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Good afternoon Rebels. I have been a part of the academy for 6 month's or so, and let the vast world of the rebellion forums overwhelm me so I hid in my comfortable little hole. No more! I am here to continue my Sprint to New Years Challenge, and focus in on other parts of my life that I need to get myself to my next level. So without further ado, word wall. 4 week challenge. NO RED MEAT. This is a message that I am going to try and spread as wide as I can. I cannot pretend that I will ever go full vegan, or even vegetarian, or that I will never eat a burger again, however, beef in particular does so much damage to the environment that I do not think I can consider myself a reducetarian or any kind of advocate for reducing carbon footprints and still eat beef. I am not on the animal rights side of this discussion, just the global warming/hoping the earth will be inhabitable for future human generations side. No soda. Water Coffee Tea. I will still use small amounts of sweetener in my coffee and tea, but this is mostly a money saving strategy. No eating out. Plan better. If the energy isn’t there to cook, get something quick and healthy from Target instead of spending 30+ for the family to eat out. Narrow focus on current hobbies. Elite Dangerous. Yes it is a video game, but being a flight sim it is not easy, and is a large immersive world that really requires more attention than your average session of Battlefield. Get involved in the community and get friends together to play. Frequency: Every Other day Youtube. One I have been struggling with starting, but I know I want to and need to as a creative outlet for myself. Try several different styles of videos, and see what feels the best. This is a long road, but it has to start somewhere. Frequency: filming and editing at least 1 per week. X-wing Miniatures. Finish building a competitive list, and stick to it. Stop swapping out ships willy nilly and hone skills with a decent list. This will also save money in the long run by not buying a bunch of random crap and not using it, like I already have. Frequency: 1 Local Tournament per week as possible with wife travelling for work. Drones. This doesn’t start quite yet. I am hoping to get a small entry level drone for Xmas, and with that plan on starting to fly daily. Until then doing some more research, including finding a local fly group, possibly indoors for the winter, is key. This will also expand into other R/C stuff as I already have a couple cars, and other Arduino and Raspberry Pi stuff that I have started and left for a while. Frequency: None until after Christmas. Once I own a drone, 1 flight session per day. Fitness. The big one. This is going to take an overall shift from my past endeavors, and I plan on walking 30 minutes every day, regardless of temp and I live in MN. That and flexibility/mobility and bodyweight strength is going to be the focus, so I can do more at home and learn some stupid human tricks because I have always found that impressive, and if dad bod Vin Diesel can do a human flag, damnit I can get there too. All this boils down to hard work. Something I have been unconsciously avoiding for a while now. Pretending that my effort levels were acceptable, lying to myself. This thought was also partially triggered by the passing of my High School best friends dad. I haven’t seen or spoken to them in more than a decade, but his dad was one of those stories where he started with nothing, and through sheer effort went from an auto body repair guy, to a business owner with 11 locations throughout their area and very successful in business, family, and philanthropic work. It would do me well to emulate some of that drive for the first time in probably many years. TL:DR don’t eat cows. Focus on fewer things, and HARD WORK!

Nothing like the Pokémon theme song to get you (err me) motivated This challenge marks the last challenge before Grain Harvest starts in my area. Why this is important? It’s important because my dad is a farmer, and I still at home and will be expected to help out somehow, with little to no notice which is always fun. This year I won’t be working at the local silos which should make things a bit easier. Enough of that for now. Main Quest: Being able to reach level 7 in the beep test As some of you know I have a thing for the beep test. I started doing it because I wanted to know what my score was, and really enjoyed it so I kept on doing it. My score isn’t great (around the 3.6-4.2 mark) and I want to improve it. This is something I will be working on over the next couple of challenges. Goal 1: Weekly beep test (+4 DEX) This a repeat goal from last challenge and it will help me achieve my main quest by allowing me to practise doing the beep test Goal 2: Run 3X a week (+3 STA) Last challenge I could have gone for more runs than I did, and I think going for more runs will be helpful in achieving my main quest. The weekly beep test will be counted as a run. Goal 3: Daily Push ups (+3 STR) Another repeat goal from the last challenge. Push ups have been something I have been working on for a while now, and something to help mix things up this challenge. Goal 4 (Life Goal): Wear Lolita in public 4 times (+5 CHA) Lolita is a fashion that originated in Japan based on Victorian era clothing. For more information you can go here I first discovered lolita fashion when I went to my first con middle of last year, and over the past year and a bit my interest has only grown till it has reached the point that I want to start wearing it. I have found a site that is based in Australia (it has a store in Melbourne and is going to have one in Adelaide soon) that sells Lolita clothing and today I brought a skirt and a headband and preordered a JSK (a dress that you are meant to blouse under it, but according to my research depending on the JSK you can get away with not wearing one) and a petticoat to go under the JSK and skirt which are meant to come in two weeks. I know Lolita fashion isn’t mainstream, and to make things harder I live on a farm near a small country town (to give you an idea of how small, the town has about 700 people living in it), so there aren’t that many if any at all people that regularly wear clothing that isn’t mainstream/normal. I am also new at wearing Lolita. So my goal this challenge is to wear my new JSK (when I get it), skirt and headband out in public so that I can get use of wearing Lolita items where people can see me. It’s pretty much to help me get the confidence to wear Lolita in public.