Yes, I have to admit, I already have a bit of a problem with my first month of challenges. Even giving myself foods that I can eat, it turns out the temptations of processed cheese were a bit too much for me yesterday.

Someone who will not be named was telling me that he didn’t want to be the cause of my slipping up on the month of veganism, while at the same time cooking homemade whole wheat macaroni and cheese, and proclaiming what a great cook he is. It was after everything was done and “Jurassic Park” was rolling that we began to eat, he the macaroni and cheese, and myself pretty much half the snacks in the apartment. It was only after he was near done with his plate that I decided that I had to have some. And it was delicious. And I don’t really regret it.

I figure that it is a personal thing; that I am working on trying more foods and using the constraint to think differently about what I put into my body. It is not an exercise in deprivation, but in broadening of scope. Considering the last time that I had homemade macaroni and cheese was at least a year ago, I am alright with experiencing it (and it was delicious). Future challenges will involve more broadening of scope, like maybe baking vegan cupcakes that taste more like cake than cornbread, or trying to eat something different each day. Maybe it’s me rationalizing, but I’m thinking that as a personal improvement challenge, I’ll get it off my chest now that I won’t beat myself up about it, and figure that if anyone else does, they have a different idea of what it is that I’m trying to do.

By the way, it was Daniel. Totally Daniel.

As I mentioned the other day, while talking about getting a life, I have a few challenges for my first 30 day challenge set, and I have various reasons for attempting each. I figure that 30 days, beyond being a neat and clean measurement of a month, is also a good amount of time for habit formation. While I don’t plan on making all of the changes I try for a month permanent (some that I have planned I don’t think could be reasonably or healthily maintained permanently), I believe that they can be useful for setting myself onto a better path in general. So, here is some reasoning for each, or as much as I figured before blindly steamrolling forward:
 

1. Going vegan for the month

I have been vegetarian for near a year already, and was never a humongous meat eater to begin with, so it’s not too far of a stretch for me. I haven’t held it as a perfect standard; I still enjoy sushi every once in a while, and if nothing else is readily available that interests me, can have chicken or a turkey burger with my meal. With the loss of meat though, I replaced it mainly with cheese, which isn’t really much healthier. I still try to keep moderation, but spending a month actively avoiding both I figure will help me to get a handle on what foods do what to my body. I’m still not going to be super-duper picky (like my coffee creamer, which has “less than 1% sodium caseinate, a milk derivative not from lactose”). I’m thinking that the hardest thing here will be my love for pizza and having to give that up for a month.

2. Drawing a new sketch every day

I have always held out a bit of hope of being able to incorporate illustration into my work in some way. Blogs like Hyperbole & a Half and Books of Adam are hilarious, and I only wish that I could get in on some of the fun. I keep a sketchbook at my desk, and use it once a week at best, so there is certainly room for improvement there. I figure if I can commit to just drawing something every day and not thinking about it too hard, I’ll improve a bit, or at least have a habit set up. I’ll post results every few days if I ever get the scanner hooked up.

3. Find something to be thankful for every day

This one is simultaneously the easiest, and hardest. Easiest of course because it requires no extra commitment of time or efforts, just thinking and writing something down. Hardest though, because I can get kind of cynical, and trust me, there are plenty of things in life and in this town that aggravate me. If I think on the positives, at least I’ll have some reason to feel a bit better each day and not want to throttle everyone I come across. I’ll tweet these when I think of them each day, and will compile them here as well when I make posts.

That’s it, anyone think I can accomplish any or all of these?

I am a horrible procrastinator, something that I can freely admit. This used to be a badge that I wore with pride, but now I feel is more a source of shame and a mark of sloth. I get embarrassed when looking at how little I accomplish with my free time, and spend more time than I care to admit aimlessly surfing the web. I recently installed leechblock on firefox to help stop myself from visiting time-wasting sites during the day, but while sick this week found myself scaling back and then just turning it off.

