Since 2019 is officially over, it’s time to tally up how I did on my 2019 goals!
Crushed It!
I’ve built a closet organizer in the front hall closet. Done!
I’ve installed a lazy Susan in each of the two corner cabinets in the kitchen. Done!
I’ve built a closet organizer in the pantry closet. Done!
I’ve cleaned up the pile of bins in the office that are driving Scott crazy. I also did this one on Dec 17, though I didn’t blog about it. It was just a pile of bins full of random things that needed to either be taken to the recycling depot, donated, or have a place found for it in the condo. And I have to admit, it’s nice to not have that sitting in the middle of the room anymore.
I’ve done a single unassisted pull up. Pull ups (when your palms are facing forward) are harder than chin ups (with palms facing towards you). Accomplished on Nov 21! And then I’ve done a few more since then too!
I’ve had people over for dinner 5 times. Finished this one in the nick of time, as Kalev came over for dinner last night and prior to that I’d only had people over for dinner 4 times.
KonMari’ed all the kitchen stuff. I have a *lot* of kitchen stuff. I got through all the dishes/pots/pans/cutlery/etc. when I got the pantry closet organizer and lazy Susans installed, but haven’t been through all the foods. I think I have some canned goods and other foods in the cupboards that are way beyond their best before date, so I really should Konmari those.
compiled a list of all my accounts and other relevant information for my executrix. I started this list while I was at my sister’s place over the holidays and there were a few things I needed to look up at home. And then totally forgot to look them up when I got home. So close, but yet so far!
10 unassisted chin ups in a row. I didn’t get 10 in a row, but on Oct 2, I did 5 sets of 2 each, so I got 10 in one workout. I
squatted 90 kg (198 lbs). While I didn’t backsquat 90 kg, I did 2 reps of 85 kg on Nov 8 and I continued to train backsquat with higher reps on my subsequent program, but I didn’t do a 1 rep max test at the end of the year to see how much I could do. I bet I’m close to being able to squat 90 kg now though.
written in my journal at least one time per week, on average. I only managed to do this 42 times. But I feel like I’m back in the habit of journalling again, so that makes me happy.
slept an average of 7 hours per night. Since I bought myself a Fitbit on Boxing Day last year, I now have sleep data to play with. I had to download all my data and do a bit of playing around with the file to get the daily average, and it turns out to be 6.93 hours per day! So, so close!
published 78 blog postings. I did 52 on this blog, but I also did 21 on my professional blog, for a total of 73.
Epic Fails
KonMari’ed all the bathroom stuff (including toiletries, make-up, and towels). I was totally planning to do this yesterday, but I ran out of time. I’m now planning to do this by the end of the week, so it will go on my 2020 goals list.
painted the inside of both the front hall closet and the office closet. Also something I was planning to do over my Christmas holidays, but ran out of time. It will also go on my 2020 goal list – I did a bit of reading on painting closets and I think I can do it was a weekend project.
sewn 5 items. I sewed nothing this year. So this is my most epic of my epic fails.
So that’s 9 out of 19 complete, with another 7 partially complete, and only 3 that I totally failed on. Not quite as good as last year’s 50% completion rate, but much better than the previous year!
My reading goal for 2019 was to read 20 books. I read 20 books in 2018, so figured that was doable. But then the new Harry Potter Wizard Unite mobile game came out in June and I subsequently spent most of my commuting time for the rest of the year doing that rather than reading. It may also have been due to the fact that I was reading two textbooks at the time, and textbooks aren’t ideal to read on transit, because (a) they aren’t quite as compelling to read as other books, and (b) I always want to take notes of things as I’m reading in a textbook, which is challenging to do on transit, especially if you don’t have a seat.
Anyway, when I looked at my GoodReads account to see how dismally I was doing on this year’s goal, I saw that I needed to read 10 books in 5 days to get it accomplished. And then I tweeted this:
But then Cath made this excellent point:
Which is how I ended up reading this pile of books last night:
That brought me up to 19, and I was almost done reading a novel, which I ended up finishing this morning, so now I’ve officially completed my goal!
