GoodDoug wins back ground for the Rebellion

[Mad Hatter]

5 minutes ago, GoodDoug said:

Hey, I could take that intro gymnastics course right now... or I could go back to handstands... or I could drop what I'm doing and do something really crazy... or I could do the work that needs to get done right now. I am choosing to do the good work and trying to find ways to enjoy saying no to these other opportunities.

Very responsible, I'm impressed. And baffled.  

[GoodDoug]

14 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

20 minutes ago, GoodDoug said:

Hey, I could take that intro gymnastics course right now... or I could go back to handstands... or I could drop what I'm doing and do something really crazy... or I could do the work that needs to get done right now. I am choosing to do the good work and trying to find ways to enjoy saying no to these other opportunities.

Very responsible, I'm impressed. And baffled.  

Believe me, the temptation is very strong, but right now I am stronger. 

[annyshay]

Um, your challenge is awesome. Carry on.

[starpuck]

Doing some BIG little wins.   The keeping focused rather than shiny chasing.  The Snickers bar... WHOA.  WHOA!!    And the reading win - while I don't share that same trouble lol...   It's not that I dislike reading, I just would have to give up something else to fit in consistent time to do it.  And prepping for D&D games is reading & writing... so it feels covered.    (It also feels like a lot of rationalization there.)   

 

But nice job!!

 

[Cheetah]

You're doing great; keep up the good work!

 

 

[GoodDoug]

I need to roll to save against "oooo shiny" right now. Is that Wis or Con? I think the advantage I get for focussing on avoiding it is counteracted by the disadvantage I get for how freakin' shiny it all is!

 

Here it is: I've been doing some reading lately (as outlined above) and there has been a theme in some of the books about "finding your passion" and discovering what you were meant to do... you see where this is going, right? 

Thinking on this... really deep and focussed thinking has revealed something I already knew but was shoving down... I have a need to learn, and I have a real passion for science. The reason I got into programming (which is my current job) was to have a skill that professors would be attracted to as I made my application to graduate schools. I enjoy my job, it is great money and it is many people's dream job at a dream company, but damn, if I won the lottery (if I played the lottery) I would drop it and immediately go back to school for a PhD in marine ecology and environmental biochemistry (or something along those lines.) 

 

So, what does that mean for practical me? What can I do to scratch that itch? I can just start reading and studying on my own.

Now, I have a class I am starting on computer sciency stuff next week, so I already have part of that working and in process... but I also got the idea to start re-reading my old Biology text book from undergrad... and start taking some Kahn Academy courses... oh and Stanford has some courses up for free that I can look at... and I already know some of the professors here at UC Santa Cruz, so maybe I should start talking to them... and wow... my RangerBrain™ has gone full throttle. So much shiny!

 

The right thing to do is to keep a log of all those great things I should do and structure them for later challenges. For now, I should focus on the Machine Learning class I am already in. Once I have a handle on that, then I can move towards adding in some other things I can "study" in manageable pieces. Otherwise, I will burn out and then do none of it as I get overwhelmed.

 

Thnx all for being my :rubber_duck:

[Elastigirl]

Sounds like you have a good list of thing to learn about. Good plan to add it in in manageable pieces

[starpuck]

My art sided brain saw the talk of science, books and learning and took a quick detour to the land of ... anywhere else.  LOL!

 

But it's cool that you've sorted your thoughts and feelings into this so well.  Bravo man!  And good luck in your next endeavor on this!

[Aquarii]

20 hours ago, GoodDoug said:

Here it is: I've been doing some reading lately (as outlined above) and there has been a theme in some of the books about "finding your passion" and discovering what you were meant to do... you see where this is going, right? 

Thinking on this... really deep and focussed thinking has revealed something I already knew but was shoving down... I have a need to learn, and I have a real passion for science. The reason I got into programming (which is my current job) was to have a skill that professors would be attracted to as I made my application to graduate schools. I enjoy my job, it is great money and it is many people's dream job at a dream company, but damn, if I won the lottery (if I played the lottery) I would drop it and immediately go back to school for a PhD in marine ecology and environmental biochemistry (or something along those lines.) 

 

I can relate to this. I have a deep passion for learning, across a wide variety of disciplines. It has always been my kryptonite, as I sway from one pursuit to the next, never satisfied to be as shallow as a jack of all trades, master of none, but never willing to sacrifice my love of other disciplines for a single one. For most of my college years, I had every intent on becoming a college professor so I could spend the rest of my days learning (profs often get to take free classes) and just living in that world of intellectual pursuit. By the very end of college (bachelor's) I had become disillusioned by academia and its current model and practices, but my love for learning new things has carried on. 

