion, we opted to punt on it. Such is life.
- ❌ Take a mountain bike skills class. Failed. Too expensive.
- ✅ Buy Didi a new gravel bike. Accomplished this in June of 2024 — a Specialized Diverge Carbon Sport. It was her wedding gift for our second wedding (see #1, above). Another great bike, and who can argue with getting two carbon bikes in a single year?
- ❌ Buy myself a new full-squish mountain bike. This was another fail. For good reason. I spent July 2024 through April of 2025 unemployed. Missed out on that phat employer bonus in January 2025. So I had to punt on this one repeatedly. I’m looking forward to doing this in 2027, but right now I am struggling with the selection process.
- ✅ Find and purchase a new project bike. This happened twice — in May 2025 and April 2026. In the first case, I scored a beautiful 1995 Specialized Stumpjumper FS (champagne color), which is going to have a few mods made to it and is going to become a bikepacking bike. In April of 2026, I scored a beautiful Bridgestone RB-1 that was damn-near pristine and was almost entirely factory original parts. I’ve since gone hunting for the parts, and have everything I need except a replacement rear hub and some spokes. This is going to be an amazing project.
- ✅ Figure out the tool storage issue. March 2025, we pre-ordered a huge tool chest to go in the garage, and it’s packed full of tools (that I keep adding to). I do need to get myself some foam inserts/organizers made, and that’s probably going to be a project for the next iteration of 101 Things.
- ✅ Write an updated business plan for opening a bike shop. Did this in November of 2024 while I was unemployed. Verdict: it’s still high-cost, high-risk.
- 🔄 Get (or build) nice touring frames for Didi and me. (1/2). Partially complete. I did find that lovely Specialized Stumpjumper FS (#12, above) that’ll become mine, but finding a used frame in Didi’s size (~47-48cm) has been challenging, to say the least. I’m scouring around for used Surly frames. We’ll see how this goes.
- ✅ Plan for riding Paris-Brest-Paris in 2027. I got a bug up my ass to do this, and I’m still going to try to sneak a qualifying ride or two in before the cutoff later this fall. I did do most of the logistics work on this, though, and have even started experimenting with new equipment. Done in February of 2026.
- ❌ Ride the DAMN. This was a fail. I registered for this event in 2025 and 2026, and my ongoing back problems waylaid me both times. I’m very disappointed.
- ❌ Get the Surly repainted. Failed. Really wanted to, but the priority level of such things, particularly when look at cost, resulted in this one landing on the back burner.
- ❌ Ride at Ray’s Bike Park in Cleveland, Ohio. Yeah, this was another one that failed for dumb reasons. I should’ve hit it on my way too or from Philadelphia in 2025, but that’s already an exhausting drive, and there’s not a whole lot to do in Cleveland, either. We talked about doing this in February or so, but never pulled the trigger. That’s fine, though, I’ve discovered that skills parks bore the crap out of me.
Web Nerd Shit
- 🔄 Build the Scoutreads site. This one finishes the list as an in-progress. I’ve been hammering away at code on and off for two years now, and I wish I could say that it had gone better, but life gets in the way, and a large project like this frequently gets pushed aside. I still intended to finish it however.
- 🔄 Get at least two certifications. (1/2). This was partially successful. I finished the PCEP in January 2025, rolling through on auto-pilot. It was incredibly easy. I’ve been studying on-and-off for the PCAP, but haven’t gotten around to taking the test yet. I feel ready, but don’t want to spend the $300 while we’re working on tackling some financial stuff.
- ✅ Contribute to an open source project. One of the biggest problems I had with getting this done (which I accomplished in June of 2026) was in actually finding something with open issues that were in my wheelhouse. So I did what any forward-thinking nerd would do — I wrote a script that would pull the first 1000 issues opened in the last hour on GitHub, allowing me to filter by language. A minor edit to allow filtering by label (“good first issue”) helped get me more tightly focused on the results. That helped me find stuff I could address pretty quickly, and I was able to bash this task out pretty quickly. My contributions are waiting review/merge, but I feel like I can call this complete.
- ✅ Get the danbailey.dev website up and running. This was a slog and I finally just went with a basic bitch WordPress install in December of 2025. I’ve since wiped it and am looking at creating something a little more static and less riddled with security holes.
- ✅ Start a YouTube channel. Done in June 2026.
- ✅ Build the mtg-deckbuild Python script. Done in September 2024. I’m probably going to expand this significantly and turn it into a GUI-based tool, and will probably use chunks of it for another project I’ve had bouncing around in my head.
