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I can do no wide grip pull-ups at all.

My short term goal for december is to be able to do 3 wide grip pull ups, and work my way up to 20 pull ups.

Does anyone use this software, Functional Ear Trainer? I’ve been able to consistently get around 80% for identifying tones in a Random key for both major and minor keys after a couple months of practice. I hope this pays off.

been managing this quite well for the past 3 weeks with no skips. It helps to set a “trigger” to floss whenever you see it. It’s almost automatic now!

I’ve got this one in the bag.

I can see them coming out of the wood-work (maybe “gutwork would be more appropriate). My goal is to get it down incrementally to 6%.

My goal will be 11% by New Year’s Eve 2012, right now it’s 12% and I’m 156lb.

Will post a photo of my body fat form no matter if I get to 11% or not, but avoiding the mild humiliation will be motivating.

About a year ago, after an insane amount of work, I was able to run a 6 minute mile. I should know better than to slack off.

Here we go again.
Goal: 8 minute mile by Dec 1.

I’ve decided to make this mid-term goal for a few reasons:
-health reasons
-fun (well…at least more fun than cardio)
-look good on a dance floor
-meet interesting and ridiculously good looking women

My goal for October to December is to floss at least 3 times per week until the end of December. This is probably a very difficult goal for me to stay on-top of, so to make it “worth it”, I will treat myself to a laser tooth whitening if I’m successful. If not I’ll start over.

10/28/2012
edit: damnit, I failed. I’ve decided to devise a habit-trigger to make sure I don’t neglect this goal. Looks like I’m starting the clock over on the laser-whitening reward.

I learned 15 Russian phrases this month.
My favorite phrases so far:
Будь осторожным, не разозли диких слонов.
and
Давайте посмотрим, что в коробке. Ничего! Совсем ничего!

Reading is no problem and speaking is “okay”, but I’ve noticed that I’m terrible at writing, especially when it comes to words with и, й, and ы in them.

November goal: learn 15 Russian phrases and focus on being able to read, speak, AND spell them correctly.

I did read 10 random investing articles, so that was a success. I even bought my first 3 Dividend stocks this month: INTC, PM and ADM. They’re all trading down today :p

The problem with the articles is that they seemed too un-focused. I’m tailoring my November goal to delve into topics of investing.

November goal: Study Stock basics(10) and Index investing(10)

I’ve been thinking about making a simple application that tracks and visually presents meditation progress. It would have a range of options: silence/droning/bells/nature sounds/white noise(my favorite) and the user would set the amount of time to meditate.
At the end of each session, it would add up your total hours of meditation and use the data to make different types of graphs, so you can analyze your progress visually and make goal-setting more “tangible” for people trying to meditate.

I don’t have very much programming experience so I’m not making any promises, but is there any interest in this?

My goal for September is to read at least 10 investing related articles.

My goal for September is to meditate 10 minutes daily.

My goal is to learn at least 15 Russian phrases for September.

Added this poem to my reciting repertoire. In my opinion a very motivating poem that some people on 43things might be able to relate to as they reach for their goals.

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t,
If you like to win, but think you can’t,
It’s almost certain you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a person’s will-
It’s all in a state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can!

I actually didn’t grow this mushroom but I found a WILD edible mushroom outside: a chicken mushroom (Laetiporus sulphureus, thanks wikipedia). It’s considered a very safe mushroom for beginners to eat because it doesn’t have any poisonous look-alikes. Tasted pretty good, almost exactly like real chicken in taste and texture (disclaimer I am not encouraging anyone to eat wild-found mushrooms)

Right now, my plan to financial independence:
-Minimize expenses to $1000/mo
-Invest $1000/mo to dividend stock
-Learn a freelance skill that will earn me at least $2000/mo…maybe pole dancing?

pretty simple, it basically hinges upon the old saying “spend less than you earn”, except I’ll be investing what I don’t spend.

I finally opened my first HISA with ING Direct. I feel silly for not getting this done sooner.

http://www.youtube.com/user/IntelligenceSquared/videos?view=1

Finished reading “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World” today. Thought my work schedule would be too hectic but I crammed a bunch of it near the middle. It was a great book, it basically opens your eyes to the BS you tend to go along with, all of the assumptions that you take for granted, and encourages you to challenge them. It almost felt as if a teacher had come along and explained the ways in which the world can enslave you if you let it.

My only criticism is that a lot of the different sections have overlapping concepts, you think to yourself “wait a minute, he talked about assumption x and now we’re on assumption y, but assumption y sounds like assumption x”. I guess that’s the nature of things, they’re pretty nuanced like that.

Overall a great book, I can see myself picking this one up a few times thrughout my life.

Picked up “The Intelligent Investor” and also “Security Analysis” both by Benjamin Graham. I flipped through them, they seem dense and a little technical but simple enough for a beginner to understand.

It’s also a mid-term goal to have completely absorbed all of the information in both of these books by the end of this year. No point in rushing.