Day 30: Farewell!

Well, here we are at the end of the 30 days. I have basically held up my end of the bargain although I didn't hold very close to my rules while I was in Texas or Ohio. I did a lot of other activities in those two states though, and I think it leveled out a bit against the few games I played and the movie I watched. Considering that it was no problem to watch an entire trilogy of movies in a day a month ago, only watching one movie in 30 days seems like a decent feat. It was The Social Network for those of you wondering. It's a pretty good movie.

Some of my summary of what I've accomplished can be seen in my last post. I did finish that book I was reading, The Hunger Games, and I'm about a fourth of the way through the second book in that set. Carol and I are taking turns with it. I read ahead a few chapters and she catches up. She reads a few chapters, then I catch up. We walked to Arby's today and I mentioned that I think that was the first story book I've finished in a good 5 years or so. I've read other books, for school, work, or learning, but never one just for fun. Not in a long time.

The title of this post is "Farewell" because I don't see myself posting again on this blog any more. It will stand as a testament to a personal challenge, similar to my no-pop drinking New Year's resolution. A small personal sacrifice in the attempt to make my life slightly healthier, better, whatever. I still drink pop, but the occurances are far lower since the resolution, probably about 1/20th the previous level. Do I think this Renaissance will have a similar effect on my game playing and movie watching? We'll see. I'll probably read a bit more, and I'll continue to plug away at the programming, but I'll still play games.

It's funny, but I think I just spent a month teaching myself the lesson that everyone already takes for granted. "All things in moderation." When I was younger I used to hear that phrase and I would add, "All things in moderation, including moderation." Near the end of the month I was reading and playing chess mostly. And a few days ago was the first time in a really long time where I was genuinely bored. I don't usually get bored. When I say usually I mean for years on end I have not been to the point where I consider myself bored.

What will I do now? What will I probably do this weekend? I'll probably get the dust off my Xbox. I beat all my games before starting this journey, so I'm not sure what I'll play, maybe I'll rent something. Maybe I'll just watch some NetFlix. In the not so immediate future I'll continue to learn Spanish with a coworker who has taken up the interest on our lunch break. It's nothing intensive, just 5-10 new words each day. I'll probably still play chess, though after over a hundred games I don't feel I'm much better. I'm still struggling around the bottom of the ladder.

I have to think about if I'll start another blog any time soon. Although I know a couple of you have read most of my posts, it's still a very one sided proposition to write a blog. There's very little feedback, and mostly I feel like I'm just self-publishing a public-friendly diary that any curious person can read when they eventually get around to it. It's awkward. Take for example my Texas trip. I blogged more of that trip than I would have normally talked about. That's all fine and good except it leaves me very little to talk about in person when they have read my blog and seen my photos.

Anyway, it's been a fun little experiment, and Carol will certainly be glad that it's over. She's been waiting for me to be able to watch our favorite TV shows again, or to go out to a movie. Later everyone. It's someone else's turn to start a blog.

Day 28: A Puttering End

Sorry to those of you who may actually be checking my blog daily, for the intermittent posts. I have only worked, played chess, and read the past several days. It doesn't make for great reading, and I also only remember to post very late at night when I'm tired of reading. I'm going to finish this book before the end of this Renaissance month, since it would be the only one I've finished in that time.

Considering that I've been "not wasting my time" for a month, I haven't really learned much. I worked my way through half of my coding book, learned a few units of Spanish, played over 100 games of chess, and I will finish one singular book. That's not quite the stunning showcase I had originally intended.

I did go on a couple of vacations that broke things up a bit, I discovered a new magazine, Game Developer Magazine, and I guess I can add restrung my guitar to that list. Oh, and I maintained a blog with consistent posting, that was a first for me. I'm going to cut this short now though, because as I think about it, these are all topics I should be discussing at length in two days on the 30th and final day. Maybe I can squeeze some more productivity in the final stretch...

Day 26: The End Is Near

This will be another quick one. I keep forgetting to do this until I'm already ready for bed. The last two days I haven't done anything particularly interesting. I started reading that Hunger Games book that Carol finished over the weekend. It's pretty good so far and I'm averaging 70 pages a day, so I'll be ready for the second one by the end of the week. I played some more chess today, which is going much better for me now since returning from my two trips. I'm not sure why but I seem to notice potential tactics a little easier now.

On a note unrelated to my Personal Renaissance, I start my administrator training tomorrow. We're switching to a new system and they have to train my boss's boss on how to operate the system. Since I'm going to be the new administrator, I'm going to be sitting in on those training sessions as well. I expect that it's just going to be a representative talking her through the system over speaker phone. I don't know though. Anyway, I'm going to bed.