- ✅ Build a WordPress plugin to manage these 101 Things lists. Done in March 2026. I’ll be using it to manage the next iteration of this list.
- ✅ Develop a series of Todoist/Wordpress Gutenberg blocks. Done in August 2025. I’ve since made some edits to it, too, to handle some “oh I hadn’t thought about that” moments.
Generally Nerdy Shit
- 🔄 Go see all the Apollo Command Modules that went to the moon. (2/9) On my trip to Florida (July 2025) with Eddy to see a launch, we saw Kitty Hawk (Apollo 14). On my way to Philadelphia in October of that same year, I totally paused in Chicago long enough to lay eyes on the unnamed Apollo 8 capsule. I had plans to divert to Dayton, Ohio, along the route back from Philly and hit up the Air Force Museum, which houses Endeavour (Apollo 15), but the government shutdown resulted in the museum being closed. Goddammit.
- ✅ Get a new t-shirt design done and posted to Cotton Bureau and other places. Done in December 2024. Available here.
- ✅ Buy/build the new Avengers Tower set. (Lego). In September 2025, I bought this as a treat to myself. For what, I don’t remember, but dang, it’s a cool set.
- ❌ Get a display case and finish building the UCS Millenium Falcon set. (Lego). Failed. This was a time-crunch thing.
- ✅ Get my D&D campaign world finished; start running it. Done. June 2026. Eventually going to compile all my notes into a sourcebook and publish it.
- ❌ Submit a design to Lego Ideas. Never got around to it. I have some good ideas, but they’re going to take a bit of legwork to accomplish. This might migrate to the next 101 Things list.
- ✅ Do 365 brain puzzles (sudoku, ken ken, crosswords, etc.). (365/365) Finished this in April 2024. And it turned into a habit pretty quickly. I’m still regularly doing things like Wordle, Connections, Letterboxed, and Strands on the NYTimes app, and I’ve started in on a few of the other puzzle-style games on LinkedIn.
- ✅ Visit the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. In October 2024, we got to out to the D.C. area for my father-in-law’s 70th birthday, which was great fun. He’s a great guy and we got to nerd out over the aircraft and spacecraft at the Udvar-Hazy branch. Didn’t manage to score tickets for the big branch on the Mall, which is sad (wanted to get Apollo 11 checked-off my list), but I’ll be hitting that up next time.
Gaming
- ❌ Finish Baldur’s Gate III. Oof, what a game. I played about 4 hours of this, and was too busy to get back to it.
- 🔄 Finish three Zelda games I haven’t completed. (0/3). I’m probably ready for the final battle of Tears of the Kingdom here, but I need to go grind out some supplies and then go kick his teeth in. With Ocarina of Time coming to the Switch 2 in November, I really need to get my shit together and clear my plate of need-to-finish games.
- ✅ Buy a Switch 2. In June 2025, this was a gift to myself for all my hard work in finding a new job. It was kind of a last-minute decision so I went and got in-line to see if I could get one without a pre-order. As it turns out: yes. And as an added bonus, I got to watch a neckbeard basement-dweller absolutely lose his shit because he arrived late and wasn’t going to get one of the unreserved consoles. Get control of your big feelings, man-child.
- ✅ Go infinite in Marvel Snap. After a ridiculous amount of time in this game, I finally went infinite in March 2026, and it was…underwhelming. That said, I also went infinite two more times after that, and it was still…underwhelming. My whelms were not feeling it.
Body/Fitness/Health
- ✅ Get my weight below 195; keep it there. This was completed in September 2024, and it wasn’t hard to get to. I’d been laid off in July 2024, so I didn’t have a whole lot of appetite and as a result, I’d gotten to the point where I got the weight down. And I managed to keep it off until I went back to work and started eating for convenience again. Getting back on my ADHD meds (I’d been raw dogging it for a few years) helped keep the appetite in-check again and I’ve been making better choices in what I eat, so everything is coming back down again. I’m pleased.
- ✅ Clean up my diet. Done in September 2024. If you read entry #40, you can see what happened there.
- ✅ Exercise at least 3x/week for 52 weeks. (52/52). I was able to call this completed in January 2025. With training and new bikes and all that fun stuff, I was able to knock this out and it probably contributed to #40 and #41.
- ✅ Two new tattoos. (1/2). In October of 2025, I got a long-wanted bicycle-wheel-with-wings tattoo at Gothic Knights in Uptown (highly recommended). Then in November 2025, I got another, long-wanted Heptapod-B tattoo (glyph taken from the official repository), using the same studio and artist.
- ❌ Get teeth whitened. Never got around to it. Next year, maybe?
