Jack Danger

Welp, this wasn't really the return that I had been expecting. I meant to post way more often, but that hasn't happened. Not gonna make excuses though. It's my own fault, so I'm just gonna have to make a conscious effort for the next week, and really dive into the next challenge afterwards. My progress so far has been as follows: FITNESS- Walk for the sake of exercise 30 minutes every day. 17/22, good enough for a solid C+ DIET- Track all food with MyFitnessPal. 20/22, a strong A- grade right there. WRITING- 3 pages a day, every day. 0/22. There aren't letter grades low enough for the amount of failure. WHY I'M FAILING: I feel like my writing goal was always doomed to fail. Going from never writing to writing every day is daunting, and once you miss a day, it snowballs. Nerd Fitness is always about making small incremental changes, which is not what I was trying to do. The two days I didn't track my food were because Veteran's Day is the busiest day of the year at work, so I spent whatever little free time I had shoveling sugary candy down my throat in an attempt to keep myself energized. I couldn't keep track of it all. And yesterday I ate a big home cooked meal at a friend's house and have no idea what the ingredients were or how much I actually ate, so I figured I'd just take a hit with the tracking. As for my other miscellaneous goals, I have made very small progress on just about everything, but not enough to note. The only thing left to do now is to keep moving forward. And I'm gonna have to crash some other threads, get myself more involved in the forums moving forward, much like I did my first challenge.

That's neat, I hope they all had very happy birthdays!

I wrote this all out and meant to post it earlier this morning, but whatever. It’s been almost two whole months since I've used the forums. Loads of stuff has happened since then. What hasn’t happened is good fitness. But my life has settled down a fairly significant amount, so I’m ready to jump back in. It seems like an especially good day to do that, not only because it's the first of the month, but it's also my 25th birthday. And I'm promising myself that this is the year that I get myself back on track, that I figure stuff out, the year that I really get my life going. It starts today. Here’s a rundown of what’s gone on the past few months, kind of taking stock of where I am right now (spoilered, because it's a lot). My goals this challenge are going to be incredibly simple and few in number, to help get me back on track and start rebuilding healthy habits for my fitness and diet. I also want to get back into writing, but I’ve always been more of a screenwriter than a novelist, so I’m going to be working on my own NaScreeWriMo, instead of NaNoWriMo. The end goal will still be to have a finished product by the last day of the month, but instead of a novel it'll be a 90ish page screenplay. GOALS. FITNESS- Walk for the sake of exercise 30 minutes every day. DIET- Track all food with MyFitnessPal. WRITING- 3 pages a day, every day. I have a lot of other goals that I want to accomplish, but most of them aren’t as easily quantifiable and trackable. -Finish moving everything out of my old place and into my apartment. -Work my way back into a 3/week bodyweight workout routine. -Figure out what I want to do with my life already. -Work on that homebrew RPG campaign that’s been kicking around my head. -Investigate the possibility of a rock climbing gym membership. There's probably more, but that’s it for now. Let’s go do this.

Finished the mask! I was up until all hours of the night last night, but I didn't want to go to bed until my work was done. Okay, technically it's not actually finished, but all that I have left to do is sharpie the moon onto the mask's forehead. But there's a quandary here. On the cover of the issue this costume is in, the moon symbol is red. In the actual pages of the comic, it's a black outline of the moon. The pen that MK steals and uses to make the costume is red and appears to write in red ink, except for when it draws this symbol. I haven't made a decision as to what color I'm going to make it yet (opinions are welcome). But the hard part is done. Comics vs. cosplay Red moon vs. white/black moon

Oh man, I guess Thursdays just aren't for me. This time I made a conscious decision beforehand to be a certain amount of unhealthy, then accidentally wound up being way more unhealthy than planned. I went to a football game with friends last night, so I decided on letting myself eat and drink like crap for the game. But getting the tailgating stuff set up took more time than expected, so I didn't get my workout in (gonna have to shift around my rest days like last week). I didn't have time to cook, so I ate garbage stadium food for dinner, and garbage fast food for lunch. I bought too many snacks and refreshments, so my fridge is packed with about 30 cans of soda and 15 beers, and I've got 3 half full bags of chips left. ALSO, school started on Tuesday and I had so much homework due today. I got some of it done by yesterday morning, but the lion's share I had to finish last night after the game. I didn't go to bed until around 4 am, and I got up at 6:30 this morning for school at 8. It's safe to say I am shot out today. DANGER LOG:

I hope those potatoes trying to be chips successfully became chips. Also, any time anyone mentions potatoes, this song starts playing in my head. I wish I knew how to embed youtube videos.