 

As you mentioned there are so many resources available now to learn new things. It truly is amazing how much access we have, even for free. I am glad you are finding new ways to connect and reignite your passions.

[TGP]

I agree (strongly) that there is a huge temptation to abandon what you started to do the NEXT BIG THING

 

IMHO the fitness world is very bad about this. it keeps the money flowing-- but too often, it assures that (hardly) anyone gets competent at anything.

[NicTheRugger]

Hiya, Doug! Happy New Year! As always, here to cheer on my favorite half-ogre ranger. Keep up the good work!

[Xena]

Unsolicited(ish) advice....data science is big and getting bigger in oceanography/geoscience. Maybe you could leverage what you have into a position without going back to school. It kind of depends what kind of work you would be happy doing. If you really wanted to lead marine science field/bench studies, you would need a different degree, but I think there are likely ways you could contribute with your computing background. You might consider looking into government labs (like NOAA). The money is another issue though. It really doesn't pay well unless you get pretty high up the ladder (and those positions are very hard to get). This is more or less my field. Drop me a PM if you want to discuss more.

[GoodDoug]

Thanx for that @Xena  I've spent all weekend thinking about what you wrote there.

You know that old parable: The news comes on and talks about huge floods and how everyone should evacuate and a very pious man says, "I believe that god will protect me."  The waters start rising, and a rescue boat comes to his house to get him out, but the pious man refuses saying, "God will deliver me from this." Finally, the floods are so high the man is on his roof. A helicopter comes, again he refuses help, believing that god will save him. Waters go all the way up and he drowns. He gets to heaven and asks god, "Why didn't you save me? I am a good person and I believed..." God replies, "I sent you a warning, a boat and a damned helicopter! What else could I have done?"

 

My first reaction to your advice was a knee-jerk, "I can't do that! I can't afford it. Also, I want to do research and teach..." But then I remembered that the reason for affirmations and self belief is so that you can see opportunities for what they are. I now believe that your unsolicited advice is the universe giving me a prod in the direction I am supposed to go. Particularly now that I am doing statistics heavy Machine Learning courses, that could be a great way to make some inroads and start interacting with the right people.

 

I think my first step is to see if I can take this Machine Learning stuff and start applying it to fisheries problems (I know there is a butt ton of well tagged data out there just waiting to get fed into these hungry computers) as part of my studies in ML.

 

I'm sure I will need to overanalyze my actions and take forever to decide anything... but thnx for making me see something I couldn't see before.

[Xena]

I think your idea is really good. I hope you are able to find some good opportunities. You are absolutely correct that there are lots of big datasets waiting to be tackled by someone with an analytical mind and the right tools.

[GoodDoug]

GoodDoug finished delivering the needed supplies to the orcs at the front line and then headed back to the supply depot. This had been a pretty good week, supplies mostly got where they needed to go and the half-ogre had made the supply depot better by his work there. He was ready to move on to the next thing. After making sure the depot was working as he wanted, he wandered off to find the guild master that acted as his mentor.

"Ahh, GoodDoug, great timing. We want to thank you for your hard work in the supply depot, your strength and work ethic have proven very helpful, though some joke that your appetite might be better suited for consuming the supplies than delivering them!" the guild master grinned and continued, "We have something new for you. We are exploring making an end run around the enemy's lines... over the Serrath Mountains."

GoodDoug nodded, smiling, here was an adventure.

The half ogre would lead a small team to find if the way was viable for sending a small force around. It would be him, a half orc, two humans and a dwarven cleric. It would be three days of scouting after which they would return back with any information that could help them.

 

Week 1 recap:

Did I do what I said I was going to do?

Diet:

I tracked, I had a protein shake every morning and I almost avoided non homemade sugary treats.

 

Exercise:

I did body weight 3 times and running twice. I also filled my rings every day. Exercise is going well for me. Even when I don't want to do it, I find a way to get it done.

 

Creativity:

Reading almost every day and I've done a couple of creative things from writing to designing. I could do better at the creative and need to find something I can do.

 

All in all, not a bad start. I could do better, but we can always do better.

 

For this next week (already Tuesday!) I have a trip up to the mountains with my family to go snow boarding. Excited because we haven't gone in a few years and so looking forward to getting back into it. We used to go up a couple of times every winter and then just kinda stopped. With the big schooler and my job being less flexible on vacation I think inertia has just kept us from doing it. But my high schooler has a couple extra days off because she has finals this week and she ends early so we are taking advantage.