- 🔄 Be able to do 50 push-ups without stopping. Started training, not quite at this point yet.
- 🔄 Be able to do 6 pull-ups. Started training, not quite there yet.
- ✅ Get cholesterol and triglycerides into normal ranges. Woo! By March 2024, my numbers were in good places. The downside is, they didn’t stay there. Dammit. Working on this again.
- ❌ Get Lasik. Failed. Couldn’t swing the money, didn’t really want to risk the eyes. Also, now that I need bifocals, Lasik isn’t a really viable option for me.
Travel
- ✅ Family camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. In August 2024, we packed up the kids (despite my being unemployed for about a month at this point), and drove our asses to Colorado. Generally, it was a pretty good time. The cabin we had rented for our trip burned down in wildfires about two days before our trip. So we had to scramble to find a place and got a semi-permanent camp on the opposite side of the park, which was really nice. The kids were generally well-behaved except for one day, and a small tiff on the Lulu City hike where Eddy got frustrated and kicked a rock and managed to drill Sam in the leg. But they did get to experience the beauty of the area, we had a couple good hikes (Gem Lake, which Didi and I discovered on a previous trip), and we made some memories. It was damned fun.
- ❌ TBD (Was: Take the boys to London.) This was a bit ambitious of me. We never did a trip to fill this spot.
- ✅ Florida trip with Eddy to see KSC and a launch. In July 2025, Eddy and I jumped a plane to Orlando, and then drove out to the area around KSC. We lived in a hotel for a few days, had our first launch scrubbed due to weather, and then the next day, we got to watch a launch of a crew to the space station. It was pretty damn cool, and my first launch as well. When we weren’t at KSC, we also found time to check out the nerd stores in the area and buy some Magic cards, and hit up Universal Studios in Orlando, which was super-lame.
- ✅ Honeymoon in the Bahamas. In June/July of 2024, Di and I got married a second time (see #1, above). We stayed mostly at the resort (we had a private villa/pool), but we did sneak out for some exploring, and a jeep tour of the island. Super relaxing, great food, and the locals were lovely.
- ❌ Japan. Again, I think I overloaded on the travel section of this list. So much ambition, so little time/money. Fail.
- ✅ Las Vegas. In August 2024, about a week after the Rocky Mountain National Park trip, Di and I packed up and flew to Vegas. We’d booked the travel and the concert (the Killers) long before I was laid off, so we went anyway. Debauchery, drinking, partying, a hell of a great concert, and spending way too much money on the Amex. Oops.
- ❌ Zion National Park. This was a victim of time/lack of PTO (my new job doesn’t have a lot of PTO and I’m hourly, so if I don’t work, I don’t get paid). Someday, though.
- ✅ Philadelphia. I hadn’t been to Philly since 2005 or so, and when the opportunity came up to camp/ride with my old friends, I jumped at it. So in October 2025, I drove out there for a long weekend with the boys. The camping was fun, the food was great, and the rides were awesome. I forgot how hilly Bucks county is, though.
- ❌ Colorado snowboarding trip. This was a time/money fail. When I had money to do this, it wasn’t snowboarding season. When I had time, I didn’t have money. And then this last winter had shit snow. Thus, fail.
- ✅ Go see the 2024 solar eclipse in April. This was fun as hell. In April 2024, we decided to go see the eclipse. We took the kids and drove to Indianapolis, which was an easy drive. We stayed overnight, had breakfast, packed up the car, and headed to a spot right under the totality. The experience was incredible, to say the least. We hopped in the car immediately afterwards and drove back to Minneapolis, which took a LOT longer than anticipated. Just making it to Chicago took a ridiculous amount of time. The kids saved their fighting for early in the morning (3:30 a.m.) when we were only a few miles from home, thankfully.
- ✅ Washington, D.C. In October 2024, we headed out to D.C. for my father-in-law’s 70th birthday. It was a great time — we stayed at Di’s sister’s place in Virginia and took the train into the capitol, which was awesome. Walked all over the place, took a bus tour, hit up the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Air & Space Museum, and decided that I’d have to get my ass back there again soon.
- ❌ NYC weekend, again. At the time I started this list, Di and I had already had two trip NYC under our belt (one casual, one sorta-working), so getting a third trip in seemed like something easy to do. It never materialized. Maybe in the next 101 Things?
Written Word
- ✅ Read at least 150 books. (150/150). I completed this in March 2026. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and once I was working again and had a 3x weekly commute, I started adding audiobooks to the mix.
