Tag Archives: development

2016 – Progress on my blue goals

The PolyBlog
January 2 2017

So it is 2017. January. The year that was 2016 is over, and as per usual, it is time to see how I did. It is NOT going to be pretty. I’m starting with my “blue” / analytical / learning goals.

MY BLUE GOALS – Live Blue or Die!

  • Astronomy was on my list at the start of the year, and I did almost nothing on it all year. Not quite nothing, I did get my laptop setup to try linking with my camera for a bit of astrophotography, but the astronomy part was minimal. I’ve entered a bit of a inertia problem with my astronomy, much of which will sound like a series of excuses rather than explanations. For me, there are four inter-related problems. First and foremost, I struggle with my equipment. I have a good scope for me and my interests, great optics, some filters, etc. But I struggle to “find” what it is I’m supposed to be seeing still. Some of that is technical, some of it is intellectual. I also hate my power supplies for the equipment, need to fix that. Second, I struggle with having a good location to view from. Basically I have two currently — a park in a suburb nearby, not great, or my backyard. I had bad timing this year for the Star Parties and outings, but also with the equipment challenges, wasn’t exactly encouraged to leap to viewing. I’m hoping my friend’s AstroParc is up and running this year, a bit farther away than I would like, but if I timed it for after work, might be an option once in awhile next fall, or even some late spring / early summer nights. Third, it is extremely rare for me to say something like this about ANYTHING, but I find it a bit boring to do alone. Not to mention that hanging out in a secluded dark park is not exactly at the top of my list of things to do with thousands of dollars of equipment. Fourth and final, one of the solutions to all of the first three is to find a star buddy, and that didn’t exactly happen when I joined RASC (the national astronomy club). I thought there would be obvious buddy-like experiences, but I’m not the most extroverted of people, and while the star parties are fun, you’re basically walking around in the dark talking to nameless and faceless entities most of the time. Not the most conducive to finding a buddy to go to the next party with. As I said at the top, mostly lame excuses, not real challenges, but it just didn’t end up being anything I wanted to prioritize this year. Definitely RED.
  • For Courses, I was fully expecting to hit the ground running in early March/April, finish the Video Games course, get going on Psychology, and maybe even add a third by the end of the year. But for a variety of other issues, mostly under red goals, almost none of those happened. Coursera moved the course around for structure, but I managed to download all the videos I need, so I *can* finish, I just haven’t yet. But I still intend to. Hard to motivate oneself when there is no urgency or payoff other than basic interest. A little bit of yellow near the start of the year, RED by the end.
  • Reading tends to be something I do in fits and starts. I gave Kindle Unlimited a try, but it’s just not worth it to me in Canada — most of the books I would want are not part of the program. Random guess, I would say I probably did about 30 books over the course of the year, but I’ll have a better idea in the next couple of months as I now have my ebook collection fully under control and organized, and I’m back to doing reviews again. I’m also confident that I’ll be able to keep going this year on regular reading. Mostly I need to stop just reading the news while I have my lunch and to actually dive into novels and non-fiction titles. Call it YELLOW for the year.
  • Writing is really hard to measure, and I’ll talk a bit again about this in the red goals. I moved the blog and completely rebuilt it, as well as my picture site. I finally reached 500K words, etc., and I got my Book Reviews up and running. But I’m still coding it RED as I didn’t finish my HR guide despite ongoing demand.
  • Photography is a hard one to evaluate. Mostly it’s red as I didn’t finish my course or setup cards, but I did keep PhotoBooks going and we did end up with some great shots for the year. Still leaving it as RED though.
  • For my Reviews, I’m going to be a bit generous to myself for three reasons. First, I already took the hit on the blog/writing above, so I don’t want to “mark myself down” twice for the same infraction. Second, I have been tweeting my TV episode reviews like crazy for the year. Some 2800 plus tweets since I began. I also put up 90 old book reviews and I’m almost ready to start with new ones. Definitely would be yellow at least, but I’m upgrading myself to GREEN.
  • For Organization, I was mainly looking at new ways to use digital apps, and I’ve done that throughout the year with calendars, to-do lists and shopping lists. Even got our passports redone this year, all newly issued. Again, I’m going to be a bit generous, and call it GREEN.
  • On Cyber, I had four main areas I wanted to handle — sorting photos (green), scanning photos (umm), sorting music (umm), and backup options (yes, except not current, umm). Okay, so the main work was the sorting of photos, and I did that. Rest would be red. Call it YELLOW overall.
  • On the Honey-Do List, a sexist name for basically a home activities/renovation list, we did a few items on the list, not many. Dealt with the things that needed to be done, plus a few others. Nothing major looming. Call it YELLOW, albeit a bit generous. 

