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I am a member of a secret hunting society that tracks and kills monsters. The bounties are high, but so are the risks. The smallest mistake will cost me EVERYTHING- my bounty, my gear, my life and my very soul. Some hunt for wealth and some for power. Some hunt to protect others and some hunt for glory. I must track my quarry through a dark and treacherous world. Winner takes all. Fail, and go straight to hell. Welcome to my first challenge of 2018! My name is Wild Wolf but most people just call me Wolfie. If you're new to my shenanigans, then please, take my sincerest apology for wasting your time Father of 4, husband, wolflean, sheepdog and Werespartan. I've been with NF since September 2012 and have never looked back. I've made countless friends over the years and even got to hang with a few nerds for what is dubbed as an "Epic Meetup" :). This upcoming year is a lot like most years but if you take a closer look, you'll see some very specific details that make it different. This is a year I'm a "do'er" and not a "don't'er" . It's rather simple really. Not to do ALL the things. But ALL the IMPORTANT things. Things like, Getting my family out of the apartment lifestyle and into the house lifestyle Fixing my shoulders Finding a job that can support us better-whether that's a new job or my current one Write a book Climb outdoors (maybe not THAT important, but something I want to do) Take Dadhood to another level. I only get to be a dad once and I want to excel at this! Spend more quality time with the wolf pups Read the Bible cover to cover That's to name a few. Basically, 2018 will be a year of positive and successful change. How will I do that? Easy(ish). By collecting bounties on each challenge and reaping the rewards. My first bounty is the Hype-Stealing bastard from the last challenge! My theme and possible running theme for the next couple challenges will be based after a PC game I recently discovered called Hunt: Showdown. The closed alpha is supposedly coming in January and I'm really excited about testing it out! The graphics and theme say it all. The setting takes place right at the end of the 19th century in what is referred to as The Gilded Age, referring to the serious social problems we had that were masked by a "thin gold gilding". (This is also where the Wild West was nearing an end and pre-WWI weapons like the German Mauser C96 were coming into play.) You take control over a bounty hunter and tasked to patrol the swamps of Hunt, Louisiana to battle the forces of evil. You can go in solo or with a partner but death is permanent in this game so the tension factor is ALWAYS high. Since my dad is more of a PC gamer, I told him about this and hoping we both get a chance to play together. Here's the kicker though. You have to be invited to the closed alpha. There's a strong chance I won't even get to play right now but how freakin cool would that be if I got selected?!?! It would almost feel like destiny... So there's that. I am a bounty hunter and bounties will be collected. You may be asking yourself, "Ok swanky, I feel ya, Wolfie. This is a schweet theme! But why Bloodlines?" Bloodlines or "bloodline traits" stands for the progression system/skill tree in the game. XP, gold and bounty rewards are all stored in your Bloodline and some of these traits will be transferred over if your hunter dies because remember boys and girls, death in this game is PERMANENT! Any gear, consumable or extra item left on your hunter when he dies is lost forever. One would dare to say this game has only one mode: HARDCORE. This lines up perfectly how I wanted to kick off the New Year. #NoExtraLives GOALS: I'm taking the old school NerdFitness approach to this challenge and starting my stat line over from scratch. We originally started with 15 total points to put in our 6 starting stats and I stopped adding to that over a year ago. I miss the leveling up and upgrade points so I want to get back to that. Visual and tangible upgrade points make the world go round . So I will re-work my starting 15 stat points and do my best to earn another 15 across this first challenge of 2018. Starting Stats: Strength- 3 Dexterity- 3 Wisdom- 2 Endurance- 2 Charisma- 3 Constitution- 2 Goal #1: Study Thy Prey Has anyone ever heard of Supple Leopard? Yeah me too.... Oh yeah! I own the damn book! It's time to study up on my prey: my body. It's getting a tad older and things aren't working as good as they used to. This is a lot of my own fault. I don't mobilize daily and I need too, especially because I work a desk type job and spend WAY to much time sitting on my butt. #NoRestDays when it comes to mobility. The goal here is to pick 1x body part that's been bothering me and then implement mobility WODS from Supple Leopard to combat the trouble areas each week. More body parts can be worked at one time, but let's start with one and work our way into more. I'm 100% wolf but wouldn't mind the suppleness of my large feline friend . Possible Upgrade Points: +2 CON, +1 STR Goal #2: Stalk Thy Prey At the beginning of 2016, I suffered a type 2 AC joint separation on my left shoulder from playing