I don't have any specialization, at least not yet. There's just so many exciting events and time periods and cultures and civilizations across all of world history, it's hard to narrow things down and focus in. Probably something I'm going to have to do soon though. That sounds daunting, but really cool. I wish you luck as well. What made you gravitate towards that field of study specifically?

I'm going for History and Secondary Education, and throwing in a minor in Anthropology for good measure. The plan is to be a teacher, but I'm also not gonna shy away from other work opportunities related to history, like in a museum or something. All of my professors have had really exciting careers in their fields doing a myriad of things so I'm gonna pick their brains about job possibilities throughout the semester. Thanks!

See, I can't do long series. I have problems committing to one book by itself, let alone a series of them, so most of what I read are just one-and-done's. I just finished reading "Roosevelt's Beast." It's a fictionalized account of a real expedition taken by Teddy Roosevelt and his son Kermit down a previously uncharted river in South America. The Roosevelts get separated from the expedition and are conscripted by a local tribe to hunt and kill a mythological monster terrorizing their village. It was pretty alright. Not amazing, not terrible. It could have very easily gone for campy, goofy fun, but instead was a bit more serious than I had expected, using the beast as a metaphor for Kermit's real life battle with depression. That was cool. Also, thanks, I need all the luck I can get! That's awesome, which volume was it? I recommend checking out the stuff by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey. You don't really need to have read anything else to jump into that. It's where I started. I loved it so much I went back and started reading all the classic MK from the '70s and '80s. I'm catching up with that as I read the current series, which is also amazing, but borrows much more heavily from the classic stories. I'll definitely post pictures of Nathan Drake. I'm probably gonna throw together something quick for this year's Comic Con because of time (and money) constraints, but eventually the plan is to have at least two separate versions of the cosplay, one from Uncharted 2 and the other from 4. I want to make them as exact as possible by sewing my own shirts, making the leather pouches and gun holsters myself, that kind of stuff. Uncharted is hands down my all time favorite game series. I've beaten all of them an embarrassing number of times. I love spending time with the characters, and in that whole treasure hunting action adventure world. I just can't seem to get bored of it. The third one is my least favorite, so I can't really fault you for not finishing it. The Playstation Neo's coming out eventually, which will probably drop the price of the regular PS4. That might be the time to invest. Wawa is like a convenience store, mixed with a deli, mixed with a gas station, but better than all of those things. You can get any type of snack food you'd want, donuts and breakfast sandwiches, coffee, tea, those crazy frappachino things, sub sandwiches, quesadillas, soups, giant warm chocolate chip cookies, and way more stuff I can't think of now. They're also everywhere around NJ and PA. I can drive 20 minutes in any direction, and I'd hit a Wawa. Whenever I say Wawa, I usually mean one of their hot sub sandwiches. Sorry I wrote you a novel.

Late night update, woo! I got out of work way later than I expected to today, and didn't eat at all during my shift because things were crazy. So I had a late dinner (crap food too), then waited until midnight to work out. And now, while I debate between making myself some food or just going straight to sleep, I shall post. WEEK ONE SUMMARY FITNESS GOALS Walk every day for at least half an hour. 7 days. 7 walks. A+ Workout 3x a week. 3/3 Shuffled around my rest days due to a terrible hangover, but I didn't actually miss any workouts. A+ DIET GOALS Cook at least one healthy meal a day. 4/7 I thought I had done worse, but still not good by any means. I give myself a very, very generous D- No fast food, no Wawa, no candy, no junk. This was a week populated by cheese-filled soft pretzels, ice cream, fast food, and Wawa. I have failed spectacularly. F No soda. For as bad as I ate, I only drank soda and/or sweet tea one day of the seven. B+ (Revised) Stop drinking after your fourth drink. Since revising this goal, I've only gone out for drinks once. I limited myself to two drinks, which is great, but it's too small of a sample size to give myself a grade. N/A NYCC PREP GOALS Finish mask for Moon Knight by end of week 2 (revised). The original goal was by the end of week 1. I was derailed on Thursday, which is when I was going to do all of the work. Still, I failed, and I have to own that. F MISC. GOALS Most of these are kind of abstract and hard to grade, plus they're meant to be additional stuff, not the primary focus of the challenge. I don't think I'm going to grade them. Read for at least ten minutes every night. 2/7 Whenever I finish a book, it takes me a couple days to figure out what I'm in the mood to read next, which is why there's a five day deficit. I found a nice 600-something page book about the life of T.E. Lawrence though, so I'll be set for this goal for a while. Set aside time every day to focus on schoolwork. School starts Tuesday! (!!!!!!!) I'm actually really excited. I'm taking on a full course load, which is going to be rough. But, three of my classes are about archaeology and anthropology, and the fourth is "The History of Alcohol". How cool does that all sound? Finish hiring process for substitute teaching. I submitted all my paperwork online already. If they don't contact me before Wednesday, I'm going to call them to see what my next steps are. Go on an adventure or two. Going to a preseason football game on Thursday. Super pumped about football season being back. Not exactly an adventure, but it's the closest I've got right now. Look into membership at the rock climbing gym. I'm gonna let myself get into a rhythm with school and work and everything before I seriously look into this. WEEK ONE OVERALL GRADE: C- DANGER LOG:

Can confirm, burpees are the worst, also can't unsee boob light.

I think it's great that when you felt like you were on the verge of giving up, you turned towards NF this time instead of shying away from it. That really says something, and that decision shouldn't be overlooked. Failing to some degree is kind of inevitable for everybody. But being able to get back on track and not let that deter you from your ultimate goals is what's important.

The thing is, I don't particularly go out too often. Last challenge, I only drank twice. Didn't drink at all during Week 0 (one of the few things I kept up on, actually). And only once so far this challenge. I don't feel compelled to go out every night or anything, and I turn down drinking with coworkers more often than not. So you're probably right, my goal should be to limit my number of drinks, because that's what I have a problem with. I get going and then don't know when to stop. I've flippantly tried to set limits, but drunk me usually just ignores them in favor of having a good time. "One more won't hurt." Cut to way too many beers and shots later. I think when I made my goals, I wanted to set something that I definitely wouldn't fail at, so I chose something that wouldn't really challenge me or help me better myself. And now that I've typed all this out, I think I'm gonna fix that. Also, thanks! I'm actually really proud of that costume, mainly because I took a unique approach to creating the mask. Most people I've seen do that character either draw the eye shapes on, or cut out holes. I modified a design frequently used for Spiderman cosplays to put lenses into my mask. I think it makes it look somewhat grounded and realistic, while still keeping that comic book-y feel. I've seen maybe half a dozen people tackle that version of MK, and none of them have done anything like that. It was also my first ever cosplay, so there's that too.

Happy (belated) birthday! Good luck on the job hunt. I hear you on customer service jobs being terrible. I work in a restaurant and not a shift goes by without me wanting to burn the whole place to the ground. I hope you find something consistent and tolerable soon.

Story of my life right here.

Welp, this challenge has gotten off to a rocky start. I've been pretty bad with not eating junk, and have only cooked twice in the past five days. Last night was my best friend's birthday, so we went out to a bar to celebrate. I wound up drinking way more than I should have, which put me out of commission for all of today. Worst hangover in recent memory. I ate fast food for both meals today because I figured greasy unhealthy food would help. Turns out, as I just looked up, greasy food is not good for hangovers at all. Whoops. I was supposed to work out today, but that didn't happen. Went for my walk though. I'm probably going to just work out tomorrow morning, rest on Saturday, work out on Sunday, and then I'll be all caught up and back into my normal schedule. Might work on the mask a bit for the next hour or so, see if I can make something out of this crap day. DANGER LOG:

I just wanna say, motiva-ca-tion is an amazing pun. A+ Also, this is pretty much me, all the time. I think my thought process is usually something like "I didn't have that totally terrible food that I shouldn't have had, I'm gonna reward myself with some other totally terrible food that I shouldn't have." Good luck with resisting temptation, and with the rest of your goals!

That hike looks like it'll be an awesome adventure! Stats classes suck. I have the same problem with things like that. I went on a big solo trip last June and it took me obnoxiously long to pick out a travel backpack for it. I think I made a pretty good decision in the end though, as I'm sure you will too. Now I just need another reason to dust it off and use it again. Good luck with all your goals this challenge!