Day 24: My Eyes Are Bleeding (Chlorine!)

I'm sitting in a cafe area at the water park. Carol is reading her book and I'm killing time on my phone. We're here with Carol's grandparents. They headed in to bed at 8, but I'm not about to go to bed at that time on a Saturday night.

Within viewing distance and definitely within hearing distance is the arcade. We were in there earlier today, racking up tickets for some very overpriced crap. I have 230 tickets, but after looking for a few minutes, there was nothing appealing. We decided we'd give them to her little cousin when she wakes up tomorrow.

There's a live DJ that will be starting up in the bar in 15 minutes. Maybe I'll check that out. Anyway, I'm still using my phone to type this, so I'm ending it here.

Day 23? I Think So

I'm in a hotel in Sandusky Ohio.  Carol and I are spending the weekend at Kalahari something or other.  It's an indoor water park.  I don't have a computer to use, so I'm using my phone.  Tomorrow's post will be same way, difficult to finger type and short.

Day 22: Back in the Groove

It was not as hard to wake up for work as I had anticipated. I got ready as usual and headed off at 8 AM. I got to work 10 minutes early and was greeted with a bunch of "Welcome back!"s and the "How as your trip?" I even got a hug. Being missed is a fun feeling. I walked to my desk and my boss's boss said to me "We've got some administrator stuff for you to jump right into." I've been going back and forth with this boss. She wants me to be the new database administrator for their system they're installing, but either it was unclear if I would get that position, or it was unclear how far away the new system was going to be. Today was one of the first days where it feels like an inevitability. Which is cool.

The rest of work was business as usual, but I the person I'm currently working under kept saying things like "I really hope they let (insert coworker's name here) take over for you." Whenever any of this administrator stuff got mentioned by one of my bosses there was always a sense that they might just be messing with me. You see, to efficiently fulfill this new position, they want me to be familiar with both departments, and multiple jobs within those departments. If for some reason the administrator thing didn't work out, I was basically being trained on all the jobs to become a very cheap fill-in for whoever needed it. But it's phrases like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph that remind me that this is actually happening.

When I got home I thought about going over some of my SQL book, but since I don't have Microsoft Access and don't know exactly to what extent it would be required on the job, I felt like it was a waste of time, at least for tonight. I played a bunch of games of chess and listened to a bit of music on Pandora instead. I'm going to round the night off with some of that Game Developer magazine and then head to bed. Sorry I don't really take pictures on my regular days. You probably got used to having them break up my ramblings. Anyway.....

Day 21: Flying Into the Cold

Yesterday was the end of three things. First, it was the end of my vacation. Second, it was the end of me being warm outside. Lastly, and this one is still to be seen. It was the last day that I would post a blog entry a day late. For the rest of this thing, I'm either going to post about the day that I'm posting, or I'll miss a post. It's not really fair to claim I haven't missed a day of posting if I am doing them late sometimes and not others.

We started off the morning by getting all packed back into our suitcases, making room for the extra clothes and other things we bought. After we did a walk through the house to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything, we watched Scooby Doo the movie. It was a suggestion from Katie before she left for work. She owns the soundtrack to that movie and it was in her car. Carol took it out so we could listen to it while we packed. I was surprised to find that I think I have watched at least some part of it before, but we watched the whole thing anyway.

We had scheduled a shuttle to pick us up from Katie's house and take us to the airport and when it came we had expected that we would have to share the van with other flyers, but that was not the case. We were the only ones. It took about an hour to get to the airport, and the driver used the commercial drop off gate, which was significantly less populated. There was a baggage check outside the airport which looked real enough, but I didn't have a good feeling about it so we headed in to check my bag.

Our first flight was pretty boring. I read my Popular Science magazine I had picked up at one of the numerous magazine shops. Carol was reading a new book she picked up at the same place. Her's is called The Hunger Games. Originally we had seats that were in different rows, but a nice lady let me swap with her. She didn't even end up sitting in the seat I was in, but picked another empty spot on the aisle. There were quite a few empty seats.

When we got to Cleveland we found out that our trip to Erie was delayed. A delay in Cleveland is most irritating because it's only a 2 hour drive to Erie, so depending on the length of the delay, other travel possibilities need to be considered. It turned out that our plane was delayed in Pittsburgh for an hour and we boarded 45 minutes later than originally expected. I slept on the flight and we got into Erie at 10:30ish. Carol and I had both opted out when considering what jackets we should pack to Texas, so we only had hoodies. A small oversight, considering it was 28 degrees in Erie that night. Whatever though, we made it.

