Eric's 101 Goals

64. Watch 10 of the top 100 movies

2012-02-04T00:12:00.000-06:00

I just finished my 10th movie from this list. It is my 33rd out of the top 100. I am thinking I will try to make it to about 50 by the end of my 1001 days. I hadn't heard of a lot of those movies. Some were great while others were not so great.

29 goals down!

Bowling and the Museum

2012-02-02T15:39:00.001-06:00

I just noticed that I hadn't blogged about going bowling or going to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier. Luckily Melissa blogged about them and saved me some time.
We had a lot of fun and hope to do both activities again in the near future.

28 goals down!

104. Meet Christopher Paul Curtis

2012-01-26T10:40:00.001-06:00

I found out in December that one of my favorite "children's" authors, Christopher Paul Curtis would be coming to our school. I was pretty excited. He is the author of the book, "Bud, not Buddy." It is probably my favorite book out there. It is the first (and only) book to have won both the Newberry Award and the Coretta Scott King award. That is a pretty big deal.
If every guest author that our school had come visit was as engaging as Mr. Curtis I would enjoy our assemblies more. He was a fantastic storyteller.
Bud, not Buddy is about an African American boy named Bud who is out on his own in the 1930s and in search of his father. Each year I read the book to my students and each year they really get into it.

Danny Glover's brother?

Mr. Curtis is traveling around trying to get people excited about his new book, "The Mighty Miss Malone." It is a book that runs parallel with "Bud, not Buddy" as far as the time frame, some of the setting and a couple of the characters. I really liked it. It is hard for me sometimes to find books that I like to read that have girls as the lead character.

This wasn't a goal, but it was a big deal to me.

60. Get and solve a 6X6 Rubik’s cube

2012-01-19T21:08:00.001-06:00

I got this for Christmas. It is pretty close to the 4x4 and 5x5 with a few more things to get caught up by. As Matt told me, it ups my nerd status having this thing, but I enjoy it. My students at school think they are cool too. That's enough for me. I currently have about 5 or 6 of my students that can solve the regular cube with 4 or 5 that are fairly close to being able to solve it.

Check out this collection. Today at school I asked for everyone that had a cube to put theirs on the table in class. There are 23 cubes there and I had 7 kids that told me that they left their cube at home.

This is a picture of me with Luke, one of my students. He was one of the first to be able to solve the cube and he has been a big fan since he started. I am trying to show him how to solve some of the bigger ones. There are some complicated steps with them that either take a long time to teach, or I don't completely know how to explain. So we aren't there quite yet.

Here it is solved. There have been some steps that took me awhile to get down. After messing around a little bit with it I was able to scramble it around and get it right. There are faster ways to get it solved than I did, but I did get it done. I'm guessing if I scramble it up it would take me about 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to solve.

After I solved it, first I took a picture, then I started mixing it around in different patterns.

From start to finish for me I am guessing it will take me about a half hour of uninterrupted time. The world record is under 2 minutes! This guy is flying.

26 goals done!

20. Go Curling

2012-01-17T20:47:00.004-06:00

I had the opportunity to go curling a little over a week ago with a bunch of friends from church. My friend Tyler organized everything and did a fantastic job! Between organizing with the venue, the food, and putting teams and a schedule together I am sure it was quite a bit of work.

Curling is a sport that is a sensation about once every four years when the Olympics come around. I caught on to the craze two years ago and have been interested in trying it ever since.

Here is a view down on of the "sheets" or lanes as I would have called them before. It is amazing how far the 42 pound stones can go with just an easy slide.

Here are a few games in action.

I only added the picture below to point out the little white thing in my hand. Instead of wearing the special shoes that they have for curling we just put our foot over the plastic piece and we were able to glide fairly easily.

The form and face of a true amateur!

Our team. Me, Andy, Ryan and Jay. We had the hearts of champions, but we just couldn't play like them. Maybe next time.

Fantastic time all around. Great fun, great food, great memories. Hopefully we will do it again!

25 goals down!

8. Get bikes for the girls

2012-01-06T09:18:00.001-06:00

The girls got bikes for Christmas. See! They love them.

24 goals down!

70. Tuck point the front of the house where needed

2012-01-05T21:02:00.001-06:00

Just to show my excitement for getting this one done...I finished this one about 3 months ago.
This is one of those goals that I wrote down only because I didn't have much motivation to do it. Tuckpointing is basically taking the loose concrete/mortar out from between the stones and putting new stuff in. The reason I put this on my list was because we found a hole last year where some mice were getting in. Steel wool filled the cracks back then, but we needed something more permanent. Here are some pictures from the job.

You can see the spots that I have cleared the mortar down toward the lower parts.

It was so bad on that corner that I had to remove everything in order to set the rock right.

Hannah was the photographer for the day.

Hannah thought that I needed to include a picture of the mortar.

Exciting stuff huh!

23 goals down!

37. Donate blood using the Apheresis machine

2012-01-02T22:34:00.000-06:00

Ryan and I made it to the blood bank again. This time we did a double red cell donation. I have sat and watched many people get hooked up to the special machines and wondered how different it would be to donate using them. It was actually pretty nice. It only takes about 15 minutes longer to do it and you get double the reward that they are giving out. In our case that turned out to be $20 to Target. Nothing fantastic, but it is a nice little perk. Plus, you can only go ever 16 weeks between donations which makes me feel less guilty for not going more often.

Ryan didn't have this problem, but I felt like I was playing a video game the whole time. They have this screen to try to keep track of progress.

The part on the left of the screen had to stay in the middle while it was drawing blood. I kept having to go between squeezing hard to get my pressure up to being still as the platelets and plasma were being reentered into my bloodstream. It helped to pass the time.

The bonus at the end

I think this is going to be my new way of donating each time I go. It is much more efficient and they really seem to appreciate the double donation.

22 goals down!

49. Read 10 books for fun

2011-12-20T13:32:00.001-06:00

Who knew this one would go so fast. When I wrote my first list I would have thought reading 10 books was a completely unreachable goal. Now, I am enjoying reading.
You can see what I have read in this post. I haven't been doing a book report for each book I read. I just keep tabs on the left of the blog and then update the post. Besides my mom I know no one is really interested to have an updated book review on each book I finish. Enjoy!

21 goals down!

103. Try to understand the game of cricket

2011-12-08T10:39:00.001-06:00

In my classroom I have a lot of boys who are fans of the game cricket. When the weather was nicer I remember hearing some of them asking each other if they wanted to get together after school to play. I have been interested in the game for awhile and have tried to talk with them about some of the rules and how the game is played, but I can not for the life of me figure it out. I challenge anyone out there to read this article about a recent test match (a term I have picked up this year) and make any sense out of it. I had one of my students read it with me and try to explain it, but it was really difficult to get any of it. I am thinking that I am going to have to find a complete idiots guide or something like it to learn a little more. The game seems interesting. I try to compare it to baseball, but the similarities are so few. There are just so many terms and numbers that I have no connection to.
I have been invited out to watch a match in the spring. One of my students' Dad is part of a club in Naperville and he was more than willing to have me out to see how it goes. I think I might take him up on that.

10. Write Charlie a song

2011-12-05T20:38:00.000-06:00

Tonight I got to sing Charlie his new song. Just about every night we sing with the kids and we end the singing with the songs that I wrote for Hannah and Maddie. Charlie loves to sing those songs to the girls. He truly loves them! Sometimes we will hear Charlie singing those songs over the monitor. I didn't want to write him a song right away because in order to write a song like this I needed to learn his personality more. I started writing this about 5 weeks ago and tried on and off. Finally it is finished.

This song is just like the girls' song as it is to the tune of the ABC song.

Charlie, Charlie, you funny boy
Your thoughtful caring ways we enjoy
Trucks and balls you could play all day
Your big blue eyes light up your face
You tease and joke and love to play
You make us laugh throughout the day

Charlie was excited. I say give it a week or two and all three kids will have it down.

20 goals down!

61. Watch all of the Harry Potter movies

2011-11-14T10:55:00.000-06:00

Last spring I read all of the Harry Potter books. Over the summer I watched the first 7 Harry Potter movies. I had wanted to see the last movie at the theater but I didn't have the heart to ask Melissa to give up a precious date night to watch a movie that she didn't have ~~much~~ any connection to. It turned out to be the right choice. Friday was the release date of the DVD, and Melissa and I got to watch it together. Melissa was a trooper watching with me and trying to keep up with what was happening throughout the movie.
I was sad after finishing the books, but I have been revived with my finding of the Percy Jackson Series that has plenty of similarities to Harry Potter. I have read the first five books of that series. There are a couple more books to read from that series that I am sure that I will get to in the next year.
Who knew books could be exciting and interesting?

19 goals down!

68. Watch 5 movies that I watched growing up

2011-11-09T21:46:00.000-06:00

This is one of those sad to admit it publicly posts. Casey came over last week and we watched the movie Surf Ninjas. Who wouldn't love a movie that has this as one of the opening scenes?

It was work to find the movie. I was amazed it ever went to DVD. Netflix doesn't have it for streaming and our library didn't either. I finally tracked it down at the Arlington Heights library and requested it through interlibrary loan (what a deal!).

We kept with tradition and had some hot-air popcorn along with our own cartons of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Casey summed up the movie by saying that it was a good thing it was only an hour and twenty some minutes.

59. Make canned applesauce for the winter

2011-11-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

Making applesauce is something that I got a desire to do from the Hartman family. Sue made some fantastic applesauce and it always on hand in the freezer ready to go. Melissa and I have made it in the past, but it always seems that we eat it so fast and there just isn't enough so I wanted to try to make enough to last for a long time. This goal pushed me to want to make a lot of it.

This is what 80+ pounds of apples look like. It doesn't look very impressive, but there was no way I was going to take them out of the bag for a picture.
We quartered the apples then put them into a pot to soften them up.

After softening up the apples we put them into the food mill. I stood at that thing for a very long time. As you can see in the background, I turned the TV so I could watch the football games as I did it. It made the time go a lot faster.

Here's a close up of the action. This is when everything still looked clean. Things got pretty messy toward the end!

Here's the reward from all of our hard work. We made 36 jars.

While the process for making the applesauce is kind of long, it is so worth it. We have already said that we need to ration the applesauce that we have. I think we could go through a can every 3 days and not get too sick of it. It is nice having applesauce containing just apples and our own added ingredients. It makes side dishes at meals a lot easier.

18 goals down!

69. Make behind the garage usable space

2011-10-30T18:56:00.002-05:00

About a month after I began working on my goals I thought this goal was one that I was going to have to find a way to wildcard. Behind the garage has always been usable space. We have used it as a wasteland for all of our yard scraps. It was also an eyesore and a waste of quite a big area of land.

Here is a before picture:

My Dad decided that instead of watching for prices to come down on fire pits, that he was just going to get me one for my birthday. After some thinking we decided that there was no other place to put it than behind the garage. I decided to start clearing out some of that dirt to begin leveling the area.

Here is the progress I made in just a few hours of work. It hadn't rained in weeks so everything was dry and light. (sorry about the picture quality, the camera couldn't decide between sun and shade)

We had spent a lot of time looking for bricks in the past but could never find a great price on craigslist. The same day we decided to do this project Melissa found a listing for 400 bricks for $20. The guy selling the bricks couldn't count and actually had about 1100 bricks there. He just wanted to get rid of them so he was happy for me to take them. Four trips later here is what we had to work with!

How is this for a low cost steam roller! I went back and forth about a hundred times and it worked great!

This is what exhaustion looks like. After I had cleared a pretty big space we decided to widen the area. That may have been the most tiring job of the whole project.

A lot happened between the last picture and this one. I am sad to admit that I don't have any pictures of Ryan or my Dad working on this project. Without them I am pretty sure the bricks would still be stacked behind the garage and not in place. We laid most of the bricks in one night. Ryan and I laid bricks and my dad walked back and forth delivering bricks where needed. We called it a night at about 11 pm.

This picture doesn't do justice to the amount of "dust" that came up when I was cutting the bricks. I am pretty sure that in 30 years I will still be finding brick dust on some of my tools. It really was a mess! I used a concrete blade and put the bricks into the vice. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Messy, but not too difficult.

Sweeping sand into the spaces between the bricks.

The girls were able to have their birthday party outside with dinner on the new patio.

We had the area done in time for the movie night, but it wasn't totally done at that point. I mulched the back area (where the fire is), put in a path to go around the back side of the garage, and permanently put in the railroad ties around the bricks.

We had a group of guys over to watch the Bears/Lions game. The game didn't turn out so great, but the group that was together was a bunch of fun. I can't wait until next spring/summer to have more people over to watch movies and games.

I am soooooo glad we did this project. After it was done I think we ate dinner outside for an entire week. We cooked a number of those meals over the fire too. It was quite a bit of work, but all together it cost just over $100! Behind the garage went from a wasteland to a really nice area. I am 100% sure that this job would not have been done without having it on my list.

17 goals down!

68. Watch 5 movies that I watched growing up

2011-10-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

The other night I watched Last Action Hero on Netflix. I stumbled upon it while browsing the selection and knew it was the perfect movie to fit into the category of movies I remember from being a kid. I only watched this movie 2 or 3 times growing up but it is definitely one that I remember from when I was younger. I remember staying overnight with Matt at a friend's house and watching Arnold Schwarzenegger on Jay Leno or some late night talk show the night before the movie was released. We talked about going to see the movie and were pumped to see the noon showing (or something near there). We made sure that our friend's mom dropped us off early because it was the day of the release and was going to be the first showing of the movie and we wanted to make sure we could get a ticket for the premier. After arriving early we found that it was us and about four other people who wanted to see the movie. It turns out not too many others saw it either.
After watching it again I don't think it was too bad. It has a decent story line.
Next up, I put in an inter-library loan request out for Surf Ninjas. There are so many things in that movie I can not wait to make fun of again.