Let’s see where that leaves me:

  1. GREEN: Reviews, Organization,
  2. YELLOW: Reading, Cyber, Honey-Do List
  3. RED: Astronomy, Courses, Writing, Photography

Honestly, now that I’ve coded them individually, I’m a bit surprised. It’s not as ugly as I thought it would be, even for blue.

The ones that are my standards i.e. Organization, Reading, Cyber were not too far off where I want them to be overall (I’m ambitious in my goals, but not unrealistic in expectations), and the Honey-Do List is not a crisis. I did okay with the reviews overall for the year, so that’s a plus.

Where I really fell down though was going beyond the basics to my growth areas — Astronomy, Courses, Writing and Photography. And that makes sense to me, particularly in light of what I will have to say in my red goals post.

Overall, I’m coding my blue goals as YELLOW. Down from where I would like them, but not nightmarish.

Where is my dumb robot?

The PolyBlog
November 11 2016

I confess I have a bit of a techie mentality. I paid for part of my university life through working tech support areas and software installation services at universities, as well as helping teach a few practical sessions with professionals upgrading their computer skills. And when I started working for government, a lot of what garnered early positive feedback was my computer skills. I’ve done programming too. But where I stop being a techie usually is when it moves from software to hardware. There I’m relatively lost. Yet when people talk about Artificial Intelligence, better use of data, and all those wonderful things that are more software-oriented, they omit the part that I think is really possible in the short-run. The physical hardware with some basic programming.

People are all excited in the industry about “smart cars”, but long before I get a smart car, can someone tell me why I don’t have a dumb robot yet?

I don’t mean those simple robots that are merely self-propelled vacuum cleaners nor the ones for kids that roll like BB-8 or respond to a couple of voice commands or are in the shape of a pet. I’m talking about a dumb, simple, repetitive-task performing robot.

There’s an article over at the Harvard Business Review blogs by Andrew Ng called What Artificial Intelligence Can and Can’t Do Right Now (link may expire) and I love it for the way it approaches what AI can do by comparing it to the way humans process things. Basically, the argument is that if our brain can figure out what to do in less than a second, then the number of variables are relatively small, there are discrete choices and outcomes, and thus you can automate the task to a machine. Basically machine and supervised learning to teach a machine how to do it.

What do I want in a dumb robot? Someone who can do things for me during the day that I don’t need to do myself. Let’s walk through a typical day and the things that I should be able to have already…

I start my day with my alarm clock beeping at me. No real need to automate that, the alarm clock does exactly what it should do, a tried and true technology. But what if I roll over, turn off the alarm, and accidentally fall back asleep. I don’t mean I hit snooze, I mean I turned off the alarm. Now there is no backup. No mental nudge to say stay awake. What if my dumb robot (DR), let’s call it Jeeves, what if Jeeves was programmed that unless I override his programming the night before had access to my calendar and saw that it was 8:00 and I have a work meeting at 9:00, but I was still in bed. Could Jeeves beep at me? Or even in a nice voice (maybe reminiscent of my mom calling me when I was a kid to get my butt out of bed) saying “Paul, are you up yet?”. Maybe more insistent if I don’t answer. The backup to my own false sense of infallibility.

But let’s say I get up on time and I’m heading for the shower. Do I want Jeeves to turn on the shower for me and have it pre-heated to the right temperature before I come in? Nothing particularly challenging about that. Movement to a preset location, turning a knob to a specific point, good to go. Not much of a time-saver, most people wouldn’t bother. But you could have Jeeves do it.

Now, showering, brushing your teeth, voiding, those are tasks you’re going to perform yourself. But if you had a slight disability, are there basic things Jeeves could do to hold an arm out to assist with transitions? Hand you a towel? Monitor you in case you fall and call someone if you do? Could Jeeves even assist with bathing for those who need it? That’s probably a bridge too far right now, but not an impassable chasm.

