So, if you’ve been reading this blog (and judging by my traffic metrics, you haven’t) you’ll know that I’ve been slogging through the 101 Things in 1001 Days, and that I’ve been making headway. I figured that maybe a recap of where things are at would be appropriate at this point. I’ll probably do these updates quarterly.
Items completed: 4 (3.9%)
Items in-progress: 18 (17.8%)
Completed Items This Quarter
1. Marry this girl. So back in December of last year, Di and I tied the knot officially. It wasn’t anything fancy — we went to the courthouse and got married by a judge with a couple of witnesses from the judge’s staff in attendance. It was part of our plan to reap the insurance savings and the tax benefits. We’re not technically done just yet, though — we still have a formal wedding/reception for a small group in June of this year. But we are married, so I am calling this one complete.
6. Build up a new road bike. Yeah, so I’ve got a new BMC Roadmachine. SRAM Force AXS, Zipp 404 Firecrest/Chris King wheels. Lots of carbon. My first Swiss frameset.
(Pictures forthcoming.)
7. Buy Didi a new full-squish mountain bike. Holy crap, I’ve been excited about doing this for awhile now. Our annual bonus dropped in late January and the first thing I did was order the bike (after measuring her up and getting her input on desired colors), a Stumpjumper Comp (carbon, SRAM GX). We’re eagerly awaiting the reopening of the trails here, as soon as they dry out, and then we’re going to go tear it up for a day.
73. Finish my bachelor’s degree. The coursework required for the degree is finished. Graduation is applied for. I’m finally fucking done, 25 years after leaving college.
In-Progress Items This Quarter
17. Ride the DAMN. Training continues. Gym time and time on the pavement are my thing right now and I’m chugging along. On the 23rd of this month, I’m going to go do a recon drive and see what the course looks like, take note of big climbs, trouble spots, etc.
21. Get at least two Microsoft Azure certifications. (0/2) I’ve got my AZ-104 exam scheduled. Next will be AZ-305.
23. Get the danbailey.dev website up and running. Code is coming along nicely. I should get this posted sometime later this spring.
32. Get my D&D campaign world finished; start running it. This is finished.
34. Do 365 brain puzzles (sudoku, ken ken, crosswords, etc.). (142/365) I’ve been chugging along through this at a rate where I’m considering doubling my goal. I’m back to playing Wordle again, along with Connections, plus going through crosswords in Apple News and doing the occasional one on paper. I’m thinking about a subscription to Games magazine, too, so I can keep cracking at this. That said, I’m pretty pleased with how it’s going.
37. Finish three Zelda games I haven’t completed. (0/3) Holy crap, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it, but I am totally in love with Tears of the Kingdom. It’s a massive improvement over Breath of the Wild, which was a masterpiece already. I feel like I’m making great progress here, wedging gameplay time in between training rides, work, etc. Next on deck will be A Link to the Past and Skyward Sword, seeing as how I never finished either of those.
40. Get my weight below 195; keep it there. On February 1st, I was within 9 pounds of my goal.
41. Clean up my diet. This is massively underway, and I’m very pleased with it. Light lunches, healthy dinners, more fiber, and taking my supplements regularly. I’ve cut way the hell back on soda, but until I’ve dropped it entirely, I’m not calling this complete.
42. Exercise at least 3x/week for 52 weeks. This has been going since the third week of January. A gym membership and the stationary trainer have been a great combo for achieving what I need to.
49. Family camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. We’ve got this planned for early August. We’re hauling the kids out with us, and maybe taking the puppy with us (we’ll see), and it should be a pretty good time.
52. Honeymoon in the Bahamas. The plane tickets and resort are booked and paid-for. This will happen in late June.
54. Vegas! Tickets and hotel booked. We’re going to go see the Killers in concert for the 20th anniversary of the Hot Fuss album (see below, #89). This will be late August.
58. Go see the 2024 solar eclipse in April. Physics is dictating that this is in-progress, but we’ve already made plans to haul the boys with us to the Indianapolis area to see the last total solar eclipse in the U.S. until 2044. Di and I have the PTO on our calendars, the hotel is booked and we’re going to take a road trip!
61. Read at least 150 books. (9/150) I am a little bit behind schedule. Gonna have to find a few graphic novels to help catch me up.
75. Do at least six Udemy courses. (0/6) I’ve got three different ones in-progress right now on a variety of subjects — Python, GraphQL, and Docker/Kubernetes. At the rate these things are going, I should have this wrapped up in early 2025.
77. Master Python. See above; working on a course right now which has been largely “yawn, I know this” so far, and I’ve been poking at Flask, which is interesting. Not ready to call this complete by any stretch of the imagination.
89. Go to at least five concerts. (0/5) While I haven’t attended any of them yet, I do have three of them booked for just this year alone. In July, Sam and I will be attending the Foo Fighters concert. In August, Didi and I are going to Las Vegas for the Killers (the Hot Fuss 20th Anniversary show), and we bought tickets for the Minneapolis Yacht Club festival, which also takes place in July. I fully expect to have this completed sometime in early 2025, the way things are going.
93. Get myself a decent drone. I really could have this done already if I were indiscriminate about my spending. I’ve got $980 of the $1650 I need socked away. So sometime this summer, probably.
Analysis
So far, so good. My list is coming along nicely. My next post on this topic will be on June 15th — again, going for quarterly posts. By that time, I’d like to have 23, 34, and 40 completely done, as well, and be starting in on a few of the larger items on the list. Maybe the non-fiction book idea? Something like that. We’ll see.
(Featured image created with/generated by Adobe Firefly 2 Beta. Prompt: isometric view of a little humanoid robot working at a conveyor belt in a factory.)