Mini Goal Update

Here's a picture, just because

An update on a few goals that don't really deserve a whole post of their own.

No sugar for a month - complete

Boy howdy was this a mistake to do. This turned out to be one of those things that my mind just breaks a little bit when I create a hard rule around something. I already have a difficult relationship with food and this made it worse. I came to villainize any food with sugar in it. The bad thing is that there have been some after effects where that villainization persists and I feel down on myself for having succumbed to weakness.

Develop a meditation practice - complete (kind of)

Head over to the Google machine and you'll find all kinds of benefits of meditation. I really wanted to get in on some of these benefits. I also thought that given how much I try to take care of my body, I should put some time into taking care of the mind. I tried out a guided meditation app called Headspace to help me get going. I meditated every day for almost 60 days. I quit though because I wasn't really seeing any benefit (which is exactly the wrong mindset to approach meditation with). Maybe Headspace just wasn't right for me. It's something I definitely will try to pick up again in the future.

Learn to speed read - complete

I took an online speed reading course to learn how to speed read; it wasn't worth it. There are plenty of articles that teach you the same thing in less time. The main drawback of speed reading is that it's very active. In general, I read to relax, so this isn't a good tool for that. However, I do read some books for work and I've taken to speed reading those to get through them faster and it definitely works.

Free-standing handstand - on hold

I had been practicing this every night for a few weeks but then I just stopped. I stopped because I've been trying to treat my plantar fasciitis, so I'm using that time in the evenings to work on that instead of handstands. This one will definitely carry over to next year.

My butt-print in the wall from a handstand gone awry

Stage a roller coaster picture - gave up

Didn't fit this one into my schedule.

Don't buy anything for a month - gave up

I'm a consumer; I gave up after 2 weeks. I wanted coffee.

Give a public presentation - gave up

No ideas really came to me and I didn't really try.

Spend a night with the Amish - gave up

It's kind of hard to get ahold of the Amish... The one potential connection I had didn't pan out, so I gave up.

I'm 30, how far did I get on The List?

I'll write up a longer post later on reflecting on this past year, but it's my 30th birthday so I feel obligated to post how far I got. I'm happy to have completed exactly half.

Complete

1. 50 mile ultramarathon
2. Milk a cow
3. Visit top 10 things in Nebraska
4. GoRuck Challenge
5. Try out 12 new churches (I changed this to "find a good spiritual practice")
6. Sensory deprivation chamber
7. 150# bench press
8. 200# squat
9. Take a survival course 
10. Hit 30 states visited (must have at least driven through them) and make map
11. Smile more
12. Spend $75 per person on a meal for me and Angie (turned this into "spend as much as possible")
13. Grow a beard
14. Take a cooking class
15. Catch up with 1 friend every month that I haven't talked to in 1+ years

Incomplete

1. Volunteer 100 hours - that's a lot of time
2. Climb a 14er - tried and failed
3. 4-pack abs - too much cake
4. Lift Angie overhead - I hate Travis
5. 250# deadlift - boy howdy I'm weak
6. Build a simple orrery - boy howdy I'm lazy
7. 60 push-ups - this is hard
8. Hot air balloon ride - cost to me caring ratio is too high
9. Skydiving - cost to me caring ratio is too high
10. Visit a psychic - did you know psychics cost $100 for 30 minutes?
11. Learn to lucid dream - uhhh, lazy?
12. Artist's way for a month - gave up after 4 days. Took too much time
13. Not available publicly (NAP) - didn't care
14. NAP - didn't care
15. NAP - didn't care

My first AA Meeting

My name's Matthew, and I'm not an alcoholic.

Despite being a teetotaler, today I joined a buddy at his AA meeting. We were talking about my friend's history with addiction, and he invited me to attend his Sunday meeting. My immediate reaction was to say "no", but I quickly realized that I was rapidly trying to find an excuse even though I didn't have a real one. Once I realized that, I agreed to go.