Days 18, 19 & 20

I'm sorry for these three days in one post, but I really only have pictures for day 18 and the other two were fairly uneventful. I also figured I would include the 20th day, which is today, because I'll be travelling back to Pennsylvania all day tomorrow and won't really have the time.

Sunday was Julie's baptism. The morning got started a little earlier than the rest since we had to make it to church on time, our first activity in the morning that had a set starting time. After getting dressed, we got Julie in to the outfit that we had picked up at the mall earlier in the week. We took seperate cars because Scott and I had to pick up the food after the baptism so it would be there when people started showing up. Here's a picture of the church.



The service was normal, but with a baptism in it. This particular church was much different to the Catholic ones I had gone to. There was a band. I don't mean choir or organist. There was a dude on synth drums, a guy on electric guitar, a full sized piano, and another with an acoustic guitar. They also had giant screens in the walls that showed the lyrics, prayers, what have you.

Julie fussed a bit in the beginning of the service, but there wasn't much we could do. We couldn't take her out to a different room because her baptism was only a few minutes away. Katie tried to quiet her, but there wasn't much she could do aside from try to entertain her and keep the pacifier in her mouth. When the baptism started she was quiet. She didn't even make a noise when they put the water on her head.



After church Scott and I left to get the food and we got back just in time. Everything from that point on was pretty relaxed. Two couples, one with an eight month old, and the other with a 1 year old, showed up and we just sat around and talked for an hour or two until. The rest of the day was uneventful, although that night we played a game of Bezzerwezzer, a trivia game, and Carol and I won.

Yesterday (day 19) was our first babysitting day. Katie and Scott had to go back to work, which left us to watch Julie for the day. It was easy, nothing crazy came up, but that didn't stop the check-in calls. First from Katie, then Scott, Then Carol's dad, then Katie again, and then Carol's dad one more time for good measure. No faith! Later that night we picked up some pizza, followed by a late afternoon jog around one of the "lakes".

Today there must have been more faith in us. We had to babysit again, but this time we only got one check-in call. Scott's work had blown a transformer and had no electricity, so he actually came home around 1 and the babysitting was over. We went to some Mexican restaurant and I got two soft tacos with the ground beef stuff with no veggies or cheese in them. I'm still burping, which I find disturbing. That's all I got. No more photos. Next time I post, I'll be in Pennsylvania. Here's one last photo. Carol took like 12 pictures of this, so it must be something people want to see...

Day 17: Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

I didn't post yesterday. It was not for lack of trying. For about 2 hours, I was on and off, writing the post. It was turning out to be the longest one I had done and then through the magic of using a laptop without a mouse, some part of my left hand resulted in me highlighting all my work and replacing it while I was typing out a sentence. I was unable to undo it and the blogger website instantly saved my draft over my previous draft, as it usually does. I was too irritated to get back to writing it yesterday. So I'll give it another shot today.

The day started off with a first for me: a trip to IHOP. I had heard stories about how this place rocked, and although I had attempted to go to one in my last trip to Pittsburgh, it was on a Sunday morning and there was a very large church crowd resulting in a 45 minute wait. We couldn't wait that long, so this was my chance to finally go.



When we got there I thought it was going to be a similar situation, because there were about 12 people sitting in the waiting area. We went up to the person taking the names and said, we have 4 and a baby carrier. She said "Right this way!" It's one of those things you don't ask about.

Whenever I go to breakfast places for the first time, I have a habit of ordering things that look like they'll be good, but then turn out to be terrible mistakes. This time I ordered the Cinna-stack. It's a stack of four pancakes with cinnamon bun filling in between each one. It was good for the first bite, but became worse with every bite as the cinnamon built up on my taste buds. I only ate about half of it. Next time I'll just get regular french toast.

Breakfast was over and we were ready to start the real day, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. We drove to the heart of Houston and found a spot to park for $10 that was a few long blocks away from the event. Anything closer was either $15 or $20 bucks for parking. The weather was sunny and 75 degrees, and that's Texas degrees, which I'd peg at around 90 in Erie weather.

The walk from the car was about 10 minutes to the ticket gates (and that was from the $10 parking spots) so the first thing that we wanted to do was get into one of the buildings where we could get some shade. Here's a picture of us while we were heading to the building that housed the livestock section of the event.



You could tell we were approaching the right area as the air started to smell like the zoo, in that manurey way. It was a convention center filled with cows, rabbits, and farming equipment. I'm not going to pretend to know what the purpose of a livestock show is, but there were a lot of owners with their best animals. Some of these cows had price tags of over $300,000.