5. Take Maddie out on 5 dates

2011-09-25T22:08:00.002-05:00

Maddie and I got to go out to Oberweis last week. We both had a good time. She sure is getting big!

38. Find a new doctor and get a physical

2011-09-16T11:02:00.000-05:00

I got a physical yesterday. It wasn't the best day to do it for me health wise. I opened a box of kleenex in the morning and threw the box away before lunch time because it was empty. My allergies were out of control. I also had a headache. As I say, it wasn't the best day to get checked out.
Unfortunately the physical wasn't a very good one. My appointment was at 4:20 but I didn't see the doctor until 5:05. I sat in a room by myself waiting for most of that time.

I read everything in that room. I read the posters twice. I was so bored!

When I finally met with the doctor we talked mostly about my headaches and my allergies and he seemed to think they were pretty closely linked. He may be right. I'm hoping that my new routine with medicines will do the trick. He also gave me a prescription for a steriod that might help too. I sure hope so. These last three weeks have been rough. I am really wanting to find out what I need to do to have a regular day without having to consult more medications and endless kleenex. Hopefully this does the trick.
While it wasn't the most thorough of physicals, it was still a physical.
16 goals down!

45. Host a movie night outside

2011-09-11T21:40:00.001-05:00

After thinking about doing this for awhile we finally got around to having friends over for a movie night last night.

We made popcorn.

Melissa did a great job setting everything up.

The kids enjoyed playing on the swing set as we waited for it to get dark. I climbed up 20 ft. on the tree to hang a light. It lights up the swing set perfectly.

The kids enjoyed it so much. We watched Toy Story 3. They are already asking when we are going to do it again. I had such a great time. I want to do it again soon too.

I built a frame on one of our fences and used a canvas drop cloth as our screen. I don't know what the diagonal measurement but it was about 8 feet wide by about 6 feet high. It worked out well.

I'm ready to do it again. Maybe October 10th or 16th to watch the Chicago Bears' night games. We shall see...

15 goals down!

Update on going without cable TV

2011-09-08T10:40:00.000-05:00

We have made it a little over 2 months now without having Cable Television. It hasn't been terribly bad. We have used the library for movies and tv series' that we hadn't watched in the past. The library has been great because everything that we get from there is free. My brother Matt clued me into putting requests on books and movies and I have been using it pretty faithfully ever since.
For our normal viewing of shows we bought the Roku box and we pay for Hulu and Netflix service which is around $8 a month for each of them.
For netflix we are able to stream tv shows and movies to our TV. Most of their stuff that they have is older. If it is on DVD, then there is a chance that Netflix has it.
Hulu is a little different. They have old TV shows (Quantum Leap, Hill Street Blues, and older), but they also have up to date shows that play each week. They update within a day of the show being on and allow you to watch it pretty soon after it is broadcast. We haven't had our regular shows start to see how this will impact our viewing. I will update later to give the thumbs up or down on that one.
Through Hulu and Netflix we get tons of shows and movies that supplement what we used to watch in the past. It has been fun to see old shows (Inspector Gadget, Fraggle Rock...) that I used to watch when I was little. The kids don't appreciate those shows like I did when I was little. Maybe some day they will come along.
For live television we have an antenna in the attic that gets CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, WGN, PBS and a few more channels. That will allow us to watch shows coming up in the fall live if we choose. I will be able to watch most NFL games and follow along with my fantasy team.
All in all, I would say that it hasn't been too bad making the switch. We still do miss watching some of our cable shows, but I am in the process of ordering a cable to attach our computer to our TV. After we get that hooked up we should be able to get just about everything that we were missing.
I had thought about doing this for months/years before we actually did it. I am glad I put it on my list so I would be motivated to actually give it a try. Time will tell if we really have gotten rid of our monthly cable bill.

88. Tour Wrigley Field

2011-08-26T08:58:00.001-05:00

Melissa surprised me with a trip into Chicago on Saturday to tour Wrigley Field. I have been there plenty of times, but I was really excited to go and see some of the places normal people aren't allowed into. We made it to our 10:30 starting time for the tour and started walking up the ramps to the upper deck. We saw the press box and where the TV and radio announcers sit and watch the games from. After that we had a seat in the upper deck and heard about some of the history of Wrigley Field. It was during this time that the 10% chance of rain that was predected turned into a torrential downpour. It was a crazy storm and felt even more weird watching it from under cover. We even saw a skyscraper get hit by lightning. Sadly, we had to wait out the storm in the upper deck and missed out on a lot of the other parts of the tour. No locker room or trip out on the field for us.

I did have a good time. It was fun being in the stadium at a time when others weren't allowed.

Afterward Melissa and I went to The Cubby Bear for Lunch. This was definitely a good day!

Here is a before picture when we got to the upper deck.

Here is an after picture

We got to see Tony Campana and Starlin Castro take batting practice in the cage under the right field bleachers.

And to finish the day I got a delicious ice cream "cake" to finish off the day of celebration.

14 goals down!

96. Go Fishing

2011-08-16T18:02:00.000-05:00

I don't remember the last time I went fishing. I am going to guess it could be close to 20 years ago. It's been awhile.

While we were in North Carolina we took a turn at going fishing. It didn't go great. We caught no fish. The minnows were nipping at our bait, but that was about it.

Charlie enjoyed looking in the water for the little fish.

Josh saved the day by spotting crabs that were within reach of the nets. We grabbed 3 of them out of the water. Catching them involved sliding your head through the slats on the deck and reaching down into the water. At one point I thought I was stuck. But at least our fishing time wasn't a complete failure.

This is before when the kids still thought the crabs were pets or something to play with.

Josh butchering the crabs. There wasn't much to eat, but we did get a taste.

I still want to go fishing and actually catch a fish, but I am counting this one done.

13 goals down!

93. Visit an ocean

2011-08-16T17:36:00.000-05:00

We made it!

Last week we went to Topsail Island, NC with Melissa's family. We had a great time. Maddie loved playing in the sand and collecting shells. Hannah enjoyed making sand castles and playing in the water. Charlie just liked being around people.

Maddie collected shells the entire week.

Hannah wrote her name in the sand. She was so proud. It took several tries because the waves kept coming up and ruining her writing.

After driving for 11 hours we had to see the ocean. Maddie got right to work collecting shells.

Here we are looking through the houses to see the ocean when we arrived.

Thanks Moore family for a great week!

12 goals down!

47. Take someone to give their first blood donation

2011-07-25T19:25:00.002-05:00

This goal was fairly easy. If I wanted to do it 5 more times I would guess that I could do it. Any time someone finds out that I give blood regularly they say that they should do it too. I put this goal down to get me motivated to invite people to come along with me. Today Ryan came along with me for his first donation. While Ryan had volunteered for a blood drive when he was in college or high school, he has never given. He said the reason he wants to go most is because he wants to know what type of blood he has. Whatever it takes I guess. He did have some queezy thoughts about giving, but got over it and did a great job. Someone in need will be very happy that he made it out.

Ryan getting his second drink before he even gave blood!

I think that I am a magnet for special days at the blood bank. I have been to Twilight day, Harry Potter day, and today it was Parrot Head day. That meant that when we walked in we were greeted with a lobby that was more full than I have ever seen before.

Its tough to discreetly get a picture of a room full of people.

There were 14 people filling out paper work or waiting to go back to give blood. Ryan asked how many normally are in the lobby when they don't have promotional days. The answer is that it is about 12 or 13 less. Here is why:

Check out that loot! Here's the run down of what we got on our visit:

Drinks served while waiting to be screened.

Free t-shirt that I will probably only wear to do yard work.

Oberweis gift card for a free quart of ice cream.

Cheeseburger from Culver's.

Nonalcoholic margaritas after donating.

All the snacks we could want while waiting to be discharged. I drank a Coke, and ate a bag of Sun Chips, a bag of Cheez-its and a brownie.

Lastly, because it was Ryan's first visit, we both got to cash in on the bring a friend promotion. Ryan and I will both be getting $25 American Express gift cards in the mail.

I had to let Ryan know that this is not a typical visit. Normally you just get the snacks and maybe will get lucky with a gift card to Oberweis.

I'm glad Ryan went with me. Hopefully we can go again. Having someone with you is a lot more fun than going alone. I'm eligible to go again any day after September 19th. Is anyone interested in going?

11 goals done!

77. Volunteer with an organization in Aurora

2011-07-22T10:45:00.001-05:00

Last night Melissa and I had a chance to go over to Hesed House to help with dinner. Hesed House is a homeless shelter that provides meals and "beds" for the homeless of Aurora. Our church has one night a month to serve and friends of ours have been going there for awhile and encouraged us to go and help.

When we got there we helped prepare dinner. We cut a bunch of veggies and ran food back and forth to the serving line.

As dinner was being served I was up in the men's dormatory to help check people in and show them their beds for the night. The room that the men slept in was a big open room that had nothing but small matresses on the floor. For the beds, imagine matresses that are on beds at a campground then go one step below that. There wasn't much padding in them. There were 90 beds on the floor. I was amazed that many guys just came in, got their bedding and went to sleep. It was 7:45 at night but I guess after a long day of wandering around town laying in a bed in front of a fan could be what they had been thinking about the entire day. The men were very meticulous about their beds. They tucked everything in and made everything look as neat and clean as we would at home when company is coming over. This was their space and they were proud of it.

I had a good time. My eyes were opened. I drive by Hesed House often, but have never been inside the doors. There are some crazy people in there, but for the most part it is a big group of people that are looking for a break and are struggling to figure out how to manage their lives. I definitely want to go back and help again. Thanks Mom for watching the kids so we could go out.

10 goals down!

101. Play golf at Edgebrook

2011-07-18T21:44:00.001-05:00

Today wasn't the most ideal day at 90+ degrees, but Casey and I still made it out.

Edgebrook is a course that I played a lot back when I played during high school. It seemed like each season we played there at least 3 or 4 times for matches or tournaments. It had been awhile since I had played there and I wanted to go back. I figured adding this to the list would ensure that I would make the drive out to Sandwich to play one more time.

As you can tell, no one else felt like playing today. It is 2:00 and there were only about 10 cars in the parking lot. That includes employees and the people who were eating in the restaurant. Needless to say, the course was pretty empty. Empty enough that I didn't even have to sneak into the trees to go to the bathroom. We saw only three other groups of golfers in our entire time out on the course. It was wonderful.

I'm glad I went out there. The course was in really good shape and was just as I remembered. I didn't play great, but for how often I get out to play I really don't care how I end up as long as I can get out.

Goal #9 done!

3. Take kids in bathing suits to Millennium Park

2011-07-17T23:08:00.002-05:00

We had a really good time going into Chicago yesterday. As Melissa wrote, we visited with Mike and Josh while we were there. When Melissa and I were in Millennium Park two years ago I remember seeing the splash park and thinking that I really wanted to bring the kids down to play there when they were old enough. The girls had a blast, but I think Charlie matched them for enjoyment.

Charlie sucking in his gut

No holding back here!

We had a great time!

8 Goals done!

49. Born to Run

2011-07-15T15:33:00.000-05:00

I just finished this great book:

It is about the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico and their incredible ability to run for incredibly long distances and time. It is written by Christopher McDougall. He was originally going to learn about the tribe, but ended up running a 50 mile race with the tribe a year after visiting. Matt, I highly recommend it. You can skip chapter 28 which is 30 pages that talks mostly about the evolution of man and how our bodies are designed to run. This chapter was very overly scientific and didn't really flow with the story that flowed through the rest of the book.
The story focused a lot on barefoot running and then became an ad for Vibram Running shoes. They look ridiculous.

That part of the book wasn't too rough but it got me really wanting to at least try those things out. After reading nearly 300 pages it made me at least interested.
One book for fun down. Thanks to Melissa's brother Mike for the recommendation.

4. Take Hannah out on 5 dates - Take 2

2011-07-07T07:46:00.000-05:00

Melissa came up with a really good idea to get our girls to be more helpful and more courteous to others. She came up with a system of putting a cotton ball into a jar every time we catch them doing good things. Yesterday both girls succeeded in filling their jars to the top. I took them to the bank where they love to go because they usually get suckers from the teller. I told them that I needed to go and that I would take them and they got so excited. They were jumping up and down and excited because they would be getting suckers. When we got there the girls did not get suckers. They were not offered by the teller but the girls didn't say anything about it. When we got outside I immediately bent down and told them that they both were going to get a cotton ball because they didn't ask for a sucker. They were so excited because they both knew that would be the cotton ball that would make each of their jars full. They each were able to select their reward and they both picked to go to McDonalds. Maddie went to dinner tonight with Melissa and Hannah went to lunch with me. Here is a quick video of Hannah and my date together:
Disclaimer - This is not a typical meal.

We both had a good time. I asked Hannah what she wanted to do next time she got her jar filled and she told me she wanted to do the same thing. I am hoping to convince her that she can do something else like go to the zoo or children's museum. That sounds like more fun and healthier to me.

75. Build deck on upstairs porch

2011-07-02T21:03:00.001-05:00

We have a deck outside of Charlie's room that has had a ton of potential, but we have never made the efforts to upgrade it into usable space.

Here is what it looked like before:

Do not let the railing upstairs deceive you. There is nothing worthwhile up there. All there was up there was a 15 inch step down to "floor." The railing was put up by the previous owners in the weeks before listing the house in an effort to make it look like it is usable space. It isn't usable at all. The roof is slanted and the railing was barely 2 feet high.