I really had no idea what to expect going in to this and was worried what the other people were going think of a "normie". Only now as I'm writing this do I realize how wonderfully ironic that thought was because of how egocentric it is (see the humility section below). After a little while, I learned that this meeting was specifically about the 11th step, which is:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Everyone was seated in a circle and the meeting kicked off with the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

This was a great way to start off for me. I've always loved this saying because it encompasses so much of being a happy person and gives you something to always strive for. The humility of this statement set the tone for the rest of the meeting. We then went around in a circle and introduced ourselves in the typical AA fashion of: "My name is so-and-so and I'm an alcoholic/adict." I started freaking out about what to say about myself since I am not an alcoholic. Thankfully, someone else was there that wasn't either so I took a cue from her and simply said "I'm Matthew, and I'm here to support."

After this, people would speak about their relationship with God. Instead of going into all of the details, I'll just touch on some of the themes that I picked up on.

Great Themes:

• Welcoming and warm - Every time someone would choose to speak, they would introduce themselves in the AA fashion, and then the whole group would respond with "Hi, so-and-so". Everyone would then respectfully listen to what the other person had to say. After that person was done speaking, everyone would say "Thanks, so-and-so." It's a simple thing, but it really shows that everyone is welcome and it helps everyone learn each others' names.
• Humility - Almost everything about this meeting (and from what I can tell, the rest of AA) is about humility. I know I certainly can use a solid reminder in humility, and it's something I'm practicing every day. People would talk about how they thought they knew best, thought AA wasn't for them, knew how to get a handle on their lives, etc, even though all signs outside of themselves showed that they didn't. This is definitely a topic that you needed to be there to really pick up on, and I can't give it justice in textual form, but suffice it to say this was the best part of the meeting, and a lesson that I think most people can use.
• Everyone has their own view of God - As I've mentioned before, I don't think any religion has all of the "right" answers. This seems to be the view of AA as well. They're not part of any one denomination and simply believe that there is a higher power. This ties nicely to the humility topic. If they were part of one religion, that's very egotistical and says that you know everything about God and other people are wrong about it. In this respect (and other parts of the meeting), this actually felt a LOT like the Quaker meeting I've attended.
• Relationships are what's important - Several people mentioned that they used to have a group of people that they hung around with that they would call their "friends". But looking back, they realize that those people were just a group of people looking for the same thing (getting drunk/high). They now realize that the relationships they've built since getting sober are the most important thing in the world to them. In today's consumerist society, it's important to remember, that a 60" TV won't actually bring you happiness; a strong set of relationships with family and friends will.
• Genuine - After an hour of saying "Hi, so-and-so", you would think people would have gotten tired of saying it. There was just as much enthusiasm at the end as there was at the beginning. When a couple people mentioned that they had AA birthdays recently, there was an outpouring of happiness. All of the smiles just felt truly genuine and heartfelt.

Summary

Overall, I simply can't believe that people are so open and honest with strangers. I know I'm not that open with even my closest friends.

When I hear their stories, I can't help but think, "There but for the grace of God, go I." I know I have an addictive personality, and I easily could have gone down the path of substance abuse. Hearing the hell that other people have gone through makes me grateful for everything I have in my life. It is also wonderful to hear that no matter how far you fall, there are people in this world that will support you. AA is humanity at its best helping humans at their worst.

I likely won't be going back again because I definitely was out of place, but I think that's okay. It was a great experience and I'm glad I was invited to be a part of it.

Preparing for the Apocalypse

If you plan on surviving zombie infestation, invasion of the cylons/Chinese/Russians, or any number of apocalyptic scenarios, one thing's for certain: you need to know how to fend for yourself in the wild. To that end, I took a winter survival course this past weekend. After this class, I clearly know how I'll end up during a zombie infestation:

In short, the idea of going out and living off the land is great. The execution would be friggin hard.

Pre-emptive apologies for the long post. It was a 2 day course, so I wanted to cover everything we did in those two days.

Initial Thoughts

I was thinking that this was going to be a military style of camp where I just get yelled at for being a failure of a man and we would discuss the waterboarding vs. electroshock torture methods. So, I dragged a buddy of mine along with me so it wasn't just me and a bunch of gun nuts.

We got there at 8:45 Saturday morning after making an emergency stop to pick up one last piece of equipment I didn't have (an empty gatorade bottle). When we got there, I was surprised to see a pretty nice cabin. Upon walking in, I secretly hoped that this was mostly going to be classroom training where we would stay nice and warm inside.

