A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

goals

Day Zero Project update

The Day Zero Project has been interesting for me so far.

As I near the halfway point of the project, I’m 29 percent complete with my 101 goals. Though I’m starting to realize that some of the items I put on this list possibly might not happen.

It’s not for a lack of hoping and trying. It’s for a lack of funds and/or the reality of the item getting done.

As I stated when I first started this project, I don’t intend on showing the list until the end. At that point, I will show all the items I’ve finished (which you can see now via the link at the top of the page) and those, if any, that I didn’t finish.

With that in mind, I might tweak a couple of my goals. Not so much to make it easier, but to make it more plausible of finishing. What I tweak might actually make things harder because I’ll have less time to complete the goal. But, it will be something that is realistic in getting done.

I’m going to stare at my list over the next few days and see what I can come up with to tweak things a bit and I’ll see what I think. If the full list didn’t get done, I wouldn’t consider this project a failure. When I set out on this quest, my personal thoughts were to reach the 75 percent plateau. If I got there, to me it would be a victory because I would have finished many goals.

Of course the final goal is to complete it, but we’ll see how that goes.

Several of the remaining goals are blogging goals. I haven’t started them yet, but plan to soon as each of them require multiple posts (much like the 50 questions that Free Your Mind goal), so I’ll need to start working on those soon. Some of them will be fun to dive into as well. I didn’t want to start them so early as I wanted to be able to get things rolling with them.

Some of the items are photography based and I have been slowly working on them. At some point, I’ll blog about several of these items, complete with images and such.

Then there’s the ones I have completed. Some of these items have somewhat continued as well, which is even better.

Take for example, my No. 11 — No fast food for a month. I did this task last February (2010) and was successful. But the best part? Since completing that on Feb. 28, 2010, I have been good to pretty much continue that. Since that date, I’d be shocked if I have eaten fast food 10 times. I’d be willing to bet it’s lower. I don’t visit these places too often anymore as I know what it can do to you.

Still, I enjoy an occasional taco at Taco Bell. When I do visit one of these joints, I usually try and stay as healthy as possible — chicken or a salad or something along those lines. And I’ve only had one Shamrock Shake so far this year!

One item I had on the list was to finish my 365 Project. The thing was, I only had October, November and December to go. I had put it on there because I was dragging at the time. So it was some push to finish. But, I still feel it was kind of cheesy to a point. As long as all goes well this year and I finish the 366, I’ll feel like I really accomplished that goal.

Some have been silly and very simple (writing my name in the sand), and some have been a little more tedious (comment on 50 random blogs). But overall, it’s been a good thing so far and I hope it continues.

I truly think once I settle in somewhere with a new job, I’ll really dive into this project more because there will be some new and exciting things to explore.

I still have more than 500 days to complete this challenge and expect I’ll make a good push to do so. Hopefully, I’ll get there and know I finished the entire list!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

Day Zero Project: Completed No. 13

A day at the beach... a wonderful way to clear the mind!

A Day Zero Project goal of P.J.’s has been completed!

Goal completed: Spend a day at the beach.

Date completed: October 2, 2011.

Number: 13  (remember, these goals will not all be done in order. It’s a random list where the numbers actually are).

Description: I never used to be a fan of the beach. That was until a friend got married in Florida. Then I found the beauty of beaches. For photos. For relaxing. For swimming. For whatever. I just like it better when nobody is around.

Why I wanted to do it: Different reasons, I guess. The biggest was that I knew it would help me clear my mind a bit. That’s been needed recently. And, to be honest, I just liked the idea of walking around the beach and having no worries.

How I did it: I took advantage of my aunt’s offer to stay down at her place on the Jersey Shore. The tourist season was done, so the beach was quite empty. It was decent weather when I was there, too, so that was nice. Cool enough to wear a sweatshirt, but warm enough to loaf in shorts. I actually spent a lot of the time at the shore on the beach, in different spots, ranging from Avalon to Cape May to Sea Isle City. But it was refreshing. I walked the beaches barefoot, I walked through the water coming up on the beach and I sat and stared out over the ocean. I took photos. I geocached. I relaxed. I realized what a treat the beach is. I don’t know how much I would like it with a lot of people around, but it did what I hoped for this trip — it relaxed me and allowed me to clear my mind some.

I took a lot of photos from the trip and you can see them in this Flickr set (note: as of Nov. 21, I still have one full day’s worth of photos I need to process and add to the set!)

About P.J.’s Day Zero Project: Day Zero is a project where people come up with 101 things to do over 1001 days. I started the project on Oct. 10, 2010 with an anticipated finish date of July 8, 2013. Goals will not be revealed until they are completed. A private list is at the Day Zero website  and the list will be made public upon completion of the project. It’s my thoughts that if things are kept private, should I not do them, change or find a way around it, I’d only be cheating myself.

How’s that Day Zero thingamajig going?

When I first started the Day Zero Project, I knew it was going to be a loose challenge. My goal, of course, was to complete the project in the 1,001 days one is alloted.

I think I’m out to a good start.

I have 700 days remaining in the challenge and through the first 301, I have completed 23 items. I haven’t blogged about them all yet as I need to take a few photos to go with some of them. There are 17 blogged about, however, and you can see each one on the Day Zero Project page.

I’ve learned some things from this project.

The first is that I have to be more conscious of the challenge itself. By that I mean I need to start thinking about the challenge more when I am out and about. A few times, I could have worked on one or two of these items, but didn’t think about it until it was too late. I think one thing I can do is to make a small card of all the items on the list, have it laminated and put it in my wallet.

Especially considering some are photo-related and it would be nice to know if I am going toward something.

