2016 Personal Goals - Year end Wrap-up

Twelve months done. Let's see how I did.

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1. Finish 1st Draft of my Novel (0% done)

Start - Again on the list.

2. Drop weight to 167 (We''ll count that as 0% done)

Start - This has also been on the list since the beginning. Starting at 179.7
Month 1 - 179.0
Month 8 - 189.6
Month 10 - 190.2
Month 12 - 191.1

3. Read 1 of the Top Ten Books on Zane's List (0% done)

Start - In the middle of The Stories of Anton Chekhov.

4. Read 6 books on the Sybervision Book List (including 2 in the Science or Philosophy sections) (92% done)

Start - Current count is at 89.
Month 1 - In the middle of The World as Will and Idea
Month 8 - Finished The World as Will and Idea and The Three Musketeers. 4 to go.
Month 10 - Finished Vanity Fair. 3 to go.
Month 11 - Finished Paradise Lost and in the middle of Babbitt. 2 to go.
Month 12 - Finished Babbitt and Pilgrim's Progress. I read all 6 books, but I only did one of the Science or Philosophy books. 

5. Read a total of 12 books on my book list. (need to get to 200 books by my 40th birthday) (83% done)

Start - Currently my total count is at 131.
Month 1 - Finished Artemis Fowl. 11 to go.
Month 2 - Finished Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 10 to go.
Month 3 - Finished Mort. 9 to go.
Month 8 - Finished Guards Guards!, The World as Will and Idea, and The Three Musketeers. 6 to go.
Month 10 - Finished Vanity Fair. 5 to go.
Month 11 - Finished Paradise Lost. 4 to go.
Month 12 - Finished Babbitt and Pilgrim's Progress. Total of 10 done.

6. Finish 1 more Geological Movie Review (0% done)

Start - Earthquake still looks like the best bet.

7. Watch 10 of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (20% done)

Start - Current count is at 75.
Month 8 - Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. 9 to go.
Month 10 - Watched Bringing up Baby. 8 to go.

8. Finish 50 things on the Blog/Website, with 25 specifically on my To Do list. (86% done)

Start - My To Do list currently has ~150 things on it.
Month 1 - Finished 5. 45 to go.
Month 2 - Finished 6. 44 to go.
Month 3 - Finished 8. 42 to go.
Month 4 - Finished 10. 40 to go.
Month 10 - Finished 18. 32 to go.
Month 11 - Finished 38. 12 to go.
Month 12 - Finished 25 items on my To Do list and 18 other items. A total of 43.

9. Finish 8 things on the House Things to do List (63% done)

Start - The list currently has 27 things on it.
Month 1 - In the middle of the kitchen remodel still.
Month 2 - Finished 1 item, installing new furnace. 7 to go.
Month 11 - Finished 3 more items, finished the kitchen, dining room, and front entryway remodel. 4 to go.
Month 12 - Finished 1 more item. Gutter covers installed. 5 total done. 

10. Finish skinning the top of the hovercraft (0% done)

Start - Hopefully I can make some time to get to it this year.

11. Get my 5K time under 25 minutes (0% done)

Start - My current best is 28:32

12. Collect and photograph all of the Star Wars Comics (50% done)

Start - I got most of this done last year. It's time to finish this up and move on this year.
Month 1 - Only one comic left to go. Photographed box 5.
Month 8 - I have almost everything collected and photographed. I have 1 box left to go.
Month 10 - Everything in boxes has been collected and photographed. Just need to organize the photos and website them.
Month 12 - Slowly collecting the harder to find items like the comic packs.

13. Submit my Masters Thesis for Publication (0% done)

Start - Last year was actually spent getting a chapter of my dissertation published. Let's move on and get this done this year. This was the last big thing I had left to get published which I wrote before.

14. Get caught up on my Star Wars to read pile (50% done)

Start -  Right now I have more than a bookshelf full of books that I am behind on reading.
Month 1 - Slowly working through my pile of stuff to read when I get the chance.
Month 2 - Still reading through the pile.
Month 10 - I actually have my 3 big piles down by about a 1/3rd. Not too shabby.
Month 12 - Finished probably more than have on my to read pile.

15. Watch and re-review an entire list of one of the 10 Top Ten Movies (20% done)

Start - I finished one set of 10 last year. I plan on doing another set this year.
Month 8 - Watched/rewatched Back to the Future and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies list. 8 to go.

16. Collect, photograph, and organize my Star Wars novel collection (0% done)
Start - I have it mostly set with paperbacks but I would like to get the collection organized and get the first release hardcovers.