The array of John Deere and International equipment filled a large section of the room. Carol requested this picture of me leaning against a tractor. Something about a country song...



Once we had risked the cleanliness of our shoes for long enough it was time to grab something to eat before heading in to the rodeo. Carol and I split a burger, fries and a drink for $15, Scott bought a corndog for $9 and Katie bought some chips on a stick. Those prices might sound ridiculous, and to some extent they are, but everything down here is "Texas-sized." You can see some of the corndog here.



The rodeo was a collection of events that I'd never seen in person and certainly didn't know how the judges scored. Each category had 10 people to start which they got down to 4, then after all the events were complete the restarted with just the final 4 to find the winners. Carol and I started playing a game where we'd pick a name from the list and see who's contestant did better. She crushed me with 7 of her 10 picks beating mine. We were really high up in this giant stadium so I didn't get many great photos, here's one of them getting ready for the next thing.



After all the events were completed, there were some kid friendly ones which were pretty hilarious. My favorite one was when they had 30 kids around 10 years old and they released about a dozen calves. The kids had to catch them and bring them to the middle of the arena. They tried headlocks and tailgrabbing, but the funniest was when they would grab one of the tails and the calf would just keep running and drag them through the dirt. Another one was for the younger children, probably around 4-5 year olds. They had to hug the back of a sheep and see how long they could hold on.



When all the kids had their fun it was time to set up the stage for the Brad Paisley concert. Since it was in a stadium, the stage was in the middle of everyone, Super Bowl half time show style. The cool thing about this stage was that it slowly spun around for the entire concert so it would face everyone. Here they are setting it up.



Now, before I show the next picture, I just want to say that this place was pretty big. We were told by the announcer that there were 73,800 there that night. It's big enough that when the concert was starting, they set off fireworks inside the building.



And then the concert started. Let me say this about Brad Paisley, he's not one of those bands that sucks when they're live. He sounds the same as his CDs. Here's a few photos to finish this very long post.




Later today, I'll post what we did yesterday. That's all for now.

Day 16: Picture Day

If any of you are following my schedule of events that I listed the other day, then you would know that yesterday was Galveston day. We were going to get professional pictures done at JC Penney's and then take a drive to Galveston which is near the Gulf of Mexico. We had kind of dismissed that driving idea the day before though, because it was going to be a long car ride and the beach there is not very nice.

When getting ready for the pictures, we had gone to Walmart and picked up some basic color T-shirts that we were going to wear for the shoot. I got a green shirt. After I was ready, Scott deposited Julie into my arms as he got changed into his shirt. Something that caused quite a stir from Katie and Carol, as it was evidently a "picture worthy" event.



After everyone was ready we drove out to the store and waited for our session to start. The pictures went alright, but the camera person wasn't really able to get Julie to smile. I don't know if you've been to these kind of things with little children before, but they make all kinds of crazy sounds and voices, trying to get the baby's attention to look near the camera and to smile. Although Julie didn't get upset by this, she wasn't really interested. The few times she did look at the camera it was with a look of confusion rather than smiling glee. After getting about 6 poses taken, it was time to pick the pictures to buy.



The funny thing is, if you point a camera at Julie she looks right at it anyway, without having to do any crazy stuff. As you know, I'm not a fan of doing crazy stuff. Not in front of the general public anyway.



That was the end of that portion of the day and we didn't really have much other than that planned except that we were probably going to go out to a Texan steakhouse, at my request. As a side note, did you know that the US car manufacturers make Texas versions of their trucks for here?



After we got back we decided to go shooting. Scott has two guns, a shotgun and a Spanish pistol. When he practices with the shotgun, he does it clay pigeon style. I took a picture of Scott and Katie shooting the clay pigeons, but I forgot to pass of the camera while I did it. So here's a picture of them.



I managed to get 12 out of 25 pigeons, which I think is a respectable first showing. After we each did 25 pigeons, we switched to the pistol range. I had noticed that we forgot to take a picture of me with the shotgun, so we were sure to get a good one with me and the pistol.



After shooting, we went back to the house and chilled until dinner. We decided to go to a place called Saltgrass for dinner. I had the 12 oz sirloin steak, and a 22 oz Shiner, which is the Texas equivalent of Sam Adams I'm told. It was all good. The giant slice of six layer chocolate cake we had for dessert was also very good.



That's all the main stuff we did yesterday. Today is the Texas State Rodeo and the Brad Paisley concert. I'll have pictures of that stuff tomorrow.

Day 15: Saint Patty's Day

I'm writing this the day after everything, because I was too tired last night when I finally headed to do it that I thought the writing would be poor. We started the day off pretty slowly, ultimately getting dressed in something green for St. Patrick's Day. I had worn my only green shirt the day before, so I wore a clover necklace instead.