Looking around at the other guys (there were 18 guys and 1 gal) I noticed I was definitely the most out of place. I was the only one not wearing some sort of camouflage and one of a few that didn't have an extra 50-100 pounds on them. But overall, the group seemed pretty nice.

Cabin at the entrance

Day 1 Activities

Obviously, we weren't inside much. Once we got started, we walked a little bit down to camp. The first thing we did was gather a bunch of wood, because that was going to be used for shelter and fire. Most of guys had to start shedding layers because they were getting warm and we weren't supposed to sweat. I found this a little amusing because all we were doing was walking around and carrying logs. As one of the not chubby guys, I didn't really take much clothing off because my heart rate simply wasn't raising high enough to get me all hot and bothered.

We learned a bit about different knots so that we could build our shelters. After that, we started to assemble our shelters. They were simple a-frame shelters. Here's Bob's with just the frame setup:

BAMF

Once we were done with that, it was time for some bedding. This was simply switch grass gathered from around camp. This kinda sucked. It took about an hour or so to hack away at the grass with your knife in order to get an adequate quantity to sleep on. This was important because it kept you off of the cold hard ground. Now that we had all of our supplies, it was time to put all of those fancy knots to use and assemble the shelter. Here's my fully assembled shelter:

Huzzah!

I honestly had little faith in this guy keeping me warm through the night, especially the garbage bag door that I had on the front. But, I had a sleeping bag that was rated to -30 degrees, so I wasn't too worried.

After shelter building came fire craft. Boy howdy does this suck. You see it in the movies and it seems so easy. We didn't even try the whole rubbing two sticks together thing, we were just gathering wood and then using firesteel. The hard part here wasn't so much getting the fire started, it was finding the right wood to start with. I didn't have a saw with me, so that made this task much more difficult. The key is finding a dry piece of wood without knots. You're going to be batoning the wood, so you need a nice straight grain. After a decent amount of work, you'll have your pile of wood, your tinder, and your fire platform and you can go to town with your firesteel. It was pretty cool to get this going, and I feel fairly confident that I could do it again, but it's easier to have a lighter and a pile of newspaper.

Everyone setup for camp

After fire, we were pretty much done for the day. We set up our sleeping arrangements, ate dinner, and then essentially watched a one-man comedy show from one of the owners. It's definitely one of those "had to be there" type of things, but suffice it to say, I'm pretty sure I heard more gay sex references than I would hear in a bath house.

I thought for sure that night I was going to get a decent night's sleep. My shelter seemed warm enough, I had enough clothes, I had lots of ground padding, my sleeping bag was rated to -30 degrees, and I wasn't sleeping in the same tent as Bob who is the worst snorer ever (his wife is a saint). Then the wind came. Around 2 or 3 in the morning, I awoke to what sounded like a freight train coming through. It was a little eerie. We were down in a little depression surrounded by trees, so my shelter was barely moving in the wind. So, I could hear howling wind and all of the trees moving, but it was fairly still where I was. Additionally, as I mentioned, I had little confidence in my shelter. I rolled over onto my stomach so that if it crashed down on top of me, it wouldn't hit me in the face. In the morning I learned that we were getting around 50mph gusts throughout the night.

Also at this time, I had a strong urge to use the bathroom (i.e. the tree marked as the piss tree). However, I was very cozy in my sleeping bag. So, for the first time ever, I grabbed my water bottle and relieved myself with that instead of getting up in the wind and cold. I was very happy with that decision. Once again, I was glad I wasn't a woman. Unfortunately, only in the morning did I realize that this was exactly what the empty Gatorade bottle was supposed to be for.

In the end, my shelter held up great through the night. Even my little garbage bag door. I am still a little surprised at how well it worked and how warm it was inside there. Who needs a tent? Just some paracord, a tarp, a 55 gallon trash bag, and some logs.

Day 2 activities

Day 2 was a little less intensive. We didn't really get started until about 10:00am. Once we got started, our instructor showed us how to build a completely natural shelter. It took 10 of us only about 20 minutes to build this. However, there were 10 of us and all of the materials were already gathered. I think it would take about 4ish hours to build one by myself.

The instructor then built a signal fire which we had to make all of the shavings for. This was pretty cool just making a fire that would give off as much smoke as possible.