Diet will suck, I am okay with that right now. Exercise will be different, I joke that snowboarding is really just a large series of pushups in the snow (I FALL A LOT) so I am not worried about not being active enough.

So, this week will focus on adventure and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

 

So far this week, I've already done a couple of bodyweight workouts and one run. The run was this morning and was really, really tough. I was definitely looking for excuses to not run, but got my butt out the door. I went pretty slowly, but again, I got it done so that is a win.

 

I am starting my class on Regression Analysis and ML models based on that, so excited and a little worried that I will get derailed by this trip... but I am hopeful I can figure it out.

[starpuck]

Wow, sounds like a fun time coming up.    And your first week was solid!!    Great approach on not worrying about the diet whilst snowboarding.   Because, really, if you can't live it up a bit while doing something so awesome - then you're doing life wrong lol!

 

You seriously have the coolest life.  Between surfing and snowboarding and smarting stuff.   Sheez.   I might have to fangirl a bit.

[Aquarii]

Sounds like you had a pretty solid week 1. Well done! That trip sounds so exciting. I have never been snow boarding, but it certainly looks cool. I hope you have lot of fun!

[NicTheRugger]

Sounds like a great start to the challenge, Doug! I hope you and your family have an awesome time snowboarding  

[Cheetah]

On 1/14/2020 at 1:05 PM, GoodDoug said:

snow boarding

 

I went every weekend for the 6 years I lived in Idaho and Utah.  That was a long time ago but I still miss it.  I hope you have a great time!

 

Sounds like things are going well; keep up the good work!

[TGP]

Awesome.  Snowboarding, How exciting!

 

I've never done that EXACTLY but I used to do a lot of skiing.  its been 20 years since I've been skiiing 

 

anyways, Make it real Bro!

 

and truly have ALOT of fun!

[GoodDoug]

GoodDoug finished the last few supply packs. These were for his group and their adventure over the Serrath mountains. His group was getting ready to scout out the mountain passes to find one the Rebellion could send a small force over to flank the Enemy forces. One last look around at the Supply Depot to make sure everything would keep running in his absence and he shouldered two of the packs to bring them to the staging area. He had seen to it that they had enough supplies while keeping it light for travel. Simple meals and high energy foods were what they would need.

The first day of travel had been easy, the storm they saw on the horizon chased them, but didn't catch up until near dawn the next day. The group had camped comfortably above the snow line, but breaking camp was made difficult by the scouring winds. 

"GoodDoug, should we hole up for today until the storm passes?" 

The half ogre was unsure of why they had looked to him as the leader, but he answered Traven, their Dwarven cleric with just a quick shake of his head, lowering his balaclava to quickly answer, "No, I think the storm will hide our approach to the pass... as long as it doesn't completely hide the pass from us."

The Dwarf shrugged and shouldered his pack. The others saw this exchange and made ready to travel through the winds. Midday the winds were joined by snow flurries which escalated over the next hour into a full snow storm. The snow alleviated the travel issues with hard ice, but soon they had to contend with ever higher snow drifts. By mid afternoon, the half ogre could see the weariness in the others and called for making camp. Gransh, the half-orc in their group quickly found a suitable cave, thankfully uninhabited by any creatures.

Reflecting on the day, GoodDoug guessed that they were just over the high part of the pass. If the enemy had posted scouts, they would find them early the next day. Unsure of what the weather would bring, he took the first watch while the others slept as comfortably as they could.

The next day the group woke to sunshine on two feet of new fallen snow. 

"Well, I guess we are making it easy to find out way back!" Zev joked. Even the orcs laughed at that one. Anyone would be able to find and follow their trail, they had to hope that they found trails of any patrols before the patrols found their trails. They pulled out their skis and cruised through the mountain pass.

 

Luck was with them this day, they saw the trail of the patrol, not half an hour old. Looked like the shuffling of the reanimated dead. That made sense, as undead wouldn't complain about the cold. GoodDoug outlined a quick plan, they would hurry along the trail to find this patrol, dispatch it and then follow the trail backwards to see what other enemies were around. He set Zev and Allora on point, he came next and Traven and Gransh were the rearguard.

It didn't take them long to catch up to the shuffling zombies, the battle was quick as the cold made the zombies even slower than normal. Quickly rushing back to where they had met the trail, GoodDoug decided to send word back about what they had already found. Zev wasn't keen on heading back, but he was the quickest and quietest among the group. "Let them know we've come into contact with the enemy here, but it seems likely we can break through. Let them know we will stay here to get as much intel as possible and see how much resistance there is." Zev saluted and then pushed off to deliver the news.