My dad came over and was an incredibly huge help in getting everything started and getting it on the right track. He had some great ideas for how to get things leveled off on the slanted roof. The thing that was not going in our favor is that my Dad is an expert in making heavy furniture. That was not what we needed for this project. We made a lot of progress last weekend with only the railing and about half of the flooring to get screwed down. My Dad was a huge help!

Dad doing what he is best at.

Leveling the frame

Charlie eager to help out

Two guys enjoying working together

This project took just less than a week to get finished. That is a record for me on a project of this size. Between taking classes and the deck being right outside of Charlie's room, it was tough to find the time to get it all finished up.

Three little kids happy to play on their new deck

Finished product!

This is something that should have been done years ago. It is so great to have this space.

7 goals done!

67. Get rid of Cable TV

2011-06-24T21:39:00.001-05:00

I just got back from the Comcast service store and have officially gotten rid of our cable boxes and cable service!

As I wrote a little while back, I tried to make an antenna. It failed. I am sure that there are many reasons for the failure but I had hope just based on the comments that were given after the video.

One thing that we did in preparation for not having cable was to record as many kids shows as we could on our Tivo. We filled it up with Mickey Mouse Club, Imagination Movers, Word World and other shows that they love to watch before bedtime. Hopefully we will find some other shows on regular TV or through another online service.

I decided to try to get the amplified antenna again and to put it up in the attic to see how reception would be. Guess what, success! We get about 40 channels through the antenna to both televisions. Most of them are useless (foreign language/shopping), but it is still fun to say we get that many channels for free. I have one antenna in the attic with a splitter attached to it. From there I ran a cable to the television in the basement and to the television in the living room. We get CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, WGN, PBS and a bunch of other channels, all in HD.

The next thing we did is we ordered a Roku XD. It finally came in the mail today. The Roku is sort of like having another computer. It connects Hulu, Netflix and Pandora to our TV. There are a bunch of other "channels" in Roku, but that is as far as I have explored so far. Through those services we get access to tons of movies and tv shows. We have a free month subscription to both (after it is about $8 a month) so we intend to see what features we like in both services then we will probably see if we want to keep both or just go down to done of them.

I will post again my progress in a month to share how things are going.

6 goals down!

50. Read a book about another culture

2011-06-22T15:15:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading the book CultureShock! India.

I chose to read about this culture because over the past few years the Indian population in my school has grown so much. I think in each of the last 3 or 4 years I have had nearly 10 students of Middle East or Indian decent. Because of the growth we have had I figured I should learn more about their culture. This book is designed more for the tourist traveling to India, but I was able to learn quite a few things that helped to explain some of the manerisms and ways that the people of the Indian culture carry themselves. I am happy I read this one, but I think I am done reading "tourist" books for awhile. I think that they are only fun to read if you plan on going to that place.

Goal #5 done!

31. Kick a 25 yard field goal

2011-06-20T21:39:00.001-05:00

Tonight I took the kids out on a bike ride over to West Aurora's practice field to try to kick a 25 yard field goal. It was not too pretty. I played soccer back when I was 8. I am not much of a kicker.

Maddie got a pretty good action shot

I probably kicked about 30 times and made 4. I made field goals from 18, 21, 25 and 30 yards. The thing I didn't think about was that every time I missed I would have to run 25+ yards to go get it. Hannah and Maddie were helpful at the end, but they would only go get it if I raced them to get it.

I am really happy I put this on the list. As I said, I am not much of a kicker. I still am not. Now I have more of an understanding and feel of what it is like to kick a field goal. Hopefully I will be able to watch some NFL games this fall to appreciate it more. I even have an appreciation of people running at me to block it as I was trying to kick quickly before the kids got in the way.

Goal #4 Down!

41. Play Tennis

2011-06-15T23:03:00.000-05:00

Tennis is not my favorite sport. It isn't second, third or fourth favorite. I like to play tennis because it gives me a chance to spend time with friends and have a good time while getting some exercise in. I am not very good. We play just good enough to not look silly to people walking by the courts.

Tonight we had a chance for a few of us to get out to play. The weather didn't look like it would cooperate, but we were lucky enough to sneak in some time between the rainy time.

Hopefully we can get a few more nights in like tonight. Hopefully we can get together consistently throughout the summer. I look forward to progressing toward finishing this goal.

102. Give Sammy a Haircut

2011-06-13T14:27:00.001-05:00

This is not a goal that I had written down, but it was definitely goal worthy! It was a challenge, it was positive, and it was an experience.

Sammy is our 6 going on 7 year old pup. She was our first child and we love her dearly! She was sick last month to the point of thinking we might lose her. She has gotten sick three separate times with the same illness and we are lucky that we have found a blend of medications that have healed her each time. I thought about putting this on the list originally, but at the time of completion I still didn't know how healthy she is. I am happy to say that it does look as though she is in the clear.

I have tried a couple of times to cut Sammy's hair but have been unsuccessful each time. The first time I just went at it with scissors which was a complete failure. I cut her a couple of times and nothing was even. My mom used to cut our dog Friskie's hair with scissors, but it didn't work for me at all. The second time I tried was with the clippers I use for my hair. It didn't work at all because her hair is far too thick to cut with regular clippers.

For years I have thought about cutting her hair in order to save some money, but I had never had the courage to go any farther. I decided to take the step to order dog grooming clippers to have a go at cutting her hair. When I had searched before I had seen that good clippers could go up to the hundreds of dollars. I wasn't up for quite that level of commitment. I did a number of google searches and found a few that were just over a hundred dollars. I was close to buying one pair but the cost still seemed a bit steep for what I was willing to spend. Finally I stumbled on a post about this pair. I went over to Amazon and found the comments/reviews to be overwhelmingly positive. Out of 66 reviews only one person gave it 1 out of 5 stars. On the opposite side, 61 of them were either 4 or 5 stars. Because of that response and the fact that they were the cheapest ones I had seen I figured this was the set I was going to try.

I got them in the mail yesterday but didn't cut her hair until today. It came with a training video that I watched with the girls when they got up from their naps. They were interested for the first 8 minutes but after that the were ready for me to put something more interesting on. I learned quite a bit. The clippers are cordless which is a feature I didn't know I would appreciate so much until grooming. It is difficult enough getting around legs and in all the different areas without adding a cord in for extra difficulty.

Now for the haircut. I have never quite realized how much hair Sammy has on her when she needs a haircut. I know it is long and that she has a thick coat, but holy cow! Sadly I didn't have the foresight to have taken a before picture to show what this looked like when it was on her. She was definitely in need of a cut.

Her face an paws still need some attention, but at the point she is at now, I am comfortable. She was tired of me cutting her hair and had had enough. I was proud that she made it as far as she did.

If I am being honest, I know that this is no professional grooming job, but it is much better than spending the usual amount that we do every 2 or 3 months. Now I can cut it any time Sammy needs it. This is going to be so great for summers!

43. Hang out with friends from college

2011-06-12T20:41:00.001-05:00

Scott and I have been friends for a long long time. We went to school together from first grade all the way through being roommates for four years in college. Needless to say, he's a good friend.
He and his wife Sarah came over last night. It is always fun when they come over because it is obvious that they care about our kids and think that they are the funniest people on earth. The interactions between them are quite funny.

I hope I just blew out the some candles. I am with the cake and Scott is on the far right.

Scott is so happy to graduate!

I'm sure we will get together plenty of more times before the 1001 days is over.


Me (top left) Scott (fourth row down far right)

Two more Judson friends to hang out with.

71. Put lighting up in the garage

2011-06-10T22:53:00.000-05:00

This goal wasn't particularly difficult. It just required some time and creativity. Also, I had to spend about $4 for a few parts that I didn't already have just sitting around. I had the lights (I removed them from a room that we took out in the basement). I also had the switch, plug and wires to do the job. All I needed was two electrical boxes and a few connectors to fasten the wires to the boxes. That was it.

This task is one that should have happened a long time ago. That is why I added it to my list of goals. If it wasn't on the list it still wouldn't be done. We do not have electricity wired to the garage. Instead we have a heavy duty extension cord running to the garage to supply all of the electricity. I would like to have it hard wired, but time, money and a convenient way to do it are all not on our side. So we just have the extension cord right now. At least we aren't set up like this guy!

Worst Automatic Garage Door Opener Installation Ever - Watch more Funny Videos

I thought about this video during most major decisions that I made during this project. I don't want to be that guy!

Just being in there during the day with the light on makes a huge difference. This will make working on projects out there be so much better. I can work out there deep into the night with no need to worry about having a head lamp on or to figure out where to place the one spotlight that I have.

Goal #3 Done!

61. Harry Potter!

2011-06-09T22:55:00.000-05:00

Two years ago I read the first of the Harry Potter books. During this past school year I decided that I wanted to read the rest of the series. 4,107 pages later, I can tell you that I have finished the whole series. I completed the last book in April.

I am now doing a Harry Potter movie marathon. Just in the past week I have watched the first 4 that I got from the library. The next three are also there, and I will have the pleasure of watching the last one on the big screen. I have just over a month to get through the next three movies before heading to the theater. That sounds easy, but I start up classes on Monday morning and I am pretty sure my "free" time will be going to reading and writing rather than sitting watching the battle of Harry Potter and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I'm sure I will find the time though. It sounds like a perfect procrastination tool.

67. I made a TV antenna

2011-06-08T13:42:00.002-05:00

Update:

I planned on working on the deck outside Charlie's room today, but the rain from last night, the threat of rain today, and nap schedules made it not as possible. Instead, I spent time going between the attic and the basement running wires through the house in order to try my antenna out up in the basement. Guess what...We got 30 channels! That's way better than the 1 we got from the other antenna and the 0 we got from having the antenna I made in the living room. After Charlie gets up I might try messing with it a little more to see of the angle can be adjusted and if it can get any better. It is still a little grainy which makes watching not as fluid. After that is fixed, bye, bye cable bill! At least for awhile.

Today I started to make my attempt for getting rid of cable. Anyone who has knowledge of our house knows that we have a 25-30 ft. television antenna outside of our house. It is old, but it has the same basic setup as the roof antennas sold today. Sadly, when I hooked the TV up to it we only got 6 channels. ABC was the only one of those six that we would watch with regularity. None of the other big ones came in through that antenna. Upon some research, I found that when looking at the antenna we currently have, there are things missing or have fallen off of our current one. Because of this I am now on a quest to find an antenna that works.

This was my attempt.

Here is what I used to make it.

I used the plans from this video and substituted in copper wire instead of wire coat hangers.

And to answer the video's question at the beginning, yes, I did buy one of the amplified ones. It didn't get one channel. I picked this one because it has a ton of views and most of the comments are positive with the responders saying that they had success with their projects.

Sadly, I only got two analog channels that came in so fuzzy I had no idea what the channels actually were. I am going to experiment with running cables into the attic and seeing if that would do the trick. My friend Jay has his antenna in his attic and says that it comes in really clear from there with not too much trouble.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. I really hope I can find a way to make this work. It would be so great to eliminate the cable bill from our monthly expenses.

4. Take Hannah out on 5 dates

2011-06-08T00:00:00.001-05:00

The temperature got very close to 100 degrees today. There was no excuse to not go to the pool. Except if you are Maddie and have a temp around 103 degrees(she went to bed with it normal. We will see how it looks in the morning). Because of that Melissa suggested that I take Hannah to the pool. She needed it. She had a ton of energy and needed to get out and do something, so that is what we did. I put together some video clips from our trip. There are no actual pool shots with Hannah or me in them. It was tough enough keeping track of her with how ever many hundreds of people were there today. She enjoyed playing in the lazy river, playing in the sprinkler park, and jumping into the pool which is one of her new favorite things to do.
Here is the video clip:

The first clip is in the driveway, the second part is walking into the pool and the last one is leaving to go home. I love Hannah's line at the end, "I went swimming, but I didn't go with my sister, just Daddy/Hannah, and nobody else." She had a great time!

Fun day paddling down the river

2011-06-05T23:08:00.000-05:00

Today Casey and I had a chance to canoe down the Fox River in the Mid-American Canoe Race. This the second year that we have done it and I hope there are many years to come. During the day Casey mentioned to me that a few years down the line we will be racing with Josh and Charlie. That sounds like one of the coolest things in the world to me!

We started our day at my house to load the canoe up on the van and drive up to the starting line in St. Charles. After dropping the boat off we drove back home and walked to the finish line which is conveniently located about 3 blocks from our house. From there a shuttle took us back up to St. Charles. I don't know if Casey and I had our math wrong on travel time or if we are just more efficient in getting around but we got to the starting line about an hour before our start time.

We watched some of the other teams go off and picked up some things to do and things not to do. There was a team of two guys who both looked to be about twenty years old and most likely were entering the water for their first time ever. They crashed into the shore twice, switched seats once and almost tipped multiple times all in just the first 50 yards. It was ~~hilarious~~ painful to watch.

The best part of the race is a tough call between two times. The first would be when we came upon the Red Oak Observatory Deck and had our wives and kids cheering for us. It was so awesome to hear their little voices carrying so far over the water. They were so happy. The second place was the finish line where we were cheered on to the finish line by our number one fans once again.

We are the guys in the white boat not strategically blocking the middle of the river

Overall we did pretty well. We beat our time from last year by a minute or two. All in all it was a good day. We came in 10th in the field of the Men's Competitive division (out of 27). I am very proud of that. We narrowly edged the guys that took 11th place by three-tenths of a second. I'm glad our fans were cheering so much for us at the finish line!

Trying to look good and finish strong in front of our fans!

Walking up this hill a lady asked me, "You guys been doing some canoeing?" I had about twelve possible smart-aleck comments that I wanted to say back to her. Two guys just walking down the street carrying a canoe.

After the race we had to walk the canoe back home. It always makes for an interesting time carrying a canoe through city areas that aren't used to seeing a canoe!

What a great day!

