Building a Bucket List #43-49

Grand Tetons on a Cloudy Day

43. Learn to make Tiramisu

44. Go Camping on Horseback

45. Visit the Grand Canyon

46. Ski in the Alps

47. Learn to Paint with Acrylics

48. Learn how to throw a Pot on a Potter's wheel

49. Visit the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area

Weekly Weigh In Oct 5

I'm still doing battle with the sugar beast but I'm making my way back to healthier eating. I'm working on building consistency and mental discipline.

I'm going to gradually add in a few more statistics to better represent my goals.  The scale is not the end all be all of getting healthy. I need to keep this in mind especially since I'm getting compliments on my weight loss even though the scale is up a few pounds. I must kill the urge to argue with people who think I've lost weight.  The tape measure and increased physical ability is way more important than the scale. Let's repeat that about a thousand more times until it drowns out the cultural focus on the number on the scale.

Statistics:

Morning Workouts: 2
Lunchtime Weight Lifting: 1
Evening Dog Walks: 0
Bedtime Yoga: 3

Current Weight: 244.8 pounds
Last Week: 241.8 pounds

Weight Loss/Gain: 3.0 pounds gained

Starting Weight: 249.4 pounds
Highest Point: 250.2 pounds
Lowest Point: 238.4 pounds

Board Game Spotlight: Pandemic

Pandemic is one of the favorite games of everyone I play with.  One of the strengths of Pandemic is that it is a cooperative game. All the players are working together to cure the diseases that are represented with small cubes covering the board, which is the only way to win the game.  There are, however, numerous ways to lose the game: have eight outbreaks, run out of time (run out of cards in the player deck), and running out of disease cubes to place on the board.

The original Pandemic has really good replay-ability on its own with multiple difficulty settings.  I have the first expansion: Pandemic On the Brink. It adds new event card and player roles as well as new challenges. Virulent Strain selects one of the disease colors and gives it specific abilities with each new epidemic which makes it harder to treat and cure.  Mutated Strain adds a fifth disease that behaves differently from the other four. Bio-terrorist introduces a player role that works against the other players in the game.

My current favorite set-up is to play with both the Virulent Strain and Mutated Strain challenges on an easier difficulty.

I haven't yet gotten a chance to play with the Bio-Terrorist challenge. I hope to change that soon since one of the members of my game group is eager to be the Bio-Terrorist.

You can find Pandemic and Pandemic on The Brink on Amazon or at a Local Game Store

Writing Update Oct 2

I took part of the week off from writing as a self care strategy. The Day Job was particularly demanding of my physical and mental energy.

I'll be sticking to 200 words a day for one more week before continuing to increase my minimum word limit.

Statistics:
Words Written: 651
Scenes Outlined: 0

Works In Progress

Hive Mind (NaNoWriMo 2010) - Editing and Writing Second Draft

55308 / 90000

Thriller - Brainstorming and Outlining

0 / 50000

Outbreak (NaNoWriMo 2011) - Resting

54270 / 90000

Steampunk Seasonal Serial - Writing First Draft

15809 / 50000

A Guide to Inter-species Dating - Writing Rough Draft

1751 / 50000

Shattered Lives - Brainstorming and Outlining

181 / 50000

Greased Gears - Writing First Draft

9326 / 50000

Building a Bucket List #36-42

Sunrise Sept 25th 2015

36. Visit San Juan Island National Historic Park

37. See a live performance of Newsies

38. Visit City of Rocks National Preserve

39. Visit Craters of the Moon National Monument

40. See a live performance of The Book of Mormon

41. Visit Hagerman Fossils Beds National Monument

42. See a live performance of The Lion King

Building a Bucket List #29-35

29. Visit Mount Rainier National Park

30. Hike to the summit of Mount St Helens

31. Visit North Cascades National Park

32. Go on a four-wheeling trip

33. Tour the Portland Underground

34. Visit Olympic National Park

35. See the Louvre

Writing Update Sept 18

I'm still working solely on Hive Mind at this point and I'm definitely falling back in love with writing.  I'm not sure that Hive Mind will ever get up to snuff but I'm learning a lot by going through the editing process. I can't wait until I get to start re-writing Outbreak. One of the challenges I've been having is that I've forgotten some of the details in earlier edits so I go back and read the sections. The real problem with that is that I can see how much work still needs to be done. I just have to keep reminding myself that there will be several more rounds of editing. At least I'm getting rid of the typos from NaNoWriMo.

For your entertainment, here is one of the more mangled sentences:
The converasation between the cousins was interrupted by the reappearanmce of Captain XCharles and Minerva. 

Except for the weekend when I went camping, I was able to consistently write each day. I also mostly made up the words from the weekend. This coming week I'll be writing a minimum of 200 words.

Statistics:
Words Written: 984
Scenes Outlined: 0

Works In Progress

Hive Mind (NaNoWriMo 2010) - Editing and Writing Second Draft

54657 / 90000

Thriller - Brainstorming and Outlining

0 / 50000

Outbreak (NaNoWriMo 2011) - Resting

54270 / 90000

Steampunk Seasonal Serial - Writing First Draft

15809 / 50000

A Guide to Inter-species Dating - Writing Rough Draft

1751 / 50000

Shattered Lives - Brainstorming and Outlining

181 / 50000

Greased Gears - Writing First Draft

9326 / 50000