Matt Maldre




I'm doing 32 things
 

Matt Maldre's Life List

  1. 1. Play 25 different pinball machines
    4 entries . 31 cheers
    1 person
  2. 2. watch a real badminton tournament live
    1 entry . 17 cheers
    10 people
  3. 3. Go to Chicago Movies in the Park
    2 entries . 29 cheers
    2 people
  4. 4. Ride to all stops of all the Chicago "L" lines
    3 entries . 18 cheers
    48 people
  5. 5. In one day get off and on every Metra stop on one line
    2 entries . 14 cheers
    1 person
  6. 6. memorize all the 2 and 3 letter words in scrabble
    30 cheers
    11 people
  7. 7. Have one month of my electricity bill be below 5.0kWh
    2 entries . 21 cheers
    2 people
  8. 8. Eat six saltine crackers under sixty seconds
    1 entry . 17 cheers
    2 people
  9. 9. learn to crack an egg in one hit
    1 entry . 8 cheers
    1 person
  10. 10. create small pieces of art, and leave them for people to find
    3 entries . 17 cheers
    476 people
  11. 11. Act goofy in an elevator with someone else
    3 entries . 57 cheers
    2 people
  12. 12. Take my favorite blog entries and make a book
    2 entries . 24 cheers
    1 person
  13. 13. Take more pictures
    3 entries . 14 cheers
    15,357 people
  14. 14. Install a nerf basketball hoop at work
    2 entries . 16 cheers
    1 person
  15. 15. Try as many different kinds of hot chocolate Chicago has to offer
    1 entry . 30 cheers
    1 person
  16. 16. Learn 10 estonian words
    2 entries . 20 cheers
    4 people
  17. 17. find love
    1 entry . 13 cheers
    2,275 people
  18. 18. Photograph the "gateway buildings" of Chicago
    2 entries . 13 cheers
    1 person
  19. 19. Be part of a flash mob
    14 cheers
    169 people
  20. 20. find at least one thing each day that makes me happy and record it everyday for a year
    30 entries . 27 cheers
    2,363 people
  21. 21. Have everyone you know sign one baseball
    2 entries . 6 cheers
    3 people
  22. 22. Use every word in the english language that starts with "mal" in my blog
    1 entry . 6 cheers
    1 person
  23. 23. Sticker-bomb my co-workers
    1 entry . 20 cheers
    1 person
  24. 24. Become a checker ninja
    1 entry . 14 cheers
    1 person
  25. 25. Have a race to see who can fit 3 feet of gum in their mouth the fastest
    1 entry . 8 cheers
    1 person
  26. 26. memorize the block numbers of major Chicago streets
    3 entries . 6 cheers
    13 people
  27. 27. Play croquet with 100 different people
    1 entry . 13 cheers
    1 person
  28. 28. be a well rounded intj
    9 cheers
    2 people
  29. 29. convince Matt Maldre to repost the cheer post-its
    10 cheers
    1 person
  30. 30. have an online Bible study group.
    18 cheers
    20 people
  31. 31. find a unique, cute little travel mascot to take with me on all trips and photograph "him" next to touristy sites wherever i go...(kind of like the traveling gnome).
    3 entries . 43 cheers
    128 people
  32. 32. Write more meaningful blog posts where I open up more about myself
    5 entries . 13 cheers
    1 person

How I did it
How to write a journal post about every time I go out and take photos
It took me
7 days
It made me
sharingful


How to revive my 43things list
It took me
1 day
It made me
pleased


How to pick a book in the Bible and study it closely.
It took me
8 weeks
It made me


See all "How I Did It" stories...

Recent entries
find at least one thing each day that makes me happy and record it everyday for a year (read all 30 entries…)
July 27, 2011: 25 things that made me happy in the past hour

On my way back to work after lunch, I was texting my friend T. It was in response to a text he sent me 24 hours earlier about Aargo Tea moving into the Tribune Tower. I simply said, “I’m so haaaaaaaaaaaaaapppppppppeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy.”

And he said, “Tell me!”

I explained to him that it was the Aargo Tea text from yesterday, but I could list ten things that made me happy in the past hour. I ended up with 25. Here’s the email I sent to T.

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1) Sending T a text message in response to his. That makes me happy to text Tom.

2) That T would know there is an Argo tea coming to Tribune. Neat that Tom knows about it. That makes me happy.

3) Argo tea! Yummy! Totally happy about that.

4) Posted a photo to instagram (and flickr). Instagram makes me happy, so does flickr. I could make this into two points, but I’ll keep them as one.

5) The rubbery cover over my iphone. It’s fun to play with and touch. And it’s safe in case I drop it. I was thinking about that as I was walking to lunch.

6) I played the “toss your id onto the id sensor at the desk” with ricky. And i did the worst i ever did in my life. It took me about 8 throws to finally get it. It was funny. Made me happy.