Good luck on Mystery Project. I hope whatever it is works well, and we get to see what's up. Don't die is a pretty good goal. I totally know how you feel. I've got school coming up next week with a full course load, and then I'm going to be working two jobs as well. But we're badass rebel adventurers, so we've definitely got this.

I'm working on a cosplay for NY Comic Con in October. Moon Knight's an obscure Marvel hero that gets his powers from the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Also, he's mentally unstable and has multiple personalities. Basically, he's a crazy version of Batman that dresses in all white and isn't afraid to be incredibly violent. He's never been anywhere near an A-lister but his comic book runs, especially the most recent two, are all pretty great. Last year I went to NYCC as "Mr. Knight", one of Moon Knight's specific personalities. This year, I'm going to be making a new costume based on a version of MK seen in the first issue of his latest run, where he's trapped in a mental asylum and has to make a costume out of a bed sheet. It's more complicated than it looks. The hardest part is making the mask, which involves sewing and elastic and a bunch of stuff that I'm not really great at. But it's coming together. I'll post up some pictures of it when I'm done, which will hopefully be by the end of the week. Also, thanks. Yeah, Thoth. God of knowledge and writing. Seemed fitting.

It took me a bit to finally get around to it, but I just read your story. I can see what you're saying in that I also think it would have benefited from being longer and more fleshed out. But the pace of things was quick, there was no excess fat that bogged the story down, and so it kept me reading to the end, which is definitely good. The caribou line didn't exactly feel like it fit, but everything else was consistent in tone. And, most importantly, you actually wrote something, which is more than a lot of writers, including myself, can normally say. Good job.

He wasn’t going to be able to go on like this for much longer. Jack had been wandering the desert aimlessly for so long that he had lost track of time. Every hour felt like days, every day felt like a lifetime. He would climb one dune only to be met with a hundred more. The sun smothered him with its blaring heat, and the sand drank all of his sweat until he was empty, dried up. All of his companions, their gear, their camels, everything had been lost in the sandstorm. Only he and the desert remained. And soon, he too would be gone. With the last bit of strength that he had remaining, Jack stumbled over the top of a dune. He fell to his knees, the world swimming around him. The last thing he saw before he passed out was a shape, some sort of man-made structure, just before the horizon, and then nothingness... “We have been expecting you.” Jack opened his eyes and sat up. He was on a bed, indoors. Much to his excitement, there was not a grain of sand to be seen. Standing next to him was a man, well-dressed in traditional Bedouin garb. The man carried himself in a manner that evoked a priest or holy man, and he spoke as with great importance. “Your arrival was foretold. You are the one who seeks, and yet knows not what it is that he seeks.” Jack was still weak, but when he spoke, he did so with certainty. “I know what I seek. My name is Jack Danger, and I seek knowledge from the ancient Book of Thoth, hidden away in the House of Life.” ---------------------- Alright, round two. My first challenge went pretty alright. I got back into working out 3x a week, which is great. I ate way better those four weeks than I had been in a long time. I cooked more often (and by cooked I mean that I grilled chicken, and then microwaved instant rice and frozen vegetables). I almost normalized my sleep schedule, which I wasn’t particularly trying to do but still. I made a three book dent in the ever growing library. And I finished making a handcrafted gift for my friend’s birthday. This past week, however, has been decidedly not so good. I kept up with working out, but I haven’t really cooked at all. Instead, I’ve been shoveling fast food, Wawa sandwiches, and donuts into my face. So. Many. Donuts. And then I’d wash it all down with Coke or Dr. Pepper or whatever other sugary drink I could get my hands on. I’ve been staying up late and waking up late. I guess my logic was that I could slack off for the week because I’m going to be strict on myself during the next challenge, so I might as well get all the unhealthy out of my system beforehand. This is a stupid way to think, and I’m going to make a more conscious effort for the next between-challenge week to be less bad. For the upcoming challenge, I plan on maintaining pretty much the same goals in an effort to further build healthy habits. Life’s going to be getting a little crazier starting next week as I return to school for the first time in three years, so I don’t want to go overboard. In October, I’m going to NYCC so I’m working on two separate cosplays for that. One requires me to learn how to use a sewing machine, the other a few new leather crafting skills. I’d also like to work in some kind of adventure into the upcoming weeks, whether it’s something hiking related, hitting the rock climbing gym, maybe a day trip somewhere. I’m not sure what it’ll be, but I feel like I have to do something to earn being an adventurer. Like last time, I wanted to name this challenge as if it were a pulp adventure novel. In ancient Egypt, a "house of life" is a temple's library. They were places of learning, with scrolls on every subject ranging from religion to geography, history, astronomy and other sciences, etc. I'm going back to school, so I figured that was a good theme to stick to. I also wanted to go for something that suggested Egypt because one of the cosplays I'm working on is Moon Knight, a Marvel comics deep cut hero who gets his powers from the Egyptian Moon god Khonshu. I probably put way too much thought into these titles and little story blurbs. Oh well. Without further ado, the goals: FITNESS GOALS Walk every day for at least half an hour. Workout 3x a week. DIET GOALS Cook at least one healthy meal a day. No fast food, no Wawa, no candy, no junk. No soda. (Revised) Stop drinking after your fourth drink. NYCC PREP GOALS Finish mask for Moon Knight by end of week 2 (revised). Order scrubs and slippers for Moon Knight by week 2. Write up attack plan for Nathan Drake cosplay by end of week 2. Update challenge with specific goals for weeks 3 and 4. MISC. GOALS Read for at least ten minutes every night. Set aside time every day to focus on schoolwork. Finish hiring process for substitute teaching. Go on an adventure or two. Look into membership at the rock climbing gym. Alright. Here we go.

