Rory Parle

This is goal number 7 of “Dreaming It. Listing It. Doing It!”, my project to achieve all the goals listed in “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

This is goal number 6 of “Dreaming It. Listing It. Doing It!”, my project to achieve all the goals listed in “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

This is goal number 5 of “Dreaming It. Listing It. Doing It!”, my project to achieve all the goals listed in “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

This is goal number 4 of “Dreaming It. Listing It. Doing It!”, my project to achieve all the goals listed in “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

This is goal number 3 of “Dreaming It. Listing It. Doing It!”, my project to achieve all the goals listed in “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

I’m trying to complete every goal in Lia Steakley’s “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

I think there are about 1,500–2,500 goals in there, from singing in public to cooking road-kill. Follow me as I try them all at DreamingItListingItDoingIt.com.

This is goal number 2 of “Dreaming It. Listing It. Doing It!”, my project to achieve all the goals listed in “Dream It. List It. Do It!”

I started a really quick 3-day course. The first day involved training for some things that can go wrong. One of the things I had to do was remove my mask and continue breathing through the regulator. As soon as you take your mask off under three meters of water you get this huge surge of salt water into your nose and eyes. It’s a very unpleasant experience—it feels like drowning!

I got my promotion pretty much exactly a year into my job. Now I’m looking forward to finding out the financial implications.

Ok, so I got really lucky in that I have a job with a fantastic company that paid for all of its employees in Europe to go skiing in Austria for a day last week.

I got really badly sunburned (note that even though it’s cold, it’s also very exposed to the sun—use protection!) but that didn’t show it’s effects until afterwards so I wasn’t put off the skiing.

Ok, so I’m not yet the world’s expert, but I’ve checked a bit of Python code into source control in work so I think that counts as a success. I’m also using it a bit on my own site, soylentred.net.

The whole area around the pyramids is crowded and filthy. It’s difficult to find five minutes when you’re not being pestered by hundreds of insistent, rude, demanding locals trying to swindle or outright steal money from you. The air is filthy and the ground is covered in litter. I saw very few smiles from the other tourists either.

I’ve marked this as something I’ve done that I want to do again. More accurately it’s something I want to continue doing. I used to try to enumerate the great things I’ve got out of saying yes more, but there are too many to count now.

I’d include quite a lot of travel, an awesome job and many new friends as things I would have missed out on if I hadn’t been actively trying to say yes more.

It was the last night I had in Vegas, and I hadn’t gambled. I refused to return to the hotel without playing at least one game. I looked for a blackjack table with a low limit ($5 or $10), but there were none nearby. I sat at a $25 table. Let me tell you, there are few sights as dispiriting as handing over $100 and being given a tiny stack of four chips in return.

Still, I bet a single $25 chip and won. The dealer matched my one chip with another. I took one back and left the first in the little circle. I’d already made a profit. I won again. And again. I played a series of hands, never going more than $75 or $100 over my initial bank, and never going below. Eventually my friend, who also started with $100, bet his last chip and lost. He decided to stop rather than risking more, so I did too. At that point I had a whopping six chips in front of me, so I sought out the nearest cashier to turn it into real money. $150.

I’ve carried on a fine family tradition. My grandmother has told me a couple of times about the time she visited America as a young lady. She never neglects to mention that she won money in Las Vegas.

Don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose. Expect to lose, because you probably will in the end. But make your money last by betting smart. And try to have at least one moment where you can feel like you’ve beaten the house. It feels great.