Simms

Scary to hear about your daughter, sending positive thoughts in both of your directions. Glad to hear the doctor's diagnosis is nothing to worry about at this time. I have a hard time picturing life with children, it must be so fulfilling, terrifying, exhausting, exciting... keep up the good work all around.

Day #11 - Thurs Got up very early to try and get in most of a full day before having to leave at 2. Exhausted this afternoon after driving back and forth for a couple hours. Spent a lot of time mindlessly surfing the internet. I'm replacing reddit with sports news, "news" news, twitter, and facebook. Need to monitor / address. Gratitude journal GF for grocery shopping. It's an errand I really dislike, I'm thankful when she takes it on. One amazing thing that happened/I did today Did not feel like working out. Did not feel like meditating... or vaccuuming... or cooking. Did them ALL anyway. Going to have to watch for activity hangover tomorrow, feel like I've got some negative mental karma coming. Workout/run Squat 5x5 130 Bench 5x5 115 Row 5x5 110 Looking forward to the continued progress on Stronglifts. - I want to follow through all 90 days - would be the most consistent I've been since I started in the gym. Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - simple. Reading + taking notes Listened to a couple chapters of Red Queen. I may not need to track down romance novels, this YA has enough elements of the love triangle to be a clinic. My understanding is it wasn't outlined beforehand, so I'm apprehensive about the story construction. Great examples of problem, solution, problem, solution over and over and over. What went well today: Work on existing project. - Getting organized. Got information for June figured out. Just needed to discuss dates, will get it all booked tomorrow. What I could have done to make my day better: Start on other work projects, starting to fall behind. - Get on it tomorrow - solidify working Saturday. Misc thoughts and plans: Need to review past journal entries, make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks. Sundays - weekly reflection ****************************************************************************************************************** Weekly Goal(s) - Monday start Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - Skiing Sunday - So far 1x Climb, 2x Stronglifts Journal daily - So far, so good. New for the week: Complete character arc worksheets for three protagonists. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Got the book on my nightstand. It's screaming to be used. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Weekend. Booking it. Hell yeah! 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. May need to bump part of this out to 6 months. Outline novel. Chunking this. Creating manageable pieces relating to it in my weekly goals. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it.

Diggin the no news challenge. Good job coming up on 40 days! Hard to imagine that, looking forward to seeing the bigger milestones myself.

Nice job identifying something that's not working for you and making an adjustment! Keep being mindful of where it's taking you post-adjustment. Going to try and break down my philosophy on girls without rambling... too much. Disclaimer: This is about girls I like, ... generalities coming, take with a grain of salt: They want to be your friend, they want you to tease them, to have fun with them, to truly see them. To make their lives better, to be a pillar of strength and a shoulder to cry on. They want to improve your life, and be your best friend and share your interests. To grow and develop, to be challenged. When I was dating and looking for a real relationship, it was hard to see all the advice and try to make sense of it, I made a lot of choices, some good, some bad. Ultimately you seem to be on a good path, and that path is going to attract good people. Keep it up!

I like your perspective on I think you hit the nail on the head right there. - Things "achieved" in video games could just as easily or better be achieved in another pursuit. Any "success" in a videogame is hollow. You're literally "achieving" a goal, set by a developer, who's team has constructed a world to take a certain number of hours to occupy a certain amount of time so they can ship a certain number of units. Us, the individuals, are left with no accomplishment, and a lot of wasted mental energy. Interesting to hear the reactions on facebook. Do you plan to continue sharing your journey through social media?

Great to see your intro, it echoes so many of the struggles we see. Welcome! Hope to see more or your journey shared going forward.

Sometimes time away can be the best thing. - I was forced to withdraw from University for poor academic performance. Went out and worked for 7 years. - Was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I went back to school finished a 2 year program in 1 year with a 4.0 GPA - transferred to a 4 year degree and finished the whole thing with a 3.83. Start to finish 2.5 years. Once you're ready to put your whole being into it, you'll crush it.

It's tough man, feel your pain. - I was Masters in Starcraft, had full Tier 1 and 2 armor in World of Warcraft, hit Legendary in Hearthstone, and Onyx in Halo 5. There's something about trying to attain "mastery" in these games that I thought brought me pleasure, but really just lead to me letting things that were important to me wither away. Streams are tough... I didn't play enough League of Legends to know what was going on but would watch IMAQTPIE for hours sometimes instead of going to bed... Sometimes it was Reynad and Hotform and I would tell myself I was "studying" Hearthstone. Other times it was Ninja, Soda, or even *cringe* LegendaryLea ... It can get better. - The truth is it takes effort and time. - Lots of like minded people here, hope to hear more from you. Cheers

Hope to see more of your thoughts. Feel free to share where you're at, if you're here to quit gaming or simply to offer support. Welcome!