Our last activity was snaring. As an ethical vegetarian, I was a little apprehensive about this. Thankfully, he said up front that we weren't actually going to be leaving our snares out. But now I know how to strangle a squirrel with some brass wire should the need arise.

Finally, we went back up to the cabin and had a review of what we learned. Most importantly, we got a little velcro patch.

Summary (or TL;DR Version)

Being in a survival situation would suck. I now know how little I know about the topic. And, while it was a fun weekend, I also know I don't want to dedicate the time and effort necessary to learn these skills. My plan, should it hit the fan, is to drive to Tekamah and hope that these guys will take care of me.

Ready to leave

The next step in my hippie transmogrification and Quakerism

Since moving to Nebraska, I've been slowly becoming more and more like a hippie. It wasn't until last year that I realized this has happened.

How to become a hippie in 10 easy steps

1. Grow long hair - make sure you don't comb it or anything, just grow a majestic mane. Oh, grab a spirit animal while you're at it.
   
2. Start riding your bike to work and think about how awesome you are riding your bike powered by smug.
3. Start a garden
   
4. Become a vegetarian. Take that Omaha Steaks
5. Start composting in preparation for next year's garden.
6. Grow a beard. Regardless of how rugged and handsome it makes you look, it still takes you a step closer to being a hippie.
   
7. Become a pacifist
8. Join a commune. Doesn't matter what type, could be anarchist, nudist, etc...
9. ???
10. Profit
    

I have yet to do the last 4 but step 7 is underway.

Quakers (not the oats)

Sunday I went to a Quaker (technically called the "Religious Society of Friends") church service. They call it a meeting, not a service; regardless, it's their weekly devotional practice. This ties in to step 7 because Quakers are big time pacifists (I've decided to break out my thoughts on pacifism into another post). It was definitely a new type of spiritual practice that I had never experienced before. I knew going into it that it was a little less formal than most other services, but didn't realize how informal it was.

I also knew that this was going to be a super small group. This made me a little apprehensive because at most small churches, I almost get a feeling of desperation when a new person comes. I probably put off the same feeling of desperation around girls when I was in High School. I'm not sure if desperation is the right word, but I can't think of a better one. To my surprise, I didn't get that feeling here. I still can't put my finger on what it is exactly, the feeling I got was more "it's nice that you're here, but we wouldn't be too distraught if you weren't". I liked this attitude.

Due to their size, the group just meets in a room at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. I got there at a strategic time of about 9:51 for a 10:00 start. This gave me enough time to get the lay of the land but not get tied up in overly long awkward conversations. The 10:00 start put it during a service for St. Andrew's, so there was no one in the hallways when I got there. After finding the room we were supposed to meet in, I found it empty. So, I wandered around aimlessly for awhile. At around 9:59 or so, another guy came, and he confirmed this was the place.

Before I get into the meeting details, I should clarify what a Friends meeting is like. Main difference to other services is that there's no pastor or anyone else "in charge". Friends are very egalitarian, believing that everyone is equally qualified to commune with God. The first hour of the meeting is just an hour sitting in silence, meditating, praying, whatever. It's called "expectant worship". The second hour is reserved for discussion. The topics are set weeks before (more on that later). The discussion may be about a specific reading, social issues, business meetings (as this day's was).

A couple other people filtered in between 10:00 and 10:30, again illustrating the informality (ended up with a grand total of 6 people, counting me). Everyone was chatting in the beginning and then all of a sudden, while I was in "waiting for others to arrive" mode, I noticed that people had stopped talking, folded their hands in their laps, and closed their eyes. I realized that expectant worship had started. Again, I thought someone was going to say "we're starting" or something like that, but it just started.

The expectant worship was uneventful as you might expect. I was glad I had taken the Zen Buddhism class so that I knew better how to meditate. There was a 17 month old in the room that made it a bit more challenging, but wasn't a big deal. Overall, I didn't have a super hard time sitting in silence for an hour.

The expectant worship ends when one person gets up and goes around and shakes everyone's hand. Then, it's time for the discussion portion. Again, I had strategically planned (strategy is an important part of winning at Church) by attending on a day that there was a business meeting scheduled. I felt I would have an easy out if I was super uncomfortable. I was liking the vibe so far, so I stuck around for the business meeting.

