And thus ends February, and the end of my first Arcane challenge, which I was perfect in – no eating out for lunch.

So, this month I’m giving myself a new Arcane challenge – and frankly it’s a bit difficult. I have our digital photographs – more than 20 years’ worth – stored in Lightroom, organized in folders by months. I’ve been intermittently trying to go through each folder, give the really good pictures 5 stars to make them easier to find, as well as try to cut down on some of the duplicates. I currently have 196 folders that need such review. There are 31 days in March. That’s a little over six folders – let’s round up to seven – that I need to review each day. And then I’ll be caught up!

And sometimes we’ll post multiple days in arrears. This weekend was our FIRST Tech Challenge State Championship for the robotics team I help coach, Panic in the Buildroom, which is a team with Center Grove’s Red Alert Robotics. While it appears we won’t be advancing to nationals, we were pretty pumped to go home with the Design Award for our robot, and considering we were a team of 7th to 9th graders competing against full-on high school teams, I couldn’t be happier with what we accomplished. It was definitely a long day, too – load the buses at 5 am and last kid out the door at 10 pm.

That all happened on Saturday, which ALSO happened to be my wife’s 40th birthday. (We knew in advance this was going to happen so took some time for ourselves on an adult trip a few weeks ago to make up for it.) All of this to say, it was a crazy weekend and hence the late post.

Also, and I’ll update my original post with the rules for this, but the wording in the Strength and Endurance categories are a little constricting. My point here is to do four endurance runs a week and two speed runs and/or strength sessions, leaving one day as a rest day. Weeks run Monday through Sunday for this. Starting with this entry and carrying forward, if I performed the workout, I get a point. If I didn’t and it won’t keep me from my 4/2 workout goals for the week, I get zero points (e.g., if I didn’t do strength on a Monday, I still have six days, so still possible to meet my goal, so I get zero points). If I skip and it keeps me from hitting my goal, that’s when I lose a point (e.g., it’s Sunday, I’ve only done one strength workout for the week and I skip – that’s me losing a point.). ss

Finally, I’m allowing myself to have ONE zero day a week on FP, meaning there is one day a week I can indulge the night owl in me at no penalty (but also no gain).

And also, since this is three days, I’ll just keep it to one graph with three emojis to represent each day.

OK – so sometimes I’ll post in arrears, today being one of those days.

Sometimes I like to stay up late. Usually it’s because there’s a video game, and after everyone else is in bed is the best time to play. Or I’ll want to read more. Or whatever. Sometimes I just like the silence at night in the house while everyone else is sleeping. I don’t know – maybe I’ll decide to give myself one or two free passes a week? But for now the original rules apply – no zeros possible.

Interesting article I read today yesterday (I forgot to hit ‘Publish’ last night):

If we take the time to reflect on our values before debating someone (and our debate partner does the same), we are more likely to come to agreement and feel empathy for other worldviews. The article mentions the study in question had some participants rate how important 19 different values were to themselves before debating a pre-determined topic. I think the study is interesting, but I’m curious if a daily “Here’s What My Values Are” exercise would have the same effect on a daily, actual-human interaction basis.

I don’t know about everyone else, but my “debates” tend to be spur of the moment – with little time for introspection beforehand.