Day #10 - Weds Early morning - Training day for tax season. Overall great day brushing up on the tax code. Finished reading my book, emotionally wrecked. My GF said not to read books with dogs in them, they're only there for one reason... Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Marley & Me... they all end the same. LOVING not gaming. - After finishing the book, watched Cam's interview with the CHAS up in Calgary. - The Q&A was pretty incredible to me. Heard a number of questions that echoed my own to Cam - Looking forward to seeing how he plans to grow things going forward. The auditor in me did some digging on the organization - http://chascalgary.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2016-CHAS-Audited-FS.pdf - The level of transparency they have is pretty incredible. For the 2016 year on $522,000 in revenue generated, they provided $501,900 directly to charitable organizations. - Great year. Page 8 was the most interesting to me. - Complete breakdown of the organizations funded and the amounts endowed. Some interesting trends there in organizational support and funds provided. With Cam's recent work in Tanzania I wonder if he's considered reaching out to the Aga Khan Foundation - is gaming an issue in Africa? I tried to dig into more organizations that could potentially support gamequitters through https://charityvillage.com/directories/funders/canadian-foundations.aspx and was overwhelmed by the sheer number out there. Gratitude journal Thanks to the presenters putting on our tax course for keeping things interesting. For their clear enthusiasm in the subject matter. One amazing thing that happened/I did today Had one of those days of clarity - strong attention - focused. Love them. Workout/run Taking another rest day - laid out the week and realized I didn't need to double up yesterday. Whoops.Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - simple. Reading + taking notes Fifteen Dogs had five chapters. At the end of chapter four I was sad and shortly after, upset there was more... it didn't make any sense. The only character with any development at all was gone. Why continue on? - The last chapter managed to successfully build a character, explore what it is to be human. Get just to the edge of being insufferably pretentious, then pull my heartstrings until I finished the last page and threw it away... It was worth struggling through. What went well today: Finished my book, put dishes away.What I could have done to make my day better: Make some progress on writing plans. - Letting myself procrastinate with "projects" that aren't on track. - Need to "note" new ideas and set them aside. Misc thoughts and plans: Get June vacation solidified tomorrow. Need to review past journal entries, make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks. Sundays - weekly reflection ****************************************************************************************************************** Since there repeat so much, moving them all to the end. - Going to see if I stop reviewing them each day, if so will end up moving them back. Weekly Goal(s) - Monday start Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - Skiing Sunday - So far 1x Climb, 1x Stronglifts Journal daily - So far, so good. New for the week: Complete character arc worksheets for three protagonists. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Got the book on my nightstand. It's screaming to be used. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Going to clear the vacation dates with work tomorrow and book it. Hell yeah! 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. May need to bump part of this out to 6 months. Outline novel. Chunking this. Creating manageable pieces relating to it in my weekly goals. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it.

Day #9 Didn't have time to think about gaming today. Didn't have much time to think about anything. Worked, climbed, worked out, watched the Oilers make a baffling trade and hang on to a game they had no business being in.Gratitude journal Thanks to the world for coming through on something I started trying to acquire months ago. One amazing thing that happened/I did today Climbed a 5.11D just to remind myself I can. - took 5 takes and a bloody finger, but thrashed it. Workout/run Climbed, lots of nice easy/moderate stuff then the 11D. Then another 5.9 on the tall wall for mileage... wasn't gassed, not at all Squat 5x5 125 OHP 5x5 75 Deadlift 1x5 150 Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - simple, loving it! Reading + taking notes Didn't quite finish Fifteen Dogs - Little ways to go. Interested to see how it ends. Will be interesting to see if the author goes black and white or leaves it a mess of shades of grey. If I was putting money down, it'd be on grey. Weekly Goal(s) Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - Skiing Sunday Journal daily - So far, so good. New for the week: Complete character arc worksheets for three protagonists. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Got the book on my nightstand. It's screaming to be used. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Going to clear the vacation dates with work tomorrow and book it. Hell yeah! - Deferred to Thursday 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. May need to bump part of this out to 6 months. Outline novel. Chunking this. Creating manageable pieces relating to it in my weekly goals. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it. What went well today: Climbing Appointments Working Working out What I could have done to make my day better: Stop staring at my stronglifts graphs from 2 years and wondering "what if..." it's in the past. Starting over again... again. It's not a new lesson, time to stop learning the same lesson over and over. Misc thoughts and plans: Nothing today. - Going to carve out some more time shortly to read more journals and get more active commenting.