The business meeting simply talks about upcoming events, reviews notes of the previous meetings, plans out the next discussions, etc. Nothing too heavy, but I got a good feel of their upcoming topics and also learned a bit more about the religion just from side conversations. I also picked up some literature to read later.

TL;DR

Overall, I really liked the Friends meeting. I will definitely be going back there again. Additionally, I'm glad that I had written up my thoughts on religion beforehand, because this allows me to compare what I found to what I wanted. I would say the Friends matched up more than any other religion than I've been too.

A+ Would Buy Again

Try out 12 new churches, an update

One of my items is to try out 12 new churches. The goal of this is to eventually find a place that I would be comfortable having a regular spiritual practice. I don't really know what I'm looking for in a church which makes it kind of hard. Here are some of my criteria that actually limit the list down pretty rapidly:

• Okay with gay marriage - this one eliminates a whole heck of a lot right off the bat.
• Okay with women in the ministry - surprisingly, this one also eliminates a lot (I'm looking at you Presbyterians)
• Lack of emphasis on music during the service - I hate singing in church and most of the "contemporary" bands just suck
• Sermons that actually have some substance
• Has a decent number of people around my own age
• Mid-sized congregation

I'm sure I have more but those are the main ones that eliminate quite a few churches.

I felt that in doing this item on my list, I should branch out beyond Christianity in order to bring a more well-rounded view to the table. Additionally, it would bring my spiritual beliefs in line with my actions.

Overall, I do not believe in ONE spiritual truth. Think of it this way, try to describe the feeling of hunger. It's somewhat nebulous if the other person didn't implicitly know what it was. Now, translate your description a few hundred times over the course of a couple of thousand years. How well has your description been kept intact?

Now, describing hunger might difficult, but describing God is immeasurably more-so. This is really why I don't think ANY religion has the "truth". I think they all have some things right and some things wrong. Plain and simple, we can't possibly grasp what God is, but I do believe it's important to believe in something.

That being said, I've decided to mainly stick to Christianity but to try out a few different religions as well. Here's my list so far for ones I'm planning on going to and ones I've attended, as well as a grade that I gave them based on my enjoyment. As you can see, there are only 10 on this list, so if you have other suggestions, let me know.

Attended

1. Shadow Lake Church - B+ - Very casual atmosphere. I was impressed with the pastor's response to some of my questions I had in the guest book online.
2. Stony Brook Church - B - Sister church of Shadow Lake. Nice pastor, nothing too ground breaking.
3. Country Side Community Church - A- - This is probably my favorite church I've been to in Omaha. Great sermon that day (though now I can't remember the topic), fantastic music, and good demographics of the congregation.
4. Omaha Zen Center (Buddhist) - A- - Took a 3 hour intro to Zen class here. I could have done a whole post on this (and might in the future). Very interesting and will definitely be developing a meditation practice in the future.
5. St. Paul's Lutheran - C+ - Ugh, standard boring service. No substance sermon and tired music.
6. Rejoice! - C+ - same as St. Paul's. Boring.

Planning on Attending

1. Hindu Temple of Omaha - They provide tours!
2. Islamic Center of Omaha - I'm quite glad that they have a section on how to behave while visiting on their site. I most definitely would have offended someone otherwise.
3. Omaha Friends Meeting (Quakers) - I'm actually super nervous about this one. From what I've read, a Quaker service is usually just an hour of potential silence. If you want to speak then you can, but it could just be silent.
4. Some synagogue - Look! There's more than one in Omaha! I'll have to make a choice. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.

Boy Howdy I'm Weak

I may be able to run far and decently fast, but I am weak. I can't lift heavy things, hence where the strength goals came in to play.

About a month ago, I went into the gym to see where I was at with bench press and fairly easily hit the weight goal I was going for (hit 157# that day). I was hoping to do the same today with the dead lift. My dead lift goal is 250#. I did a couple solid reps at 198# (below) and 1 rep of sloppy 208#. So, I've easily got 40+ pounds to go.

You lift PUNY weight

To make matters worse, a couple guys next to me were warming up with around 200# and then were doing 5 sets of 5 reps at 240ish. A nice punch in the crotch to start the day.