real life Quidditch down in Austin, Texas. At the beginning of 2018, I'm dealing with my other shoulder now. It appears to be a slight AC joint sprain that may have been caused from bouldering like a boss. It's more discomfort than pain but still...something to deal with. This goal is all about getting my shoulders in a healthier state and by doing that, I'll visit my PT 2x a week (given time, money and some other factors) and work PT on my own 1x a week minimum. Possible Upgrade Points: +2 CON, +2 STR Goal #3: Hunt Thy Prey Ahhhh the fun part. The Hunt. Why do I do what I do? For the thrill of the hunt? For glory? For my family? All the above. My ancestors were hunters. It is in my blood. I'm limited with my shoulder at the moment so now I need to figure out what I can and cannot do with it. This means testing myself in all areas and aspects of fitness. Find what works-discard what doesn't. Test all major lifts and talk with Paul (my PT coach) about getting me back out on the battlefield. Bouldering problems need to be sent and iron needs to be bent. Les do this! Possible Upgrade Points: +1 STR, +2 DEX, +1 END Goal #4: One Life to Live I will write a book this year. It may not be edited and pretty but I will write one. To get the creative juices flowing, I'm starting out by doing something fun this challenge with my writing. I call this "Interactive PVE/PVP". It's where I take an idea, sometimes an original idea, and include people from the Rebellion in the story and have them complete PVE (Player Versus Everyone) tasks with me. Example; like cover a certain amount of miles walking or lifting a targeted goal of 10,000 ponds. I write things in a group setting, so that way everyone can interact and take part in the weekly task . Think of this like a mini-Mini challenge, lol. The story has already been laid out for the most part (with some changes coming soon). Me and everyone else who signed up have been coming up with bad guys we get to fight which has been a lot of fun. Brainstorming sessions like that are always a blast! If anyone is interested in signing up for the last spot in the story, please feel free! HERE's the sign-up sheet. NPC's and other secondary characters are needed as well so if you want to be included in the story without having to participate then sign-up. Possible Upgrade Points: +3 CHA That's all I got for now. Let's hunt. Wolf

Getting a better grip on what I'm actually going for with this challenge, I'm modifying some stuff from my initial post. My Main Quest was kinda vague. I mean, gaining muscle and losing flab is good, but there's got to be a way to measure. I don't have the fat caliper pinchy thingies, and they make me feel inferior anyway, so I'm going to go with pictures, one to be posted shortly. For Mission #1 - Be Stronger Than Your Excuses, I've got myself a lovely list of exercises to get better at, and even if it's boring, I'm going to keep at them for the full six weeks to see what improvement I can make in my initial numbers, to be posted tomorrow. Mission #2 - Weight Watcher Reboot - is set to start tomorrow, since that's my first weigh-in with the new at-work group that I'll be joining, that meets during my lunch hour - which is awesome. I'll report in my first planned small change for the week at some point tomorrow. For Mission #3 - Snooze - there are no alterations - I managed lights out on time last night and coaxed myself out of bed at 6:45 as scheduled. This arrangement should guarantee me somewhere around 7 hours of sleep per night, which is about the right amount for me to not be cranky next day. As for my Life Quest, aka Mission #4 - Self Control, I've got Self-Control programmed with a blacklist of my main offenders. I didn't put NerdFitness on the list because I figured I usually forget to post how I did on stuff until later at night. So I'm leaving that available. Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo & MSN are out. More may be added later, depending on what I find tempting me after hours. I'm leaving YouTube off for now because if I want to do Poi lessons, I'll need it, but it may be too big of a temptation. At 10:00 tonight I plan to set it off and maybe clean some stuff. I've been rearranging furniture and trying to weed out all the crap in my apartment, and the project is coming along, but slowly. My dad just called to say he found a nice small dining table for me, and I'm visiting him this weekend, so I need to sort out this corner full of crap that I had collected from other corners. I have a lot of yarn for some reason. Here's an additional thought, I've got this calendar white-board that I got for previous challenges. I think it's time to erase April and add in September and October so I can have a place to track progress. Strength 3 times a week, choose and make a small change weekly, lights out by 11:30m and out of bed by 6:45 every work night, and Self-Control activated at 10:00 every work night. I don't know that I'm going to bother with the attribute points. I've never been much of a gamer. But I may reward myself for successfully completing my missions. So on to the photo taking and strength-getting... I'll report in soon.