Jarric

Monday - week 1, day 1 The decisionist 1/7 - No beer The muscle 1/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 0/7 - did not stretch The cartographer 1/7 - doodled some fractal patterns in the evening The camp-maker 0/7 - No cleaning done The face 1/7 - Teeth brushed Monday was a good day. It was also a sad day. Sad stuff spoilered, including talk about Mr Willes: The rest of the day was pretty slow. Had an enormous brunch fry up, and then spent a chunk of time playing Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Friends, it is not a good game. The camera angles are so frustrating, movement is impossible to gauge, dialogue is stilted and poorly written, and I don't care enough about the plot to struggle through it. I accept that I wasn't in the most tolerant mood yesterday, but I won't be playing that again. I didn't feel much like fulfilling my goals on Monday, but I did doodle some fractal patterns in front of Crit Role to tick that off at least. ETA I forgot to mention I went to Crossfit in the morning. Got when I assume it probably a PR on box squats - 105kg (231#) x 3, followed by 95kg x 5 and 85kg x 7. Then a workout of front squats, dumbbell snatch, and double unders. I suck at skipping, but I can't bring myself to care.

Sunday- week 0, day 7 The decisionist 6/7 - No beer The muscle 7/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 7/7 - stretched post-run The cartographer 7/7 - some quick pose drawing in the evening The camp-maker 1/7 - No cleaning done The face 6/7 - Teeth brushed Yesterday was a good day. First thing I went for my long run - 9 miles and it felt ok. Not as quick as last week, but it's all about putting the miles in. In the afternoon I ran D&D. A couple of our usual players were away so I ran a very silly one shot called Normak Ook: Back one again it's the renegade mind flayer, back once again with his illithid behaviour. It was packed full of stupid Fatboy Slim puns, as well as other silly jokes - we had a lot of fun. After D&D WW and I went for a walk, then I spent a bunch of time planning our budget for the next year. Had our Sunday roast (chicken this week), and then I chilled out in front of Critical Role and did some quick pose sketches for the cartographer. Overall goals have gone well this week, except for the camp-maker. I really need to make some sort of plan of what I'm going clean and when, because at the moment I'm not thinking of it and then not doing anything when I finally remember I ought to clean something. Also worth mentioning the decisionist goal - I'm always going to score highly on this because I don't drink every day in the first place, so I'm really gunning for 100% on this one. Also the second-storey specialist goal - whilst 100% is great, I would like to be doing more than 2 minutes of token stretches in the evening, with at least a couple of longer sessions per week. We'll see how I feel with what I'm doing though. Food-wise I ate 24,583kcal last week (3,512 per day), against a goal of 22,400kcal (3,200 per day). I've maintained weight at that level so this seems about right. I'm currently thinking I'll keep up the gradual bulk for the rest of this challenge, and then cut either next challenge or the challenge after - once I've got through Strong Viking but well in advance of Man vs Mountain.

Love the colour coding - that's a really nice system you have there. Keep up with those greens on IF and calories and I'm sure the scale will head in the desired direction.

My immediate thought when I saw this was natural catastrophe modelling for insurance. Some insurers have in-house capability and some use third-party cat models. Don't know if that's something you'd be interested in, just what it made me think of. I'm so, so pleased for you that you're getting out of your current place anyway. Having to fight to just survive in a job is not right.

I've never heard of this place, that's absolutely amazing. Totally stealing it for a future D&D game! Oo, that's interesting, hope it goes well mate. I've wanted to try my hand at voice acting for ages, so I might have to check this out at some stage.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! ..that is all.

Wow that's a lot of dead bugs! You absolutely deserve to be proud of getting those done.

Yeah, it's so easy to do! Sometimes I enjoy it, but a lot of the time I'm just doing it for the sake of it, and I know that's what I'm doing, and I still do it. Playing video games and not having to deal with people occasionally sounds good though, with or without beer.

Saturday - week 0, day 6 The decisionist 5/7 - No beer The muscle 6/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 6/7 - some stretches and ankle massage The cartographer 6/7 - did a bunch of D&D prep, and finished my last map for Sunday's game The camp-maker 1/7 - No cleaning done The face 5/7 - Teeth brushed Yesterday was a good day. First thing I drove to bouldering, and ran 5km (3.1 miles) before climbing. It chucked it down with rain, so I was thankful it was a short run. Bouldering was good fun - nothing spectacular but there were some nice new routes to climb and it's always good to chill out with Hopalong. Once I'd chilled out a bit, bought some stuff for WW's birthday, and had lunch, I eventually got on with D&D prep. It's really fun preparing for a one-shot, and setting up something totally different, particularly when I've drawn my own maps. It is, however, pretty time-consuming, as I refuse to pay Roll20 lots of money so end up manually entering a lot of monster stat blocks. I also wanted to download some music for this game, given the theme. In the evening I finished drawing my last map and chilled in front of the TV. Thus far stretching has been happening, but always little token gestures. I don't think that's bad to build the habit, but I still need to be doing more occasionally I think. Just something to bear in mind. Cleaning has been almost non-existent, so more effort needed there.