- 🔄 Write a novel. Yeah, this never got finished, which is unsurprising. I’ve only been at the same novel since 2009 or so. And it’s been a slog. It never seems to go where I want it to, and I need to probably sit down and re-think things thoroughly.
- 🔄 Write a half-dozen short stories; submit. (0/6) Back in college, this would’ve been something I could’ve bashed out in a month, easy. As it stands, I’ve definitely slowed down with age and have been working on a few pieces. They’re slow going, though. We’ll see how this shakes out.
- ❌ Write a non-fiction book. Mostly this didn’t even get looked at because I couldn’t come up with a good idea. Then I got my idea in mid-September of 2026 (the last month of this list). I scribbled down a bunch of notes because it’s something I want to take a look at later.
Finance
- 🔄 Have three months’ of expenses set aside in an “oh shit” savings account. This, amazingly, was pretty close to done, despite how ambitious it was (in tandem with buying a house in 2025). At any given moment, we have about two months of expenses kicking around, which is helpful. We’re in the process of potentially refinancing the mortgage and doing it under my VA Home Loan benefits, which would push us to be reaaaaally close to the three months mark.
- ✅ Get my spare change bin (a 5-gallon spring water bottle) half-filled. Twice, I had it one-quarter full, and cashed out, so in July 2026, I called this one complete. Woo!
- ✅ Get a new financial advisor. Done in July 2025.
- ✅ Budget for ongoing monthly stock investment. Done in July 2025.
- ✅ Pay off remainder of student loans. Done in July 2026. HOLY SHIT. I’m actually done!!!
- ✅ Pay off outstanding debt. This was done in March 2024. And then in July I got laid off, and in April of 2025 we bought a house, and we ran up a bunch of debt in the process. We’re paying it off now, and have a battle plan that will keep us debt free.
- ✅ File my VA disability claim. I finally did this in July of 2025, and while I didn’t get a ridiculous amount, it definitely helps quite a bit.
- ✅ Read two books on investing. (2/2) Finished this in July 2025.
Education
- ✅ Finish my bachelor’s degree. I took advantage of my employer’s education benefits and used it to knock out the last class I needed for my degree. The timing wasn’t great, as I had to do a few assignments while we were on the trip to Europe. But I got to do some writing about language while sitting on the scenic-route train from Zurich to Milan, which was hella cool. And my final presentation was fantastic.
- ❌ Start a second bachelor’s degree. Hah, no. Not enough time or money.
- ✅ Do at least six online courses. (6/6) Holy crap, getting through these was a slog, but totally worth doing.
- WordPress Gutenberg Block Development with React JS and PHP (Udemy) — December 2024.
- Python PCEP: Become Certified Entry Level Python Programmer (Udemy) — January 2025.
- Intro to C#/.NET (Udemy) — February 2025.
- Python PCAP: Pass Certified Associate in Python Programming (Udemy) — November 2025.
- Storytelling by Alan Moore (BBC Maestro) — February 2026.
- Web Application Architecture and Deployment (Udemy) — March 2026.
- ✅ Learn Blender. I had already self-taught myself this while working at Stratasys, years and years ago. I went through a thing where I did an online class and combined it with a ton of experimentation. Was definitely worth doing.
- ✅ Master Python. Done! In addition to working toward certifications, I also made a syllabus that covers a ton of topics that would round-out my knowledge of the language, and worked through that. It worked. Quite well. The nature of the code I write has evolved, and for the better.
- ❌ Master Javascript. I started Javascript back in the early 2000’s and have been using it since; I would’t call myself an expert, by any means, but I have gotten better at it. I’m going to build myself a syllabus like I did with Python, so I can work through the nuances of the language.
- ✅ Take more snowboarding lessons. In January 2026, I took more lessons. What I learned: I need yoga classes to work on my flexibility, and Burton Step-On bindings/boots aren’t enough to overcome my lack of flexibility.
- ❌ Sign up for martial arts classes. Nope. No time, nor money to cover the outlandish costs.
- ❌ Learn Japanese. No time.
- ❌ Learn to make beer. Never got around to this, which is sad. It didn’t look too hard.
- ❌ Take a cooking class with Di. Never managed to find a place to take a class.
- ✅ Take guitar lessons. Did this. It didn’t click. I’m going to take another crack at it in the future.
Maker/DIY
- ❌ Make another bike frame. Who had time/money for this? Not me!
- ✅ Build a bike gear locker with slots/drawers/spaces for all my riding gear. Did this in March 2024. In the rental house, where we didn’t have a ton of space, this was important. Mostly, this turned out to be an IKEA shelf system, combined with bins that were designed to fit it. The end result was super useful, but now that we’re into the house, I’ve spread out a bit — there’s a nice tool chest and homebuilt workbench in the garage, and I have a ton of storage space for my riding gear in the walk-in closet, so things are working out really well.