But as you finish up in the bathroom, could Jeeves make you breakfast? Your bowls, utensils, cereal, juice, glasses are all pretty much going to be in the same place every day, so automating the robot to fill a bowl with cereal and a glass with juice shouldn’t be that difficult. You just need some flexibility to identify to Jeeves what your bowls and glasses look like, the layout of your kitchen, etc. although scanning/mapping software would do that for it pretty easily. A more advanced version might even be able to crack open a couple of eggs, butter bread or toast, make you a fried egg sandwich so breakfast is ready whenever you are.

Once everything is over, presumably Jeeves could clean up and put dishes in the dishwasher, etc. Could maybe clean them, and put them back in exactly the same spot as the day before, but perhaps not.

When I go to work each morning, there are basically six things I take with me. My tablet, my work blackberry, my personal phone, usually a book that I’m reading, my notebook, and my work pass. There are some other things in my bag, etc., but those six are pretty standard. I might or might not wear a coat depending on the day, different shoes, mitts, hats, always my car keys, but those are contextual. And once in a while, I forget something. Like my work pass. Why? Because I stopped somewhere on the way home, put it in the pocket of my jacket, got home, hung up the jacket, and forgot to put the pass on the shelf by the front door where I’ll see it. No biggie, but why am I using mental energy to remember to put it specifically in the same spot or remembering the next day? What if each of those six items had a small RFID tag on it that Jeeves would monitor. And if they weren’t all in my bag as I go to head out in the morning, Jeeves would say, “Excuse me, Paul, I don’t believe you have your work pass with you.” My first reaction will be, “What? No, of course I do, it’s right here in my … umm, why isn’t my pass in my bag? Oh right, it’s over here. Thanks Jeeves/memory jogger.” Is that a big deal? Of course not, but I bet I would program it to scan for the RFID’s when I’m leaving for the days when my brain is focused on the seven things my son, wife and I are talking about as we scramble to get out the door. Heck, sometimes it’s as simple as something got placed on top of my pass and I can’t physically see it on my shelf, and so I head out thinking I have everything.

Here’s where some of us will diverge. Lots of people would love to take the robot to work. That’s a bridge too far for me. If work wants to automate tasks, great, I shouldn’t bring my own “robot” to work to help me do my job. If so, why not just hire the robot?

But while I’m at work, could Jeeves vacuum the house? Clean a toilet? Wash pre-sorted laundry? Hang it on a line to dry or throw in the dryer and check if it is dry when done? Cut the grass? Shovel snow…oh, that would be sweet.

Could Jeeves be programmed with a more sophisticated kitchen module that would allow it to chop vegetables? Basically act as a sous-chef? Maybe even, with remote activation, throw a pizza in or a pre-assembled casserole so it’s ready when we all get home? I hesitate to go so far as having a full cookbook with multiple ingredients, but that is only an RFID tag on a standard sized container away from doable. Could he open the door and receive a package from UPS or FedEx? Could he collect the mail from a central box?

After supper, can it also double as a stand-in for a playmate for someone who is single or whose friends are busy that night? Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean rather than playing a board game or card game against a computer screen, could it roll dice, charge you rent in Monopoly, learn to throw and catch a frisbee? Or a baseball? Could it be programmed with multiple pitching styles to act like an automated pitcher that adjusts to your level and technique so you don’t have to hit balls by yourself and chase them? Could it act as pitcher with five little scouts running around it that chase balls and bring them back? Could it play basic tennis? Those are more about the design of the robot’s arms/movements than about technique for hitting or throwing a ball, so yes, they all could be done.

As I’m getting ready for bed, Jeeves could turn off all the lights downstairs (heck, an app can do that now). Jeeves could also monitor the location and charging status of my e-devices, and if they are not on the charger, go and get them and put them on charge. Or double check my to do list verbally with me to see if there is anything to adjust, delete, add. A personal secretary app, not unlike some of the functions Siri does now. But more interactive, following me around while I do other things.

And all of those things are doable. A dumb robot, personal assistant, digital butler, e-handmaiden, non-sentient slave. An article I read some time ago talked about the issue of android rights, similar basically to the idea that was raised in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Is an high-AI android property like a toaster? Or as the AI evolves, does it meet any criteria for self-awareness or even sentience? Except it missed the point.

Developers are looking for smart androids. People are looking for dumb robots.

If you had a Jeeves, what would you want it to do that you hate doing yourself?