After talking with the coach, he said I should easily be able to add 50# within a month if I just do a decent amount of strength training. So, time to figure out some creative ways to do dead lifts at home.

Floatation Tank

The purpose of a floatation tank (or sensory deprivation tank) is to get in some super relaxation time. It's a coffin looking thing filled with about 10 inches of saltwater which allows you to float very easily. It effectively shuts off all of your senses. The tank is completely dark, there's no sound (other than sloshing water), and you can't really feel anything since you're floating in water.

I had wanted to do this because it is such a unique sounding experience, where else are you completely shut off from almost all of your senses? With how bombarded we are in our day-to-day lives, some shutoff time sounded appealing. I had heard of people hallucinating, falling asleep, getting horribly bored, among other things. That's quite a variety of reactions to something that seems so simple.

One of the things I've discovered in trying to complete my list is that some of them are impossible to check off in Omaha. This was one of those items because there simply aren't any in Omaha. Once again, I had to do this while visiting family in Colorado.

This is one item that my wife also decided to try out as well. We went to A New Spirit Spa in Denver for a 60 min floatation and a 60 min massage afterwards. I was surprisingly apprehensive about it. I had no idea how I was going to react and mostly thought I was going to get horribly bored or itchy (don't ask). Being bored is almost a cardinal sin for me, there's so much to do, being bored simply isn't an option.

It was a pretty nice spa. I've never really been to a full spa before, I've really just been to places that pretty much only does massages. We were instructed to shower, put on robes, and then head back to the floatation room. One annoying thing was that they didn't really clearly state the rules/guidelines for nudity and what to do with my clothes. I'm sure it's all very simple to someone that has done it before, but it caused a little apprehension on my part.

The floatation room place has two different tanks.

Angie's is on the left, mine is on the right

Angie chose the one on the left because you could hear music inside it and you could also have a light inside (she turned it off after a few minutes). Additionally, the one on the right was larger so it's better for dudes.

The first 45 minutes were not very pleasant. One of the first sensations is a reminder of all of the little tiny cuts that one gets from day-to-day living. I had minor cuts from dry skin, rope burns from crossfit that morning, and other random scrapes that started to burn once the saltwater touched them. It took about 5 minutes or so for those to settle into the background. My next mistake was raising my hand in front of my eyes to see if I could see my hand. Well, my hand was wet with very salty water which dripped. So, I got saltwater in my eye. That was my first time reopening the hatch to try to wipe off the water.

Overall, I had a horrible time getting comfortable. The main reason was that it was too hot, so I was sweating and worrying about getting more salt water in my eyes. I kept opening the hatch throughout the session just to cool off. We found out later that Angie was too cool in her tank, so it would've been better had we switched.

To pass the time, I started to play with physics to just see what raising one arm out of the water would do in order to maintain a center of mass. I started to think that this was the closest I would get to feeling what floating in space is like. This feeling was further enhanced because of a small sliver of light that came in through the bottom of the hatch. At times, that light felt impossibly far away. In fact, at one point I went to open the hatch and was surprised that I got to it so quickly.

Eventually, I resigned myself to trying to relax again. I had tried some of the breathing techniques that I had learned in my Zen Buddhism class, but those didn't seem to work. I decided to try to count my heartbeats since this was exceedingly loud with my ears below the water line. I would count to 100 and then start over again. This finally got me in to some good solid relaxing. Unfortunately, it was too late in the game to get super relaxed since I figured it out too late.

All-in-all, I'm glad I did it, but I'm not going to be rushing off to go do it again.

Progress Update - Won't Do

In reviewing the list after several months, there are a few things I'll likely not complete, either because I don't really have a strong desire to follow through or will simply be beyond my reach right now.

Items I'll likely not complete:

• Volunteer 100 hours - I've managed to volunteer a grand total of 6 hours so far, which is 6 more hours than I normally do in a year, so that's something. To achieve this, it would mean volunteering 4 hours a week. While doable, I don't know if I'm willing to step outside my comfort zone that much yet.
• 4-pack abs - Yeah, despite how well I do with nutrition in general, I think my occasional binges prevent me from getting this.
• Build a simple orrery - don't really have the drive to do this right now.
• Not available publicly (NAP) - Not sure if I still want to go for these next few.
• NAP
• NAP

Progress Update - No Progress

Some things I've thought about but haven't really made any discernible progress. I am pretty confident that I'll be able to do these though.

