1/1/11 in photos, plus 2011 goals

The Resolution Run 5K and Polar Bear Dive...

Fish and chips and beer at Paddy Coyne's...

Aaron doing something I cannot do in front of a random apartment building...

Not pictured: a delicious nap, a ridiculously cheesy grilled cheese sandwich, watching Easy A and watching episodes from the first season of Dexter.

A solid first day of the year.

As for the rest of the year...


Devon's 2011 Goals


Running

- Run a sub 27:00 5K — 2/12/11
- Run the Warrior Dash — 7/16/11
- Run a 10K (Bellevue 10K) — 4/17/11
- Run a 15K (Seattle's Best 15K) — 5/21/11
- Run a half marathon (Seattle Rock 'n' Roll) — 6/25/11
- Run a marathon (Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll) — 12/4/11

Writing

- Develop a regular posting schedule for this blog (3x a week; M/W/F?) — Ongoing attempt!
- Be honest — Ongoing
- Be myself — Ongoing

Finances (i.e. the thing I've gotten lazy with lately)

- Write a budget before each payday (twice a month) — Didn't do this!
- Go back to using cash for discretionary spending — Nope
- Save bonuses, as well as a portion of each paycheck — started automatic savings account 7/1/11
- Have one year's worth of salary in savings by the end of 2011 — YES! Allowed me to quit my job 11/30/11

Health

- Get at least 7 hours of sleep per weeknight — HA! I was terrible with this
- Eat more fruits/vegetables/whole grains — I did well with fruits/veggies and AVOIDED grains for stomach reasons
- Eat less dairy (cheese in moderation, especially) — Success
- Eat even less meat (I hardly eat it anyway) — I ate MORE meat (still not much) for protein during marathon training
- Find and stick to half-marathon and marathon training programs — Very successful!
- Do more outdoor activities (like hiking) — I hiked, biked, skydived, learned to surf, swam and ran my little heart out

Random

- Go skydiving again — 3/2/11 on the North Shore of Oahu
- Learn how to wakeboard — Nope
- Go rock climbing (even just at REI) — Nope
- Have coffee with Nicole Brodeur — I emailed her and she agreed, but I failed to follow up. Oops.
- Visit New York City — 10/7-10/10
- Have regular lunch/dinner dates with my dad — Not as many as I would have liked!
- Buy a digital SLR camera and use it — 2/9/11
- Buy a new laptop — 1/29/11


That's all I could come up with for now. It'll be nice to revisit this list and be able to cross things off, or check back on it when I'm in a rut and see what I need to work on achieving.

Speaking of crossing things off... here's my completed (and very short) 2010 list of goals:

1. Pay off my credit card by my birthday.
2. Pay off my student loan by July 1 (actually July 16).
3. Move out of my mom's house by the end of January 2011 with no debt and more than $10,000 in the bank.

The final portion that I just crossed off the list — in bold — was moving out of my mom's house. I moved into a townhouse with two of my great friends on December 26. I love it so far, and I'm so glad I was able to start 2011 out on my own.

2010 was the year of getting my finances straight and becoming independent. 2011 will be about maintaining and adding to what I achieved financially in 2010, plus tackling new athletic challenges, embarking on more adventures, embracing new hobbies and overall becoming a healthier person.

Bring it on.

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The view from here

I've become obsessed with the sky.

Maybe it's just this time of year, but I've been noticing how beautiful it is lately — whenever it's not completely gray and cloudy.

I love me some sunshine, but I'd take interesting clouds over clear, blue skies most days.

Take Wednesday, for example. Here's what I saw on my bus ride home (click photo for larger version):

Then I ran a few errands in Woodinville, and stopped dead in my tracks in a parking lot to snap this:

And when I walked out of the store, I stopped and stared at this for a while:

I sat in my minivan watching the sunset and thought about... nothing. The sky looked unreal. It's been a while since a sight like this has knocked me over and made me be still. I'm always moving toward something, keeping my eyes on the path ahead, and not taking much time to look around at where I am at any given moment.

My life is not perfect, and there are a lot of things I'd like to change and a lot of things I'd like to accomplish in the future. But it's also nice to stop every once in a while, take a quiet moment, and enjoy the view from here.

Apathy

I dare you to find some guys who are less excited to catch a garter.

It should come as no surprise that the groom had to toss it three times before anyone caught it. Even then, I think the guy who "caught" it more or less just accepted the fact that it landed on his shoulder.

Mazel tov!

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Life in cartoon motion

My dad and I got the same phone several weeks ago, a Samsung Vibrant (aka Galaxy S), from T-Mobile. We're both used to having horribly outdated phones, so when we got together for dinner recently, we spent nearly the entire meal showing each other the cool features we'd discovered.

The 5.0 megapixel camera shoots in several different modes, but, being extremely whimsical and childlike, I fixated on one that my dad showed me: cartoon mode.

It puts such a fun spin on life. The animation kind of reminds me of King of the Hill.

My dad took a picture of me on his phone... which I took a picture of with my phone. OK, so we're pretty lame. But it's a whole new world of AWESOME for us!

So I've been documenting random moments of my life in cartoons because, um, why not? Call it my homage to Gabriel Campanario's Seattle Sketcher column, minus the actual talent that's involved in his work. You can click each photo to view a larger, more detailed version. Enjoy!

And then back to reality...

...which ain't so bad itself.

(I stole the title of this post from Mika's 2007 debut album, Life in Cartoon Motion. I saw him perform at The Fillmore in San Francisco with my college roommate a few years back — awesome. What ever happened to him??)

Tortuga en el jardín

The happiest little garden turtle you've ever seen.

A proofreader's work never stops

Done for the day

Life