-----------------------------------------------Other items of note-------------------------------------------------

Although I didn't get as much done on my list as I hoped, over the last few months I have gotten my "to do" pile down from about 9 boxes of stuff and paperwork to about 2 boxes of stuff and paperwork. Hopefully this year I should be able to get caught up on everything. That's the plan at least.

The 306 Greatest Books #142 - Pilgrim's Progress

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. This book can be found on the Sybervision and Observer Book Lists.

I will start off my review of Pilgrim's Progress with my general review. This is an overly heavy-handed biblical allegory written at an elementary level. First off, almost every single character in the book is a trait that defines the character, i.e. Mr Honest, Faithful, Mr Worldly Wiseman, etc., where sometimes the traits don't even make sense based on the way the character acts. It is as if the author didn't know the definition of some of the words he used. Second, the story is written very poorly. It feels like the writer has never actually written a book before. Phrases are repeated line after line and the setup of the book doesn't make sense. It is written as if it were a play, with the characters name spelled out where they should talk, but then it has a phase like "so and so says this." for instance:

"Christian: 'Truly,' said Christian, 'I do not know.'"

Why would you call out the character that is going to speak, then write again that they are speaking? And the story is beyond hypocritical. Maybe it is because I am not a religious person, but the main character, Christian, complains about nobody listening and doing what he tells them they should do, but he doesn't do anything they tell him he should do. Do as I say not as I do? Every single character is one note, and the women characters in the second part of the story are next to useless. Why make the second part centered around Christian's wife (whom he left willingly) to just make her a useless character that needs everyone around her to do everything for her? In short this is a overly heavy-handed, misogynistic, racist, piece of garbage that I am thankful that I will never have to read again. 

The 306 Greatest Books #141 - Babbitt

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. TThis book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

Babbitt is a rather interesting book. It takes place during the prohibition era of the early 1920's in middle America. It is set in the town of Zenith in a state that does not exist, but the main character, George F. Babbitt, frequently travels outside of Zenith to actual places like Chicago and Maine.The story is about an upper middle-class conservative businessman, who seemed unhappy with his life. Around the midpoint of the story, there is a breaking point that sends Babbitt off the deep end into a midlife crisis. During his midlife crisis, Babbitt eventually finds "liberalism" and "fun" (i.e. drinking and carousing) and it seems like he supports those wanting to make a difference in society (the worker unions) but eventually he is brought back into the conservative/religious/anti-union fold. Although the story seemed to be rather plodding at times, it had an interesting subtext. I got the feeling that the author, Lewis, was promoting liberal thoughts and anti-religion, however in the book, conservatism and religion "won". Religion even seemed to be a joke to everyone involved at the end, which was something you just had to do whether you wanted to or not. It was weird. Overall the story was well written but the majority of the story was just dull. It was an alright book, but not one I would go out of my way to point out to someone to read.

2016 Personal Goals - Month 11 Update

Eleven months in, time to finish up.

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1. Finish 1st Draft of my Novel

Start - Again on the list.

2. Drop weight to 167

Start - This has also been on the list since the beginning. Starting at 179.7
Month 1 - 179.0
Month 8 - 189.6
Month 10 - 190.2

3. Read 1 of the Top Ten Books on Zane's List

Start - In the middle of The Stories of Anton Chekhov.

4. Read 6 books on the Sybervision Book List (including 2 in the Science or Philosophy sections)

Start - Current count is at 89.
Month 1 - In the middle of The World as Will and Idea
Month 8 - Finished The World as Will and Idea and The Three Musketeers. 4 to go.
Month 10 - Finished Vanity Fair. 3 to go.
Month 11 - Finished Paradise Lost and in the middle of Babbitt. 2 to go.

5. Read a total of 12 books on my book list. (need to get to 200 books by my 40th birthday)

Start - Currently my total count is at 131.
Month 1 - Finished Artemis Fowl. 11 to go.
Month 2 - Finished Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 10 to go.
Month 3 - Finished Mort. 9 to go.
Month 8 - Finished Guards Guards!, The World as Will and Idea, and The Three Musketeers. 6 to go.
Month 10 - Finished Vanity Fair. 5 to go.
Month 11 - Finished Paradise Lost. 4 to go.

6. Finish 1 more Geological Movie Review

Start - Earthquake still looks like the best bet.

7. Watch 10 of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

Start - Current count is at 75.
Month 8 - Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. 9 to go.