And where the hell is our Jeeves?

Day 2 / 75 – progress on my goals…

The PolyBlog
October 20 2016

I’ve got a working tracker finally going again, a two-part one that has my work stuff in a single page that I can work with by hand, and another that I had hoped to put on my tablet but then found out that Excel online/cloud/Android doesn’t allow form controls. Fortunately I did *not* spend hours and hours trying to make it work before discovering (a) it was overkill and (b) my tablet wouldn’t let me do it anyway. The page is still a bit tiny font to make it all fit on one page, haven’t solved that problem yet, although I have an idea or two.

The top part of my daily tracker has a full 27 items that I am tracking, and admittedly some of them are no brainers. Like using my sleep machine. They are part of my routine, but one of the frequent failures of trackers is they only track “new stuff” which is bound to have a lot of failures on it. Instead, I’ve learned enough from my reading and own experience on goals to know that some of the “quick wins” should also be listed as it helps balance the storyline. Counting, so to speak, what I’m already doing right and taking credit for it. But some of them are just simple stretch goals.

The bottom part is my developmental area, and ironically or at least coincidentally, it also has 27 items on it. Obviously those ones though are not ones that I’m going to do every day. Like photography learning, it might only be once in the week. But it’s on as a desire. And while the top section I’m trying to get closer and closer to 100% of my goals, the developmental ones are more about balance overall, and so working on even 30 or 40% of them in a week is likely to be considerable effort.

Looking at today, I would say I did about half of the routine ones, an off day, and only about 2% of the developmental ones. I did manage to do some work on finance (ordering my credit report, making some calls) and honey do list (dealing with tires at Costco). I even managed to get a bit of Xmas shopping done.

Not a bad day, not a great day, somewhere in between. Which I’m happy is simply something other than continual slippage.

Day 1 / 75 – progress on my goals…

The PolyBlog
October 19 2016

So I posted yesterday that I’m sucking on my goals writ large, and I’m trying to find a carrot or a stick that will let me whip myself back into fighting shape and get back to working on them. Today marks 75 days left in the year to January 1st when I normally set my goals for the new year and take stock of the old year. I’m curious — if I work hard for 75 days, can I make some progress on my goals that will let me think that the year wasn’t a wasteland of slackerdom?

I’ve been struggling with a good tracker that will let me focus on some of the mechanical tick box items like making sure I make my lunch instead of buying it, take proper snacks for mid-morning and mid-afternoon, try to have breakfast with Jacob in the morning (I often end up showering while he has breakfast with Andrea), and get all of our collective butts where they need to be in a reasonable time in the morning. Equally though, I want to be able to make sure I’m tracking some of the “bigger” ticket goals when I have free time at lunch, or after supper, or on weekends.

Today I did okay, although I have no tracking metrics (so to speak) to validate my feeling. I handled the snacks and lunch thing for instance, and ticked off a few steps on the home front with booking an appointment for someone to look at part of the roof on Friday, rescheduling a dentist appointment to November, and with the help of crowdsourcing on Facebook, figured out where and what tires to buy for the winter. Which I did tonight.

Unfortunately, that is where my grand plans went sideways. I tried to use my MC to pay, and it was declined. I thought maybe I glitched the purchase, but no, still declined. Weird, I used it yesterday. Paid with interac instead, no biggie, got home, called MC. So about three months ago, they offered us a deal if we upgraded our cards. Which of course changed our numbers. Again, no biggie, and we could take our time switching over. Andrea did some basic triage of our past purchases to identify all the pre-authorized debits that had to be updated, and since they happen through-out the month, I hadn’t sat down to figure out which day of the month was the best to switch over to avoid having a problem with parking at work, or a half-dozen IT-related companies for example.

But they neglected to tell us that the old cards would stop working at 90 days, even if the new ones weren’t activated. Guess when the 90 days were up? Yep, yesterday at midnight. Colour me singularly unimpressed. Which I expressed to an agent and then a supervisor to ask PC Financial why they would deactivate the first card before the second was activated, since as of that moment, I was no longer their customer for the interim. Considering how much we pump through those cards, and that we have direct deposit of both our pay cheques to PC Financial, I kind of pointed out that ticking me off wasn’t in their best financial interest, which she agreed (she did do a nice obsequious impression of a fawning CSR). She verified there was nothing she could do about the now defunct card, and that nothing was scheduled to go through in their automatic history, but it did mean spending a lot more time than I wanted to tonight suddenly updating billing info on multiple accounts and services. It’s relatively organized, just time consuming. And I have to do parking at work tomorrow in person and on paper.