15. Get another seat added to my bike

2011-06-04T20:27:00.004-05:00

When I wrote this post two weeks ago I didn't realize that an anonymous person would send a seat to our house for us. I anticipated this one taking a little longer to get done, but I guess someone wanted us to have it in time for the summer to begin. We are very grateful for that.

We have gone on three rides with it already. Charlie and I rode down to the bank last week, I took all three kids for a ride on the trail by the river to throw rocks and look for ducks and geese, and tonight Melissa joined the four of us for a ride around the neighborhood. We had fun! It wasn't too much of a strenuous ride (I got up to 34 mph on the way home from work on Wed!) but it was very enjoyable. Melissa did point out how much of a slacker she looked like with me riding three kids and her leisurely peddling by herself down the street. I'm hoping that we can do more of these types of rides over the summer.

Charlie has found that he can rest his head on the rest in front of him. It would be really cute except that he wants to rest his head on the side with part of it on my arm. It makes riding a bit difficult, but I don't mind it to give him a chance to rest.

I am so excited for this summer to get into swing so I can take the three kids on rides around town.

Two goals down!

56. Get a perfect score in Place the State

2011-06-03T22:50:00.001-05:00

During my break today I had a few minutes to spare so I snuck into the computer lab to have my hand at Place the State. For those that don't know, or haven't figured out already, Place the State is a geography game where you are given the outline of the state and you need to click and drag it into place on the United States map. In my six years of playing this game the best I have ever done is a score of being 1 mile off. I have never gotten a perfect score. I don't know how many times I have sat and played the game for 20 to 30 minutes and not gotten a perfect score. There is a little wiggle room in getting it right, but if you are off by too much on one of them it will penalize you and perfection is lost.

For my game I played (and won) today I started with Pennsylvania, then was given Nebraska and West Virginia. It was right after I had gotten those two right that I knew I would be in good shape. The middle states are by far the hardest (obviously) because you have no borders to match them up with. After having those two in place I had a frame of reference and it was fairly smooth sailing from there. I was actually pretty nervous that something would go wrong. It seemed almost too easy.

After trying and failing so many times I expected this one to be a little bit harder. Oh well. I will take it!

One goal down!

Eric's 101 Goal List - Second Time Around

2011-06-03T08:11:00.096-05:00

I am doing this again. After having a lot of fun and success in my first time around, I decided that I wanted to do this all over again. I have learned from my first time of success and failures and have put together a pretty good list of things that I want to do over the course of the next 1001 days. The end date for finishing these goals is February 28, 2014. Thanks to everyone for your support and for keeping me accountable!

Family Goals (6/18)
1. Plant a tree
2. Host a gingerbread party for the kids
~~3. Take kids in bathing suits to Millennium Park~~ Done 7/16/11
4. Take Hannah out on 5 dates
   - Go Swimming 6/7/11
     - McDonalds 7/6/11
5. Take Maddie out on 5 dates
   - Oberweis 9/22/11
6. Take Charlie out 5 times
7. Go out in the country to look at stars
8. ~~Get bikes for the girls~~ Done 12/31/11
9. Go ice skating
~~10. Write Charlie a song~~ Done 12/5/11
11. Take the kids out on the canoe
12. Make wood toys with the kids
~~13. Go to Navy Pier Children’s Museum~~ Done 1/13/12
14. Catch fireflies
~~15. Get another seat added to my bike~~ Done 6/4/11
16. Make annual family videos
~~17. Go bowling as a family~~ Done 1/8/12
18. Go to a Cubs game as a family

Health/Physical Goals (2/18)
19. Go Mountain Biking
~~20. Go curling~~ Done 1/8/12
21. Go on a 50 mile bike ride
22. Triathlon
23. Canoe the rest of the Fox River
24. ½ marathon under 2 hours
25. Swim 1 mile
26. Beat my best 5K time (22:20)
27. Run a mile in under 6:07
28. Go snowshoeing
29. Finish P90X program
30. Race up the Hancock
~~31. Kick a 25 yard field goal~~ Done 6/20/11
32. Run a 5K with friends
33. Do the Crane pose for 20 seconds
34. Ride 1500 miles on my bike (316/1500)
35. Ride from work to home in under 15 minutes 10 times (4/10)
36. Do 20 pull-ups Best (5/20)

Health Goals (2/4)
~~37. Donate blood using the Apheresis machine~~ Done 12/31/11
~~38. Find a new doctor and get a physical~~ Done 9/15/11
39. Drink no pop for 3 straight months
40. Go without high sugar foods for a month

Goals with friends (2/7)
41. Play tennis 10 times (3/10)
42. Do a camping trip with friends
43. Hang out with 3 friends from college
   - Scott
44. Do a music video with Matt
~~45. Host a movie night outside~~ Done 9/10/11
46. Host a poker night
~~47. Take someone to give their first blood donation~~ Done 7/25/11

Educational Goals (3/9)
48. Read the Bible (1/66)
~~49. Read 10 books for fun~~ (15/10)
~~50. Read a book about another culture~~ Done 6/22/11
51. Learn a scale on the clarinet
52. Read 10 of the top 100 novels (5/10)
53. Read Plato’s republic
54. Learn CPR
55. Finish my dissertation
~~56. Get a perfect score in Place the State~~ Done 6/3/11

Food Goals (1/3)
57. Make pasta from scratch
58. Make a meal with all main ingredients from a Farmer’s Market
~~59. Make canned applesauce for the winter~~ Done 10/23/11

Entertainment Goals (4/9)
~~60. Get and solve a 6X6 Rubik’s cube~~ Done 1/19/12
~~61. Watch all of the Harry Potter movies~~ Done 11/11/11
62. Watch a movie at a Drive-in
63. Watch all 6 Star Wars movies (0/6)
~~64. Watch 10 of the top 100 movies~~ (10/10) Done 2/3/12
65. Go to Hollywood Palms
66. Watch 10 classic (loosely interpreted) movies (4/10)
~~67. Get rid of Cable TV (at least try it out)~~ Done 6/24/11
68. Watch 5 movies that I watched growing up (4/5)

Things to make goals (4/7)
~~69. Make behind the garage usable space~~ Done 10/30/11
~~70. Tuck point the front of the house where needed~~ Done 1/5/11
~~71. Put lighting up in the garage~~ Done 6/10/11
72. Make a planter for the front of the house
73. Make a baseball bat
74. Sew something
~~75. Build deck on upstairs porch~~ Done 7/2/11

Places or Adventure Goals (5/26)
76. Go to a High School Play
~~77. Volunteer with an organization in Aurora~~ Done 7/21/11
78. Go to a Fair
79. Visit 10 stores/buildings in downtown Aurora (3/10)
80. Go up in the Leland Tower to overlook Aurora
81. Milk a cow
82. Go to a State/National Park for a day
83 Go go-carting
84. Visit Conference Point
85. Go to Bears Training Camp
86. Go for a ride-along with the police
87. Take the bus somewhere in town
~~88. Tour Wrigley Field~~ Done 8/20/11
89. Shoot a gun
90. Start a fire using magnesium and flint
91. Go to 2 new baseball parks (0/2)
92. Volunteer for a race
~~93.~~ ~~Visit an ocean~~ Done 8/6/11
94. Go to an ESPN radio show
95. Go to a new disc golfing course
~~96. Go fishing~~ Done 8/10/11
97. Bike to Wrigley for a game
98. Drive a motorized boat
99. Pull a fire alarm
100. Learn how to whistle using my fingers
~~101. Play golf at Edgebrook~~ Done 7/18/11

Fish?

2011-05-31T21:36:00.001-05:00

Tonight Melissa made a good dinner, but I wasn't too excited about it. I was told to enter eating dinner with an open mind. When given those directions keep your expectations low. I would put this post in the category of trying something new that I normally wouldn't eat.


Maddie had the only plate that had food on it when I thought about taking a picture. She wasn't a big fan.

We ate tilapia. I can not remember the last time I willingly ate fish. When trying to consider when it was the only time I could think about eating fish I kept remember skinning and de-boning fish at my grandparents house after they had gone fishing up in Wisconsin. That had to have been nearly 20 years ago. I remember not being a huge fan back then either. Beside that time, I can't remember eating it.
That said, dinner wasn't too bad. I didn't have the most of open minds as Melissa was carrying it out to the table tonight and all I could smell was the fishy scent coming off the food.

Everything eaten except for the cream cheese dip Melissa made for the fish.

I did keep the open mind Melissa asked for and I finished the whole thing. I even told Melissa that she could make it again. Not too bad.

Because of making my first list, I didn't have as tough of a time trying out something new for dinner tonight. Thanks Melissa!

Next list

2011-05-30T14:55:00.000-05:00

Who knew when I stumbled upon this idea 3 years ago that I would have put together one list and carried through on almost completing it. Matt and I have decided to have a go at it again. I am putting the finishing touches on my next list as is Matt. I can not wait to post the goals and get them started! It was a lot more fun putting the second list together because I now have a feel for what 1001 days looks like and what type of things can be done in that time frame. I set some lofty goals this time, but nothing like learning a new language as I did last time. I also tried to target goals that would benefit my family and kids more because as they get older there are a lot more things that I can do with them that I couldn't have even dreamed about 3 years ago.
I am Hopeful that some time this week I will be able to get started.
Thanks again to everyone who reads this blog for all of your encouragement to get this ambitious list done.

Looking for a new child seat

2011-05-24T13:04:00.000-05:00

The last few days I have been spending a lot of time looking for a child carrying seat to attach to my bike. Last spring Melissa found a trailer for me to take the girls around town in. I used it almost every day last summer. We went to the bank, grocery store, down the bike path, to parks, just about everywhere we could run errands to. I usually took them out in the mornings when Charlie was sleeping which allowed Melissa some "free" time at home with a quiet house.

That plan worked great last year. This year is turning into a different story. All three kids are fully aware of where the other kids are and what they are doing. If any one of them know that the other is leaving they get jealous and it makes for an interesting time at home with the remaining child. That is why I am looking for an addition to my bike so I can tote all three kids around. The one I am most interested in is this one:

It is a Weeride Kangaroo Child Bike Seat. It looks funny, but I would feel better about using this kind of carrier over using one that would go behind my seat. Plus, I would have to remove the rack on my bike that I use a lot, and it would restrict the view that the two kids in the trailer would have. Come on someone on Craig's List or Naperville Yard Sales, please post one for sale at a good price so I can get rolling!

Man I can not wait for some summer rides down by the river. We feed the ducks and "skip" rocks. One good memory of last summer is when Maddie carried a big rock to the edge of the river, threw it just short of making it into the river and looked at me and said, "I missed." I look forward to making more memories just like that this summer. Hopefully this year she will have the strength and ability to get the rock into the water.

101. Go out and celebrate finishing 100 goals

2011-05-21T17:04:00.001-05:00

I know I didn't finish the 100 goals (yet). We had a garage sale this weekend and got rid of a lot of stuff. We were lucky enough this weekend to have my Mom come down to hang out with us for the weekend to help out with the kids.

With her here we were able to go out with friends to see a movie. While this may not be a huge deal, for Melissa and me it is. Since the girls were born 3 1/2 years ago I have gone to the movie theater twice. If that isn't a celebration, I don't know what is.

To break the movie streak we saw Bridesmaids. If you can get passed the language and a few awkward parts it was a pretty good movie.

It was so nice to go out with friends and not worry about what was going on at home. Thanks again Mom for watching the kids. Even if you did have what you called, "The worst ten minutes of your life."

Also, as I mentioned before, I ran Tecumseh Marathon and the Birmingham Marathon without using a wildcard on them. I know I didn't consider it earlier, but I am making it count for running a 5K in 20:30 and for the High School Play. Both of those weren't able to be finished due to scheduling, sickness, and lack of motivation.

I know my time is over, but it is just too hard to have a list not finished. I will get this list finished, plus, I plan on finishing up my next list and get going on it. I currently have 70 some goals. If you want to try your hand at making a list and trying to get them done you will find that after you get somewhere around 25 written down they start to get really tough to come up with. If you are really serious about putting a list together that you want to do Matt has a post on how to make a good list that you will be able to check things off from and also to have fun while doing. I'm trying to get creative and trying to really find things that I want to do. It isn't a good feeling having a list of things to do that you don't really want to complete. That happens too often in other parts of our lives. This is supposed to be fun right!

Again, Thanks everyone for looking at this blog. I write this stuff for myself and use the blog to keep track of my goals. For those of you who read and comment I really appreciate you! Without you, I know the accountability to get my goals would have been lost and I would have most likely have stopped at around 30. Thanks!

1001 Days Done!

2011-05-18T13:11:00.000-05:00

Today marks the last day of my goals. I have truly enjoyed these past 1001 days. When I started I had no idea that I was going to become a doctoral student. That changed a lot. I also didn't know we would have another child. That gave much less free time. When I think of what my life was like when I started to where I am now, a lot has changed! I am happy for every change we have had!

I wanted this post to be a celebration of completing 101 goals, but 95 is going to have to do for now. Ninety-five goals being done is a fantastic achievement in my book though!