I have made and broken many promises to myself, but maybe I’ll be able to keep a few if I set quantifiable goals. I am greatly inspired by Google’s Matt Cutts, who does regular self-tests on himself, such as his 30-day challenges.  I have decided to blindly sheep along with him and try some out myself. Seeing as it is near the end of the month, I’m allowing another week of “preparation” (read: extra slack time) before putting this plan into action. I already have a few ideas lined up, but there are plenty of months to fill if it works out, so I’ll just start with a few for this one. My ideas for the next month are:

-Writing at least one thing that made me happy each day

-Doing at least one sketch each day

-Going the entire month vegan

I have various reasons why I chose these three things, which I’ll end up going over when I start, but this is basically my promise to you, internet, that I will make some minor goals with a set timeline and make myself complete something for once in my life.

This weekend I returned from a cruise to Central America, which was a blast. Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; Roatan Island, Honduras; and Costa Maya, Mexico were all stops. I have nothing amazingly enthralling to say other than it was an enjoyable trip, and realistically anyone reading would probably just check out pictures, so here they are:

Daniel was nuts for the water slides

The Atrium was amazing, and the ship was huge

Large enough to fit in a mini-golf course

Or a chess set for Daniel to abuse

I had a strong urge to become a Luchador in Cozumel

The shops in Belize knew their target markets well

Which was going to be me after all of the desserts on board

Seriously, having cravings just posting this.

Roatan Island had a lot of coastal wildlife to keep me entertained

As well as the embarrassing yet fun dance lessons for Team Night

Costa Maya was not alone in having beautiful, clear water.

A wonderful trip over, and now my sights are set on next year’s excursion. No decisions made, but there’s plenty more on my bucket list!

“So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.”

-Gene Wilder, “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”

I have a problem. I have boundless ideas, limited time and resources, and a paralysis that comes with that. Right now I have a long list of things to do (that’s just for this one project), and I keep tripping over myself trying to figure out which ones are most demanding of my time first. I have a new theme that I’m working on that apparently just needs to have every option imaginable in it, otherwise no one will want to use it.

I know that this is not true. I know that I can do well and improve myself, and others who may use my work, by limiting options to a manageable subset, so that no one is driven crazy trying to figure out what to do. Unless you are really that person that needs this column to be 47%, that one to cover 21em’s, and the other to have a minimum width of 312px or bust, then a simpler solution with one or two base choices of styling should work just fine*. I need to stop thinking that everything needs to be perfect, since that’s not usually the attitude I take when it comes to other projects, so why for these? I suppose a vanity project is just that: a chance for me to prove what I can do. Eventually I’ll realize that if I try to wow everyone right out of the gate, then I’ll never end up leaving the stable.

*If you are that person, never fear. I have just the solution for you, coming to public release after holiday.

How many of you have this issue: You sit staring at a problem for hours on end, and work that should only take a few minutes of your time ends up turning into an all-day affair with no end in sight and no clear solution?
That seems to happen to me far too often, and I think that I’ve come up with a solution. It isn’t always the best idea, like if this project needs to be done just-right-now, but if I have a bit of lead time built in (which I try to do as much as possible, save for my own impatience), I now try to set it aside for a bit, clear my mind of it entirely, and work on something else. At the very least, I can cross a few other things off of my to do list, and not be swamped when this project finally comes due. The added bonus is that when I come back, I can often see past what was originally roadblocking me, and go “man, how did I miss that before?”, while banging out the solution in a few minutes.

This has been especially true of those little bits of punctuation that hang me up. That extra indent there, the missing brace here, sometimes looking at pages worth of code lets me miss simple things. Embarrassing and possibly bad for any future careers, I know, but it’s the truth, and I know it happens to us all. Code editors don’t always find these things either. Notepad++ allows me to close up tags while working to simplify my view of a page, which is a tool that Dreamweaver is either sorely missing, or that someone needs to teach me to do. As far as that other popular paid editor, it is great at helping you to figure out where closing tags might be needed, but not when you are in a minefield of nested divs and table cells. Sometimes it seems like they almost expect the user to have a clue about what they are doing when they sit down to work, which I think is rather presumptuous to expect of me

Regardless, this technique has been helping me immensely in taking the pressure and stress off of individual details and letting me focus on the big picture of a project or schedule of tasks when that is most helpful. Now all I need to do is keep up productivity, and I’ll be set!

