I had high hopes for the last quarter of this year, but in the end, I didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked.
Items completed this quarter: 5 (4.9%)
TOTAL COMPLETED: 24 (23.7%)
Items in-progress: 15 (14.8%)
Completed This Quarter
3. Finish the century-length Tour de Tucson. Hot fucking damn! What a fucking ride! This course is one that I love — it’s beautiful and unforgiving and I enjoyed the hell out of myself. There’s a full recap of the experience here.
14. Write an updated business plan for opening a bike shop. With the current state of the bike industry and the impending tariffs planned by the Trump Administration, there’s little to no chance of me pursuing my own shop (unless I hit a huge lottery jackpot and have money to throw away). But this is done.
29. Get a new t-shirt design done and posted to Cotton Bureau and other places. I was going to start with a “Free Luigi” shirt, but decided to put that aside after a joke I made on Facebook getting some traction. That shit design is available here.
35. Visit the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. We managed to get to the Udvar-Hazy location at Dulles, so I got to put eyes on the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Enola Gay, and an SR-71, among other things. However, I didn’t realize that we needed to pre-reserve a time block to get into the location on the Mall, so I didn’t get to see the Apollo 11 command module on this trip. Going to have to get out here again before the end of the 101 Things.
59. Washington, D.C. Got out there for a Friday through Sunday trip, which was great. Saw some family, saw some sights, and generally got to kick back and relax. I really dig this city and I’m looking forward to getting back out here at some point.
In-Progress This Quarter
5. Do three brevets of increasing distance (200km, 300km, 400km). (0/3) This is one of those thing that’s going to require a great deal of planning and thinking. And a lot of training. I’m already planning on joining Randonneurs USA as part of this project, and I’ve looked at the schedules for some of the local randonneuring clubs, so that I can start banging these out in 2025.
11. Buy myself a new full-squish mountain bike. At this point, I’ve settled on what bike I want — a Specialized Epic EVO 8. I need to decide if I just want to buy the Pro-level bike complete, or if I want to build up from parts. In the interest of costs, I’m leaning toward the former plan.
12. Build a criterium-specific bike. I’ve definitely settled on what I want to do here. I came into it knowing that it would be an event-specific bike and that I didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg on it. Figure an alloy frame, SRAM Rival, and some inexpensive-but-effective aero wheels. I figure a Specialized Allez frameset and maybe some HED Vanquish RC Pro wheels.
20. Build the Scoutreads site. This is a slow burn of a site; I have my data model figured out, but I need to start slinging code. As part of that, I need to settle on a tech stack. That’s a to-do for Q1 of 2025.
21. Get at least two certifications. (0/2) This was originally going to be Azure-only, but I’ve since changed the requirements to any two certs. Especially given my dislike of Azure as of late. I’m learning toward a PCEP for the first one (easy), and a PCAP, both of which are python programming certs.
23. Get the danbailey.dev website up and running. This is underway. I’m slinging code to get it up and going as a flat one-page static HTML site first, and then once I decide where I want to go with it, I’m going to convert it over to a CMS. I just haven’t decided which to use yet.
32. D&D Campaign. The maps are done, the notes are written, the NPCs are developed, things are being outlined. I’d like to get a monthly session going starting in January or February.
37. Finish three Zelda games I haven’t completed. (0/3) I didn’t get a lot done on Tears of the Kingdom this quarter, but I’d like to get it wrapped up sooner rather than later, as I received Echoes of Wisdom as a Christmas gift.
42. Exercise at least 3x/week for 52 weeks. (50/52) Almost done!
45. Be able to do 50 push-ups without stopping. Underway. Doing 50 a day right now, just not all at once.
61. Read at least 150 books. (64/150) Chugging along here.
75. Do at least six Udemy courses. (1/6) I had intended to finish two courses this quarter, but only go through one — Gutenberg WordPress blocks. C’est la vie. Doubling down on this in 2025.
77. Master Python. Flying along, also writing a blog post on how I did it.
84. Take guitar lessons. I need to switch from app to in-person in 2025, just so that I’m more accountable and practicing regularly. The only downside is that Gertie loses her fucking shit every time I play a chord.