Here are a few highlights from the past 1001 days:

I have cooked a bunch of meals. I even learned how to make a turkey!
I can solve a Rubik's cube with very little effort. From learning how to do the 3X3 cube, I can now solve a 2X2, 4X4 and a 5X5 cube.
I read the Bible from cover to cover.
I composed songs that Melissa and I sing to the girls almost every night.
I made a video of the girl's first year that they adore and could watch over and over. They give commentary to the video constantly. They have it almost memorized.
I donated almost a gallon of blood.
I got into the habit of riding my bike to school. Currently I am saving about $1.75 a day when I ride. Not a bad savings over the course of a month considering I am also exercising.
I have read a lot of books. I am even in the habit of picking up books to read in my free time. I just finished the autobiography of Quincy Jones. Someone at school was talking about him and I had no idea who he was. They were shocked. I went on the library's website and put the book on hold. I picked it up that night and finished in a few weeks. That would have never happened before!
I ran 4 marathons with my brother.
On most days of the 1001, I considered myself in pretty good shape.
I read thousands of books to my children.
I revisited ACS
I revisited Jusdon College/University
I went on an unforgettable canoe trip from Waterford, WI to Aurora, IL.
I bought a stock that has almost doubled since I purchased it! Too bad I only bought 3 shares at $1.67 a piece!
I made some really neat toys for my kids.
I got to spend some great time with my grandma making fudge.
I watched a bunch of long movies that won awards.

This list goes on.

I did have a plan to get my goals done in the 1001 days, but life got in the way. Two weeks ago I was going to surprise Melissa with a date to go see Phantom of the Opera at West Aurora High School. Sadly half the family was sick and we had to cancel. It would have been a real stretch to go to this with how sick people were. I still enjoy high school theatre and want to see a show some day.

We had planned to go to the White Sox game on Monday night, but our dog Sammy has been terribly sick for the past few days and Hannah has walking pneumonia. Another canceled trip. This was also supposed to be a surprise. Maybe it was a blessing I didn't have to go to U.S. Cellular.

Another canceled appointment was me working at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore shop that just opened up in Aurora. I had scheduled to go there yesterday, but Sammy needed to go to the vet so I was not able to do that. She still is not healthy. Hopefully her appointment tomorrow afternoon will get her better.

As of Saturday, I had a plan to get the goals done. Baseball game on Monday and Habitat for Humanity on Tuesday. I knew I wouldn't have a play that we could go to so I looked over everything and remembered I had run two marathons but didn't count them as wildcards because I counted them as races run in the year. If all had gone right, I had planned to try to run a marathon tonight on the treadmill then go out to Dunkin Donuts to celebrate after. That didn't happen. I think the marathon on the treadmill would be pretty interesting though I am glad I didn't have to do it.

Here is a look again at what wasn't done:
Run a 5K in under 20:30
Take Melissa on 2 surprise dates
Visit 2 new baseball parks
Volunteer a day at Habitat for Humanity
Go to a High School Play
Go out to celebrate completing 100 goals

Will these goals get done? I really hope so. They are all ones that I actually wanted to do. That is why they didn't get the wildcard earlier.

Now that I am finished, I am going to take a little while off to finish my next list of goals. I am at 70 written down. The next list is going to have personal goals in it, but it will also include a lot of family oriented goals as well. After doing this one time I realized that I was doing a lot of things on my own and leaving them out.

I enjoyed the past 1001 days and I look forward to doing this again!

96. Wear a tie at least once a week to school

2011-05-17T10:04:00.000-05:00

Yes, I did wear the same shirt and tie on purpose.

While this is a good goal to have, it was not a fun one to keep track of. I wore a tie every week for the past three years of school. For most jobs that isn't a big deal, but when you work at a school where the dress code gets pretty relaxed it is more difficult. It is much easier to go with jeans and a button down shirt than slacks and a tie. When I first posted on this goal I wrote down my reasons for wanting to wear a tie more.

I am glad this goal is finished. I like wearing ties to school, but I am not necessarily fond of logging onto blogger to update my count each time that I do it.

Another goal down!

16. Learn how to freestyle swim well enough to do at least 4 laps in the pool

2011-05-16T11:01:00.001-05:00

After being in the beginner swimming lesson class for three consecutive years, this goal could be written as: "Learn how to swim like you were supposed to when you were 7."
I enjoy swimming. I can stay afloat for a long time. I can get around in the water with not too much of a problem. I am not afraid of the water. My only problem is that I am not efficient in getting around in the water. If I can doggy paddle or do a side stroke to where I am going I am good. The reason I put this into my list of goals is because some day I want to do a triathlon. I know I won't be a super fast swimmer, but I want to look respectable when I am out there.
The hardest thing about working on this goal was being at the pool and looking ridiculous in my efforts to try and find the rhythm of breathing while doing the crawl stroke. At the beginning I was worried I was getting too much attention from the lifeguards due to my times of gagging on the water in the middle of the pool as I tried to get it down.
I can say that I am not fantastic at it, but I have gotten to be an ok swimmer. That is all that I wanted from this goal. I am not fast, but I don't look terrible.
This morning I got up at 5:30 and drove over to the local pool. I hopped in and got to swimming. There was a swim club practicing there which made me pretty self conscious. After I got over that I did ok. I swam for 45 minutes straight. I stopped only a couple of times to drink from my water bottle that was at the edge of the pool. I did 40 lengths of the pool which is 25 yards long. A bunch of them were freestyle, but most were sidestrokes. That amounts to 1,000 yards. That number amazes my mind. It is not a very good speed overall, but I am happy with it. Could I swim a mile? Maybe some day.
I'm counting this one done!

6. Join a group at church to serve with

2011-05-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

Now that I am done with Saturday classes, I have the time to give more at church. Yes, I should have gotten involved at church earlier, but I hadn't found a place where I really felt I could be. I tried a few areas, but those fizzled away after just a few times serving.
I will be working in the nursery now. It is just in time for summer as many others who regularly volunteer will be taking off for the summer. I am excited to be able to get to work with Charlie and the kids who Charlie is going to be calling friends for years to come!

3. Memorize a chapter of Psalm

2011-05-13T14:16:00.001-05:00

I think I put the goal of memorizing a Psalm down because I read it on someone else's list. It is a good goal because memorizing scripture is a good thing to be in the habit of doing. As I stated last week, I am not so great at keeping up with Bible memorization. This goal wasn't as bad though. Matt suggested Psalm 8 to me about a year ago as a possible Psalm to learn. It is a cheerful Psalm.

As the deadline was winding down I was considering Psalm 23 or 100 as I already know them, but that was not the intent of the goal. I went with Matt's suggestion and am glad I did.

A few months ago I put a sheet that looked like this together.

What you see is on the top, the first letter of every word in Psalm 8. On the bottom is the verses written out. I used this study strategy for when I memorized the Gettysburg Address and it was pretty successful so I stuck with it. I carried this paper around with me for the past week and a half. I had it folded in half with only the top showing. I think I had it down on Tuesday this week, but I wanted to make sure that I had it stuck in my head rather than it leaving as if cramming for an exam. Here is the result. Sorry for the boring and creepy background. I did this video during one of my breaks today and had the white board up behind me.

And apparently after it took 25 minutes to load it was sideways. Oh well. You get what you get.

Another goal down!

10. Run two races per year

2011-05-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

This goal has been done for a long time. I wanted to finish it off with the fourth annual running of the Nancy Young Fun Run, but unfortunately that is not until next week and my timeframe is done next Wednesday. I have enjoyed the Fun Run each year. None of them compare to the first one though!

This blog originally started as a place for me to write about my thoughts during my training runs for my first marathon. Little did I know that I would run four more marathons and a few 5Ks along with way. I thought doing one marathon would be checked off my life list of goals and I would just be able to move on. Matt was the reason I added in the other marathons. He wanted to do them and I thought it sounded interesting enough so I said yes.

Here are the races I have run in the last 996 days:

Tecumseh Trail Marathon
Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham
Covenant Health Marathon in Knoxville
Illini 5K
2009 Nancy Young Fun Run 5K
2010 Nancy Young Fun Run 5K
Icebreaker Marathon
Blackberry Farm 5K

I feel that is enough races to satisfy the criteria. I plan on doing one next week and maybe one in the summer. It is just something that keeps me going and exercising. I have learned that if I am not exercising, I don't feel good about myself. In theory that should be simple enough to cure. The problem as always is the time.

Another goal marked off!

63. Go to a city hall meeting

2011-05-10T22:19:00.001-05:00

When I mention to people that this is a goal for me the most common response is, "Why?"

The reason it was a goal is because every week I read an article or two in The Beacon News that mentions things that have happened at a city council meeting and I never knew what it looked like or who the people that were mentioned looked like.

I went tonight for the first half hour and got to see what they looked like and got to hear arguments about a butcher shop that will be going in. There was nothing exciting, just a typical boring meeting.

There was a neat display that showed pictures of all of the mayors from Aurora's beginning. It's almost full. I was surprised how many mayors there had been over all the years.

This one's done!

EDU 8250 Principles & Practices of Assessment & Program Evaluation

2011-05-02T14:51:00.001-05:00

This course is done! I really enjoyed it. It allowed me to meet a Nobel Laureate and that doesn't happen every day.
I am really excited to be finished with this class because it was my last class that meets on Saturdays. After 2 years of Saturday classes it is going to be so nice to be able to relax again! One more year of classes then a little (kidding) paper to write and I will be done.
I'm using this wildcard on the Bible memory verses. I know I won't be able to learn 19 verses by heart in the next 16 days. It shouldn't be difficult for me to do. I did it for 12 years, though if Donald Trump were to do a search for my school records it would show that I didn't do such a good job at it back then either.

Another goal down!

53. Make wood toys for the kids is Done!

2011-04-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

I finally got my last toy finished up for the kids.
This one is modeled after a toy my dad made us when we were little. It is a little duck push toy.

I'm no professional paint job, but it was the best I could do. I haven't added little rubber flaps for the feet yet because I haven't found a good enough rubber.

The girls have really enjoyed pushing them around!

I am so thankful for the ability to know how to create toys for the kids like this. (Thanks Dad!) I hope that I can continue to make things for them as they grow up.

Here is a reminder of the other projects I had for the kids:
Race Cars
Piggy Banks round 1 and round 2

Another goal down!

88. Meet all the neighbors on my block

2011-04-29T19:17:00.001-05:00

This goal falls into the category of: Things that should have happened years ago. I don't have the personality to naturally approach people. I know if I didn't put this on the list there is no way that I would have tried to approach my neighbors. Sadly, that's how I am. If they don't approach me, I just smile and waive and hope they will make the first move.

I put this goal on the list because when I wrote my list I had still only met a few people who lived in our immediate area. We have plenty of friends in the neighborhood, but the ones that live closest I didn't know. Of the 6 houses on the block, I only knew the people in 2 of them.

Today I took Charlie out for a walk to the hardware store and on the way home I saw the guy who lives on the corner out in his driveway. I decided to go up his driveway and say hello. Unfortunately, that was about all we could say.

Right after leaving their house, I turned the corner and saw the other couple hanging out in the backyard. They waived so I took that as a cue to go say hello. They've lived there for four years and this was the first time I have talked with them. Pretty sad. They seemed really nice. They are both police officers in a neighboring town.

Hopefully this will bring on more conversation rather than just waiving on Monday nights when we both are taking the garbage out.

Another goal down!

13. Do 100 sit-ups w/o taking a break

2011-04-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

This one has been a long time coming.
I decided as I was on the intermission between the 3rd period and overtime of the Blackhawks game that I would get this goal done. There have been plenty of times where i have been on a role and could have finished it, but I either get fatigued and just don't feel like pushing to 100, get mentally tired and just give up, or just get tired of counting.
I remember when I started and could only get 26. I've definitely come a long way.
Another goal down!

47. Go out on a date with Melissa every other month

2011-04-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

Tonight Melissa and I had the good fortune of having my dad and his wife Lynda come over to watch the kids so we could go out to dinner. We haven't gone out on a week night for as long as I can remember. It was a nice break for the week. In our family tradition, we went to Red Robin to get a free birthday burger for Melissa. Their burgers are so good.
After dinner we did some shopping and then ended the night with hot fudge sundaes. It was a good night.
It is funny that this goal started and ended with trips to Red Robin. I only wish more of the ones in the middle could have been too. Their creative burgers are toward the top of my list of really good burgers.
Another goal down!

102. Shake hands and talk with a Nobel Laureate

2011-04-24T19:26:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to evaluate presentations from students at the Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA). It is their version of Extreme Makeover Science Fair Edition. Topics that I got to hear presented on were:
The Profitability of Private Equity
Determining Heat Load of Infrared Laser Radiation through Direct and Side-Firing Optical Fibers
Chest CT Imaging Findings in Patients with Localized Sarcoma
I even saw a presentation given by one of my former students from my first year of teaching on understanding the formation of Toroidal-Spiral particles.
It was amazing research that they have high school students doing. I had a really good time there seeing what kids are capable of doing.

During our time walking the halls one of the people I was with pointed out Dr. Leon Lederman who is a Nobel winning physicist. He and Einstein definitely had the same barber. He wasn't breaking any stereotypes about brilliant scientists. I told one of my friends I was with that I was going to go over and say hello. Before making this list I probably would have just looked at him across the room and thought it was neat to be in the same room as him. I decided that I was going to go over and say hello. As I got over to him I said hello, shook his hand and surprisingly our conversation was in the area of sports (thank God!). He's a big sports fan and we had all just seen a presentation on baseball statistics and how certain stats influence winning percentages. We only talked for 2 minutes but I was really happy that I made the decision to walk across the room to say hello.

It wasn't a goal of mine, but I was proud that I was able to do it.

53. Make wood toys for the kids

2011-04-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

I finished putting together the cars for the kids. Just in time for Easter baskets!

I began with a scrap piece of a 4 x 4. I cut it down to be 2 1/2 x 2 1/2. After having it cut down, I just used the band saw and belt sander to get it down to size.

Here's an look at what it started at and then what it looked like after cutting it down and sanding it.

Here is the finished product.

Melissa did a great job painting up the drivers. I can't wait for the kids to open up their Easter baskets. This was such a fun project.

I am adding the cars to the piggy banks that I made the kids last summer. Here is a reminder of what those looked like.