 

Don't want to bore you with too much story at once, so suffice to say they scout the rest of the pass, taking out a bunch of zombies left as a deterrent and not as a real guard. Looks like this was a good idea by the guild leaders!

 

Week 2 recap:

Did my running on Sunday and Tuesday, did my bodyweight workouts on Monday and Wednesday and then my watch told me I burned a bazillion calories while snowboarding on Thursday and Friday... as in the story, Thursday was really windy and snowy... which meant we got the lifts that were open to ourselves. Not many lifts were open, but I didn't mind at all as I wasn't about to go adventuring in the extreme weather. It took me a couple of runs to remember what the hell I was doing while snowboarding, but I got into the groove pretty quickly. Friday was perfect with 20 inches of fresh powder and sunshine... and not many people until afternoon as no one could get up there in the storm the day before. 

 

I am still really sore, but in a good way. My muscles are all letting me know just how hard they worked, my thighs burned, my arms and core were exhausted and I feel great about that.

 

I did eat like crap, but still managed to lose a bit of that stubborn holiday fat with just a couple of days of working my butt off. I was also really glad I was in decent shape, as it made snowboarding much more enjoyable. Though my thighs and calves were screaming, it didn't slow me down at all. I also knew I could take a fall given the GMB stuff I have been doing recently, so thankful for that as well.

 

For this next week, I need to focus back on food and getting back into the rhythm.

 

[NicTheRugger]

I'm glad you had a wonderful time snowboarding! Good luck with week 3  

[GoodDoug]

The small rebel group cleared out the undead guards at the mountain pass through the Serrath Mountains. Reinforcements had arrived in the form of a small war party of mixed guild members and a handful of orcs. GoodDoug and his small group integrated into the war party, awaiting orders.

The leader of the war party was an orc called Sellah'ka. She was a smallish orc but had a really good rapport with all the guilds and had proven herself as capable leader and fighter. She consulted with GoodDoug and his small group to get the lay of the land ahead of them, but she let everyone know she was in charge. GoodDoug was happy for this, as the weight of leadership had grown heavy. His party had followed him and trusted him, but the half ogre was plagued with doubts. It felt good to have the onus of leadership on someone else for a bit.

"Lets break camp everyone," Sellah'ka yelled and then repeated it in Orcish. It was time to implement their plan. They were going to sneak past the first line of patrols here, which should be simple, given the Enemy didn't expect anyone here. Once they had done that, they were going to harry the supply lines with hit and run attacks. They would take their supplies from the enemy's stores. Their aim was to distract the enemy, give them pause, and hopefully pull some forces away from the front lines. Once they had done that, they would try to retreat back over the mountains.

 

Week 3 I will focus on getting back into the rhythm with food and exercise while getting into a rhythm with reading and creativity. Week 1 was food, week 2 was exercise, so this week should be developing creativity.

 

So far:

Sunday was a long yoga session, Monday had my GMB Mobius program, and today (Tuesday) I have done a couple of long walks. No running today, because my older daughter wanted to take a long walk up to the coffee shop this morning, so I did that instead of running. I'll try to do some foam rolling tonight, as I am starting to feel pretty tight.

Foodwise, I am back with tracking, and am eating better the I have been in a little while. Now I just need to keep up with it. For creativity, I've done lots of reading, and some work on designing some furniture pieces. I need to do more, so will look to do some free drawing and maybe cast on some knitting. I have a sock I need to finish, but I feel like I already have too many things on my plate to add a knitting project... I typically do knitting in the morning on the bus, but I've been using that time to do meditation and Duolingo and I don't want to mess with my groove on those things.

 

I'll try to stay flexible but I really want to add something more creative... maybe I can make cooking part of my creative outlet... I made a really good carnitas last night, but that is something I make all the time. I need to think of what I can do that is a little more creative... thoughts from you guys are welcomed.

[NicTheRugger]

Hmm... is there a type of cuisine you'd like to try? Ever want to try Georgian food? Or Brazillian? Sri Lankan? I find that when I want to try something new, I pick a type of cuisine I'd like to try, and then find a relatively simple recipe that I can make at home.

[GoodDoug]

17 hours ago, NicTheRugger said:

Hmm... is there a type of cuisine you'd like to try? Ever want to try Georgian food? Or Brazillian? Sri Lankan? I find that when I want to try something new, I pick a type of cuisine I'd like to try, and then find a relatively simple recipe that I can make at home.

Good idea! I'll have to think on that