I'm very impressed by people that eat healthy. For me it's been an accomplishment to bring bagged lunch to work every day of the week, but inevitably most of the items in the lunch are pre-packaged bars, noodles, not very fresh. Nice job letting the cravings for games wash over you and focusing on something positive in cooking!

Day #8 Had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. Had a crazy dream where my dog was laying up on the bed with me. I was petting her, everything was nice and relaxed, then I woke up and she wasn't there and my heart started racing. Freaked out when I couldn't find her. Of course, she was away in the den for the night... starting to wonder if she's trying to tell me she wants to be sleeping with us again. Was very unfocused today. Had trouble getting to work. Have a lot of projects that are stalled out or with incomplete information. Poked away at a few things until a client meeting in the afternoon. Very nice people, they're very well-versed in their business and it was great discussing it with them. I enjoyed that and got some work towards completing their project done later in the day. Need to get more done before I start drowning in tax season. Watched some Zero Punctuation on youtube and did a fair bit of mindless news surfing. - Time to cutoff the news too. The Oscars marketing stunt last night blew me away. Still not enough to get me to watch the program, but interesting strategy... will have to see if they manage to leverage it to prop up historically low ratings. Had a great chat with my parents this evening. Checked in with my dad about doing the mountaineering program and he's very excited. It's going to be great! Gratitude journal My parents for their support. One amazing thing that happened/I did today Ran my first client meeting as a Chartered Accountant. Was well prepared, professional, felt very good! Workout/run Taking a rest day! Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - simple! Reading + taking notes Going to try and finish Fifteen Dogs tonight. - It's an odd book. Think I'll start Throne of Glass next. YA = Young Adult if @Schwing finds this buried in here. Weekly Goal(s) Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - Skiing Sunday Journal daily - So far, so good. New for the week: Complete character arc worksheets for three protagonists. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Got the book on my nightstand. It's screaming to be used. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Going to clear the vacation dates with work tomorrow and book it. Hell yeah! 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. May need to bump part of this out to 6 months. Outline novel. Chunking this. Creating manageable pieces relating to it in my weekly goals. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it. What went well today: Solidified plans for beginner mountaineering class! Great client meeting. Nice chat with family. What I could have done to make my day better: I tried to tell my brain I had a "class" scheduled at 7:30-8:30 where I would be working on my character arc sheets. GF came home at 7:20 and I let myself get completely sidetracked. Had a nice chat with her, but need to follow through on writing. Misc thoughts and plans: Sundays - weekly reflection What went well and what I could have done better will hold the misc accomplishments going forward. Think I'm going to read Throne of Glass next.

Welcome back! Who's your team? I'm an Oilers guy and they're starting to worry me... Losing skid and they're missing out on all the deadline deals. Urgh

Nice job turning the day around man! Stoked to see you've got the weights on the way. You're gonna kick ass.

I think my @ function is broken on firefox with all the adblockers I use. - Will try and figure it out in the future. The genre is Fantasy, possibly skewing YA. So far I have a setting: Alpine, mountain fortress school. - Some young warrior style monks. I have a few characters vaugely drafted. - The work I still need to do is instilling who they really are, then plotting through the acts, write a few scene, do some dialogue back and forth to get a good feeling for writing the characters. I also want to challenge myself to read a few romance novels and add elements of that. I haven't read much of the genre ... ever. And I feel like a lot of the fantasy novels I read by male authors do a one dimensional job of creating relationships between their characters and romance completely focuses on the interpersonal relationships between characters, creating tension through their interactions. So I want to lift elements of that. Lots of work to be done!