- ❌ Build a homebrew radio telescope. This is turning out to be a “white whale” project that I seem to be unable to get finished. I’m going to revisit this lunatic idea in a couple of years.
- ✅ Start an open source hardware project to crank out an Apple //e clone. I started the project, as intended. I’ve been reading and studying the Apple //e diagrams and trying to wrap my head around it. The end goal here is to have a working Apple //e the size of a Raspberry Pi that works with modern display ports and maybe USB, if possible.
Experiences
- ✅ Go to at least five concerts. (7/5) Crushed this one. We went to a TON of concerts, and I got some bucket-list bands off my checklist. I also managed to see a few bands waaaay too far past their prime (sorry Axl, sorry Bob Dylan). The laundry list is below:
- Mpls Yacht Club Festival — July 2024
- Foo Fighters — July 2024
- The Killers — August 2024
- Farm Aid 40 — September 2025
- Mpls Yacht Club Festival — July 2026
- Guns N Roses/Public Enemy — August 2026
- Weird Al Yankovic — August 2026
- ✅ Go ziplining. Done during the Vegas trip.
- ❌ Drive a supercar. Wanted to do this on the Vegas trip, but we racked up a few thousand in bills during our debauchery, and it never got done.
- 🔄 Plant a tree. Yeah, got permission from the HOA, but by the time we did, it was far too late to get it in the ground. We’ll probably put in a pair of apple trees next spring.
Acquisition
- ✅ Get myself a decent drone. Purchased a Potensic Atom 2 in November 2025.
- ✅ Get a new set of really nice kitchen knives. Had plans for buying a nice set of Wustof knives, but my boss was feeling saucy and bought them for Di and I as a wedding gift.
- ✅ Buy a snowblower. With the garage starting to overflow, in November 2025 we bought one of the electric “broom” style blowers, and it…blows. Not in a fun way. This winter I also bought one of those propane-powered flamethrowers to help clear ice off the driveway.
- ✅ Get Didi set up with a woodworking space. Basic tools acquired, compound miter saw acquired, workbench built. This is done for now, but there’s some other stuff I need to get her set up with to make for a truly productive environment.
- ✅ Get a 3D printer up and running. In August 2025, I bought a Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra 12K. A resin printer. I was only semi-impressed with the results. I think I need to do a little more work on fine-tuning my processes.
- ✅ Upgrade the trigger and sights on the Glock 19. Did this in two phases — first change was to a Timney Competition trigger assembly, which is smooooooth and has less pull weight. Second was adding a Holosun red dot optic (which required replacing the slide). This was October of 2025.
- ✅ Get the Lego Ghostbusters HQ set. This was a decade out of production and I’ve kicked myself that entire time for not buying one when they were available. I decided I was going to solve that. Didi bought it for me as a wedding gift, still new in the box and unbuilt. Happy June of 2024! Wow!
- ✅ Buy a PDW. I’d been looking at PDWs for awhile, and I finally settled on a CZ Scorpion 3+. I’ve since added an optic, a drum magazine (50-round), and a folding brace. I’d like to add a silencer and a few other things, but that’s for the future.
- ✅ Switch over to Burton Step-On bindings. I finally did this in December 2025, just prior to taking more snowboarding lessons. I like them quite a bit. They’re not without a bit of hassle, but I also don’t have to blow out my old-ass back while trying to buckle them, either.
Lessons Learned and Conclusion
I’m really happy with how this went. Having a quarterly recap — something I didn’t do on previous attempts — really helped me stay on-task for the whole thing. I didn’t do a good job of that early on, and it cost me time, and then made me panic sprint (at times), which then burned me out.
So the lessons learned are two:
- Make sure your list is realistic. Having a shit-ton of travel entries is a good idea if you’ve just won the lottery and haven’t got a job. Understand that everything you add to it takes time (and money, in some cases).
- Constantly self-evaluation. Even if it’s just asking yourself “what can I be doing this month?” As part of this, I built a reporting tool into my 101-WP plugin, and I’m hoping it’ll help me streamline the process of accomplishing this stuff.
In conclusion: while it wasn’t a perfect run at it, I still did far better than I did the previous two times. I got a bunch of things knocked out that I’d been wanting to do for awhile now, and I’m really pleased with how it went. (I’m so pleased, in fact, that I’m starting over again on Thursday, October 1st.