However, I noticed that my goal was actually more than just to read the books. It also specified that I need to have “blogged about each of them.” So here goes!
Here there be spoilers
Read no further if you’ve not yet read these books and don’t want things in them to be spoiled!
I finished off two more seasons of the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast, which means that I listened to two more books in the Belinda Blinked series. Written by the father of one of the podcasters under the pen name “Rocky Flintstone”, these books are hysterical and made even more so by the hilarious reading and commentary done by Jamie, Alice, and James.
Belinda Blinked 4;: An erotic story of sexual prowess, sexy characters and even bigger business deals whilst the darkness increases; was the last of the books that Rocky Flintstone had written before the podcast started and thus is the last book where Flintstone was not potentially influenced by trying to write ridiculous things for the podcast audience. As you may recall, there was a bombshell dropped at the end of book 3 in that a plot point happened. Book 4 had some chapters where it seemed like they might not have remembered the plot, but then other chapters do and the final chapter actually has a big reveal from the cliffhanger ending of book 3. I can’t believe I’m writing about the “plot” in this series.
I decided to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale because I wanted to read the sequel that just came out (The Testaments), but it’s been many years since I last read the Handmaid’s Tale and I wanted to have it fresh in my mind1. This book was just as good as I remembered it – and it’s one of my favourite books. It’s actually quite chilling to read it now, given what’s going on in world – all the xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia that is erupting these days makes Gilead seems far more plausible that I thought it was when I read this as a teenager in the 90s.
Now we’ll begin the children’s book that I read last night to make sure that I would reach my goal.
My aunt got The Unofficial Ultimate Harry Potter Spellbook: A complete reference guide to every spell in the wizarding world for my nephew, Thomas, for Christmas. It literally just lists all the spells that are mentioned in the books, the movies, and/or various Harry Potter games, including their pronunciation (when known), etymology, wand stroke (if known), and other fun facts. Thomas and I read through the book and he cast various spells at me with his Harry Potter wand, that he also received from my aunt for Christmas.
Junie B. Jones 4: Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky Peeky Spying. I did not like this book at all. The book is written from the point of view of the main character, who is in kindergarten. But the author writes it so that she constantly makes that the grammatical error that kids make where they instead of saying “ran” they “runned.” But in like every sentence. It’s really annoying.
Mortimer is a Robert Munsch book about a kid who likes to make a lot of noise and everyone yells at him to be quiet and they even call the police on him. And then they all fight and forget to tell him to shut up and he falls asleep. Seriously, that is the entire plot of this book.
Zoom! was a more entertaining book than Mortimer. It’s about a girl who goes to get a new wheelchair and she wants a really fast one. And then she gets to test the fastest one and then she needs it to get her brother to the hospital and hooray for the fast wheelchair.
Now we are getting to some real easy books.
LEGO® City: Detective Chase McCain: Save That Cargo! Quite honestly, this book wasn’t very good. The detective prevented one bad guy from doing crime and then he prevented another bad guy from stealing a top secret package, which turned out to just be an apple pie. Not much character development.
Batman Classic: Reptile Rampage is a story of Batman and Robin chasing Killer Croc who has kidnapped a doctor who made an antidote that would cure him. I feel like Killer Croc got a raw deal in this story. He just wants a cure!
Spidey Strikes (The Amazing Spider-Man Board Book). This is is a board book, so it was like 10 pages long and pretty much nothing happened. For the record, I only read the one on the right in this photo, as I didn’t see the other one on the bookshelf (and I was too lazy to take a photo of the book, so I found that image on the Internet).
Justice League Classic: I Am Aquaman was the thrilling tale of Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman all visit Aquaman under the water and then some shark bad guy comes and they all fight to defend Aquaman’s home and then they win. The End.
This last one of the kids books is really was phoning it in. The Twelve Days of Christmas (Little Golden Book) was a book that just had the lyrics to the twelve days of Christmas written in it, along with illustrations. But it was in book form and I read it, so it totally counts.
