Uncategorized

There’s one last type of goal I’m working on for this sprint and it involves a 3 month project that doesn’t necessarily have a daily component or monthly benchmarks.

These are the in between projects, which I could do in a weekend and might take an hour or two over months.

Project 1 is to finish my half bath – this has been in progress this year and I want to see it done. In order to decide what “done” looks like I made a simple checklist:

• finish wall paint
• paint door
• buy beadboard, cut to fit, paint and install
• buy faucet
• build countertop for sink
• hire plumber to install sink
• patch open drywall
• install 2 shelves on walls

And that’s it! I know, it’s a lot of work to do and I don’t yet have the faucet or beadboard to get done. I may also need to buy some wood for the countertop.

Project 2 is to lay the new kitchen floor tiles, another home improvement project. To do so I’ll need to remove the old tiles, which may involve moving the stove and fridge out. I need to paint the side of the cabinet that butts up against the fridge and then lay the tiles in the room. When it’s done I will move the fridge back in and re-level it.

Not all of these projects are home based, project 3 is to read 18 books over 3 months. I am always buying new and interesting books and am trying to stay ahead by reading 50-60 every year. This might mean powering though some shorter novels or finishing the audio books in my queue but I want to have 6 books done per month so that’s 18 in 3 months.

A final goal I’ll share is project 4 meal plan 3x a week for the whole summer. To do this I started in my notes app with a line for each week of the next 3 months, Sunday to Saturday. I’m sorry for y’all who like Monday to Sunday calendars but no.

For each week I made a list underneath of 3 entrees I wanted to try to make, then added sides or desserts as I wanted. A sample week for 4th of July (this week’s menu) looks like this:

1. Butter chicken + rice + naan
2. Hamburgers + pasta salad
3. Hot dogs 
4. Deviled eggs 
5. Apple pie 

Since I already had hamburgers, hot dogs and buns, the only items I needed to buy were for pasta salad and the butter chicken. As you can tell, if I had a recipe in mind I linked it to the list so it’s easy peasy to find and get the ingredients.

Here my action steps are a little more flexible because I will need to make a list of ingredients every week and shop for everything I need. And… this is critical… if I don’t schedule time in my week to cook, it won’t happen. I like to batch cook so I don’t need to heat up the oven many times when it’s super hot outside.

For these types of goals it can be harder to gauge success without benchmarks or check-ins. It’s a very real possibility that the goal goes down on paper and then in 90 days… what goal? Oh I forgot!

While I haven’t shared every goal here yet, some are work related or personal, I do have them on a single sheet and hanging in my house where I can see them daily.

Ever since I got my first Nancy Drew book as a kidlet, I have been a fan of mysteries and drama. While the original series was full of maps and chests, hidden figures and missing people, it was surprisingly bereft of murder. A further 30+ years of true crime books, shows, podcasts and documentaries have filled those gaps.

At this point, in addition to learning more about forensics, psychology, motivation and police methodology, I’ve also studied how various media keeps our attention – especially in a world with 30 second TikTok videos and “Skip Commercial” options only after 5 agonizing seconds.

It feels like 2022 is the year when the justice department has, innocently or purposefully, manufactured a season of entertainment designed for the masses.

Let me explain.

On April 11th a trial began in Virginia between an ex-couple you may have heard about: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. This defamation and spousal abuse trial was broadcasted live. Oh, how this could have been watched during COVID lockdowns! While some tuned in for every second or stood outside the courthouse with signs of support, millions more watched daily recaps, YouTube channels committed to picking apart testimony and armchair experts telling us what the jury was thinking and how the case would play out.

This case concluded on June 1st, leaving a gap in our programming schedule.

Enter the Jan 6th committee. On June 3rd they announce the first public hearing after months of work would begin June 9th. Just enough time for the media to consider what’s going to happen and make their predictions.

As we all know, the bombshells from that hearing, and the ones that followed, were sensational. News anchors covered the facts and speculated about what it would all mean, experts gave context to the witness testimony and there was even a surprise hearing.

The pace mattered too, if you spread them out too much people lose interest. If they’re too packed in, no one can consume that much information.

So hearings were held June 9th, 13th, 16th, 21st, 23rd, 28th and July 12th and 21st. Never more than 2 weeks without a hearing. Just as the final July hearing is wrapping up we get another surprise! Season 2 of the Jan 6 committee will return in the Fall.

But just as the American public were in need of a justice story to entertain we got jury selection in the trial of Alex Jones in Texas on July 25th. Now, we missed the whole trial (again about defamation) because Jones lost due to a failure to cooperate with court proceedings but a trial on damages is juicy enough. The trial goes for 2 weeks and on Friday, August 5th damages are determined.

We also have the chance for a crossover episode with the Jan 6th committee hearings which now have Alex Jones’ text messages!

Whew, what a busy couple of months – wait a second, is the FBI raiding Mar a Largo on August 8th? Why, yes they are! The jury selection for the second Alex Jones trial has already begun in Connecticut and it’s possible that will lead us into the final season of January 6th committee.

I do want to make it clear that I don’t believe this is some justice department conspiracy. Aside from the fact that the Jan 6 committee hired a former news producer to help organize and present content (very successfully, I would argue), there is no master manipulator of these judicial proceedings. This is just my odd observation of how courts and congressional hearings have played out these last few months.