When I was just about done, there were two other changes I wanted to make on accounts, and lo and behold, they didn’t go through. WTF? I ended up calling again, working my way through to an agent, only to find out security had put a hold on the new card. Waited in the queue for them (surprisingly not long for either, just annoying) to find out that one of the transactions was declared “high risk” when they saw it. From Google. For my subscription to Entertainment Weekly. I pointed out to them Google was hardly a high risk, but whatever. He worked his way through it, unblocked it, all done. When he tried to explain the rationale, I told him bluntly I didn’t care, and if he didn’t unblock me soon, the account was walking out the door and he might want to look at the volume per year that goes through the account since we use it to pay for just about everything except our mortgage. When he looked at the account, suddenly he was a lot more helpful. I felt a little divaish, but they are making decent money off our business, I don’t feel like being “grateful” for the opportunity to use their services.

I confess I can also be a principled jerk with bad service for somewhere I go regularly. I won’t rant or rave or call them nasty names, I’ll just point out the size of the account and that I’m walking. I did that at Subway back when I was at CIDA. The guy was a tool who couldn’t do basic math and Subway has a system that defies basic logic most of the time. It’s actually relatively famous in franchise circles as being the least forgiving of systems for updates, and theoretically, the most fool-proof. I didn’t know that at the time, or I might have been a bit more forgiving, but the first time was when they had a special on, giant sign on the wall, I ordered it, and the resulting price was about $2 more than it should be. Not a big deal, but when I pointed it out, the guy got snippy and started suggesting I was trying to rip him off. Now, I was going to that Subway a couple of times a week for two years. Call it $25 a week, $1300 a year, $2500+ over two years. I pointed out his math, he tried to show me on a calculator and he got the right answer ($2 less than what he was charging me) and then he said the calculator was wrong. He could not accept his system was charging the full price, not the discount, because he wasn’t entering the special when he punched it in. And even still, no biggie, it’s $2, I don’t care. But then he started getting rude and aggressive, and that was when my principle kicked in. So I pointed out that I hoped his $2 was worth his attitude as I was now going to avoid his restaurant for 3 months. Which I did. And several times he saw me in the food court and wanted to chat to apologize, and I refused. Just waved and passed on by. Not my problem.

The second time was equally trivial. They sell cookies, 3 for $1.99. They also have an option for 12 for $4.99. One day about a year later, I was there and I thought I would take a dozen back to the office for a team meeting. I didn’t have much cash on me, but I had enough left to cover the $6 it would be with tax, so I bought a dozen. Rang it in, came up to over $9. I said, “That can’t be right, it’s only $4.99”. So he got huffy again and showed me…he rang in $1.99 and pressed enter 4 times i.e. 4 x $2 plus tax. I said, “Oh, sorry, no, it’s just the dozen price”. He saw it on the menu and then got rude telling me that it was the same price. I looked at him and said, “Okay, well keep your cookies. And remember last time you acted this way with me and I didn’t come in for three months? It will be six months this time.” He got really upset and started trying to apologize, offering me the cookies for free, and I just said, “Nope, sorry, I don’t like the way you do business. Your system is showing the wrong price and you can’t even be bothered to listen without getting rude. So I like the subs, they’re relatively healthy choices in a food court of terrible choices, but I’m out.”

I do the same regularly lots of places. I am a creature of habit and I will go the same place regularly, partly as I’m a strong blue. But once I have a bad experience, one where they aren’t simply wrong but aggressive or rude, they’re dead to me! I don’t care how good the place is or the price or the location, or whatever. They’re dead to me, Jerry, dead!

And I totally feel that way about PC Financial right now. This isn’t the first time they’ve messed up stuff on the credit card. I’ve had other experiences where they cancelled the card, I contacted them to find out why it’s not going through, they tell me “security flagged it”, security tells me there was some sort of breach, but they won’t give me any info about it or what happened or anything. Total BS, and I told them they had a choice last time. Either get it fixed fast or I walked. That was major strike 1, this is major strike 2.