And finally we have The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s long awaited sequel to the Handmaid’s Tale. I have to say that while I found it compelling enough that I didn’t want to put it down, the plot was just way too convenient. I mean, what are the odds that a manuscript of a handmaid is discovered and then a couple of years later, manuscripts from two of the people who brought down Gilead are also discovered who just happen to be the two daughters that the aforementioned handmaid was separated from. Also, Gilead is brought down by a teenager who spent a solid weekend of training and a woman who was raised in Gilead and basically just didn’t like her stepmom. I liked the origin story of Aunt Lydia – it started off with the same situation that Offred faced in the Handmaid’s tale – all the women’s accounts were shut off and they were fired, as it was made illegal for women to own anything or have jobs. But since Aunt Lydia was a judge and she was too old to bear children, she was subjected to some torture and then tested to see if she’d be willing to kill other women to save her own life. It was a believable origin for her character and makes you think about what you would do to save your own life, if put in such an extreme situation.
But it seemed a bit of a stretch that she decided to bring down Gilead and collected documents that showed the crimes of all the leaders (and that people just believed the documents when they were released) and that she served as a source for May Day. And then her manuscript also just happened to have been found and aligned perfectly with the other manuscripts.
And then one more thing that bugged me – and this is so minor really – but in the academic conference proceedings at the end of the book, the conference chair does a land acknowledgement, whereas in the academic conferences proceedings at the end of the Handmaid’s Tale, she does not. Now, I know what in the thirty years between when these two novels were written, land acknowledgements have become common at the start of conferences, but in this books, there’s only two years between them and they are set nearly 200 years from now. And it seems odd to me that in 2019, traditional land acknowledgements are typically done at conferences, but in 2195 they aren’t, and then somehow in 2197 they remember them again? And it’s the same character at both conferences, so it’s not like it just one person does them and another doesn’t. Like I said, it’s a minor thing, but it bugged me.
So there you have it! I read – and blogged about – 20 books in 2019! GoodReads was so kind as to have provided me with this nice image of all the books I read:
And also showed me that the longest book I read was also the most popular book I read, and the shortest book I read was the least popular.
I have watched season 1 of the TV series, but there are some differences between that and the book, so I wanted to make sure that I knew what was specifically from the book. [↩]
A bunch of my goals for 2019 were related to getting my condo more organized. I had very high hopes that I’d be all handy and DIY-y this year and I would:
build a closet organizer in the front hall closet
build a closet organizer in the pantry closet
install a lazy Susan in each of the two corner cabinets in the kitchen
paint the inside of both the front hall closet and the office closet
I eventually came to accept that I just do not have the time to do these things and that my life would be much improved by being able to actually reach all the things that are in my kitchen cabinets and not have all my coats falling off the broken front hall closet coat rack. So I bit the bullet and called the guy who installed my closet door and closet organizer in my spare room last year and he knocked the first three of those things off of my “to do” list for me. I decided that I want to do the painting of the inside of the closets myself (with the leftover paint from last year’s painting project) and I figure can do that when I have some time off in December.
Here’s what my front hall closet looked like before:
Notice the wire rack that the coats are hanging on is broken on the right side, that the internet-related devices and all of their various cords and tangled mess on top of that wire shelf, and that shoes and other crap are all piled in a heap at the bottom of the closet.
Here’s what the closet looked like after:
Notice how there’s a proper rod to hang coats on and also a reasonably sized pile of crap on the bottom. In fairness, we did take the opportunity to go through all the stuff that was in the closet and divert some of it to donations (for the things that were still usable) or to the garbage (for things that were unsalvageable). But part of it was having a proper shelf to put stuff on (you can’t really see it well in the photo, but under the coats there is a shelf that that we could put things on). Also, all the various internet devices are now attached to the wall, so they don’t take up valuable shelf space:
Next up was the pantry cupboard. This cupboard, where we mostly store Tupperware and various other food containers, was rather infuriating .