Day #7 This is where it's nice to be tracking things. It's been seven days and it feels like nothing. I feel absolutely exhausted, in a good way. Fell asleep on the couch at 7PM last night... woke up at 11, went to bed then slept onwards to 9AM. Recharging the batteries. And I never fall asleep on the couch... feels like physiological reactions chasing me. Limited urge to game. Ended up watching some netflix today, a couple old episodes of the next generation I'd wanted to watch for a long time. Chain of Command. - Classics, nostalgia. I wanted to do a larger overall reflection on the week and didn't figure out what that looks like. Managed to run out of time in the day for it. Will revisit the idea later. Tweaked something in my hand climbing on day 5. It's angry at me again today. - After reading The Iron again, I need to remind myself to respect the wall. Climbing routes I'm not ready for could easily result in not climbing anything harder than a ladder for the next couple months. Make it an intelligent progression. Gratitude journal Girlfriend for being supportive in the journey. Margo Hayes for being the first woman to climb 5.15a - the joy, pain, and disbelief captured by Matty Hong is beyond inspring: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ_Hz2WldJb/ One amazing thing that happened/I did today Initiated everything, climbing, cleaning, the gym, walking the dogs. Felt like I got way ahead on the week ahead, it'll only make things better going forward. Workout/run Squat 5x5 125 Bench 5x5 105 Bent Row 5x5 105 Climbed - Didn't touch anything harder than 5.10c to see where my finger is. - The answer is: unhappy! Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - simple. effective? Reading + taking notes No reading today - few hours left, will see and edit if this changes. Weekly Goal(s) Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - Climbed 3x, Stronglifts 3x, reffed 2x midget hockey games 2hrs+ at the rink - New weekly goals to come tomorrow. Journal daily - So far, so good. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Watching kajiji for local sales options. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Persuing the alternative option. 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. Outline novel. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it. What went well today: Laundry put away, vacuumed the whole house, climbed, worked out, walked the dogs for an hour. Pretty epic "productivity day". What I could have done to make my day better: Attack my book outline. - Stop putting it off - I'm a beginner again - I've been a beginner before, and I can conquer this too. Misc accomplishments: The things that went well! - Finally got the laundry outta that list right above here

Day #6 Tired right now. Been a long week. Need to get into work, put it off until tomorrow. - Short overall checkin.Ended up on reddit briefly looking at specific pages for a specific purpose. Going to treat it as if those were any other web-pages on the internet when they're visited with intentionality and not mindless surfing. - That being said, still going to avoid reddit unless it's the only / best source for something. Gratitude journal Checking in with Cam! Great to swap stories, what a journey! Grateful today for McDonald's. Sometimes... you just need to indulge. One amazing thing that happened/I did today Reffed the Midget Academy girls today. I've reffed a couple games in the past with one of their players and she was playing today, gave her a hard time during warm-ups and she got an assist, good little hockey player! The team pulled off a comeback with less than 5 minutes to go in the 3rd. It was great to see how pumped they were, don't think they've won too many this year. Workout/run Midget reffing was the workout today.Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - getting better. Reading + taking notes No reading so far. Vegging out. Note: Dropping the "Be in bed before 10PM - not a focus area" - reevaluate? Weekly Goal(s) Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - So far 2x climb, 2x stronglifts. Still on pace. Journal daily - So far, so good. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Watching kajiji for local sales options. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Persuing the alternative option. 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. Outline novel. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it. What went well today: Managed to get my technology to co-operate with me! Mic and webcam both. Amazing... - Time to start playing with my voice to text software some more. What I could have done to make my day better: Put my laundry away. - It's poured out on the bed now... no more avoiding it =p Misc accomplishments: Checked in with GF about gaming - climbing goals - finance goals. Making some decisions about paying down student loans. I think on Sundays I'm going to do a weekly reflection - something to keep in mind.

I really like the Rudy workout you linked for dumbbell only work. Great compound lifts that hit every major muscle group. The flys and lateral raises will help you with climbing strength. As far as warmups go... I honestly don't know. I've never done a proper warmup and haven't had any issues. As far as the set you linked, the trouble with a 20KG set is you're going to outgrow it fast. Ideally you'll be able to increase the weight you're doing in many lifts by 2.5KG per week. Things like flys and lat raises you'll never want to do that heavy, but things like dumbbell squats, stiff deads, even dumbbell press and rows you'll max out with that set very quickly. I know it's a little more expensive, but I'd look at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TNP-Accessories-Dumbbell-Weights-Dumbbells/dp/B01CGDLYTY/ref=sr_1_14?s=sports&ie=UTF8&qid=1488069135&sr=1-14&keywords=dumbells&th=1 If you buy something like that, it should last you 5-10 years, and you'll have enough weight to do squats and deads for many months of development. Really like the way you're investigating training. One of the most inspiring articles I ever read when I started in the gym was by Henry Rollins about "The Iron" - http://www.oldtimestrongman.com/strength-articles/iron-henry-rollins give it a look if you're ever looking for a motivation boost.