The first thing we did was price out some food for the baptism luncheon on Sunday. It was between a couple buckets of chicken from KFC, or this local barbecue place. The barbecue place won as soon as we entered the door and smelled the air. I forgot to grab a picture of the place, but I'll snag one when we pick up the food on Sunday. Next on the list was Archiver's, an emporium for all things scrapbook.



After that we headed to the better of the two local malls, Memorial City. It was pretty large and there were a ton of people there for a Thursday afternoon, but I guess it's Spring break around here. Most of the time I spent the day walking with Carol and Katie as they shopped for an outfit for Julie for the baptism, and then they had a coupon at New York & Company where they had to spend $150 bucks to get $70 off. I was the official judge. Here they are trying on identical tops.



They didn't keep either of those tops, but here's a picture of all the loot they walked away with from the mall and Archiver's. In the corner of the bed is also a pair of shorts and a hoodie that I picked up from American Eagle.



After that we basically waited at home for Scott to get home and we went out to dinner at a restaurant that Carol has been raving about since her last visit. What's her favorite food from here? Not important. The name of the place when she would mention it? Always changing. The only thing she could remember was that they had italian sodas which she said were awesome.



To her credit they were pretty good, but we asked the waitress and she said that they're Sprite, club soda, snowcone flavoring, and creamer. For the record, the name of the place was Carino's.



That's all the pictures you get! I like this format a lot more, but it's definitely a bigger pain to work with in this blog software. Everytime I get to a new section where I want to include a new picture it inserts it to the top of the blog. I then have to go into the HTML view, cut the picture code and paste it where I want. From looking at the previews though, this is definitely a better way to post this type of stuff. So today's events might be cataloged tomorrow, in similar late fashion. Anyway, I'm going to go before I accidentally hit select all again and nearly wipe out my work here.

Day 14: Pictures

Day 14: Breathing Texas Air

We arrived in Texas today as scheduled, around 10:30 AM. Carol and I hadn't eaten much since leaving at 5:30 AM and apparently Continental decided that as of March 1st, they're no longer offering complimentary pretzels/peanuts/cookies. You get a drink for free, the rest you have to buy. So shortly after landing and finding our way out of the parking ramp Carol's sister, Katie, had parked in, we went to a Whattaburger (spelling?). The food was pretty good, though that might have been a direct result of us being so hungry.

After eating, we headed to Katie's house and I got the tour. It's a nice place. The kitchen is pretty cool and we have our own bathroom, which is always nice. After getting situated, we went for a walk around one of the two "lakes" in the housing development, but I would have called them ponds. The walk was only about 35 minutes, but I've already got some red showing around my neck at the shirt line.

Walmart was the next place on the list to go so Carol and I would have some choice items to eat, for filling in the unscheduled gaps. After that we killed some time until Katie's husband Scott came home and we went to the Rocket's game. Now I have to be totally honest. When I heard we were going to this game, I was thinking it was along the lines of the Erie Bayhawks, you know, a minor league team or whatever. It wasn't until we go there and I noticed the Houston Rockets NBA World Champions banners that I found out they were an actual NBA team. I mean, they played against a team called the Bobcats, what kind of NBA name is that? I guess the NBA has changed a lot since NBA 2K, or NBA Jam, my only real forms of intel on the matter.

I know that I had mentioned that I would like to post some pictures or at least one each day on here, but that doesn't seem like it's the best plan for most of the nights here. I think there are going to be several times when we get home late, like tonight, where it would just be more annoying to set up the camera, find a good picture, and post it up and still write a post. So I'm going to do this instead, post at the end of the night, like I have been doing on here for the last 2 weeks, and tomorrow morning/afternoon, before things get started, I'll post a series of pictures. We took a lot of them, and I think we're going to shoot for about that amount each day, so everything will be well documented. Anyway, that's enough of this long-winded business. Later.

Day 13: Let Loose the Shackles of Oppression!

I've finished my work before my Texas vacation. My work day was usual right up until the end when my boss needed two spreadsheets compared for similarities. One, a normal spreadsheet, the other a picture of a spreadsheet. That took me nearly 40 minutes and while I was doing that, the scanner which I had recently fixed, was on the fritz. I got these things finished and also completed another project that my Pittsburgh boss had given me two weeks ago.