And here’s what it looked like after:
You can’t tell from the photos, but those old wire shelves were about 4 inches less deep than the new shelves, so we’ve got quite a bit more shelf space now1. We also sorted through all the stuff in the various locations and took some of the stuff that was in here that we don’t use very often and have stored it elsewhere.
And lastly we have the kitchen cabinets. I have two corner cabinets in my kitchen that are quite deep and trying to get anything out of them was a complete nightmare. I’m pretty sure these cabinets defy the laws of physics, as no matter what item you want, it is always, somehow, buried underneath all the other objects and way at the back of the cabinet. Which resulted in the cabinet with all the pots and pans and various other cookware looking like this:
The second of these cabinets was used mostly for food (but also for baking sheets and cooling racks) and while it didn’t end up with everything all upside and turned around like the other cabinet, it was still a nightmare to try to get stuff out of – or even to see what stuff I had, which may or may not have resulted in me having 3 different bottles of apple cider vinegar and several opened boxes of lasagna noodles.
The sensible way of designing these cabinets, of course, is to have a lazy Susan in them, so that you can spin the shelf to find what you want rather than trying to reach all the way to the back. So we got a lazy Susan installed in each and now here’s what they looked like :
The picture doesn’t totally do justice to how much of an improvement this is to my life.
Also, while all of this was being done, we had to take everything that was in the front hall closet, the pantry closet, and the two kitchen cabinets out of those locations and store them in living room. And I just have to say that I was astonished by how much storage room my condo actually has, as just the stuff from these 4 places2 pretty much filled up my entire living room:
and my dining area:
So that’s definitely a selling feature I’m going to have to remember if I ever decide to sell this place.
Anyway that knocks three items off my 2019 goals list, which is nice because it’s already freaking November so the year is almost up!
And it makes my day-to-day life just that much more pleasant, which is pretty great too!
You can also see that the white bins we use for recylcing at the bottom of the closet got considerably more filled up between the “before” and “after” photos. [↩]
My condo also has a walk through closet in the main bedroom, a closet in the spare room, and a storage locker in the parkade! [↩]
So, the year is half over. I know that every year I, like most people, marvel at how fast the year is going by, this year it’s way worse than previous years. Like, the year is half over and I haven’t really done anything… and I haven’t even planned stuff.
Anyhoo, I thought that maybe I’d do a check in on how my goals for 2019 are going since the year is half freaking over, but honestly doing this just made me feel like I really have done nothing with the first half of the year! Correction: this has motivated me to get going on my goals!
Anyhoo again, of my 19 goals, I’ve completed a grand total of 1. So yeah, I’m a wee bit behind. But the one that I did complete was monumental:
I TRAPBAR DEADLIFTED 100 KG!
The goal was actually just to deadlift 90 kg, and I did for 2 reps of a 90 kg trapbar deadlift on Jan 13, and then again for 2 reps on Jan 20, and then I did a single rep of 100 kg. For those of you who prefer to think of weight in pounds, that’s 220.5 lbs. Trapbar deadlift is easier than regular deadlift, but it’s still technically a deadlift!
I came close to one of my other weightlifting goals: I back squatted 85 kg on Jan 24, just 5 kg shy of my goal of 90 kg (i.e., 198 lbs).
I have made some progress on a few other goals. For the goal of making 19 new foods and/or beverages that I’ve never made before, I’ve made 5:
So I’m 26% done that goal – behind schedule, but I can definitely catch up.
For the goal of read 20 books, I’ve read 7 (5 of which I’ve already blogged about), and I’m in the process of reading 5 other books right now. So I feel like I’m on my way with this goal, although I wonder if I should focus my reading to get some of these books done, rather than sporadically reading from all 5 of them, just to make myself feel like I’m accomplishing something! I should also try to pick a few shorter books – most of the books I’m currently reading are quite long, which doesn’t help in the feeling-like-I’ve-accomplished-something department.
A number of my things on my list are home improvement-y/organization-y, so I probably should just make a plan to get some of those done, as some are the type of thing I can get done in a weekend here or there.