7) I had fried tofu. It was bad, but it made me happy that I could get fried tofu

8) I was finishing up the final touches on the bible study I’m leading tonight. It’s good to get that nearly wrapped up.

9) The study is about using words. The power of words. How to use words better.

10) I love using words, especially encouraging ones. That makes me happy.

11) I love that it’s God that changes our hearts (i know you are of a different belief than me, tom, but i’ll share it, cuz i know you like to hear) (FYI, points 8 to 17 are religion-related)

12) It makes me happy that you like to hear.

13) The bible study is a collection of nine verses in Proverbs about using words. It’s a rather loose collection, and while they are all great, there’s a lot to digest. And when I’m learning something, i like to have a takeaway. Something I can remember. And I got that takeaway. It’s from point 11.

14) One of the ways to deal with a mean mouth is forgiving. Thinking about forgiving makes me happy.

15) I love the metaphor for a honeycomb.
Proverbs 16:24 Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
We typically buy honey that has been extracted from the honey comb and put in jars or little honey bear squeeze bottles… all packaged nicely and arranged on the shelves of our markets. But in its rawest form it comes packaged in its original honeycomb. The honeycomb is a marvelously designed arrangement of cells that are filled with nectar. Pleasant words are like the sweet honey that oozes from the cells of the honeycomb.

Your words are a reflection of what is inside you – just as honey is a reflection of what is inside the honeycomb.
Jesus said, “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a person unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander…” Matthew 15:17-20

16) Another thing for the discussion tonight is different words of encouragement. One of them is praising God when he comes back in end times. Thinking about Jesus coming again makes me happy. (although it’s also kinda freaky too), but it mostly makes me very happy.

17) The following verses make me happy
Proverbs 15:4a The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life,
Proverbs 12:18b the tongue of the wise brings healing.
Proverbs 12:25 An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.

18) That i found a nice quiet table off to the side in the Nordstrom food court mall made me happy.

19) The nice weather made me happy.

20) I found a super-cool looking letter “e”. I liked the three-dimensionality to it. And i liked the shape of it. And how the nest of the e gets a little thicker.

21) For some reason the letter e reminds me of Laurel’s name. I like Laurel’s name. It makes me happy.

22) I’m happy with how my camera took the photo.

23) Oh that I get to type all these things out and share them with you. Although taht’s kinda like number 12. But number 12 is more about how i’m happy that YOU like to listen. This #23 is a little more greedy that it’s about my own enjoyment of typing them out.

24) Oh i’m happy that i finally figured out why the cashier at Cafe Typhoon always laughs when i tell her i don’t need chop sticks. Normally I order sushi and i tell her that i don’t need chop sticks, cuz i eat it with my fingers. She always laughs at that. Which is fun. But it also makes me think that i’m eating sushi wrong. But then today i ordered fried tofu. Which of course you don’t eat with your fingers. But they gave me a fork. And then i said they can keep the chop sticks. And they laughed again. So they weren’t laughing at me eating with my fingers. They just laugh, because it’s their way of expressing delight that I’m not wasting their chop sticks.

25) I was happy when i was trying to figure out if i wanted to have sushi or pizza, that the light changed where it directed me into the path of Nordstroms. The lights made the decision for me. I was happy about that.

In case you’re wondering, not EVERYTHING makes me happy. Some things some times ar neutral. Like i was going up the escalator. While sometimes I’m happy to ride on escalators, this time I just simply rode the escalator. Or i could have been happy about how they parked cars in foyer area of the Nathan Hale statue, because that’s kinda neat. But i was indifferent to it. I could have been happy to be wearing shoes as i was walking, because sometimes being able to wear shoes with laces and soles makes me happy. But I didn’t even think about it this time around.

So there are 25 things that made me happy in the past hour.

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create small pieces of art, and leave them for people to find (read all 3 entries…)
Surprise #5! Nobody picks up paper airplanes off stairs

Will someone pick up a colorful paper airplane sitting on the stairs of a train station?

I wanted to take some more photos from another perspective on the platform, so I left the station to retreive my two paper airplanes. I thought someone would totally for sure take the airplane sitting on the stairs. For one, it’s a Chicago marquee airplane. That’s pretty cool. And it’s on the stairs. It’s not like it’s on the sidewalk where it gets kicked around. It’s alot easier to pick something up on the stairs. Low-effort, people.

I rushed off the platform and ran down my stairs and much to my SURPRISE people were totally walking by the paper airplane, but nobody picked it up. It’s right there! Look!



What other surprising things happened? Read more at 8 surprises from throwing a paper airplane off a train platform. And find out how to get your own authentic Chicago Theatre paper airplane, just like the one in this post.


find at least one thing each day that makes me happy and record it everyday for a year (read all 30 entries…)
May 4, 2011: Walgreens cashiers

The Walgreens across from Tribune Tower has a cheerful cashier named Pilar. I go there almost every day and she makes me happy. Read my letter to Walgreens about Pilar at http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/5390_0_3_0_C/



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