I got home, quickly indulged in some Pizza Hut pepperoni P'zone goodness, and packed for the trip. I said I was going to share with you my schedule of events while I was down there, and here they are:

Mar 16
Fly into Texas
Go to a Rocket's game (basketball)


Mar 17
Drive to Galveston
Look at the Gulf of Mexico
Go to an authentic Texas steakhouse


Mar 18
Professional pictures at JCPenney's
Go shooting (clay pigeon style)


Mar 19
Texas State Rodeo
Brad Paisley concert


Mar 20
Julie's baptism
Celebratory picnic


Mar 21 & Mar 22
Babysitting


Mar 23
Flight home

Some of you know that this full list of activities (with the exception of the 21st and 22nd) is not my usual vacation style. But I think it'll be fun. I'm not sure if I'll maintain the daily posting or not, which is ironic because I'll probably be doing the most interesting stuff of this month period, but I don't know what the computer situation is going to be. Maybe I'll post a picture a day or something. I'll figure it out. That's all for now.

Day 12: Waiting...

My work day went by rather quickly today. I can only hope that tomorrow is the same way. I have one spreadsheet project I was assigned by my boss's boss's boss which I haven't been able to get to for a week. So my main priority tomorrow is going to be getting that done, since he probably wouldn't like to wait another week to get it. After that though, I'll just be picturing the warm weather and preparing for my early flight Wednesday morning. In tomorrow's post I'll run through the schedule of events on the docket while I'm down there.

As a side note, unrelated to this Renaissance, I was spotlighted on some Facebook pages today for a song I did on SingSnap over the summer. I'm not going to link it, because most of you have probably seen it already. I also had a small part in a CD released by Dan Jircitano last month. You can check it out here. I'm the lead vocals on the 15th track.

I've read a bit of that magazine I mentioned yesterday, Game Developers magazine, and it's exactly what I was looking for. I'm happy I found it. If only I could find the print version somewhere... I think I only played a game or two of chess today. I was playing someone and we had a series of exchanges and I had a slight lead. What did the guy do? He let the last 12 minutes of his time run down until he lost. I guess some people are jerks. That's it for now.

Day 11: Lazy Sunday

Hmm... what did I get done today? This list is becoming increasingly difficult to think of to write these posts. If I wasn't in the habit of posting each day, I would rarely post at all since I have been doing the same things. Today was slightly different however.

I finally restrung my electric guitar which took about as long as I had previously estimated. I unwound the strings from the tuning posts, and every single string was stuck on the other end. I had to get a needle and push out the ball ends of the strings (pardon my lay speak, I have no idea what any of the technical names are). I tuned the guitar by microphone and a web app and placed it right back on my guitar stand to set for the rest of the day.

While playing chess over the last 11 days, I got into the habit of running Pandora in the background. I use it at night when I'm about to go to bed as well and it runs for however long that time length is when it asks "Are you still listening" and stops the music. Despite these things, it was still surprising that Pandora warned me that I'm already near the 40 hour monthly limit for the free subscription. It will probably run out later tonight actually.

I didn't work on that program that would automate my busy work for the upcoming week. I'm still waiting to hear some opinions on if that is a smart idea. Actually I didn't really do any programming today. I was about to a few times, but got distracted by other things. I might still crack it open before going to bed tonight though.

I posted my Series 66 study manual on eBay today. Trying to get at least $35 for a book that cost me $100 last year. We'll see how that goes. I just realized that I won't even be in the state when the auction finishes. I guess I volunteered my parents to ship that out if it's sold.

Finally, I'm excited because the last time I was at Barnes & Noble, I looked for a game industry magazine. There are plenty of magazines about games, but I was looking for more of a trade publication. They didn't have anything that fit the bill and I searched online with my phone and couldn't come up with anything that sounded right. Today I decided to look for a game developer forum or website, but when I typed game developer in Google, I stumbled upon the Game Developer magazine. I just purchased the electronic version of the current issue. So, maybe I won't be programming tonight.

Day 10: Reading and Eating

Today I spent most of the day reading my programming book, although I didn't work through too many pages. There was a little chess, a few Spanish lessons and a few games of pool with Carol. We also took a walk to the corner store and got some coffees, before heading to my Aunt's for dinner. But now I'm tired, so that's all I'm writing.

Day 9: Weekend Imminent

First of all, it took me several attempts to spell that title correctly. I checked dictionary.com to make sure I was using the correct one... I was not. Tonight I read through some more of inheritance (relating to computer programming.) Today I was thinking of how I could program something that would automate about 60% of my workload at my job. I'm certain I could do it with a little effort, but I'm not sure if it would actually be a good decision. I'd either be asking for more work to be loaded on me, or I would essentially replace myself with something that will work for free. What do you guys think?