I haven’t sewn anything and I have a goal to sew 5 things, so I really should decide what I want to sew and get cracking on it. I have a goal of sleeping an average of 7 hours per night and though my Fitbit tracks my sleep for me, I can figure out how to find out what my average since Jan 1 has been. Looking at the graphs by month, I can see that I haven’t hit the 7 hour mark for any single month, so I know I’m not meeting the goal, but I guess I’ll have to download the data to calculate the yearly average myself. I have a goal to write in my journal once a week and I have written 23 entries, so I’m 44% done that goal. And I have a goal to have people over for dinner 5 times, and I’ve only hosted one dinner, so I should do some planning for that (anyone interested in coming over for dinner? Hit me up!)
As for my blogging goal, which was a *very* modest 78 blog postings, as soon as I hit “publish” on this one, I’ll have published 23 for the year (or 29.5%). Perhaps another thing I can spend a bit of time on!
One goal that I’m only a little bit behind on, however, is my goal to read 20 books this year. I’ve read 6 – or 30% of my goal. Here’s a rundown of 5 of them – the 6th one deserves its own blog posting, so that will come later.
Here there be spoilers
Read no further if you’ve not yet read these books and don’t want things in them to be spoiled:
Belinda Blinked 2 Belinda blinked 3 american gods The crazy game split tooth
As mentioned last year, I’m listening to the podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno, in which a man is reading terribly written erotic novels that his father wrote, completely skewering it with a couple of his friends. But since he reads an entire book each season, I think it’s only fair that I get to count them as books I’ve read, much like I would an audiobook. I’ve finished off two more seasons of the podcast, which means I’ve read:
Cath recommended this one and since I absolutely loved Good Omens, which is also by Neil Gaiman, I figured I’d give it try. There are a bunch of characters who are various types of gods that have been brought to America from other countries over the centuries as people immigrated, bringing their conceptions of gods with them. There are figures from indigenous, Norse, Slavic, Ghanaian, Egyptian, and various other mythologies. But gods need to be worshipped to have strength and since not many people think about these old gods anymore, they are not faring that well. And then there are the new gods – the things people worship today, like the media and technology. I won’t get into the plot, but suffice it to say that I quite enjoyed it and I think I’ll watch the TV series version.
(Trigger warning: this section mentions a suicide attempt and trauma). I remember seeing an interview with Clint Malarchuk when this book came out. He is best known for being the NHL goalie who has his necked sliced by a skate in a game and nearly bled to death live on television. He ended up with PTSD from the experience and he also deals with OCD and alcoholism. In the book he talks about growing up, his hockey career, and dealing with his mental health issues (like how he challenged the obsessiveness that comes with OCD into his training as a goalie and his experiences in rehab). He also talks about his suicide attempt, where he put a gun to his chin and pulled the trigger in front of his wife saying “Look what you made me do!”). On the one hand, I think it’s really good that people are talking more about mental health, especially in an industry like professional hockey where men are expected to be “tough” and talking about mental health is seen as “weak”. On the other hand, parts of this book were difficult to read – Malarchuk was verbally and psychologically abusive to his wives1 and I found reading about the way he would gaslight his wife brought up stuff from my past that was somewhat triggering for me. I also found that in the next hockey game I played after reading about the skate blade incident, I was very aware of my neck2.
This book was recommended by Dr. Dan and it was a phenomenal read. It was very different than anything I’ve read before. Parts of it are memoir of growing up in Nunavut, parts are fiction and mythology, and parts are poetry. She moves among these in such a way that I wasn’t always sure what I was reading and then she’d take your breath away with a description of violence she experienced, or a scene of surreal beauty. It’s really hard to describe – you must read it for yourself!
So there are 5 of the 6 books that I’ve read this year. I’ll have to find some time to sit down and write a full blog posting about the 6th book that I’ve read, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. As a teaser, I’ll say that (a) you should read this book for yourself because there is no way I can do it justice, and (b) a major takeaway from this book is that not only do we have to do more than learn how to talk about race, we need to take action to support social justice for all people, if we really care about justice.
