Monday, September 14, 2015

What's the hurry? Where ya gotta go?

Okay, I'm over two weeks late, but its finally here.  This is my summer goal recap.  Before even looking at the goals, I'm happy with how it went.  I got to travel a couple of places and experience some new things and yet still not have all the full responsibilities of being an adult.  Hooray liberal arts professor!  Here we go:

1) Run the Flying Pig Marathon. Success! Done in 3:52 so while it was 20 minutes off my p.r., it was still a success.  I ran it with a partial tear of my left patellar tendon and even worse, my ankle started to lock up at around mile 9, but thankfully, that worked itself out fairly quickly.  Around mile 20 though, I started cramping and by mile 22, it was pretty bad.  By the time I finished, every muscle was cramping and I basically was walking in to the finish.  I took GU at mile 18 and that upset my stomach and I ended up puking before getting back to the car.  Yeah, it was a good time and I've got a big old medal with a pig on it.  Next year, I'm sticking to half marathons.

2) Take 3+ awesome pictures of California.  Success! You're all friends with me on facebook.  You've seen the photos.  I don't know if you can take bad pictures of the Yosemite valley.  Pinnacles is sweet too, if it is rather small (not Hot Springs small, but close) for a national park.

3) Watch Fermat's Room and read Journey Through Genius and Mathematics Through the Eyes of Faith.  Success! Fermat's Room was disappointing and it won't be watched again.  I will likely be using Mathematics Through.... in class next semester, but it was obvious that it borrowed heavily through Journey... but I wouldn't necessarily recommend either for the casual reader.

4) Do analysis on starting hands for Texas Hold 'Em.  Failure, partially because its already done and partially because I didn't do any mathematical research over summer.  I do want to do a blackjack study on implementing a dealer floor sometime though.  Maybe next summer.

5) Find more opportunities to volunteer.  Failure.  I found a couple more opportunities but never acted on them.  My bad.

6) Bike 100+ miles.  Success! ROC Michigan and its 60 miles over a weekend and training for that surely helped.

7) Failure.  Maybe next summer.

8) Initiate the home buying process.  I'm calling this a success.  I will not be buying a home this year, but I found a basic idea of what I can afford plus checked out a couple of open houses and have a much better idea of what I can get and where I can get it and I feel like I'll be much better prepared when I really go on the market for next summer.

9) Hike another 14er and not do it solo.  Success! I brought Julie and Lisa with me to conquer Mt. Bierstadt.  They both enjoyed it and we got some nice pictures on the way.  I was a little scared I'd have to help Lisa hobble down most of the way, but she toughed it out and I'm proud of both her and Julie for getting through it.  We also got to see marmots, mountain goats and sheep so it was a good wildlife viewing trip as well.

10) Host the math guys for a game night. Failure.  I still want to do this sometime this semester and it will happen eventually.

All told, 6/10 but I'm quite happy with how it went.  Its not the greatest summer ever, but it was definitely above average.

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