Jarric

Awesome stuff! Also, that's a fantastic shirt.

Oh wow, that sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun. I really like that you don't know everyone's classes yet too. What system is it? 3.5e?

Fingers crossed for good news! (Whether that means you keep your position, you get a new position in the company, or just that you get a decent redundancy package that suits you.) Art and relaxation sounds wonderful; I hope you have a lovely time of it.

That's brilliant, thank you for the feedback. I'm definitely going to take that on board and incorporate some of it. At the moment what I'm doing feels a bit random (other than the daily physio exercises), so I think I'm going to play with it this week and next week. I have the MRI Thursday, hopefully get the results next week (when I'm also travelling for work), and I can then come up with a plan to start with more formally next challenge. Thank you! I'm glad to be drawing too. I'd like to be doing bigger pieces and spending more time on them, but sketching every day is a good habit too.

Mental health goals are as important as physical health goals, and I'd definitely say creativity falls into that category. Look forward to having another person with an art goal next challenge

So super high magic, magocratic setting with flying cities? Sounds like a blast; I await campaign reports. Congratulations! You maintained your streak with 16 minutes to go! (This was me this weekend.) Gotta work on those guns man - summer is coming!

18/03 - 164.9lbs 25/03 -163.9lbs 01/04 - 163.1lbs 08/04 - 163.5lbs 15/04 - 162.2lbs 22/04 - 162.2lbs Was surprised not to see a drop this week as I had a lot of lower numbers on the days in between. Average for last week was 161.6, and on Saturday I hit a low of 160.9, so today feels like a bit of an anomaly. I expect we'll see a bigger drop this week, so I'm not too worried. In non-scale news, I've got a pair of shorts that, when I bought them, were far too tight and I got WW to move the buttons so I could do them up. Yesterday I had to move the buttons again, this time to tighten them back up, and I've taken them in about 2" from where they were. Add to that that I'm 2 belt notches tighter than I was at the start of the year, progress has definitely been made.

Nice one getting back on the workout train mate - anger can be a powerful tool. I think I've missed this; what D&D are you playing right now?

I'd argue that, if you're hangboarding to get better at climbing, playing with the comp climbs isn't a bad choice. Monos scare me a bit; it's a lot of weight on a tiny joint. What do you mean by finger curls?

Late reply, but yes to your backpack analogy. It's amazing how much losing a little weight makes a difference you don't think about. My ability at climbing, pullups, muscle ups, pistol squats, all sorts of movements has improved radically in the last couple of months. I know it's not just the weight loss, but I feel like the weight loss is a major factor in all of that. I'm still a stone heavier than I was at my adult lightest (14lbs / 6.5kg), but to be honest I don't think I'll ever get back there. Like you I had no muscle mass at that stage, so I'd have to be at a seriously low body fat now to get back there (to the point where it's lower than is efficient). I like this, I might just take it on to apply to a few other areas of my life too.

Week 4 so far Monday was a good day. Art was done, can't remember what I sketched but it was something. Kneehab done at Crossfit, which was deadlift day. Deadlifts felt heavy as fuck, so I stopped at 140kg (308#) x 5. I managed a 100ft sandbag carry at 110kg (242#) though, which is pretty cool. Also had a nice lunch with a colleague, and a physio call in the evening to agree the MRI. Tuesday was a good day. Art was a quick sketch of something at the aforementioned Pathfinder horror show. Which reminds me, I need to put a new colour of ink in my fountain pen to match my next character. Kneehab was done before my morning bike ride. Calories were high, as we had cheese and biscuits for dinner and I had a couple of beers at Pathfinder. Wednesday was a good day. Art was not done, but Kneehab was done at Crossfit. My knee felt a bit weird doing squats at Crossfit, so I kept it medium weight at 90kg (198#) x 3, 80kg x 5, 75kg x 7. Then we had pistol squats, and I got to show off the results of a couple of months of kneehab exercises by busting out 5 reps of pistol squats in front of everyone. They were suitably impressed, which was vindicating. It was also a fairly busy day - I had a guy round to price up some carpets, booked in my MRI, spent a bunch of time on the phone to insurance trying (and failing) to get the MRI signed off after I'd booked it, and went to help my dad plant his tomato plants for the year. Dad was on quite good form, and was able to do a lot of the planting himself, which was good. Then bouldering, and home for a lovely pork paprikash cooked by WW. Thursday was a good day. Art was some sketches of hats in front of the TV (yes, really). Kneehab was done at Crossfit, which was sandbag loads, power cleans, and wall balls. After work I had quick call with a different physio, who needed to sign off on my MRI scan to get it covered by the insurance. Ended up staying at work quite late with all the faffing on insurance in the day, and then spent a bunch of time on a very easy, very scary bit of DIY: hanging a mirror. The mirror in question is 1.14m (3'9") across and quite expensive, so the moment when I hung it on two screws I'd stuck into our aging walls was a bit tense! So far it hasn't fallen off the wall, so I think we're ok. All that made dinner quite late, so WW whipped up some quick paneer burgers. Yesterday was a good day. Art was a late night sketch of my feet (hey, it all counts!) whilst I was sat on the sofa watching Free Guy. I've never seen it before, but really enjoying it - it had a little more depth than I really expected from a silly-concept, Ryan Reynolds comedy. Kneehab was done at Crossfit, which I haven't written down but definitely included overhead press, bench press, and weighted chinups. Worked late again, and still didn't get everything done I wanted, but had to call it at a reasonable time so we could go to the supermarket. Ended up having a late night watching the film, which meant a lie in this morning.

Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him! Mind you, this adventure is scary enough without him throwing anything more cruel on top.

Yeah, it was actually a really fun session. Annoying not to be able to take the character concept to a high enough level for any of it to work, but that's the way the dice roll. Also, I 100% could have run away, rather than trying to be heroic and getting myself killed. Some of the others not so much Yeah, though to be fair there was nothing accidental about this . Posions/curses l/diseases are good when they're interesting - when they just put a road block in the game not so much. I'd take diseases being interesting but not stopping you from playing over realism in that case. Nah, we're level 1. We onew what we were gettibg into when the GM suggested we roll up 2 characters before the game started - this adventure path is notoriously lethal. That said, if I need a new character in a year's time I might resurrect him then, if I can find a thematic way to do it. Or I could just introduce his identical twin

Week 3 wrap-up Week 3 was so long ago I don't remember it, and I've talked about most of it anyway, but the final scores were: The cartographer: 3/7 days doing art. Appears this very much dropped off at the weekend. The muscle: 6/7 days kneehab. Saturday was tricky as I was out drinking and eating amazing food for most of the day, but otherwise we're good here.

Pathfiner update I'm super far behind on updating, so let's start with the important stuff! We had Pathfinder on Tuesday night, and we went to explore the cellar of the abandoned house we were in. We found a creepy chair-device use to create undead from the living, but before we could examine it we were attached by a giant, hideous leech creature (a leecher? A leeture?) Our wood kineticist was first in the firing line - the leecher grabbed him immediately, dealing a bunch of damage, and then drained all of his blood in round 2. Meanwhile the rest of us failed a bunch of knowledge checks to identify the thing, but we did learn it was weak to fire. I spent an entire round trying fashion a flaming arrow, before missing it entirely the following round. At this point, in real life, I went to the bar. When I came back our rogue was also unconscious and drained of blood, and the kineticist was losing his final grip on the mortal realm. Trying to be heroic I dragged the kineticist out of the way. Then I stepped up to the creature, turned back to my companions, and told them to run. And then I blew up my mechanical composite bow, in a blast of fire. Funny thing, turns out that this creature wasn't weak to fire . We'd failed that check too. Our druid dragged the rogue away, whilst the creature was busy leeching unlife out of the summoner's shadow companion. To save the shadow, and deprive the leecher of another meal, the summoner pulled out a dagger, cut off his own shadowy hand, and the summon winked out of existence. The kineticist breathed his last, failed his recovery check, and died. Then the leecher turned on me. He rolled a fucking crit, grabbed me, and drained me dry all in one turn. Whilst the druid fled with the rogue's unconscious body, the summoner hung back to try and save me. A brave choice, but a poor one, as the leecher managed to get close enough to him to drain all of his blood as well. So, after session 4 of this campaign, 3 of the 5 PCs are dead and we were quite frankly lucky to escape a TPK. Tune in next week to meet our new characters, I guess!

Wow, yeah, that sounds really full on. I'd like to give something like that a go - I appreciate that sticking a blindfold on for a few hours is not the same as experiencing what it's like to live as a blind person, but it sounds like it would still be a thought-provoking experience. Yeah, it's a fair point, I shall try not to get too hopeful. It's just such an usual presentation of symptoms, I'd like to get more than contradictory guesses from different physios. That would be great, thanks so much for the offer. So at the moment, physio exercises are: - single-leg, bent-leg calf raises - 1x20ish - single-leg squats, focusing on glute engagement, straight back, knees not tracking past toes - 1x12ish Doing that every day is easy, I mostly do them betweent sets at the gym, and as it's only 1 set of each it doesn't take long if not. The call I had with a different physio to book the MRI suggested doing them less than daily (maybe 3x per week), but doing 3-5 sets. I haven't implemented that yet; would need to find a good way to fit it in. Unrelated, the single leg squats are definitely doing something even with low volume, because my pistol squats have improved about 500% in the last 2 months. I also decided last weekend to try and do some ankle exercises when I've got free evenings sat on the sofa - specifically these ones from GMB: https://gmb.io/feet/ . So far I've only done them twice, but it feels like even a couple of times per week they might be useful. I've also noticed that doing the ankle circles whilst weight bearing on the ball of my foot seems to aggravate the same area of my knee as running, which is interesting. My gym coach has got me doing eye focusing exercises, which are in theory 20 seconds 3x per day (actually doing 1-2). In terms of general exercise, I'm in a crossfit-style gym Mon, Wed, Thurs, Fri (1 hour each), and I go cycling Tues, Sat, Sun (probably 2 x 40 minutes and 1 x 90-120 minutes). I also go bouldering Wed and Sat, for anywhere between 1 and 3 hours of chilled-out climbing.