Only two more work days until I leave for Texas with Carol. Speaking of work days, I relearned the days of the week in Spanish during my lunch today. I say relearn because it was something we went over while I was in high school, but since that was over 10 years ago, I needed a refresher. Oh and by the way, the fact that I can say anything from high school was over a decade ago is just gross.

I think this post will be dated with the time stamp of when wrote the first sentence, but then I kind of got into a brief chess marathon of sorts and it's this is technically going up after midnight. I'm still going to count it as not missing though. With that, I will head to bed.

Day 8: More of the Same

Today wasn't any spectacular. Although I did some quantifying. I started this computer programming book on day 3 and I've worked through 235 pages. Admittedly the book is over 750 pages in its entirety, but that's still significant progress. I haven't worked through a textbook this quickly since I was studying for my insurance exam and my Series 7 exam. I threw all my chess games from Babas into a Chessmaster database and figured out that I've played 61 games against other people (28 wins, 29 losses, 2 draws). Anyway, that's all for now.

The First Week Is Over

Here I am, one week later. I've only managed to do about 1 and a half lessons of Spanish, but I've worked through 5 chapters of computer programming. I haven't broken any of my rules yet and it doesn't seem so bad. I've also made it through half of that Video Games book (which is turning out to be not a very great read). Of course along with all that stuff I listed, I've played quite a bit of chess.

I bought the strings to my guitar but I've been putting off trying to replace them. I think I'll do that over the weekend. It just seems like it's something that's not going to go well and will take longer than I expect. A friend of mine told me that once you've done it a few times it only takes about 10 minutes to swap them all out, so I'm estimating it'll take me about 45 minutes to do the first time.

There's only seven days left before I go to Texas with Carol to visit her sister. I don't think I'll maintain the Renaissance during the time that I'm there. It'll be the first time I've visited them, and I'll be there for a week. I don't think I'd be a very good guest if I refused to watch movies, television, or play any games with them. I certainly won't have my computer to dawdle on, playing chess and programming.

What do I think I might get done over the next 7 days? Now that I've started programming, I think I'll make it through the second third of the book. Both of the library books that I got out will be due before we leave as well, so I guess I'll have to finish those off, and I haven't even started the second one. It's likely that I'll finish off another unit of Spanish as well. That's all I've got.

Day 6: It Continues...

Another brief one, to keep up the streak. I successfully made a program that was simpler than the one I failed to make on my own yesterday. It has a picture of Alice from Alice in Wonderland and two buttons which make her get bigger or smaller. Other than that I just played a little chess.

Day 5: Balderdash!

Today was crap! After work I went through one Chessmaster lesson while I ate and then immediately dove into the computer programming. Yesterday, I finished the fourth chapter in the book, which is about one third through. After each third of the book is a lab exercise. They give you a more complicated example that will make use of the things you've learned over the past chapters. That lab is what I just spent about 4 hours doing.

From a beginner programming standpoint, the program is a cool idea. It's a racetrack simulation. The kind with emaciated doggies. Basically there are three people, Joe, Bob, and Al, who bet on the four dogs. There's no complicated bets. They each get to pick one dog and can bet between 5 and 15 dollars. If that dog wins, they get double their bet back. If their dog loses, they lose their bet. That's what the bottom half of the program is for, managing the bets for the three guys. The top half is a simple four lane race track (think straight lines) and a picture of a greyhound that slides from left to right at random intervals.

The problem is in the emphasis on object oriented programming, which admittedly is the purpose of the book and the power of the language, but I'm certainly not well versed enough to handle the problem. I gave it a solid effort but made very little headway. It was a good wake up call that I'm not paying nearly enough attention to these exercises. I mean, I'm completing them, and going through the motions, but obviously I'm not gleaning all the knowledge that I am meant to.

The end result of this failure? I cheated and looked through some examples done by others in the forums of the publisher. It's funny because one of the things it specifically emphasized was the "this" keyword in which you have an object refer to itself. They wanted us to use it, and the examples I found worked around it every time.

Tomorrow while I'm at work, assuming I have any time, I'm going to think of a similar problem that has slightly fewer moving parts, and when I get home I'll work to make that program instead. If any of you have suggestions on something that you think might fit the bill, leave a comment. That's all for tonight.

Day 4: Weekend Over!

Just a quick one. I did manage to finish two chapters of my computer programming book, and I worked through most of the next Spanish lesson. It seems like they're trying to incorporate sentences already. Oh, and Dave was able to fix my chair so now I don't need to replace it! That's all for now, just didn't want to miss a day of posting.