The second day in DC was much more about relaxation.  The trip had been running around and catching trains and walking to and fro, so this was a chance to unwind and relax a bit.  It included a trip to the gym, some TV, and lunch at an awesome Italian place.  It’s a regional franchise thing, and I can see why; the cost of starting a franchise is about $1 million.  Still, the food was delicious, cooked right in front of us, and definitely fresh (the plants in the pictures are grow boxes of the herbs that would be used on the food).  You were given an RFID card when you entered, and it would be waved over a reader when you ordered, with the food being added to your account that you paid upon leaving.  We pigged out on breads and pasta and a delicious goat cheese and tomato pizza, as well as cappuccinos and dessert.

The interior was pretty swanky too

Fancy places loves them some red

Chinatown is much more in your face and touristy in DC as compared to Chinatown in NYC or Little Saigon in Orlando

I just like the layout and color of this storefront

It was also the day of the Bon Jovi concert.  We got down there pretty early, but had plenty of time to kill waiting in the long lines of every restaurant in the area.  The nice thing about the bigger cities at least is that things like venues for shows are actually right next door to other things that people use, not just in some tourist area or set to themselves with nothing for blocks away (Amway Arena) or more (House of Blues, Hard Rock).  We still got in with plenty of time, as of course they started late.  Even so, with no opening band, it was a rather short show, as they only played for about two hours, which is much less than I was expecting for such a big band and the price of tickets.  Still, it was fun, and I snagged some pics and even a video, which is really big so isn’t going to get linked in this post until it’s done loading.

Easy to tell that it was sold out though

And there you have it.  We got in late today, but still plenty of time to get groceries and do laundry and get various chores done.  Tomorrow is back to work, so I should probably take advantage of returning to a normal sleep schedule.

Got busy and figured it was better to enjoy the sites rather than spend the time here.  Now I was up late and accidentally slept in, thinking that it was really early and going back to bed, only to look at a clock that had read past eight.  Our room faces the interior of the hotel with no light, due to a protest at the Madison hotel next door.

The last full day in NYC involved a trip to the MoMA where my camera battery died and I’d foolishly left my spare in my bag… which is totally what I bought it for.  We also visited my Aunt in Brooklyn, where it started to drizzle, then turned into a full on downpour with strong winds about two blocks from her place.

OMG LEGOS!

YES!

YESSS!

If I had a bit less willpower and a bit more bag space, all of these would be coming home with me.

We went to see where Tina Fey works

It's odd to see how the old, like St. Patrick's Cathedral, is smooshed right between the new.

Best bookstore around.

It may be dark out, but Time's Square always seems like the middle of the day with the lights and activity.

As I already mentioned on Twitter, every visit to NYC has to be completed with a trip to my favorite New York pizza place.

We got up early yesterday to head to Penn Station to take the Amtrak to DC.  First we had the issue of weekend construction closing up all of the stations near us.  It sucks trekking a couple dozen extra blocks when breakfast places are closed that early and you’re lugging bags and it’s below freezing out.  Finally making it, we had enough time to grab some Tim Horton’s before boarding the train.  I would generally say that it’s a good way to travel, barring the length of time and cost.  Our plane tickets to NYC were cheaper than Amtrak and we didn’t want to kill a whole day traveling, but it was perfect for about three and a half hours to DC where we got to cross through a few states and had to arrive only a few minutes before it left with no security screening.

Unfortunately, it was still cold out and we chose to sit near the back of a train car, where the door kept opening for people with cold air rushing in.  This was manageable until we stopped in Wellington and our train just lost power.  Being diesel, it could still drive, and we didn’t need power to use it, and I was not waiting 45 minutes for the next one out in the cold.  Still, it did drop the temperature in there quite a bit, and I arrived in DC numb.  Also, it’s not as scenic as you might picture.  Maybe it was because it is still winter that it was pretty blah out, or maybe it was the fact that everything was covered in trash and it seemed that every city that we passed through was directly in the crappiest, most run-down part of town.  Amtrak in Orlando runs right through scenic Winter Park.  Amtrak in Baltimore runs through an area where apparently every building was at one point on fire and never repaired.

This was one of the more scenic vistas.

The National Art Gallery had some cool stuff, nice to see when not having to run through to find one picture this time.

Uhh...

Seriously, that guy didn't deserve that. If she didn't want to be seen naked, she would have put her top back on before traipsing around the woods naked.