For example, one of my photo goals is to take a picture for each letter of the alphabet. However, when doing this goal, it’s done to try and specifically take a photo for the challenge. So if I am out and about and have it in my mind and want to take photos of a beer (for the letter B), it’s in my head that I am doing that. What I actually might do is take a day to go take photos of the remaining letters (I’ve only taken A and B).

Part of my doing the challenge, too, is keeping the items secret (for the most part), so that I don’t feel pressure and also because if I screw something up, it’s more of a slap against myself.

Now, besides the 23 completed items, I have several more that have several things I need to do (for example, attend 10 community events) before I can check them off. A bunch of these are being worked on, so that’s helping, too. I have some other blogging and writing things I need to work on, too — some of which that require 20 or 30 blog posts over time, so I need to get to work on them!

There are some hard ones remaining on the list and a couple that I am going to scratch my head wondering if I will be able to finish them.

That’s part of the challenge.

This is one of those ones where if I don’t get all 101 things done, I’m not going to lose sleep. Believe me, my goal is to complete this list, but it’s a more of a personal thing for me to hopefully better myself in many different ways. Only time will tell how it works out.

I have found that it’s good to set some goals and go with them. The multi-part goals on the list have been good as it’s made me concentrate on putting things together. I’ve enjoyed some of the photography ones, too, as those are ones that challenge my artistic side.

Some of the goals are silly. Some are serious. Some are in the middle. But overall it’s an interesting challenge and I’ve had fun with it so far.

And I have 23 down.

Now there’s 78 to go.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Day Zero Project: Completed No. 63

A Day Zero Project goal of P.J.’s has been completed!

Goal completed: Do a 5/5 geocache.

Date completed: June 3, 2011.

Number: 63 (remember, these goals will not all be done in order. It’s a random list where the numbers actually are).

Description: I wanted to find a 5/5 geocache, which stands for a 5-star terrain and a 5-star difficulty.

Why I wanted to do it: The 5/5 geocache is supposed to be the hardest type of geocache to get. In the end, I would like to get all available 81 terrain/difficulty ratings, so getting a 5/5 was necessary.

How I did it: Honestly, my goal was to do one in upstate New York later this summer. It’s a 6-mile round trip hike through the woods and such. I still might do it, but it turns out that won’t be my first 5/5 cache. This past week, while in Illinois, I was checking out the local caching organization’s forum. One person posted an interest in doing this 5/5 cache — Tunnelin’ (GC2D6FZ).

Tunnelin’ is a cache that requires you to work your way underground in a drainage pipe. The pipe is tall enough to walk in, but you have to work yourself underground by going down a few levels and then walking about a mile roundtrip. Of course, under ground in a cement pipe, you don’t have GPS signal. So the idea is to drop a radio and hang it close to where the cache is supposed to be.

My initial goal had been to go to an event Friday. Then I heard a group was planning this for after the event. However, I didn’t get to the event in time as I got a late run at it. I kept in contact with a local cacher who kept me posted. When I got to the area, several others showed up and we all parked. A bit later, everyone showed up and we went in (mind you, it was about 10 p.m. or so). Under we went and soon had the cache in hand. We signed in and I left a few of my sig items in celebration. It was cool to get a 5/5 cache, especially with a group!

About P.J.’s Day Zero Project: Day Zero is a project where people come up with 101 things to do over 1001 days. I started the project on Oct. 10, 2010 with an anticipated finish date of July 8, 2013. Goals will not be revealed until they are completed. A private list is at the Day Zero website and the list will be made public upon completion of the project. It’s my thoughts that if things are kept private, should I not do them, change or find a way around it, I’d only be cheating myself.

Day Zero Project: Completed No. 38

A Day Zero Project goal of P.J.’s has been completed!

Goal completed: Geocaching: Add 5 more states to my caching total.

Date completed: June 1, 2011.

Number: 38 (remember, these goals will not all be done in order. It’s a random list where the numbers actually are).

Description: It was pretty simple — add five states to my total of places cached. With having most of the neighboring states of New York colored in, I’d have to travel a little.

Why I wanted to do it: I’m addicted to stats and I love seeing the caching stats. So I also like seeing the graphs and the states colored in. I wanted to add a few new ones to my total and see some other states colored in.

How I did it: I started easy. I planned a trip to Maine in the fall, which gave me that state. On my way home, I opted to add the only other New England state I was missing — Rhode Island. Then in April, I went to Washington D.C., which counts as a state on geocaching.com. Alas, that doesn’t matter as I then broke it open this past week on a trip to the Chicago area. I went with a local to grab Indiana and Michigan, and, of course, Illinois. Later in the week, I took a trip to Wisconsin to grab on there (though I also had three DNFs there!). So, I have had six legit new states and Washington D.C. as the seventh! We’ll see about adding more eventually! I’ve now cached in 17 states (including D.C.).

Those states are (with finds in parentheses):

  • New York (1,722)
  • Pennsylvania (315)
  • New Jersey (56)
  • Maine (35)
  • Massachusetts (33)
  • Vermont (19)
  • Illinois (16)
  • Connecticut (11)
  • New Hampshire (8)
  • Indiana (7)
  • Washington D.C. (6)
  • Michigan (4)
  • Virginia (4)
  • Maryland (3)
  • West Virginia (2)
  • Wisconsin (1)
  • Rhode Island (1)

About P.J.’s Day Zero Project: Day Zero is a project where people come up with 101 things to do over 1001 days. I started the project on Oct. 10, 2010 with an anticipated finish date of July 8, 2013. Goals will not be revealed until they are completed. A private list is at the Day Zero website and the list will be made public upon completion of the project. It’s my thoughts that if things are kept private, should I not do them, change or find a way around it, I’d only be cheating myself.