Sorry to hear that mate - it's definitely difficult finding good people to help you. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I end up with someone good! I wish it was a more common thing - definitely think more people should try it. Thanks for the advice! I've heard good things about Knees Over Toes Guy, don't think I've come across Squat University before, but I'll check them both out. Wall sits are one of those things that I hate, but also think it would be cool if I were good at them I think all of it would be helpful. The main thing I can never work out is how to prioritise things so that I'm getting what it is I need without spending 3 hours every day doing every ankle/knee/hip/glute exercise under the sun. Not to mention the eye exercises that my gym coach has recommended for posture . I'm hoping that an MRI might give me a better idea of what to target, but if you've got any idea how to work it out other than that I'd appreciate the help.

18/03 - 164.9lbs 25/03 -163.9lbs 01/04 - 163.1lbs 08/04 - 163.5lbs 15/04 - 162.2lbs Ate a little over 1,000kcal over budget last week, but that's still well in deficit and that seems to have worked fine. I'm not quite on track for my goal right now, but 2.7lbs down from the start of this challenge isn't bad at all. There was, to be fair, a great deal of guessing on Saturday. Had my meal in the dark, which was an amazing 3-course meal including a great swordfish starter. It was a really cool experience, and though I've done it before I was still amazed at how relaxed I felt being temporarily blind. Add to the mystery meal the beer before the restaurant, the cocktail before the meal, two glasses of wine with the meal, a beer on the way home, and then deciding to have cheese and biscuits for dinner, it was certainly a high-calorie day with a lot of margin for error on the guesswork element.

Sounds exciting; where are you off to?

I'm speaking to a consultant about my knee on Monday, so I want to get my thoughts in order about it beforehand. Figured I'd share it here whilst I'm writing it up, in case anyone has a brilliant idea. Spoilered for size

Ok, I'm well behind on updates, so: Wednesday - Kneehab done, art not done. Spent a bunch of my morning routing wires and considering a wifi extender or an access point, as I had new internet installed. On the plus side, I now have synchronus up/down 900mb internet. Had physio, which wasn't really helpful, but he's referring me to a consultant for a possible MRI scan. Thursday - Kneehab done and art done. Art was a rubbish, late night sketch of the cat after a long day on the road (I spent about 6.5 hours driving for a 2 hour client meeting). Friday - Kneehab was done, art was not done. I tried running very slowly, in very short distances, at Crossfit. It didn't hurt, but no idea if it's better to push or not. By the end of the day I was knackered and just stared at my phone until bed time. Saturday - Yesterday was a good day, but neither kneehab nor art were done. I got up early, went for a short bike ride, went to climbing, drank tea and had a chat instead of actually doing any climbing, then came home and headed into town. In town WW and I met up with some friends and went to a restaurant where you eat in the pitch black, and are served mystery food by blind waiters. It was really brilliant - the food was great and it was just such a cool experience. We had a cocktail beforehand and a beer afterwards, and then headed back. In the evening WW and I caught up on the last 4 episodes of Doctor Who, and ate cheese and biscuits and drank beer. It was a marvelous, high-calorie, non-goal-scoring day.

All green with all of those schedule disruptions is a pretty major feat in itself - well done mate!

Glad you approve - I spent way too long choosing a gif to respond with. Now I'm wondering if there's enough Spike gifs or there to theme a whole challenge...

Ok, I guess it depends who's doing the biting...

Tuesday - W3D1 Yesterday was a good day. Art was some sketches during Pathfinder - one of Tangletop, a brownie who we decided to help get a shiny thing in return for information, and one of Mr Bird, who was the weird, soul-bound construct which was guarding said shiny thing. In combat with Mr Bird I rolled a crit to overdrive my bow (as an inventor I can mess with it in combat to make it do extra damage), and then proceeded to miss every damn attack for about 5 rounds. In the end I finally hit, and that hit ended up being the killing blow! We gave the shiny (a spyglass) to Tangletop, got some information about weirdness in the general area and a random key which we hope opens a door in the tower we were trying to explore, and ended the session there. Next session we'll either be going downstairs in the place we're in, or going to a cave with a dragon in it, or to the tower to try the key, Kneehab was done at Crossfit. Crossfit was deadlifts - I didn't write down the weight but think it was 140kg (308#) x 5 - and then some disgusting 1-minute intervals of 6 deadballs to shoulder and max distance air bike. My legs have taken a hammering recently Work was good - it felt unusually productive which was really nice. Working from home helps with that. Calories were low ish, though WW accidently bought me a coke rather than a diet coke at the pub where we play Pathfinder, which was a waste of 133kcal on a drink I don't like as much.