Daniel is trying to look thoughtful

"Fine, I'll skate, but I won't be happy about it."

I don't see the likeness...

This proves that most kids are more fearless than your average adult. I heard plenty of shrieking from women my own age while walking around.

Of course I took a few obligatory shots of the monuments and buildings that we passed by, but I did that last time too, so I’ll stop before I crash anyone’s browser with this.

Day 2 of DC ahoy!  More relaxing and random site-seeing, then Bon Jovi tonight

Less photos today, spent more time walking around and doing stuff than cataloging it.  We hit up the Natural History Museum and Central Park, after riding on several different trains in the wrong direction.  Afterward we went to Brooklyn to get lunch (amazing pizza of course), dessert (no wonder people get NY cheesecake shipped to them), and to see “Cedar Rapids”, since we’ve still not got it down South.  We wandered around more doing more random touristy things, went to Chinatown for some good eats for dinner, then up to Times Square last minute to catch another show.

Protip: buy tickets last minute.  We decided to see Addam’s Family on a whim, and bought tickets about 20 minutes before the show started.  After buying tickets, we were able to walk right in, rather than wait in the long line of people who’d purchased in advance.  We got fourth row seats for about a third the price of what they would have been if we’d bought online or in advance.  That meant maybe 20 feet from the stage, close enough to see all of Nathan Lane’s many facial expressions.  He really is a great stage actor, and the entire cast and show was hilarious.

Natural History Museum

This place is made of science. And ghost people.

Daniel standing next to one of his ancestors

Fun fact: The chip in the upper left is from where this Sun Calendar was excavated: accidentally, via bulldozer.

Daniel, sounding like every child within earshot: "I wanna see the dinosaurs!"

Entering the creepy caves of Central Park

Most snow we've seen on this trip

Two Blocks from the hotel. Should find out what's there tonight.

It’s a bit gloomier looking out today, and was raining last night, so we’ll probably spend most of the time indoors.  After breakfast we’re either going to hit the Museum of Modern Art, or save it for this evening (Target Free Fridays are good for those of us that forgot our student IDs at home, despite reminding myself a dozen times beforehand.)

We left yesterday morning pretty darn early, just before 3 in the morning. That was the only time that our ride was able to take us, but I’d trade the hour or two of extra sleep for no parking fees. This was to almost be our downfall as the day wore on.

After boarding our flight, we were informed that the pilot wanted maintenance to check out a problem that was repaired the night before, to confirm that it was still acceptably fixed. We sat for about an hour extra, which made the gentleman sitting across the aisle need to tell everyone within earshot that he had switched from a later flight to get on this one, and now it was wasted. Beyond that, it wasn’t bad and I got a short nap in. We also got to watch the in-flight movies free due to the delay, so the timing was perfect for what must have been my sixth viewing of “The Social Network”, with the credits rolling as we were touching down at JFK.

The trip to the hotel was uneventful. Thanks to Heather’s friends and family discount, the Omni in Midtown cost about the same as the hotel a bit further away that I originally had booked. This put us smack dab in the fanciest part of town, right off the block of all of the tourist destinations, and the MoMA facing us in one direction, and 30 Rock in another. We didn’t make it out to Brooklyn to get a view of less touristy NYC, but today we will.

Near everything that we ended up doing was in walking distance, so we boarded maybe two trains the whole day. Right by the hotel, so one of the first stops: Nintendo World!

So many Pokemon!

No seriously, so many pokemon!

My systems have seen worse...

Cap'n Crunch Muffin!

This guy just walked up and started playing with this dog for a few minutes before walking away

In a sea of tall buildings, they don't seem as impressive...

Never mind, still big

Penzey's is relegated to a stand at Grand Central Market

Looks like heaven!

Seriously, who doesn't want to check this stuff out while looking down on the city?

Finally, a way to invite kids to your van for candy without looking creepy

I was tasked with taking pictures of every UPS truck that I saw. That become impossible pretty quickly.

We did plenty of touristy stuff, checked out the revamped Times Square, sampled some delicious food, and I got to see my first Broadway show, “The Lion King”. After that and a few days running on almost no sleep, we got back to the hotel and I basically crashed out.

Just noticed that downloading, choosing, cropping and uploading all of the pictures has taken about 45 minutes out of my trip. Time to find some coffee and get on with Day 2!