Day #5 Ended up reading a lot of gaming blogs today. I had been planning to buy a Nintendo Switch for the new Zelda before trying to get my life back. Also reading a ton of Eve Online news. The game fascinates me even though I've never played it for more than a couple hours. I am going to add into my next weekly goals list to write a "gaming from the perspective of an ecstasy user" type blog. - There are things that are best left alone... and in hindsight it's easy to say. - That being said I put it to use by not even trying "Overwatch or Rocket League" because I knew those games would literally ruin me. - Homeless level ruin me. The swelling in my hand went down overnight. - Overall feels pretty good and didn't bother me climbing today. - Was a little worried! Got through a few difficult projects at work today. - Had a challenging client call that seemed to go well. Will need to debrief with the partner on Monday. Climbing was a mixed bag. Every 5.11 shut me down today. From climbing 5.12 last year it's mentally tough to realize just how much I've let things slide. Gratitude journal Grateful to have discovered Spotify. (I'm a slow adopter of technology) - Discovered some amazing music in New Volume and One OK Rock - finding more stuff in all genres every day I love. - Recommendations welcome!@Schwing for the meditation suggestion. One amazing thing that happened/I did today Lead a 5.10a at the end of the day on the tall wall, I was already completely exhausted from the day. 2 clips from the top everything was shaking and my mind went to war. "Fall, just fall, let go, give up..." and another part screamed back "Just try. Fight until you can't fight one more inch, if you're going to fall, why would you give up. PULL," So I pulled... and my fingertips brushed just enough of the next hold to continue, inch by inch, breath by breath, clawed my way to the top. Took a moment to reflect before coming down. It was a good win. Workout/run Climbed - Up/down/up warmup on the auto-belay. didn't track my routes. Climbed til T-rex claws were all I had left.Meditation 5 minutes - breath awareness - tried out the suggestion from @Schwing (I can't figure out how everyone is tagging each other!) - helped to give a simplifying focus. Thanks! Reading + taking notes Fifteen Dogs - Chapter 3 Note: Dropping the "Be in bed before 10PM - not a focus area" - reevaluate? Weekly Goal(s) Climb 2x, Stronglifts 3x - So far 2x climb, 2x stronglifts. Still on pace. Journal daily - So far, so good. Monthly Goal Information gathering on buying a mountain bike. - Visit the bike shops in town. Watching kajiji for local sales options. Use Training for the New Alpinism to assist in shaping training plan. Get cost estimate for 11,000er guide. Persuing the alternative option. 3 Month Goal Climb 1x technical, 1x non-technical 11,000er in the Canadian Rockies. Outline novel. Do an editing pass of one of my shorts. Did some work "scribing" then re-writing a scene. Went fairly well. Need to devote more time to it. What went well today: Got some labwork done I've been putting off. Keeps life moving smoothly. What I could have done to make my day better: Put my laundry away. - STOP PUTTING THIS OFF AHHH Misc accomplishments: Brought bag lunch. - Whole week! - Bought breakfast twice... - Pretty amazing week. Initiated going climbing! - Helping GF towards her goal of being strong for April course. Got taxes 95% done. - Deciding on weekend whether or not to make RRSP contribution. I think on Sundays I'm going to do a weekly reflection - something to keep in mind.

Family can be the biggest challenge and be so fulfilling at the same time. Funny how that is? I like your hiking and raquetball ideas. Always fun to develop skills like that, and they're great to pick up later on in life if you ever have to step away from them for a while.

It's hard to give genuine compliments, and I want to try and get across just how genuine this is, above and beyond: This work brightened my day to see. I love the style. - It makes me think of the "Sin City" movies. The hallway has a certain vibe to it, so much scene conveyed in one image. - The shot of you as a detective DEMANDS attention... and makes me want to know what's coming next. Well done, great project - hope to see more!

Really like your grateful lists. I struggle coming up with one thing each day... !

Thanks for sharing. Your emotion is raw and moving. The buildup of negative energy over the day rings so true. For me that energy builds and turns to anxiety until I can no longer focus on tasks. I've been fortunate in my new job that I can come and go as I please. Going for long walks, or climbs in the afternoon has been fantastic for flushing some of the negative feelings. I like the way that you're being aware of it, monitoring how you react, and acknowleding sometimes there's only so much willpower and you're making better choices as often as you can. Keep it up!

Nice looking streak, what's the program you're using?