2008 Goals Analysis - April
So, I decided to change things up this month and go through the goals backwards. Just for fun!
Goal 4d: Have a no-plans weekend each month - The weekend of April 12 was the closest we got. I made no plans, but anailia wanted to go to batzilla's birthday party up in Baltimore so we did that for many hours that night.
Goal 4c: Attend one geek convention - prototaph, when/where is Wizards World Tour this year?
Goal 4b: Go on three outdoorsy trips this year - Summer's here! Will it be too hot to go? We'll see. May is already booked, so no weekends for camping this month :-(
Goal 4a: Visit six cultural institutions this year - On April 26, magus341 organized a museum & restaraunt trip for xxratedredgexx, lapetitelune, mindofinsanity, LJ-less Matthew, anailia, and me. We saw the Freer Gallery of Art, the ultra-weird Hirshhorn Museum, and had dinner at Bistro Bis. Très awesome. One down, 5 more to go :-)
Goal 3c: Write one letter a month - Since I missed this one in March, I did two for April. I wrote to two men who independantly have had a colossal effect on literally millions of people in the world, and especially on me: Dr. Richard Garfield (creator of Magic: the Gathering) and Stan Lee, co-creator of most of the Marvel universe. It felt good just to express my thanks to them for all the cool things they have brought into the world. I'm such a fanboy, I know.
Goal 3b: Write 3 LJ posts a month - I did this one... barely. I realized in the last week or two of April that I hadn't written anything in my LiveJournal! Luckily, superhero comics and the current political spectacle are two things that I can talk about easily and so I squeaked by on this one just a little better than Clinton did in Indiana ;-)
Goal 3a: Solve one Project Euler problem a month using Python - On the last day of April, I translated two or three of the solutions I'd done in Java during downtime at work into Python. That sorta counts.
Goal 2: Increase non-retirement savings by 15% - As predicted last month, our HUGE federal tax return blew us well past this goal already. Our increase for the year is now just under 30%. If you recall from my original Goals post, the idea was to hit 5% of the cost of a "typical" house around here. Well, we made it. Our expected Economic Stimulus Payment next month will push us even higher. Slowly but surely, home ownership will be within our grasp.
I suppose I should set a new goal for this one, so we continue saving. I ran some numbers, and if we continue saving at the rate I originally projected for us, we should increase our savings another 8-9% from where we are now, for a total increase of about 40% over the entire year. That seems good for now, but I might recalibrate this goal again later.
Goal 1: As I mentioned last month, I changed this goal to more accurately reflect my intention, which was always more to get in shape than to lose weight. Having found out about the Hacker's Diet exercise plan, I have been doing my best to follow it every night (and I think I have a better than 90% success rate!). I am currently on Rung 4. Spending at least one week on each rung (and often probably two weeks), and that there are about 33-34 weeks left in the year, my new goal is to surpass Rung 15 by the end of the year. That may be a conservative goal as I learn how quickly I progress through the rungs. I spent two weeks at Rung 2, but otherwise only one week on each of the other ones. Of course, it gets harder as I go up. So we'll see if I have to recalibrate this goal (again).
Goal 4d: Have a no-plans weekend each month - The weekend of April 12 was the closest we got. I made no plans, but anailia wanted to go to batzilla's birthday party up in Baltimore so we did that for many hours that night.
Goal 4c: Attend one geek convention - prototaph, when/where is Wizards World Tour this year?
Goal 4b: Go on three outdoorsy trips this year - Summer's here! Will it be too hot to go? We'll see. May is already booked, so no weekends for camping this month :-(
Goal 4a: Visit six cultural institutions this year - On April 26, magus341 organized a museum & restaraunt trip for xxratedredgexx, lapetitelune, mindofinsanity, LJ-less Matthew, anailia, and me. We saw the Freer Gallery of Art, the ultra-weird Hirshhorn Museum, and had dinner at Bistro Bis. Très awesome. One down, 5 more to go :-)
Goal 3c: Write one letter a month - Since I missed this one in March, I did two for April. I wrote to two men who independantly have had a colossal effect on literally millions of people in the world, and especially on me: Dr. Richard Garfield (creator of Magic: the Gathering) and Stan Lee, co-creator of most of the Marvel universe. It felt good just to express my thanks to them for all the cool things they have brought into the world. I'm such a fanboy, I know.
Goal 3b: Write 3 LJ posts a month - I did this one... barely. I realized in the last week or two of April that I hadn't written anything in my LiveJournal! Luckily, superhero comics and the current political spectacle are two things that I can talk about easily and so I squeaked by on this one just a little better than Clinton did in Indiana ;-)
Goal 3a: Solve one Project Euler problem a month using Python - On the last day of April, I translated two or three of the solutions I'd done in Java during downtime at work into Python. That sorta counts.
Goal 2: Increase non-retirement savings by 15% - As predicted last month, our HUGE federal tax return blew us well past this goal already. Our increase for the year is now just under 30%. If you recall from my original Goals post, the idea was to hit 5% of the cost of a "typical" house around here. Well, we made it. Our expected Economic Stimulus Payment next month will push us even higher. Slowly but surely, home ownership will be within our grasp.
I suppose I should set a new goal for this one, so we continue saving. I ran some numbers, and if we continue saving at the rate I originally projected for us, we should increase our savings another 8-9% from where we are now, for a total increase of about 40% over the entire year. That seems good for now, but I might recalibrate this goal again later.
Goal 1: As I mentioned last month, I changed this goal to more accurately reflect my intention, which was always more to get in shape than to lose weight. Having found out about the Hacker's Diet exercise plan, I have been doing my best to follow it every night (and I think I have a better than 90% success rate!). I am currently on Rung 4. Spending at least one week on each rung (and often probably two weeks), and that there are about 33-34 weeks left in the year, my new goal is to surpass Rung 15 by the end of the year. That may be a conservative goal as I learn how quickly I progress through the rungs. I spent two weeks at Rung 2, but otherwise only one week on each of the other ones. Of course, it gets harder as I go up. So we'll see if I have to recalibrate this goal (again).