Yesterday, it was announced that Rep. Gabby Giffords was speaking coherent, full sentences, the first such affirmation to the press since she was shot in early January.  Representative Giffords is a lucky individual in terms of survival of a gunshot wound to the head.  Not only is she still alive, but indications are that thanks to the quick actions of those around her (including her intern, Daniel Hernandez Jr.) she is expected to recover from the incident.  I anticipate the day that she is able to return to active service of our country, and look forward to hearing her take on the situation.  If I could ask a question of her, it would be what her opinion is on the examination of politicians in the media in the aftermath of her attempted assassination.

The effect that one person’s death or near-death can have is astounding.  It was with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi that revolution struck Tunisia, ousting the president of 23 years.  This in turn led to copycat revolts in several other countries, including the current Egypt riots with a call for revolution as well.  While writing this, I am watching the announcements from Liberation Square in Cairo, where it is expected that President Mubarak will also step down, ending a near 30 year run as political ruler of the country.  What this means when the military (or the apparently equally nefarious vice-president) takes control is yet to be seen, but thinking of the martyrdom of one person sparking the chain of events leading to this outcome is staggering.  Of course there were many other factors that guided the revolts, as well as factors that guided Bouazizi himself, but what would he think, were he still alive?  To witness a man who had ruled over his country unfairly for almost his entire life suddenly gone, and the events that followed around the world?  Would it affect his decisions and actions?

While Jared Lee Loughner did not end Rep. Giffords life, his attempt to do so caused reflection and debate around the country concerning what is acceptable practice in politics.  The revelation that her name was listed and marked with crosshairs (or surveyor marks, if you are so inclined to that backpedaling), on the website of Sarah Palin, calling her and others political “targets” caused a ruckus and concern over when violent sentiments in politics were going too far.  Both sides have their issues with using violent rhetoric in arguments, and hopefully reevaluation will change how fervent political supporters are in some small way.

How does it feel to think that in the act of dying you can be the catalyst for changes that you will never see?  Do you think positively that you could start something, or negatively that it would take such a drastic act to make change?

EDIT:  President Mubarak’s speech from my limited viewing appeared to be damning and condescending.  We’ll see what happens now.

Again, I already have a bachelor’s degree from a university, so having to deal with stuff like this is just a bit more irksome than it might otherwise be.  This is again about AP test scores (I’ll limit everything else).

I have my scores that were mailed to me, not good enough.  Ok, I suppose it’s possible that I fudged them, so official are needed.  A degree that required the classes that they’d override still doesn’t suffice, so my degree appears to be worthless here as well.

While going through old paperwork looking for scores and info, inspiration struck:  I have a still sealed copy of my high school transcripts, on which are printed my AP test scores.  Surely this is official enough, as I haven’t been able to tamper with them, and they come from a learning institution.  Unfortunately no, they are also not high enough on the scale of official (which were I not lazy right now, I’d draw a detailed diagram of).

As a recap of what I must do to satisfy some basic classes, I must print a paper application to retrieve my scores.  This is because they are older than four years, so I cannot do it online.  I print a paper, write on it, then fax it to them, where another piece of paper is printed with my fax.  Someone is then paid to go through paper files (as old scores are printed on to more paper and culled from their database, since the computer, after all, is extremely limited in storage.)  That person goes to a physical location of storage that is full of paper, finds my paper, and makes a copy (as I imagine that they wouldn’t send along the original).  They then put it into more paper and send it along, thereby increasing waste, as well as energy required in shipment and handling of it.

This is an amazing scam that AP can run, as it is a system that people buy into out of seeming necessity, as most nonsensical ones are.  No one can (wants to, really) go above and say “this makes little sense, let’s do something more logical and less time consuming”, instead perpetuating a wasteful and greedy system.  How do I know that it’s greedy?  Besides paying more for the older copies than newer, since they have to pay someone to do the physical task of getting it, rather than a cheaper and faster computerized system, they also charge that same amount for each copy of each test.  Similar to how passport photos cost $10 to have printed for you at Walgreens, or 29 cents from the same exact printer by taking your own picture and hitting the buttons yourself, it is an unnecessary waste that has been ingrained into a system.