Day 3: I Broke My Chair

Here I am, committing to basically using my computer for a month of chess, Spanish, and computer programming and what do I do on my third day of this Renaissance? I broke the welding on my chair. If I lean back it will literally sever what little is left of the weld and my faithful chair will be torn asunder. I'm literally on the edge of my seat for fear of straying too far back to what would surely be a tsunami of swearing.

Aside from that, the first day of the weekend turned out to be not so difficult a thing to deal with. I downloaded BabasChess, a UI to the Free Internet Chess Server. Throughout the day I played probably 15 blitz games against equally low ranking players. Those games made me look at my openings a bit, but the majority of you don't play chess, so I won't go into more detail.

I worked through 2 chapters in my computer programming book, Head First C#. The first chapter was something I had completed before, but not since replacing my faulty hard drives. The second chapter was mostly review as well, though there are some small projects at the end of the chapter that I will have to complete tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I'm going to shoot for at least one more chapter of C#, but most probably two. I'll also try to squeeze in the next unit of Spanish and if World of Music is open, I'll go pick up a set of guitar strings. I suppose it would also be in safety's interest if I were to find some replacement for my chair...

Day 2: Easy Peasy (spelling?)

I'm about to go to bed at the end of day two. What have I been doing over the past two days? I've been playing chess mainly. Yesterday and today I played a bit of chess against Chessmaster, in an attempt to shake free the rust of several years. I had played against an app on my phone a bit but other than those rare exhibitions, it had been quite a while. I worked through a small amount of CT-ART 3.0, a veritable chess tactic encyclopedia, but my "chess vision" is not currently up to snuff.

I took the occasional breaks from that by reading a bit of a book I've currently got loaned out from the local library, Video Games (of the Opposing Viewpoints series). It's an assortment of short articles both pro- and con- relating to all things video game. It has some interesting bits, but mostly it's irritating. Take for example when it explained how MMORPGs are taking over the lives of children. It's leading example? Call of Duty (for those who don't know, just trust me that it's wrong).

Finally I worked through one lesson of Spanish on Rosetta Stone. Most of you are probably not familiar with the amount of work that would require, but I'm doing the full scholastic year setting (go big or go home right?) After it introduced me to some words for about 30 minutes, I followed it up with another 45 minutes of identifying them by picture, sound, and writing, as well as practiced my pronunciation and grammar. One lesson down, fifteen to go, and that's just for level 1.

Carol had a friend over tonight and they watched the movie Red, of which I was mildly interested. I steeled myself against the temptation despite the laughter that was coming from the room throughout. I wasn't about to end this little project of mine on day 2!

This upcoming weekend is going to be the true test however. There's a lot of time in a weekend. My past several weekends since Christmas have basically been spent playing through Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Fallout New Vegas, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (a coworker had recently purchased the game), and Fable 3. The rest of the time was spent watching 5 and a half seasons of Bones. I'll let you know how it goes!

The Beginning of an Era

This first post is by necessity an explanatory one. It recently became apparent that I may have a problem with the wasting of my time. The activities that I indulge most in are watching movies, television, and playing video games, all of which are heavily weighted in the time-wasting side of things.

Now...I like to think of myself as a pretty smart guy, and I think that there might be some better uses for my time, which led me to to wonder what I would do to fill my time if I was not able to waste it so efficiently.

I feel that at this point I must proffer one clarification of intent. The purpose of this experiment is not necessarily to maximize the proper efficiency of my time, but to reroute it to other, less explored, alternatives. With all that said, here are the ground rules that I have chosen to inflict upon myself for the next month.

Starting today, March 3rd, 2011, I am not to play any video games, watch any television, watch any movies, or watch any videos from the internet. That last one must be expounded upon as I know that I will undoubtedly break that rule first, should they be interpreted in a dogmatic fashion. I will not watch videos from the internet, unless they are specifically suited toward some learning goal. An example that comes immediately to mind would be a video regarding a famous chess game.

That leads me to the activities I've been leaning towards in my creation of this personal challenge. For simplicity sake, I present them in list fashion in no particular order:

Computer programming (C# mainly)

Reading

Learning to speak Spanish

Chess

Fixing my guitar

Learning my guitar (those last two ARE in order)

Improving my vocabulary

Writing this blog

Those are the main ones. One of the ultimate goals of this experience however, is to encourage more self learning. If while doing any of these activities I should stumble upon something new and interesting, I will pursue that interest. I want to either learn to balance my time wasting with self improving, or simply indulge in different hobbies on the other side of this.

As anyone who has read my previous blogs should know by now, I have no idea how often I will post, or for what duration, but if any of this does interest you, feel free to pester me to post again, should my motivation be lacking. To the beginning of a Renaissance!