Friday - week 0, day 5 The decisionist 4/7 - No beer after I got home The muscle 5/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 5/7 - some stretches The cartographer 5/7 - worked on a D&D map The camp-maker 1/7 - No cleaning done The face 4/7 - Teeth brushed Friday was a good day. Crossfit was front squats and air bike sprints - I felt pretty weak and out of it for some reason, but I got in a good couple of sets. Then we played a few rounds of 'rowling', where you have to row as close to 100m as possible - it's a very chilled game so that was nice. Work was busy, but by the end of the day I felt like I'd made progress with things so that was good. After work I went for a couple of beers (which is fine; the challenge goal is to avoid drinking at home). I also found out that one of my colleagues handed in his notice yesterday, so that was sad; I'll miss him. In the evening WW cooked a sort of Mexican feast with chicken, tortillas, avocados, black beans, sour cream, and cheese. It was nice, but surprisingly bland given the number of things and flavours on the plate. I spent a chunk of time drawing maps for D&D, which was nice, and then got to bed at a fairly sensible time.

I do like a d8. Also a d12 - it's a great shape, with a great name, but only barbarians ever get to use it.

Thursday - week 0, day 4 The decisionist 3/7 - No beer The muscle 4/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 4/7 - some stretches done The cartographer 4/7 - worked on a D&D map The camp-maker 1/7 - No cleaning done The face 3/7 - Teeth not brushed Yesterday was a good day. 5-mile run done, and my new route was more or less a success. A bit too far along one particular country lane, but I'm not sure that there's much I can do to tweak that. Work was extremely busy. I ended up cutting my lunch break short and working about an hour and a half late. As soon as I got home I put down my stuff and went back out to vote. When I got home for the second time I was about done, so I lay down on the floor and didn't move for a very long time. I was supposed to be cooking dinner, but that would have meant getting up, so instead I ordered pizza from the floor. When the pizza arrived I transferred to the sofa, where I stayed for the rest of the evening. Before I got off the floor I did a couple of stretches lying on my back, so that counts. And post-pizza I dragged out my sketch book and finished off a map for this weekend's D&D game. I may have mentioned that I'm running a thoroughly stupid one-shot which I'm very much looking forward to, and I thought it would be fun to draw maps for it. I didn't brush my teeth though - I think a couple of days off updating on here makes it easier to ignore my goals.

Wednesday - week 0, day 3 The decisionist 2/7 - Beer was had The muscle 3/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 3/7 - some last-minute token stretches before bed The cartographer 3/7 - drew some fractal patterns in front of the TV The camp-maker 1/7 - No cleaning done The face 3/7 - I think I brushed my teeth? Wednesday was a good day. Crossfit first thing - banded deadlifts, single-leg deadlifts, pistol squats, windmill stretches - all good stuff. Work continued to be busy, but less productive as being in the office tends to be. After work we went for a couple of beers to celebrate some business we won. That was all fine and to plan. Then on the way home we needed cheese for dinner, so WW and I stopped at the supermarket. And then I decided to get some beers for the evening, which was entirely not to plan. We've developed a bit of a tradition of having a few drinks whilst watching Questing Time, which began when QT was on on a Saturday during lockdown. It makes a lot less sense now on a normal Wednesday evening, and is a habit I would like to break, but nonetheless I stuck with it this week. In order to not totally fail my goals I made a point of doodling some fractal patterns in my journal whilst watching Questing Time and drinking beer, as well as doing some token stretches before bed. On the plus side, I am still loving Questing Time - it's my kind of chaos.

