Ahh, the notorious goals (or more colloquially known as resolutions). I will cover the usual three main areas of focus: Technical Skills, Reading Challenge, and Wellness. I’m hoping for a little more diligence on my part to really focus on all of these goals. I did pretty well last year but there were a couple of bumps along the way. So let’s set those 2024 goals, shall we?
Tag: Reading Challenge Page 1 of 2
The reading challenge goal was 12 books and I missed it by about 150 pages. If I hadn’t decided to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve I might have finished the last few pages. Oh well, it’s close enough for me to let it go. Be that as it may, here are the eleven books I did manage to finish for the 2023 Goodreads reading challenge (** indicates a book I’ve read before).
- Storm Front** by Jim Butcher
- Winter** by Marissa Meyer
- Throne of Glass by Sarah Maas
- Eragon** by Christopher Paolini
- Crown of Midnight by Sarah Maas
- Eldest** by Christopher Paolini
- Heir of Fire by Sarah Maas
- Brisingr** by Christopher Paolini
- Queen of Shadows by Sarah Maas
- Inheritance** by Christopher Paolini
- Tower of Dawn by Sarah Maas
I just came in under the wire for my 2022 Goodreads reading challenge (I literally read the last page of the last book 2 hours before midnight). If you happened to read my 2021 reading challenge recap I read 16 books that year. You will notice the list below only has 12 books. Why so few? Two of the books on the list combined for a total of almost 2,000 pages. I knew, by reading those books, it was going to affect my total for the year. Therefore I decided to be a little more reasonable with my goal.
Here is my 2022 Goodreads reading challenge list (** indicates a book I’ve read before):
- Traitor by Clare Farrell
- Kubrick’s Game** by Derek Taylor Kent
- To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
- Skin Game by Jim Butcher
- The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
- Peace Talks by Jim Butcher
- Cinder** by Marissa Meyer
- Battle Ground by Jim Butcher
- Scarlet** by Marissa Meyer
- The Big Dark Sky by Dean Koontz
- Cress** by Marissa Meyer
- Empire Strikes Back From A Certain Point of View by various authors
It’s that time again, time to make my 2022 New Years intentions. I made some progress in all of the areas in which I declared intentions in 2021. I will get into more details in each of their respective sections below. 2021 was not as challenging of a year as 2020 but it had its moments. This damn Covid virus continues to wreak havoc physically, mentally and emotionally. It has the country, and possibly the world, divided. Some are scared, some refuse to be afraid, and some just don’t know what to believe anymore. The media is at fault.
I belong to something of an online book club called Goodreads for about 8 years. It’s now owned by Amazon but the essence of Goodreads hasn’t gone away. Every year the websites offers members to commit to a yearly reading challenge. My 2021 reading challenge was to read 15 books. Here are the books I completed.
Cloak of Deception by James Luceno
Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
Changes by Jim Butcher
Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Fire & Sword by Dylan Doose
Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston
Thirst by Claire Farrell
Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo
Taunt by Claire Farrell
Tempt by Claire Farrell
Cold Days by Jim Butcher
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson
Taken by Claire Farrell
Taste by Claire Farrell
Sweet Sixteen
If you’re keeping track at home, that list contains 16 books. I finished my reading challenge, exceeded it by one, and all before December 31st. Also, if you have a keen eye, I’m sure you noticed several books by Jim Butcher and Claire Farrell. The books by Jim Butcher shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m still working my way through The Dresden Files; but who is Claire Farrell.
My wife and I each have a Kindle and they connect to the same Kindle library. My wife added several books by Claire Farrell, and six of those books are the Ava Delaney series. Thirst, Taunt, Tempt, Taken, Taste and Traitor make up the series. As you can probably guess, I’m currently reading the last book, Traitor. Ava Delaney is a hybrid; she’s part human, part vampire. If you’re interested in a slightly different perspective on vampire lore, put aside what you know and check out these books. They are decent fantasy.
I read two books I’ve been wanting to read for a while: Redshirts and the novelization of The Rise of Skywalker. I always enjoy reading the books that accompany the films because they help provide more details and answer some questions. If you are a Star Trek fan then I would encourage reading Redshirts. I was pretty lazy this year and did not review all of these books, but I did write one for this book. If you’re trying to decide, I encourage you to check out my review.
That’s all for now. I will discuss my 2022 reading challenge plans in another post.