8. Finish 50 things on the Blog/Website, with 25 specifically on my To Do list.

Start - My To Do list currently has ~150 things on it.
Month 1 - Finished 5. 45 to go.
Month 2 - Finished 6. 44 to go.
Month 3 - Finished 8. 42 to go.
Month 4 - Finished 10. 40 to go.
Month 10 - Finished 18. 32 to go.
Month 11 - Finished 38. 12 to go.

9. Finish 8 things on the House Things to do List

Start - The list currently has 27 things on it.
Month 1 - In the middle of the kitchen remodel still.
Month 2 - Finished 1 item, installing new furnace. 7 to go.
Month 3 - Finished 3 more items, finished the kitchen, dining room, and front entryway remodel. 4 to go.

10. Finish skinning the top of the hovercraft

Start - Hopefully I can make some time to get to it this year.

11. Get my 5K time under 25 minutes

Start - My current best is 28:32

12. Collect and photograph all of the Star Wars Comics

Start - I got most of this done last year. It's time to finish this up and move on this year.
Month 1 - Only one comic left to go. Photographed box 5.
Month 8 - I have almost everything collected and photographed. I have 1 box left to go.
Month 10 - Everything in boxes has been collected and photographed. Just need to organize the photos and website them.

13. Submit my Masters Thesis for Publication

Start - Last year was actually spent getting a chapter of my dissertation published. Let's move on and get this done this year. This was the last big thing I had left to get published which I wrote before.

14. Get caught up on my Star Wars to read pile

Start -  Right now I have more than a bookshelf full of books that I am behind on reading.
Month 1 - Slowly working through my pile of stuff to read when I get the chance.
Month 2 - Still reading through the pile.
Month 10 - I actually have my 3 big piles down by about a 1/3rd. Not too shabby.

15. Watch and re-review an entire list of one of the 10 Top Ten Movies

Start - I finished one set of 10 last year. I plan on doing another set this year.
Month 8 - Watched/rewatched Back to the Future and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies list. 8 to go.

16. Collect, photograph, and organize my Star Wars novel collection
Start - I have it mostly set with paperbacks but I would like to get the collection organized and get the first release hardcovers.

-----------------------------------------------Other items of note-------------------------------------------------

I spent the last month working on a blog post a day and it paid off, getting 20 items marked off of my website/blog to do list. Plans to continue that this month with 3 posts a week and everyday working on at least one of my writing projects.

Massive Root Beer Taste Test

Last year I had signed up to do a root beer taste test at Pop n Sweets, which included sampling 80 different root beers over about a 3 hour time period. They unfortunately don't do this anymore but it was super fun at the time.

The end result of taking "shots" of 80 different root beers is listed below. Also I found out what a "sugar high" was. 

During the taste test we wrote down our thoughts on each of the root beers gave them a score from 1 to 10 (listed below). After the taste test was all done, I decided to take all of the top two scores (which happened to be 7 and 8) and redo them for my own blind taste test. I was able to better compare them to each other and find a personal definitive root beer order.

Here is my blind taste test. Out of the 15 root beers with the top 2 scores, I could find 13 in stores. Apparently two of them weren't made or sold anymore in any stores I could find so they were left off the list. Below are the results.

 Here is my order of the top 13 root beers. I ended up breaking them into four distinct groups. The left group was Level A: Great!, middle was Level B: pretty good, and right was Level C: ok and the one to the far right was Level D: How the hell did you end up here?

Level A: Great!

1. Bulldog Root Beer
Thoughts: Slightly sugary taste but otherwise smooth.


















2. Empire Root Beer
Thoughts: Very similar to Bulldog. Hard to differentiate. Also a slightly sugary but smooth taste.
















3. Dang! Root Beer
Thoughts: Rich root beer taste that goes down smooth.
















4. Eli's Root Beer
Thoughts: Very similar to Dang!, couldn't really tell the difference. Same rich root beer taste that goes down smooth.

Level B: Very good

5. IBC Root Beer
Thoughts: Smooth, nice, soft flavor.

















6. Virgil's Special Edition Bavarian Nutmeg Root Beer
Thoughts: Almost a licorishy flavor but not quite. Good on ice cream.














7. Hippo Size Root Beer
Thoughts: Strong sugary taste but not too bad.
















8. Joe's Root Beer
Thoughts: Slight tinge of the vinegary taste that Triple XXX has, but pretty smooth.

Level C: OK and 

Level D: How the hell did you end up here?