I have one more wood project to put together until I can consider this one done. I have it all cut out, I just need to paint them up and it will be done. Tomorrow I am going to pick up the colors that I need and get started on getting it all together. Maybe it will even be done by Easter too! We will see.

82. Make fudge with grandma

2011-04-14T20:48:00.001-05:00

"When you're making fudge, you're making fudge!"

I got to spend an evening with my grandma last night. I have no idea when the last time that happened that it was just the two of us (if ever!). The purpose for my trip was to be able to make a batch of fudge with my grandma. For as long as I can remember, the holidays involved a big plate of fudge made by my grandma. There was always a tray with nuts and some without. I don't think I even want to know how many pounds of sugar I have consumed over my lifetime from eating her fudge. It is so good.

When I asked her about her secret recipe, she told me that there was no secret to it. She was in fact correct. When she pulled out the book with the recipe, it was just a regular Betty Crocker cookbook from decades ago. Here's what Betty says you need for the recipe:

4 cups of Sugar
2 sticks of butter
14.5 oz can of evaporated milk
12 oz of semi sweet chocolate chips
1 pint of marshmallow fluff
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup of chopped walnuts

That's it! No secret ingredient at all! (But, a lot of sugar!)

The first thing you need to do is bring the sugar, butter and evaporated milk to a low boil (234º). That is apparently super important. It can't get hotter but it can't be even a degree lower. As the temp is going up you need to be constantly stirring the mixture to make sure the sugar and butter don't caramelize. It was work just to stay focused on the mixture. And as Grandma said many times, and my mom told me as well. You can't multitask when you are making fudge. I have heard the line from both of them, "When you're making fudge, you're making fudge!" That is it. It was true, you can't do anything else but mix and chat.

After you get the mixture up to the magical 234º, you turn off the burner and mix in the chocolate chips. At this point I said it was getting somewhat difficult to mix. Grandma told me it hadn't even gotten close. She was right, after mixing in the chocolate, we put the marshmallow fluff in. That was tough. At this point we also added the vanilla.

After I mixed for about five agonizing minutes of mixing with a spatula Grandma brought out the hand mixer and quickly blended the mixture together. I'm not sure if that could have been used earlier, but it sure would have come in handy.

After about 3 minutes being mixed it was ready to be put into the greased up pans. I put half of the mixture into one pan, then stirred some chopped walnuts into the remaining mixture and poured it into the other greased pan.

That was it. No secret recipe, no secret technique. All we did was follow the directions that a Betty Crocker cookbook laid out a number of decades ago.

I had a really good time.

Here is the reward for completing this goal.

Another yummy goal down!

71. Go to the dentist every six months

2011-04-14T20:32:00.002-05:00

I went today for my fifth and last time to complete this goal.

Nothing else needs to be said about this.

Another goal done!

60. Take the train

2011-04-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

The original intent for this goal was to take the train on a vacation somewhere. There is just not enough time (or money) to make that happen. I figure taking the train toward Chicago for about 25 minutes would satisfy it instead. The kids loved it! Melissa did a write-up about what we did on our trip.

I'm counting this goal as done!

95. Vote

2011-04-05T10:05:00.000-05:00

I voted today. It's a good habit to be in. Our ballot didn't have too many high profile positions. We voted for aldermen positions, school board positions and on a referendum the park district was asking for. I didn't have to do too much reading to learn about who was running because there weren't too many people. This was by far the easiest to prepare for.

Another one down!

Commuting just got a whole lot easier!

2011-04-01T07:22:00.000-05:00

I got a new bike!

For the purposes that I use my bike, my mountain bike just wasn't cutting it. I had my goal of riding to school 10 times. I have done the ten and probably 20 more. I plan on adding even more to that as this school year winds down. My mountain bike wasn't super practical for running errands around town. Last summer I would hook up the trailer to the bike and pull the girls around town to run errands. They loved it, but it was making me work a lot harder than I needed to. This bike should make things easier for me.

Next week looks like perfect bike riding weather. I can't wait!

90. What it takes to change your oil

2011-03-28T15:52:00.002-05:00

Changing the oil in your car isn't as hard as you might think. Is it work? Yes. Is it hard? No.

I started changing my oil when we moved into our house 5 years ago. Here's a quick tutorial for how much/little work it takes to do it.

I walked over to Advance Auto parts and spent $28 to get this stuff.

Here are the tools that I use. A jack, socket set and oil pan.

That is all that it will take to change the oil in the car and the van.

First, you will need to jack up the car to allow you to get under to release the oil. Then get your pan into place.

Next, you need to do is open up the cap on the engine so the air can get out to allow the oil to flow freely.

After doing that you will need to unscrew the drain plug. (For a wonderful tutorial for how to locate and remove it check out this "expert".) After it is loosened it can be done by hand pretty easily. Just be careful when unscrewing it because remember, there is oil ready to drain out immediately after it is removed. If you forget, your arm will be covered in oil which smells and is difficult to scrub off your arm.

After the oil is all drained you can then put on the oil filter. (To identify the oil filter, just open the box of the one you just bought. Look at it. Now look under your car and find something that looks like the one you just took out of the box.) All you have to do is unscrew your old filter and put the new one on. Use the same caution removing the oil filter as you did with the drain plug.

After you have replaced the drain plug and put on the new oil filter you can put the new oil in.

When you are done with that, replace the oil cap and you are done.

For recycling oil, I just fill up empty milk jugs with the old oil and bring it back to Advanced Auto where they recycle it for free.

This goal is done. I know I won't be driving over 3,000 miles in the next 52 days. Heck, my car has only driven 2,400 miles since August 19th.
I know it isn't the most interesting of posts, but I figured this was a better way to say I was done with this goal than to just have a generic post stating that I had changed my oil. That would be boring!
Time to start ticking off more goals. Not too much time left!

7. Invite someone to church

2011-03-02T13:17:00.000-06:00

Finances, Religion and Politics. Those are three things that don't often go well as conversation starters if you don't know where the person you are talking with is coming from. It is hard being a Christian in a secular world. Inviting someone to church is a lot harder than I originally thought. I knew it would be different. It hasn't been something that I have done before. I have seen some people at church bring friends along with them very comfortably, but I just never got up the ~~opportunity~~ nerve to do it myself. Until Yesterday...

I was in the lunch room there was a teacher discussing not being comfortable with the church that she attends and that she was looking for a place that she would feel comfortable in. I listened in for awhile (That's about all a guy can do in a teacher's lounge where there are usually over ten women and normally only one guy) and found that what she was interested in resembled the atmosphere of our church. I decided to end my silence and mentioned that our church might be the type of place that she would fit the needs that she was looking for. I described the atmosphere and did my best to let her know that she would be welcomed at our church. It was nothing earth shattering, just an invite.

I have no idea if my invite will be used. I do know that it took me a few minutes to get up the nerve to even bring up the invitation. What is wrong with me? The Great Commision tells Christians to go out and spread the word. I struggle even bringing up attending a church, to someone who is looking for a church!

I believe I have satisfied the requirements for this goal to be done, but I am more happy that I have had the experience and this post to help internalize my issues with sharing my faith. Songs like "Not Ashamed" should feel more like a way to live than just sounding like a cool popular song.

16. Learn how to freestyle swim well enough to do at least 4 laps in the pool

2011-02-22T16:02:00.004-06:00

This was written back on Tuesday and finished today. I didn't feel like going through and changing the tenses.

Today was a wonderful day to swim. It is a good feeling to be swimming inside and look out the windows to see it snowing outside. I'd rather it be nice and warm outside, but that time will come. Until then, we had fun. Melissa wrote today about our family's trip to the pool.
During our trip the kids had a lot of nervous excitement. While they enjoyed the idea that they were "swimming," they never let Melissa and me get too far away from them. Thus, not too much freedom to do anything other than just be close to the kids. Not a complaint! Just a comment.
I was able to go to the pool about an hour and a half before the family arrived to try to get some lap swimming in before they came. My goal is to learn to freestyle swim so it looks as though I am coordinated in the pool. Side strokes are alright, but almost anyone can do that. I want to be able to efficiently get through the water. In my hour swimming I swam about 50 lengths of the pool. I had a couple of times where I was working on my breathing and stroke for the freestyle, but my endurance isn't built up to the level it needs to be.
I did get the confidence to get me back there. I definitely boosted my self confidence in knowing that it is something I think I can accomplish in the next few months (I have under 3 months left until my 1001 days is up!).

This is Jeopardy

2011-02-11T14:38:00.000-06:00

I am a fan of Jeopardy! Thanks to TIVO, I watch it every day. In college we used to have a few guys get together in the afternoons to watch and "compete" against each other. One year I even had a friend tape (yes tape) the tournament of champions for me as I was going to be off selling books in Atlanta during the tournament. I remember Eddie Timanus (a blind sports writer for USA Today) being an incredible player and emphatically trying to click in on every single answer. He was my favorite. How can you not root for a blind guy? Sadly, he didn't make the finals that year as he wagered too much on a Daily Double in the second round. This led to a tournament victory for Jeremy, a writer from California. I write this to prove that I am a ~~nerd~~ fan.

As time has gone on I have started to feel that I have a fairly good chance at answering a lot of the questions correctly each show. I used to marvel at watching Jeopardy with my dad as a kid because he knew a lot of the answers. I think if they had teams for the show, he would be one my top picks to team up with.

Just this past week Jeopardy opened up for auditions online. This is the first time they have done it in a couple of years so I jumped at the chance. I know I still have a long way to go before I truly consider myself to have a legitimate chance of qualifying to be on the show, but I had to see where I stood. I actually considered putting this on my next list (Try out for Jeopardy), but they only open up for new candidates on sporadic schedules so I couldn't count on it working into my time frame.

The verdict: I did alright. I enjoyed it! The test is online and is a collection of 50 questions. For each question you were given 15 seconds to read the category, the question and to type in your answer (spelling doesn't count). It was a frantic 12 minutes trying to figure out just how unprepared I was.
I would say I am pretty confident that I got 20 right and 20 wrong, with the remaining 10 going either way. Anything related to literacy is my downfall. I do not know classics too well. If a question is every about poetry I usually say Emily Dickenson and hope it is right. That is an area I am not good at, and probably never will.

Unfortunately, I will never know how I did. They don't reveal your score. Ever. You just have to wait for a letter or a call telling you that you have made it to the next round. This letter or call can take up to two years.
I am not sitting waiting by the phone. I don't expect a call back, but at least I can say I have given it a chance. This won't be my last.

70. Give blood five times per year

2011-01-20T15:20:00.000-06:00

I did it! 13 blood donations down! That is over 3/4 of a gallon and nearly equal to the total amount of blood I currently have running through my veins.

I was lucky enough to go when they weren't having a Twilight or Harry Potter party. It was just a normal busy day. Had I waited until tonight I could have gone to the Glee party, but I figured my donations by theme party didn't need to continue.

I am not done giving blood, just done tracking it on here. I'm glad I put it on my goals because it kept me accountable to make sure I went to give.

My favorite part...Cheez-its, brownies and Coke at the end.

If you can, get out and donate. Someone going into surgery needs your blood!

40. Bring Melissa flowers 10 times for no reason whatsoever

2011-01-10T12:58:00.000-06:00

Hannah and I went out to the grocery store this weekend to get some groceries. As we were moving around the store Hannah spotted the flowers and said we should "get some for mommy!" She was pretty excited about it. I picked out a couple of options and she made the final decision. She was happy to bring them into the house and present them to Melissa.
I guess you would say that Hannah actually got them for her, but I'm taking the credit.
Melissa picked the upstairs bathroom for this bunch and I think she made a good decision. They look good in there.
This does not end my purchasing of flowers for Melissa, but it does end my keeping track.
Another goal done!

89. Have my brother's family visit at least 2 times a year

2010-11-29T19:38:00.000-06:00

Gretchen beat me to the punch on this one. She has a great collection of pictures showing just how many clicks it takes to get a decent picture. What did people do before digital cameras?

It is so fun when we get together with Matt's family! I just love seeing the kids play together and show their personalities. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was watching the kids play in the Chick-fil-a playground. Lilly showed Hannah and Maddie what to do. Watching Lilly and Hannah run up and down the stairs to race down the slide together was great! They even went down together holding hands a few times. Maddie was a little slow to warm up to going down the slide but eventually began to love it.
What a great visit!

70. Blood Bank Harry Potter Style

2010-11-17T21:13:00.000-06:00

Almost exactly a year ago I went to donate blood only to find it was a Twilight party. I had a very similar experience yesterday as I went to donate. Sitting next to two nervous high school girls I found that this week they are promoting the release of the Harry Potter movie. The most rediculous comment of the day was when the girl very nervously prepared for the needle injection by saying that it was all worth it because of the t-shirt.

You be the judge. Was it worth it?

One more trip and I will be done with this goal!

49. Read 1,000 books to Madeline

2010-11-13T20:46:00.001-06:00

I don't know which girl I like to read to more. They are both so different!

Hannah loves to have a story read to her. I think her favorite thing is to curl up in your lap and just listen and enjoy.

Madeline listens to learn and remembers stories so well. Just tonight when I was reading to her I stopped and Maddie told me to keep reading and told me what part was coming next. She is so attentive and follows along so well.

The thing I like most about reading to the girls now is that they are starting to follow along and have been able to memorize many of the books that we read to the girls. We have even spotted the girls taking books off the shelf to "read" to Charlie. Hopefully their love for reading will continue for years to come!

Another goal down!

95. Vote in every election

2010-11-03T10:40:00.001-05:00

I have been excited for voting day to come for awhile. Not because I enjoy voting so much, but because this election had more commercials and phone calls than I remember us ever having before.

When I sat down with my ballot I had a pretty clear view of who I wanted to vote for in each race. That is a lot different from years ago when I would vote but have no idea about anyone I was voting for. That is why it made the list. I have had to make a conscious effort to investigate the people running for office and have had to decide who I want to vote for and why. It works out a lot better that way!