/cheers
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
I’m a week late with this post but, as I said in my review, 2020 sucked so better late than never! As a result of the unusual circumstances and the shutdowns, the increased stress interfered a bit with my 2020 goals. While I know that merely changing years won’t eliminate the virus or the stress it causes, I’m hopeful that this year won’t be as awful as last year. We are ahead of the virus and there are at least two vaccines that are FDA approved (as of the time of this writing). I’m looking forward to getting back out to the zoo and the ballpark. Therefore the first of my 2021 New Years intentions is to remain hopeful and optimistic about this year.
Biggs Labs – Smart Home/Professional Development
This suffered the most from my mental state as a result of the shutdowns. I did not make a lot of progress on many of my technical goals. I didn’t touch the Smart Things and Raspberry Pi integration. Honestly, I don’t know if I will get to it this year or not. I have a higher priority to update the Gift List web application I wrote. While I didn’t make a lot of coding progress on the gift list revamp, I have spent a bit of time designing the changes and making a list of updates and new features. I hope to begin this development immediately.
This blog site will also get some love this year. Apparently I have to find a new theme. I have been using Suffusion for several years, however I recently found out WordPress is no longer approving the theme. Their reason is “it doesn’t meet requirements”; I’m very disappointed in WordPress. So I will be hunting for a new theme. If any of you are WordPress admins, shoot me your theme suggestions.
Finally, I need to find something new to learn. Some kind of coding language or library. I’m stuck in a rut and feeling bored with programming so I need something to restore my enthusiasm.
2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge
I’m setting my reading challenge goal to 15 with the hope that I will exceed it. Last year I was 40% away from finishing my 15th book so with a little more diligence I think I can easily meet the goal, and surpass it. The Dresden Files will, again, be the books that help me reach my goal. I’ve started book 11 so it’s possible I may catch up this year (there are now 18 books).
I’m thinking about reading The Inheritance Series again; I’m a big fan of Paolini’s work and I’m excited to read about Eragon again. I will cover the books I read for the 2020 Reaching Challenge in a separate post.
2021 New Years Health Goals
My health goals are going to look a little different this year. The effects of the stress and anxiety of 2020 still linger and, while I don’t expect things to magically improve in 2021, I can control how it affects me, mentally.
Physical Fitness Goals
In 2020 I was supposed to complete a 15K at the Flying Pig. Obviously that was cancelled but that didn’t stop me from setting some new goals. I tried to run as often as possible to keep in good health. The doctors were telling me that one of the best methods for staying healthy amid the virus was to keep exercising. I improved my daily running distance to 5+ miles a day. On my push days I am exceeding 8 miles but I have not reached 9 miles yet (a 15K is approximately 9.3 miles).
I don’t know what I will do this year in regards to the Flying Pig. Currently their website states you can sign up for a virtual run with the option to change to in-person if health officials allow large gatherings. My original plan was to run the half this year, but that was assuming I would have run a 15k in 2020. As of this writing my thoughts are that if I go virtual I will stick with the 15k plan; I would rather run the half marathon in person since that is my apex running goal.
Mental Health (aka Get Organized)
Everyone’s mental health suffered from 2020. Anyone that denies it is lying to themselves. It will be a few months before we start to see improvements in the current pandemic but we can begin to heal our mental health. The methods for doing this will be different for every person. Personally I am going to do it by getting organized. There have been studies that show getting organized has been known to improve sleep and reduce stress and anxiety.
When I was in college I was a bit of a clean freak; it seems now I’ve become to lazy to be that person but I can change that. I can let my OCD take over again and clean more often. There are places around the house that can use the “get organized” treatment. However, getting organized isn’t just a physical activity. I use my iPad to take a lot of notes (because my memory is garbage); those notes need to be re-organized for brevity and searchability. This will help me be better organized at work.
Finally I need to ignore or remove the toxicity and vitriolic abuse of social media. Everyone treats Facebook and Twitter like its their pulpit for political and controversial influence. The truth you’re not changing anybody’s mind because everyone is braver behind a keyboard. I’m tired of going to these places and getting angry because people spew nonsense so I will be frequenting Twitter less and blocking/hiding/muting posts/people on Facebook that say things with the clear intent of inciting violence or hate.
Again, this post grows most verbose so time to end it here.
/cheers
I could accomplish so much more if I only had minions!