We recently renewed our mortgage, and while they claim they have great rates, they weren’t even close to the ballpark of our existing bank or another one that was wooing us. And honestly, I simply wasn’t willing to trust them with a mortgage if they can’t get credit cards right. I know, I know, different groups, but still. One more strike and they’re dead to me!

So I just did a major amount of work tonight to fight to a standstill i.e. get me back to where I was the day before. I fixed a couple of small setup issues while I went (PayPal phone number info, switched another account from Visa to MC, etc.), so I’m a little ahead, but it sure ate up the night.

But I did get the tires all done, plus some medication from Costco for Jacob.

Not as much productivity as I would like, but more than I have been doing of late. I also made a shift on some career stuff, maybe I’ll talk about that a bit more tomorrow for Day 2 of the 75 remaining in 2016.

2016 – Progress on my goals

The PolyBlog
October 17 2016

This is kind of a tough one. I am so far off my game it isn’t funny.

2016 – The Only Way Out Is Through
GoalsJFMAMJJASONDCurrent Status
Live Blue or Die!
Astronomy
Moon
Filters
Photos		xxxxxxxxxxxxAlmost nothing for this year
Courses
Video games
Psychology		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much to date
Reading
Kindle Unlimited
Reading challenge		xxxxxxxxxxxxI might be a little unfair to myself on this one as I have finished a few books in there, mainly Stephanie Plum, a book about the music industry, some more CS Lewis, etc. but nothing that would go green, maybe just a few yellows in June or July perhaps
Writing
Blogs
HR Guide
Non-fiction guide		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much happening as I had to move my blog and completely rebuild it on a new hoster
Photography
Course
Setup cards		xxxxxxxxxxxxCrickets chirping, that’s what I hear
Reviews
TV episodes
Book reviews
Season reviews
Movie reviews		xxxxxxxxxxxxIf it wasn’t for my reviews of TV premieres, it would have been red throughout
Organize
New apps
Redo bucket list
Family passport		xxxxxxxxxxxxApps are working well, particularly for shopping, calendar, but not quite up to speed on personal to do yet.
Cyber
Sort photos
Scan photos
Sort music
Backup options		xxxxxxxxxxxxPhoto sites are up to date, and not bad on backups…nada for scanning or music
Honey do list
Establish list
One item per week		xxxxxxxxxxxxNada
Stick To The Knitting
Andrea
Date nights out
Game nights
Family trip		xxxxxxxxxxxxNada
Jacob
Boys nights
Video games
Summer excursions
Sports “practice”		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much, regular “busts” between trying to find something we can do together vs. just things he likes to do on his own,,,he’s been enjoying golf the last month, so I guess that’s something
Website support
Briargreen PS
Astropontiac		xxxxxxxxxxxxAstropontiac has been fine, albeit limited, and I did a bunch of work on Briargreen for a resource library, but not much else (nor have they asked, I guess)
Focus Your Energy, Be Prolific
Writing
Fiction
Posting
Creativity challenge		xxxxxxxxxxxxVery little, partly by the wipe-out of the website and the rebuild
Cooking
Wings and sauces
Mom’s recipes
Dad’s baking
Friend’s recipes		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much for the year, new baking attempts this month
Photobooks
Year in review
Targeted themes
Astronomy		xxxxxxxxxxxxNot sure what colour this one is as it is a mish-mash with the website which is fully up to date, some work on photos for Doug’s 90th birthday, etc. but not many actual books ordered
Be Bright, Be Bold, Be Direct
Stretching
Muscle groups
Yoga
Chiro and massage		xxxxxxxxxxxxNada
Exercise
Walking at lunch
Martial arts kata
Weekend excursions		xxxxxxxxxxxxBits and pieces, mostly nada
Career
Re-certify french
Publish guides		xxxxxxxxxxxxMade a decision about my future, that’s about it, not enough to take it off red

Overall, well, I suck: 11 red, 5 yellow, and 2 green, albeit a bit generous. May through September was a wasteland of non-productivity, and it disgusts even me. I knew I was dropping, so I restarted seeing my counsellor. No clear answers as to what is going on with me, partly as the middle of September saw a sudden boost in approach, energy, etc. I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. For a week. Then I got a flu bug, which is par for the course for me. I need to recommit, but I’m working on a new tracking list hoping that somehow I can hold myself more accountable.

Fingers crossed, as I have no confidence in my ability to re-commit without a lot of luck. We’ll see how far I get.