One more election to go and this goal will be done! This goal will definitely not be on my next list. Voting is a good practice to have, but it isn't really the most fun to keep track of.

48. Read 1,000 books to Hannah

2010-10-22T07:18:00.000-05:00

Yep, I'm still here, just not a lot going on.

Hannah has turned into a girl who loves to be read to! She constantly comes up to me and asks me to read a book to her. I love that she has learned to love books.

Her latest favorite is a book that Uncle Josh and Aunt Nean sent to the kids for their birthday. It is an awesome ABC book about them. It is filled with pictures of our family and theirs to make up the alphabet. Hannah and Maddie both want to read it multiple times each and every day.

I think the thing I am most excited about having this goal done is that I don't find myself thinking about updating the book total on the blog after I read a book. It gets tedious.

Another goal down!

97. Create a will

2010-09-10T10:15:00.001-05:00

It's done!
This one definitely fits into the category of goals I wrote down for things that should be done but have never been motivated to actually do. Nothing flashy with this one.
I have a good friend from growing up that is a lawyer who said he could write it up. It turned out to really not to be a big deal at all. A couple visits and a couple emails and it is done.

Here's a picture of us sealing the deal. Actually it is a picture of us in the parking lot after playing a round of golf, but it's all I've got. Matt came down to enjoy the festivities as well. It was nice to get together again as we were pretty close grade school through high school.

I can now officially die with legal paperwork in order to help make legal things easier when I am gone!

66. Visit a New Ballpark

2010-09-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

In an effort to completely lose all of my readers I am deflecting all traffic from this post to my brother Matt's blog. He did a great job on his post and I couldn't do any better than he did. Plus, all of the pictures I have would be a duplicate from him as both of us forgot our cameras and we had to rely on the phone from his camera.
We had a great time together driving from Milwaukee to Minneapolis for the game, then back to Milwaukee all in the same day.
Here's his post to get a better picture of our trip.
Enjoy!

9. Learn the lyrics and chords for 8 praise and worship songs

2010-08-13T21:57:00.001-05:00

Not much to say about this one. I've been around praise songs all of my life. Many of the songs that I looked at while I was searching for songs to learn have been part of my life as long as the ABC song. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I enjoyed sitting in front of the computer with the guitar reliving many of the songs from camp, including The Building Block, which was I remember being played from when I was 5 all the way through high school.

Here are a few beauties of the girls when they were younger from the archives.

I used to play a lot to the girls when they were really young. I still play to them each night when Melissa and I sing their songs to them.

Charlie was hilarious taking this picture. He kept looking at me then back at Melissa with this big smile.

This morning Charlie really liked hearing me practice. When the girls were young I played to them a lot. Charlie hasn't gotten the same treatment. It was nice to see his reaction to the music.
I kept track of the songs on the list here to be able to go back to when I needed to practice. I don't have them all completely memorized, but I have them down good enough that just a quick look at the song and I have it all down. I'd say it is good enough to be able to count this goal done!

27. Write a letter to an editor that makes it into the publication

2010-08-11T23:07:00.000-05:00

This goal ranks up there with memorizing a poem. This is another goal that I saw on someone else's list and thought it would be a good one. It turned out to be a ton of work, and most of it never really mattered.

I gave up trying to write TIME magazine. Every week from August 2009 through May 2010 I read the magazine and submitted a letter to them about something that struck a chord with me. Each week I would check the editorials to see if my submission was accepted. It never was. I would read the submissions that were used and use them as my guide for types of things to look for. That didn't help. The one thing that I can say is that I read a lot of great stories that I wouldn't have read if it wasn't for this goal. I learned to critically write a response to someone else's writing. This skill came in handy when I was teaching critical thinking to my kids and how to read critically. I was also asked to submit writing related to articles that I had read during my classes I am taking. Since I was in the habit of doing this weekly already it made it a pretty easy task.

I decided if I didn't make it into TIME by the end of the school year I would give up on TIME (something suggested by many to do early in my attempts) and would look for something less lofty. It surely would have been cool to make it into such a large publication, but I just had to adjust my sights.

It only took one time to make it into The Beacon News (or The Be Confused as Mr. Eckburg used to refer to it as). There were a few ideas I thought about writing about, but I just never got around to it. After reading a few submissions in the editorials page I found that you don't have to write about an article in the paper at all. It just needs to relate to something in the reading area. I decided to write a short letter about the roads in Aurora. It was definitely not my best writing or the most important letter written to them, but it was something to appease the goal.

The letter can be found here. Don't expect much when you read it. My motivation was that Aurora is trying very hard to make the downtown area prettier. The street lights are being re-done into an older architecture style. They are giving huge tax breaks to anyone willing to open up shop down there. It just seemed that if they did a total restyling of the area including the streets it would possibly help to revitalize the area. It also seemed to me that if the roads are already surfaced with bricks, why not just work with what is already in place.

This goal is done. I can say that I am probably done writing in to publications about their content.

83. Make something using the wood from Melissa's grandpa

2010-07-29T23:54:00.001-05:00

I finished one of my woodworking projects. This one isn't a big one, but it is one that I am proud of doing. As I wrote about not too long ago, I was given quite a bit of wood from Melissa's Grandpa. A lot of that hoard of wood is oddly shaped wood that I am not creative enough to come up with a lasting purpose for. I decided to tackle something smaller as a beginning on something that I hope will be special for the kids in years to come. Here's the finished product (1 of 3):

It's a piggy bank! And it is perfectly timed. Tonight we had my mom and grandma over and my grandma gave the kids their first pennies. We will have to wait awhile until they can put them to good use though. They will be gifts for the kids' birthdays coming in October (don't tell them).

This was a fun project to make because it wasn't too difficult to make. I posted pictures before of what the pieces looked like apart. Here's another one that I took after glueing one of the sides on:

It's hollow on the inside and a cork stopper is in the bottom to be able to remove their coins they so diligently saved.

Around the pig you can see some of the scraps of leather that I used for the tail and the ears. Melissa found a bag of scrap leather at Michael's for a couple of dollars and it worked out perfect. The hardest part about working with it was that I couldn't find anything strong enough to cut the leather. I finally decided to put the band saw to use and was able to make the cuts that I needed.

I am really proud of these three piggies. I'm hoping to be able to put more time out in the garage before school starts back up again to work on some more projects. Hopefully I will be able to finish my goal of making toys for the kids. I've got plenty of ideas. Now I just need to put the ideas into reality.

I'm loving summer

2010-07-28T15:31:00.004-05:00

Nothing really about the goals, but I had to share these pictures.

Putting it simply, I am loving summer. I have taken the girls out on the bike two or three times a week to run errands and to give Melissa a chance to have some quiet time when Charlie takes his morning naps. Another bonus to me going out on the bike is that I have only used my car once in the month of July. The total amount of miles put on the car this summer is just over 200. The van has many more miles than that, but it is nice to not rely on both cars all the time. Plus, there's no air conditioning in the car. It's cooler riding a bike in 90 degree temps than it is sitting in a heat soaked car.
With all of my time on the bike this summer I think I'm going to try to do a lot more riding to work when school starts back up again. We shall see how long that really lasts.

This morning I went out to try out a different trail, but I stopped by a local popcorn shop before heading out. The girls loved it! They each got their own bag and they were given their own hats. They even shared some of their popcorn with some ducks we found along the path. We had a good time!

I made it over to the blood bank yesterday. When I showed up to donate, I found out that they needed to email out to the hospital to let them know that my blood would be heading their way. Having rare blood (O+ with some added enzymes) makes me feel even more motivated to donate blood. Out of curiosity I asked how much I have donated to Heartland Blood Center over the years. The girl looked it up and said I was a little over 2 gallons. I'm proud of that. Hopefully there will be many more to come. It went well. Three times left to go. Next time I can go is September 21st. That means that I should be able to finish that goal early in February.

42. Take Melissa to see a Broadway show

2010-07-25T23:26:00.000-05:00

Last night Melissa and I had the opportunity to go see the musical Wicked. This is a show that both of us had heard a lot about and we were both very excited to see. I know that Wicked was in Chicago for well over a year, but I lost track of time and when I finally began looking for tickets, the show was headed out of town.
Here's the only picture we took of our night.

We were lucky enough to have my mom come to watch the kids for the night while we headed up to Milwaukee for the night. We began the night with dinner at Water Street Brewery which was about two blocks from the theater. The food was really good. We finished our dinner with just enough time to stroll up the block to see the show.
As far as my enjoyment of the show....I hummed the tunes the whole way home and have continued to do so all day today. I'm looking forward to picking up the soundtrack at the library to be able to hear it all again. I think I'll even check out The Wizard of Oz while I am there to help me connect all of the dots.
This was my fourth broadway style show I have seen and by far it was my favorite. I told Melissa that I'm looking forward to seeing another show again some time soon.
I'm glad I put this one onto the list. It will definitely be on my next list to make sure that we do this again.

64. Go to a Cubs game with Matt and Casey

2010-07-17T21:53:00.002-05:00

Putting this goal on the list was due to the fact that Casey has been a close friend of Matt and me for our entire lives. Our history of going to games together goes back awhile:

We didn't have tickets lined up until the day of the game and I was pleased with what Matt came up with. I haven't been to the upper deck in a long time. We even had a view all the way to the lake.

It was a great game. The Cubs played well enough to win. That hasn't happened enough this year. The best part of going to the game was the way that it ended:

What a great night. Hopefully there will be many more games to be visited over the coming years. Thanks Casey for helping Matt and me achieve this goal.

17. Rubik's 4X4 is solved!

2010-07-14T16:54:00.002-05:00

It's been awhile since I have blogged. I really haven't been doing much. I have done little things, but those fit into the area of, "no one would care about this post" territory. This one might also be in that category. All I know is I was super excited when it happened and figured that it was something notable, and thus blog worthy.

Disclaimer: I do a lot of nerdy things. This definitely fits into that category.

After learning how to do the 3X3 cube last year I have really enjoyed playing around with it. I even brought it into school and showed my students that I could do it. The next day, 4 kids brought in their own cubes to try to solve, and ultimately to have me solve. Those students made me laugh. They would carry their cubes around before and after school as trophies, because most people that own rubik's cubes only have them solved for the first two minutes. After that, they remain unsolved forever. They really were a hit in my class. At one point I counted 22 out of 24 of my students that bought rubik's cubes for themselves to learn to solve. Two of them learned how to do it by the end of the year with a few others just a step or two away. Hopefully they have figured it all out by now.

For Father's Day Melissa bought me this.

This was the view of it about 10 minutes after I took it out of the package.

I spent a lot more time that I would like to admit on this thing trying to figure it out. I even had a night where I didn't go to bed until 1:30 because I was stuck on one part.

One month later (today), this is what it looks like:

When I was about fifteen moves away from solving it I got really excited. I knew I would be able to get it finished. I know really nerdy. I took the luxury of saving you 10 minutes of watching a video of me getting it done. I don't quite have it down as fast as I did with the 3X3. I'm sure with time it will get faster. Solving the 4X4 is similar to doing the 3X3 which made it take a lot less time to learn.

Next up:

Should be fun!

UPDATE: After playing with it for no more than 5 minutes I solved the 2X2. Here's the finished product:

1. Read through the Bible

2010-06-24T14:17:00.000-05:00

During the kids' nap today I finished up the book of Malachi. I have been very aggressively reading through the Bible this year and have gotten to the finish. I really enjoyed reading it. I have never read the book the whole way through in one consecutive period of time. Surprisingly, I read very little in an actual paper Bible. Most of my reading was read on biblegateway.com. I found it very easy to read this way because I could read anywhere that I had an internet connection. Most of my reading was done before school in my classroom. I found it to be a nice quiet way to begin each day. My favorite part of reading was connecting all of the stories in the Bible. I first read the New Testament then began the Old Testament. You might notice that I made it through pretty fast. That is true. I did the whole Bible in about 10 months. I flew through a lot of the books because they were such fun to read.
I look forward to reading it cover to cover again some time soon.
Another goal down!

86. EDU 8160 Clinical Supervision and Teacher Development

2010-06-24T14:16:00.001-05:00

I finished up two grueling weeks of course work today. In this course I read three entire books and countless articles. In the last two weeks I stayed up past 1:00 am 5 times. Last night I finally went to bed at 2:30 after finishing up a powerpoint presentation that I had to complete for my final presentation today. It went well and I am very happy to be done with it. 5th class of 14 down for the program!
I'm using this class as a wildcard for getting a piano. We just don't have space in the house for one. It's not for lack of desire or options, we just are packed into out house with no really good options for where we could put one.
Another goal down!

53 and 83 Woodworking projects

2010-06-20T22:43:00.000-05:00

For awhile now I have wanted to get out to the garage and begin working on making some toys for the kids. Melissa's mom got me a book for Christmas that had some good ideas for toys. This week I got started on a couple of projects. I am not done with anything yet, but I just wanted to share my progress.

Here are a few pictures of my progress so far:

I have had this wood for 5 or 6 years now. It was passed down from Melissa's grandfather. It was wood that he had collected over many decades. Some of it dating back to the farm that he grew up at. They are all different sizes but most are at least 7 feet long. I'm excited about finally putting some of it to use.

Here's my first project. It's for Charlie. I have only cut out the wood so far. I have a couple more cuts to do before it is finished. It is a fish. I plan on attaching the tail with a wire connection and adding wheels to the bottom. I will then put a rope through the front lip and Charlie will be able to pull it around.

This next project is for all three kids. I made three of these. It will be a piggy bank. This is not really a toy, but something I would love to see sitting on their shelves for years to come. Here are the pieces apart.