Seems like a fair truce to have then

Tuesday - week 0, day 2 The decisionist 2/7 - No beer The muscle 2/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 2/7 - some token gesture stretching The cartographer 2/7 - drawing during Pathfinder The camp-maker 1/7 - cleaned the bathroom sink The face 2/7 - teeth done Tuesday was a good day. Got out for my run first thing; 5 miles with a 2 mile tempo interval. I realised that I hadn't planned a route for this, and I ended up doing too much running in town and not enough off-road, so later in the day I worked out a better 5-mile route for myself for future runs. Work was ok; busy but I achieved quite a lot. I also did some token stretches during the day for the second-storey specialist. Straight after work I had a much needed shave and took the opportunity to clean the bathroom sink for the camp-maker. In the evening we played Pathfinder; our Greek mythology inspired campaign. I always take a lot of my notes for this character in drawings, so it's pretty much an automatic pass for the cartographer (and in game my character is the group cartographer too). When we had left off last session we were in a secret room below a temple to Aphrodite, and the ground had just started shaking. We were torn as to whether to leave the room we were in, where we were trying to figure out how to free a chained statue of Aphrodite, or to go up before the temple collapsed on us and crushed us all to death. We eventually decided to go above ground, and discovered that the temple, the statue next to it, and the entire bloody hill was being held aloft by a giant... giant! I'm not really sure we know who or what he is, although we think he's a son of Aeries. He shook us off and ran away in the direction of a temple to Aeries that is supposed to be the first stop on our pilgrimage. At this point we realised that we have been playing for a full year, over 31 sessions, and 38 in game days, and we haven't gone anywhere near the first stop on the pilgrimage. In fact, we're only a 4-day walk from where we started, and we've got side-tracked by every imaginable thing on our journey The rest of our session was spent travelling back to a group of exiles we had lead to a cave for their safety, to find that they had been drugged by the friendly lampad we left them with and turned into affable zombies that just wanted to hug us. We tied them up and thankfully after 24 hours the shrooms wore off, but we'll be having words with that nymph next session.

Yeah, same here, I find myself getting more and more stressed in a messy house. The trouble is, knowing that it's good for me doesn't always make me do it I like the spiders though - I feel mean when I deprive them of their habitat. To be fair, Nuclear Rush is a great name for a TTRPG. Maybe we should write it! Great to have you mate! It really does ❤️ Thank you mate!

I wouldn't watch Calamity before campaign 2 - it's a standalone story, but it'll make a lot more sense having watched C2. Both are great though.

Another thing you could try to feel your core* in planks, in addition to Kishi's great advice, is thinking about your pelvic tilt and back arch. If you think about cat/cow yoga poses for example, in cow pose your core isn't really engaged at all, whereas in cow you're engaging your low abs and tilting your pelvis forward. In a plank you don't want a really rounded spine, but you probably want to tilt your pelvis forward and avoid arching your spine to other way, so that you feel your low abs engaging. Cat/cow pose: For alternative exercises, dead bugs are a killer core exercise, and as you're lying on your back they'll be fine on hands and wrists: And if you want a deeply (probably unnecessarily) deep dive into core training, Steonger by Science have you covered: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/core-training/ *When I say core here, I really means your abs. You could define core to include your lower back muscles as well as abs, obliques, and other trunk muscles. The SbS article uses the term to encompass all of those muscles.

Is that the wedding? Activities like watching campaign 2? Yeah, it's hundreds of hours of content. I'm envious of you though; I'd love to be able to experience it for the first time again.

Hah, my friends used to think I looked like that guy. So much so that I did fancy dress as him one year

Sorry to hear about Gordon Lightfoot. It's weird when someone famous dies how much it can impact you - I remember crying quite a lot when Terry Pratchett died. Just goes to show how much of an impact someone can have on your life even if you've never met them in person. ?

Monday - week 0, day 1 The decisionist 1/7 - No beer The muscle 1/7 - shakes drunk The second-storey specialist 1/7 - ab and calf rolling The cartographer 1/7 - doodled on my challenge tracker The camp-maker 0/7 - nope The face 1/7 - teeth done Yesterday was a good day. The first of our bank holiday Mondays here, so I had a lie in and a fairly slow start after a fairly boozy day out on Sunday. Got to the gym at 8 and did some bench, building to 75kg (165#) x 3, 67kg x 5 and 60kg x 7. That was followed by a workout of power snatch and hand release pressups. I wasn't feeling my most dynamic, but I'm happy with the bench weight at least. The recovery shake afterwards may have helped? Too early to tell. The rest of the day was fairly chilled. I went to see my parents for a bit and wish my sister happy birthday, then spent most of the afternoon wrapping up my last challenge and writing this one. Also cooked roast pork as we didn't have a Sunday roast and I had an enormous joint of pork that needed eating. Once that was done I had to get to work ticking off my new challenge goals. I did a few quick doodles on my challenge tracker in my journal, did a set of ab rollouts, and spent some time rolling my calves. I also boiled some eggs for breakfasts and made myself a pork sandwich for Tuesday lunch, because I somehow appear to be skint this month and I can't afford to be eating out every day. Only thing I didn't manage to tick of was the cleaning; this is going to be a tough habit to crack.

Thanks! I should really draw my own versions of them at some point. And to be fair, there wasn't much to follow by the end of last challenge. Planning to be more present this time.

Following for cute puppy and goat pictures! (And, y'know, fitness and stuff...)

I like this, it suits you