Items with no real progress made:

• Milk a cow - my wife (the dairy buyer) informs me that this is actually going to be very difficult. I think I just need to reach out to some local organic dairy farms.
• Hot air balloon ride 
• Skydiving
• Spend $75 per person on a meal for me and Angie - hahahaha, what the heck, this one is becoming one over the hardest on my list. I thought in our trip to Seattle I could get this done, but couldn't find a single restaurant in Seattle where I could do this. It turns out that if you don't drink alcohol and don't eat meat, food isn't that expensive. I'm planning on switching this to "spend as much as possible on a meal".
• Visit a psychic
• Learn to lucid dream
• Artist's way for a month - Got the book as a gift but haven't even attempted to read it.
• Lift Angie overhead - Here's a picture of my brother/sister in law doing this. I have no idea what the deal is, I feel that I'm at least as strong as my brother-in-law, and Angie is about the same size as her sister. I should be able to do this, but I can't. I think there's some dark magic going on here.

Progress Update - In Progress

Items I've made progress on:

While I haven't completed many of my items, I have made good progress on quite a few.

• 50 mile ultramarathon - identified the race. Need to sign up.
• Visit top 10 things in Nebraska

1.   Chimney Rock

2.   Lake McConaughy

3.   Carhenge

4.   Pioneer Village - Done - We stopped here on the way to Colorado a few months ago, and it's pretty lame. It's about $15 per person and is rather boring.

5.   The Arch - Done - Stopped in the same trip as Pioneer Village. Again, this is fairly expensive ($20 per person or so), but it's actually pretty cool. They put on a good show and provide some interesting history.

6.   Sandhill cranes

7.   State Capital - Done

8.   Memorial Stadium - Done

9.   Joslyn Art museum - Done

10. Zoo - Done

• GoRuck Challenge - I've signed up for the May 30th event in Omaha with John Wrobel. I'm sure this experience will be a future blog experience.
• Catch up with 1 friend every month that I haven't talked to in 1+ years - Will make a separate blog post later 
• Try out 12 new churches (where "church" is whatever the equivalent is for that religion) - future blog post on this.
• Climb a 14er - Plans to climb Pikes Peak on Christmas Eve as long as my hiking partner doesn't back out because of a bum knee.
• Sensory deprivation chamber - Have an appointment scheduled for the 23rd at A New Spirit Spa. This is one of those things that would have been easier to do had I lived in a bigger city. There will definitely be a post after this.
• 200# squat - Been lifting a decent amount, not sure how close I am to this. Somewhat worried about this one.
• 250# deadlift - Similar to 200# squat, doing weightlifting but not sure where I'm at. Did a workout the other day that was about 60% of max for others which would put my max at 244#. We'll see in a month or so when I make a go for this.
• 60 push-ups - I could probably do about 30ish in a row. I do pushups before every TV show I watch and add 1 every week. I'm at 17 before each TV show. I actually don't watch a bunch of TV so I could make watching TV a part of the goal.
• Take a survival course - Just signed up today for a winter survival course on January 25/26.
• Hit 30 states visited (must have at least driven through them) and make map - Based on my definition, I only need to hit one more state. I'm planning on hitting that last one with my 50 mile ultra by doing one in Nevada.
• Take a cooking class - Again, would be easier if I lived in a bigger city. Found a place in KC that offers some good classes that I'll head down there next year.

Quite a few of these should be complete within the next 2 months which will be exciting.

Progress Update - Items completed

Well, Wednesday was my half birthday, so that means I should be halfway done with my list, right? Well, about that....

I'm breaking this into a series of posts broken down by: completed, progress, no progress, and likely won't complete.

Items completed:
Unfortunately I have completed significantly fewer than I would've liked.

• 150# bench press - Woo! I went in on a rest day at the gym and just wanted to see where I was at. I pretty easily got up to 2 reps of 157# which is solidly above my body weight (which was what the target weight was based on).
• Smile more - As simple as this sounds, I think this one deserves a separate blog post, stay tuned.
• Grow a beard - Done as best I can. Pictures to come.