Here is the side view of what it will be like.

Here is the front view.

I still need to add a tail and ears (both using some leather scraps).

I just thought it would be fun to share some of my progress. I still have plenty of work to do. I have a few more ideas for future projects. Probably two or three more and I will consider the goal done.

Mid-American Canoe Race

2010-06-08T20:33:00.001-05:00

     I remember when I was young hearing stories of how my Dad did this race years ago and while being announced as being in the lead tipped the boat and took himself out of the race. That isn't the only part that I remember, but I remember thinking it was something I wanted to do when I grew up. Not the tipping part, just the canoeing part. I had initially intended to do the race last year, but I had other canoeing plans that got in the way. This race was one that I had listed to put on my next list after this one is done, but I guess I will have to find something else to put in it's place.
     I didn't know what to expect from this race. It was the 49th time that it had been run. The only problem I saw with the race was the shuttle service. We started off our morning driving the boat up to the start line in St. Charles and drove home to the finish line. After waiting 20 minutes for the shuttle we made it back up to get ready for the start. We made it with about 15 minutes to spare. I was a little nervous while we were waiting, but luckily there wasn't a problem.
     The race started in heats of 10 boats at a time every 4 minutes. We were the 7th heat to leave. This meant that there were plenty of boats to catch up to, but also that many would be coming to pass us. All in all, I think only 3 or 4 canoes passed us. I don't know what I expected, but I just thought we would see more passing us. That was a good sign.
   Another positive was that we didn't run into anyone. I figured with hundreds of boats out there and our minimal experience we have working together that we might have some navigational problems. That didn't happen. We did cause someone to run into another boat. Not our fault! He was trying to squeeze between us but couldn't quite make it. I got a laugh out of it. There's no easier way to tip a boat than to have someone run into you.   That didn't happen. Too bad. Not that it would have mattered. The Fox River is so shallow. We saw a deer run across the river and never get deeper than it's knees. I also had to get out three times to push the boat along through low points when we were dragging on the rocks. These were all points where we lost valuable time in the race.
     Casey and I did what we set out to do. We finished 31st out of 115 boats! Our goal was to finish in the middle of the pack and not embarass ourselves. I was really happy with how we did in our race after only practicing once together. We are already hinting at doing it next year. I expect that after going through it once, we should have a much better idea of what to anticipate and should do much better next year.
     Katie also posted about the race. I'm counting on her for the photographic evidence. She got some good shots of us as well as a few from our cheering section.

65. Take the family to Shedd Aquarium

2010-06-05T17:21:00.001-05:00

Melissa has already written and shared about our time at Shedd earlier this week. I figured I would add a few more pictures.

The girls loved that there were ducks in the fountain at first. After they got really close they weren't as pleased to see them.

The girls had grins the whole time we were there.

I carried the girls around like this a lot so they could be high enough to see everything.

They looked really intently into each tank. I had expected them to get really tired of seeing fish over and over, but they kept having fun.

Hannah and Maddie wanted to do some typing as I was blogging so here it is:
Hannah:
2aa222222222222222s2qzzzzzqqqqqqxqxqxxxxxxxxqxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxqzqzd

Maddie:
hiunn gyhy66gvfrftvgunj ujngfrh,,gfgtgttttt,tt,tgttt≤ty8ghkgggggggghhkol;;;'

Maddie liked the fountain, Charlie was indifferent. We had snacks on a nearby bench. Hannah wasn't a big fan of the spraying water hitting us. She asked multiple times for us to turn the fountain off. I got a kick out of that.

This proves that Charlie did indeed come on our trip. He was able to get out of the stroller a few times. He did awesome. He is such a laid back little guy.

We had a good time. I'm glad we were finally able to get there. I am hoping for many more times to come in the future.

Another goal down!

Mid-American Canoe Race - The practice edition

2010-05-24T09:41:00.001-05:00

    The Mid-American canoe race is one that I have wanted to do for a long time. My Dad has told a few stories of when he did it when he was younger and I always thought it sounded like fun. A few years ago, Casey mentioned that he thought it would be fun to do. Fast-forward a few years and here we are registered and ready to go.
    Yesterday right after church, Casey and I decided to take our first practice run.  The water is running relatively fast so we did pretty well. We didn't exactly go in a straight line the whole way but we never had much of a problem correcting our flaws. The difference will come when there are hundreds of canoes out there to navigate along with.  I'm just hoping that we don't turn the race into a demolition derby. If that happened though it would be memorable. I'm sure Charlie would like to hear about that story growing up. It might even push him to want to do the race or one similar to it when he gets older. We did have a couple of instances where things got interesting. The first one was when we boated right into someone's fishing line. It's funny at first, then panic sets in when you realize that there is a hook on the end of the string that is quickly moving up to the surface. Luckily I had a life jacket on when the hook hit me. No damage done! The second issue was in the last 30 feet of our trip. I'm not going to give details (no we didn't tip), but Casey did say, "This is embarassing, I'm glad this is happening under a bridge." He was right on both parts. Luckily we figured it out and finished our trip with few flaws.
    I am really looking forward to the race. We're not expecting to win or place, we just don't want to be the last guys coming in at the end winning the perseverance award.

10. Nancy Young Run for Fun

2010-05-22T23:25:00.004-05:00

What a day! 5K to start the day. Neighborhood garbage day which meant filling up the van and bringing a load of trash, the big stuff that doesn't fit into the normal can to a garbage truck waiting down the street. After that, I mowed the lawn. When the girls were napping Melissa went out to run errands and I played with Charlie for about an hour. What a great hour! I don't get too many times with just Charlie. Next I pulled Hannah and Madeline to the grocery store on my bike to pick up buns for dinner. I grilled Hot dogs. After that I gave the girls a bath. From there I suited up for my softball game (we won), and stayed around to ump the next game. On the way home I started one of my allergic reactions where I get hives and my eyes swell up. What a day!
Over the past few months I have been terrible at getting out to run. With the kids being sick and other commitments I am responsible for this spring I have gotten out very little. That is my disclaimer for the quality of my run. My race today was my school's third annual Run for Fun. I have really started to enjoy this race as it is a chance interact with them differently than I do the other 5 days of the week. I've run the race every year now, but this year there wasn't a trophy to add to my collection. Matt, you will love to know that one block in...my shoe came untied! I definitely heard about it from all of the people that passed me. It's never fun to be the person stopped at the side of the road one block into the race. It didn't hurt me too bad, it just meant that I had to weave my way through a lot of people to catch back up to where I was. I had 6 students beat me this year. I came in 25th place. The 6 kids that finished in front of me did great. I was really proud of them. At the end of the race I had two of them not too far ahead, but when I started to make my sprint to pass them before the finish line, they also began sprinting to try to beat each other. There was no way I would be able to catch them. They had a great photo finish. It was fun to watch. I kept it under 23 minutes which is always good, but I was no where near my goal of 20:30. Hopefully I'll get another run in this summer where I can beat it.

78. Ride my bike to work

2010-05-21T13:43:00.000-05:00

I rode my bike to work today. I cheated a little bit by driving to the mechanic then riding from there, but I still took the strides to ride rather than have someone pick me up and drive me from there.
Riding my bike to work has been a great change of pace for me. Each time I ride I try to challenge myself to ride as hard as I can to beat my best times. I still haven't cracked the 15 minute mark on my way home, but it is definitely possible. It all comes down to getting one traffic light and the amount of traffic on Route 31. If I can time those right I really think I can do it.
I am going to try to ride a few times next week. Its going to be really hot, but I will be ok. I have gotten into a good routine and I don't want to break it. I'm saving gas too! Not that I put too many miles on the car anyway.
One more down!

One year remaining

2010-05-20T20:37:00.000-05:00

I have one year left. May 19, 2011 is my finish date. Looking at my list, I've done a lot! Many things I am sure I would never have done without having this list. I think my favorite thing that I have done is writing the girls' songs. Melissa and I sing them those songs each night as they are going to bed. They both sing along. I love that moment each night. I will probably wait a year to write one for Charlie. That way I can know his personality a little better.
Hopefully in the last year I will be able to get everything completed. I am pretty sure I will be able to get it all done. It will be great to get it done and begin working on another list. Can't wait!

18. Make meals for the family

2010-05-09T21:09:00.000-05:00

Tonight we had our last supper. At least the last dinner that I will be counting for my list. Originally I had this goal as just making dinner once a month, then I decided to change it up and just put down to make 25 meals. It was my way of getting it done before may of 2011.
I've enjoyed this one. It has given me an opportunity to learn my way around the kitchen and be proud to be able to produce something edible. Before beginning this list I wasn't too adventurous with making dinners. Mac and Cheese out of the box was about as far as I was comfortable as I was to make food. Now, I feel pretty comfortable coming up with dinner quickly if I need to.
Last night I made dinner #24. Trisha was over and I made burgers, fries (from scratch) and some grilled asparagus. It was a good dinner. I will definitely be making this one again a few times this summer.

Tonight Maddie and I made a new family favorite. I've made it a few times over the past two years. It turned out pretty good. I had to improvise a couple of times on the recipe, and it turned out pretty good.

Maddie wasn't feeling so good today so she only got to enjoy mashed potatoes and some crackers. She sure does look happy in this picture.

I only took one picture of Hannah. After looking at this one I'm thinking I probably should have taken another. Nice hair Hannah!

Now that this goal is done, I am not done cooking meals for the family. The purpose of the goal was to become more comfortable in the kitchen and to give Melissa a break now and then. I think I accomplished both things. I'm happy with what I have learned and look forward to future meals to come.

90. 3,000 miles was so close

2010-05-08T21:23:00.001-05:00

My car isn't exactly a high-end car. It runs alright and has been extremely dependable. It's main use is for when either Melissa and I go out on our own. Otherwise, we use the van.
On my first day to school this year (August, 19th 2009) I passed 109,000 miles in the car. As the year went along I was noticing how few miles I was putting on from month to month. From home to my school is 4 miles. The trip to Jewel (grocery store) is 1 mile. To get to Aurora University is 3 miles. Needless to say, that car doesn't travel too far. It wasn't until February or March that I started to wonder if I could go the whole school year keeping under 3,000 miles. I started to bike more to stores or even take the girls in the stroller when I wanted to jog over to Jewel. I felt like I was on track but the miles slowly added up and this week, as Melissa was headed out to run some errands, it crossed the 112,000 mark. 22 more days and the goal would have been met.
I'm proud for how few miles I went over those 8 1/2 months. I'm proud of using my bike and the stroller more to get around. It feels good to get some exercise in when running routine errands. I've even found that when riding my bike it takes just a few minutes longer than when in the car. I see that as being worth it.
It should get even better as far as using alternate modes of transportation. Melissa found a trailer for me to pull the girls along in when I go out on bike rides. This will mean that I can take them out even farther than just the grocery store. I'm excited to start using it and to take the girls around town.

5. EDU 8010 Research Methods

2010-05-07T12:32:00.000-05:00

This class was a ton of work. The class topic dealt with research and it was pretty intense from January all the way to May. It was so much work that Melissa took the kids all the way to Ohio for almost 5 days to give me time to write. Without that time, I would have been in trouble to get everything accomplished. The funny thing is, I didn't really procrastinate. I used 24 sources for that paper. That's a lot of reading! I think that beats my previous best of 12. There was a lot of reading that needed to be done for this class. Nothing that couldn't be accomplished, but just a lot. Some was fun, some was just boring and dry. I am so glad this class is over.
Our final paper that was due was actually the beginnings of one chapter of our dissertation (that's the big paper I need to write in order to graduate). It feels funny starting on it already, but at the same time it is exciting. It's great to have the feeling of knowing that what I am doing now is actually going to be used in part as my final paper. We'll see how much it changes or gets revision over the coming years. Hopefully not much.
I decided to wildcard the accountability group with the guys because I don't have the time. Honestly, our small group is struggling to find time to meet, I don't need another commitment that I might not be able to keep up with. For my next list this might make it, but for now I just don't have the time.
On a side note related to time. Our lawn is 10 inches high maybe higher. That's an estimate, but Melissa will tell you that I'm pretty good at estimating. I haven't mowed in 3 weeks and it is really showing. It could be a positive to say that I am helping it by allowing all the grass to produce it's own seed. I was hoping to mow when I got home today, but rain is forcasted all day.
Another goal down! I've got 6 weeks until my next class starts. I'm hoping to check off some goals during that time. I'm thinking that getting 11 or 12 goals done in that time is possible. We shall see.

29. EDU 8135 - Dynamics of Organizational Theory and Change

2010-04-26T08:15:00.000-05:00

1 of 2 classes are finished for this semester. Two more weeks and one very big paper to go for the other class. They both have been incredibly challenging. One met regularly every Wednesday night for 4 hours and the other met every-other Saturday for 7 hours each session. This class I finished was the Saturday class. We were required to read 5 books for the class and write a paper on almost every one. This meant that almost every class we went to required a paper to be turned in. It was definitely not a class that could be coasted through. I did enjoy most of the books as they gave were a change from the typical educational textbooks that we used last semester.
The content of the class was good for a class that met for 7 hour stretches. We basically talked throughout the course of how to keep an organization moving in the right direction and discussed ways to make a bad organization better. I know this doesn't sound super thrilling, but the discussion parts of it definitely made the time go by.
I decided to use this class as a wildcard for my Spanish goal. I said "Hola" to my neighbor the other day from across the street, but knew discussion could not continue much farther than that. When I wrote this goal down I knew it was ambitious to think I could learn a language, but I have been so desparate to learn Spanish that I thought this would be the thing that did it for me. Turns out becoming a doctor, having 3 little ones, and learning another language are a lot of work. So...I'm cutting the language out and will work on doing it another time. I might just put it on my next list of goals.