Also as a teaser, here are some of the other books that I’m currently reading (which I’ve just realized as I wrote out this list are all textbooks!):
In the book, he only refers to his current wife, Joan, by her name – the others are just “my first wife,” “my second wife”, and “my third wife”… at least, I think he had four wives – it was a little while ago now that I read the book, so maybe it was just three. It’s possible that he doesn’t include the names of his other wives out of respect for their privacy, but when reading it I felt like it came across as if they didn’t matter. [↩]
I always wear a neck guard when I play, in large part from having seen videos like the one of Malarchuk with blood spraying from his neck. But also because I’ve taken a few sticks and pucks to the throat and those hurt even with a neck guard on – I can’t imagine how bad they’d be without! [↩]
Since I did a lot better on my 2018 goals than I had on my previous two years’ goals, I’m going to stick with the format I used in 2018 – stating my SMART goals as if they have already been accomplish
Home Stuff
The last couple of years I’ve had, and failed to complete, “finish KonMaring my condo” on my list of goals. But now that I think about it, it’s too big of a goal. I tend to work better when I chunk out my goals into smaller tasks. So the main things I plant to have accomplished around the condo this year are:
I’ve built a closet organizer in the front hall closet. The front hall closet is a bit of disaster, but I think having a proper organizer in there would help a lot!
I’ve KonMari’ed all the bathroom stuff (including toiletries, make-up, and towels). My linen closet is also a disaster, but it’s more due to having too much stuff than a lack of shelving.
I’ve KonMari’ed all the kitchen stuff. I have a *lot* of kitchen stuff. A lot of it good stuff, but I’m sure I could pare down a bit.
I’ve installed a lazy Susan in each of the two corner cabinets in the kitchen. These cabinets are quite deep and they drive me insane when I have to get something from them because everything is piled on top of everything else and it’s hard to find stuff. In my old apartment, I’d put a lazy Susan in one of the cabinets and it made my life so. much. better.
I’ve built a closet organizer in the pantry closet. This pantry closet about filled with about 90% Tupperware and travel mugs (as well as various other stuff), plus where the recycling bins are. It definitely could be better organized than it is.
I’ve painted the inside of both the front hall closet and the office closet. I have the leftover paint from when the condo was painted, so it’s just a matter of finding the time to do it!
I’ve cleaned up the pile of bins in the office that are driving Scott crazy. Last year I did KonMari my books and managed to get rid of 2 full bookshelves, but there is a bunch of stuff in some bins that I need to sort through, figure out what to keep and what to get rid of, and then find proper homes for the former.
I’ve compiled a list of all my accounts and other relevant information for my executrix. I wrote a will awhile ago but if I were to die today it would be a real pain in the butt for the executrix of my will to figure out where my money, investments, insurance, etc. is, so I really should get that organized!
Health Stuff
Health-wise, by the end of 2019, I plan to have accomplished:
I’ve done a single unassisted pull up. Pull ups (when your palms are facing forward) are harder than chin ups (with palms facing towards you) and I haven’t done one unassisted… yet.
I’ve done 10 unassisted chin ups in a row. My current record is 4 – though some days even one is a struggle. I’m confident that I can keep at them and get to 10 by the end of the year.
I’ve deadlifted 90 kg (198 lbs). Current record is 75 kg.
I’ve squatted 90 kg (198 lbs). Current record is 75 kg.
I’ve slept an average of 7 hours per night1. I don’t get nearly enough sleep, but I know that is bad for you, both mentally and physically. So I’m going to make a concerted effort to be better at going to bed at a reasonable hour this year. (It also helps that I moved offices, so my commute is shorter now – I can just a little bit later than I used to on work days!)
Fun Stuff
And just for fun, by the end of 2019, I plan to have accomplished:
I’ve made 19 new foods and/or beverages that I’ve never made before – and blogged about each of them.