DANGER LOG FINAL STATUS REPORT FITNESS GOALS Walk every day. 28 days. 28 walks. Grade: A+ Workout 3x a week. 12/12. Grade: A+ DIET GOALS Cook at least one meal a day. 25/28 Grade: B+ No junk food. I've definitely been eating better the past four weeks, but I gave in to my junk food cravings more than I should have. Grade: C No soda. Drank sweetened tea on three separate occasions, and drank a lot of soda on August 8th. Otherwise, had none. Grade: B No more than 2 alcoholic drinks a week (Drinks roll over). No alcohol for the first 3 weeks. Went way over my limit in Week 4. Grade: C HYGIENE GOALS Floss more often. Flossed once! Grade: F HOBBY GOALS Read a little bit every night. 16/28. Grade: D Finish baseball watch leather crafting project by end of challenge. Finished the project with a few days to spare. Grade: A+ AVERAGE CHALLENGE GRADE: B-

DANGER LOG DAY 27 - FRIDAY Walked ~30 minutes. Cooked lunch before work. Called up the property manager of one of the apartments my friend and I were looking at. We decided to take it, so I'll be sent a lease in a couple of weeks. We haven't signed anything yet, but it's still pretty crazy. Read two more chapters. DAY 28 - SATURDAY Walked ~30 minutes. Flossed. Figured I'd have to do it at least once before the challenge ended. Worked out. Went out for drinks after work. Messed up a lot. I said I'd have two drinks max. I had a shot and a beer to start. Then the bartender brought over shots for me and my friends, on the house, and I couldn't say no because that would have just been rude. Then I was convinced to have another beer, and then shortly thereafter another shot. But I turned down that third beer that I'd normally have. Baby steps. My problem is that when I'm drinking, things snowball out of control real quick. One drink turns into two and a shot, turns into four beers and three shots, etc. Definitely gotta work on that. I don't mind drinking socially, but I get embarrassingly drunk far too often. Either way, last night I didn't get too embarrassingly drunk, so there's that at least? When I got home, I ate a can of Spaghettios, a protein shake for some reason (?), and a Hershey's candy bar. An eclectic mix, to be sure. What a way to end the challenge.

DANGER LOG DAY 24 - TUESDAY Wasn't as hungover as I should have been considering the number of jello shots I had the night before. Walked ~30 minutes. Had a really busy day, doing errands. Got approved for an apartment. My friend and I need to discuss things, but I may actually be moving out. Which is cool. And scary. Cooked lunch. Worked out. As you can see above, I finished the watch. DAY 25 - WEDNESDAY Walked ~30 minutes. Cooked dinner after work. Finished Stranger Things. Didn't do much else. DAY 26 - THURSDAY Walked ~30 minutes. Worked on a personal budget. Trying to plan for possibly moving out. Worked out. Didn't cook today. Went out to Red Robin with my family for dinner. Had a sandwich and some french fries. Read two more chapters. Now that I'm done with the watch, I've gotta plan my next project. I'm going to NYCC in October, and I've got two different cosplays I'm gonna work on for that. I've just gotta pick which I want to start designing and making first.