 Level C: OK

9. Cicero Salted Caramel Root Beer
Thoughts: Very butterscotchy flavor but not too strong a taste. Pretty smooth.

















10. O-So Root Beer
Thoughts: Almost identical to Cicero, a not too strong butterscotchy flavor. Pretty candy smooth.


















11. Chicago Root Beer
Thoughts: A sbit sharp with the carbonation but when it's flat the taste is pretty smooth.
















12. Kutztown Birch Beer
Thoughts: Nearly identical to Chicago. Sharp with carbonation but smooth when flat.

Level D: How the hell did you end up here?

13. Triple XXX Root Beer
Thoughts: Watery and vinegary taste. Pretty gross.

Those are the thoughts on my personal taste test. Below is the results of all the root beers that I tried with my individual thoughts on them. When trying 80 different root beers it's hard to come up with very good taste descriptions but I tried.

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Taste Test Drink Order	Name	Thoughts During Taste Test	Initial Score	Final Rank
74	Bulldog	Nice candy flavor	7	1
80	Empire	Nothing noted	7	2
33	Dang!	Smooth	7	3
72	Captain Eli's	Foamy and light	8	4
45	IBC	Pretty Good	7	5
25	Virgils Bavarian Nutmeg	Pretty Good	7	6
54	Hippo Size	Smooth	8	7
12	Joe's	Slight caramel taste	7	8
53	Cicero	Not bad	7	9
32	O-So Butterscotch	Toasted Marshmallow	7	10
11	Chicago	Smooth, nice	8	11
20	Kutz Town	Nice	7	12
27	Triple XXX	I like	8	13
4	Iron Horse	Smooth	7	NA
40	Big John Brewers	Nice	7	NA
10	Filbert's	Ok	6
21	Faygo	Kind of like a RB Float	6
22	Frostop	Smooth brown sugar	6
31	Foxon Park	Smooth sugary	6
67	Saranac	Nothing special, Ok	6
77	Bringham's Brew	Not too bad	6
79	Frostie	Not too bad, bit watery	6
1	Bedford's RB	Sugary, Okish	5
2	Speckher RB	Watery, not meh taste but smooth	5
7	Brownie Carmel Cream	Candy RB taste	5
14	Maine Root	Sugary light flavor	5
18	Red Arrow	Slight candy flavor	5
24	Frostie	Vanilla caramel	5
35	Ginseng Up	Slight sugar	5
38	Big Ben's	Light Flavor	5
48	Avery's	Smooth	5
52	The Pop Shoppe	Sugary	5
64	Anchor Ginger	Candyish	5
71	Route 66	Marshmallowy	5
76	Dang! Butterscotch	Candy - not too bad	5
78	Rocky Mt.	Flavored water	5
5	Dr. Brown	Watery, but better than 2	4
9	Barrel Brothers	Very fizzy. Don't taste much	4
13	Dog n Suds	Slight sugary taste	4
17	Crater Lake	Ok. A little sugary	4
19	Sparky's	Lingering candy flavor	4
34	Old Red Eye	Candy. Cheap	4
43	Polar	Eh	4
47	Caruso's	RB Candy	4
51	American	Brown Sugar water	4
58	Zuber Fizz	Nothing special	4
62	Dad's	Light candy	4
66	Thomas Kemper	Marshmallow aftertaste	4
69	Reading Draft	Weird flavor	4
8	Tower	Meh	3
26	Bawls	Meh sourish tatse	3
37	Hosmer	RB Candy	3
42	Boylan	Too Sugary	3
44	Ramlin	Fake	3
49	Death Valley	Too Sugary	3
55	Sioux City	Brown sugar	3
57	Fireman's Brew	Light flavor	3
60	AJ Stephans Butterscotch	Caramel flavoring	3
61	WBC	Meh	3
63	Capone	Not much flavor	3
68	Abita	Sugary candy	3
3	So-da RB	Butterscotchy	2
15	Waialua	Weird taste	2
28	Salted Caramel	Licorishy burnt brown sugar	2
30	Johnny Ryan	Watery sugar	2
41	River City	Fake Flavoring	2
56	Squamscot	Watery sugar, no flavor	2
65	Virgils	Caramel	2
70	Crooked Oak	Vinegary water	2
73	Bundaberg	Meh	2
6	Gale's	Weird Taste	1
16	Stewarts	Strong brown sugar aftertaste	1
23	Old Brooklyn	Too much candy taste	1
36	New York Seltzer	Clear. Not good.	1
50	Swamp Pop File	Vinegary	1
59	Jackson Hole Buckin	Licorice	1
29	Oogave	Oh god no	0
39	Fest Pecan	Burnt	0
75	Tommy Knockers	Strong cloves or something	0
46	Fenteman's Dandelion & Burdock	Awful	-1