I’ve read 20 books – and blogged about each of them.
I’ve written in my journal at least one time per week, on average.
I’ve sewn 5 items.
I’ve had people over for dinner 5 times.
I’ve published 78 blog postings (that’s 1.5 per week, which is probably more realistic than the goals I’ve set in previous years).
did a chin-up or pull-up without the help of a resistance band – I did it! And then I did two in a row! By the end of December, my record was 4 in a row, which I managed one time. Chin ups are a tricky thing – some days I can barely get one done and other days I’ll get a few. But I’m very proud that my hard work all year paid off that chin ups are now a thing I can do.
wrote in my journal at least one time per week, on average – accomplished! Some of them are brief, but the main thing here is that I feel like I’ve established a habit of journal writing again.
made 18 new foods and/or beverages that I’ve never made before – done!
submitted 3 papers for publication – submitted one, but had to withdraw it as by the time the reviews came back, I didn’t have any time to work on suggested revisions. I’m getting some research assistant help this year, so hopefully can get a few papers out.
applying for a Nexus card – just didn’t get around to it. This one is going on the 2019 list!
donating blood twice – didn’t even do it once
published 118 blog postings – I only did 70, or 59% of my goal
publish at least six are long form blog postings – I managed three
bringing my lunch to work at least 75% of the time – didn’t even manage to track this!
I’m back dating this posting to yesterday because I had it mostly written but didn’t quite get around to finishing it before I had to leave for a New Year’s Eve party last night.
When I last wrote about the new foods I made this year as part of my goal to make 18 food items or beverages that I have never made before, I’d only made 5 foods. Of course, that was back in February, and I’ve made a lot of things since then. Thirteen things, so be specific.
So there you have it – the remaining 13 new things I made this year to complete my goal of making 18 new foods and/or beverages this year.
And I’m already looking forward to making even more new things in 2019. The list of ideas so far include: sourdough bread, plus sauce, ginger beer, pickled asparagus, and, inspired from our trip to Scotland: Scottish tablet and Cullen skink.
One of the things on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days is “Learn a new software program” and this year, I did just that. The program in question is Tableau, which is a fantastic software for data visualization.
This was something that I did for work, as my team and I had to create a dashboard to present data that needs to be monitored on an ongoing basis. We were able to get Tableau licences and a place to store our dashboard on a Tableau server that the organization has, so we had to teach ourselves how to use it quite quickly. It wasn’t very intuitive at first, but once we got the hang of it, we were able to create some very cool dashboards.
As these dashboards are part of my work, I can’t actually share them here – they are limited to within the organization. But they are awfully beautiful and they are interactive too, so you can hover over things on the graphs to get more information or filter them (e.g., to see the data for different hospitals, or different units within the hospitals).
I won’t say that I’m a Tableau expert by any stretch of the imagination – several of the people on my team who work on our dashboard regularly are much more skilled at it than I am. But I learned the basics and I think that counts as a new thing I learned this year!
Image credits: Tableau logo was posted in the Wikimedia Commons with a Creative Commons license
Another thing I learned this year is how to register a trademark in Canada.
Did you know that for just $2501? All you need to do is to fill in a simple form (with your name and address, what you want to trademark, what goods and/or services will be associated with your trademark and how you intend to use it), send them $250 ,and then wait.
After you file your application, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), will review your application to make sure that what you want to trademark can be registered (e.g., make sure it’s not in conflict with an existing trademark). If your application is approved, it gets published in the “Trade-marks Journal” for two months, during which others can oppose it). If it doesn’t get opposed (or if the opposition isn’t successful), your application will be “allowed”. Then you pay another $200 to register the trademark.
Once registered, you have 3 years to use the trademark – and it’s a case of if you don’t use it, you lose it! After 15 years (and every 15 years thereafter), you have to pay a renewal fee of $3502.
So it’s actually a pretty simple process – assuming that no one opposes your trademark. If they do, you have to provide evidence and written arguments and it could even end up going to court – which I’m sure would end up being pretty costly!)
