October!

Hello everyone! Welcome back - it is great to see you. I hope your Tuesday is off to a great start. It is 9:45am over here. I have my coffee ready, so let’s chat about what’s new in mclepke land.

Last week I set up four goals. Let’s start by reviewing how that went.

Goal #1 was to run a 5k daily. The reality is that I ran 4 of the 7 days. Not bad. By the end of the week I legitimately needed days off because my shins were hurting from running too much. Let’s lower expectations a bit for this week.

Week of 10/14 Goal #1 - Walk or run a 5k every weekday (Tuesday - Friday)

So two changes here. First, you can walk or run the 5k. During some of my 5ks last week I ran the first half, and walked the second half, once my shins started to hurt. If that’s all I can do, then that’s what I am going to do, you know? The biggest factor inhibiting my exercise at this point is my weight. I can feel my weight being too high to run as much as I do.

The second change is restricting this to weekdays. Last weekend actually felt like a weekend. I made social plans for Saturday and Sunday, and enjoyed living a different schedule than the weekdays. Also, note that this week is a short week. When it comes to holidays, I simply follow whatever holiday schedule Erika follows, and she does get Indigenous Peoples’ Day off, so I took it off as well.

To start, we have a one-entry table, but let’s set this up and try to update it week by week.

Goal #2 was to work on video game development for 30 minutes every weekday. I successfully did this last week. I spent most of the time working on some animations for two basic enemies. There’s Shadowey Steve, and the Razzer.

So, I had some progress. These aren’t the most detailed enemies I have ever seen, but I am also trying to push myself to make the game simpler and simpler. I am not sure what this week has in store for game dev…I have kind of been winging it. That’s okay though, I am happy to be working on it. As with exercise, let’s set up a one-entry table that we can try to start keeping track of weekly. The goal will remain the same for this week.

Goal #3 last week was related to chores. I did way more chores than I set out to do, and am actually going to repurpose this goal. I have set out to restart my weight-loss goal a few times this year, only to lose steam after a few weeks. Here’s the thing about doing hard stuff though: that’s how it goes. If losing weight in America were easy, half the country wouldn’t be overweight. So, let’s restart!

Goal #4 last week was to speedrun for an hour every weekday. That didn’t quite happen, but I did at least start my new project. I started learning Mega Man 4. I worked on speedrunning three of the five weekdays, twice for half an hour, and once for two hours. It feels like I should bump this goal down to the same half an hour per weekday that game dev has.

Other Stuff

Last Saturday’s movie night pick was made by Teresa, my brother’s wife, and it was Scream, the original movie from 1996. It was a spoopy pick. It wasn’t bad. It kind of had a foot in both areas - it was sort of scary, and sort of campy and funny, but I didn’t think it was notably skilled at either. With that said, it was a fun movie to watch. I wouldn’t mind watching the rest of the Scream franchise.

On Sunday we invited the fearless leader of the Pittsburgh Hound meetup group over for dinner. Erika made a cottage pie, and we had some Trader Joe’s doughnuts for dessert. Podo and Pancho, our guest’s puppo, got to play and hang out all night. It was a heartwarming experience.

In casual gaming, I finished playing Donkey Kong Bananza over the weekend. I got all 777 bananas hidden throughout the game, which is to say that I did an extremely thorough playthrough. I was very pleasantly surprised by Bananza. It had lots of great throwbacks for fans of old school Donkey Kong games. Long time readers of this blog will remember that Donkey Kong Country 2 was the first game I ever speedran, so I am counted among that group. I even played the DLC for a few days. Buying DLC is definitely not something I often do. Good job, Donkey Kong.

I think that’s all from me for now. I enjoyed the process of editing last week’s post during the week with mini-updates, so I will probably do that again this week. It helps keep me on track.

SO - let’s talk again soon! I hope you have a great week. I have faith in you. You can do it.

Wednesday Update

Two hours of game dev are already in the books this morning. I’m working on a new parallax background for the introduction level. Up to this point all backgrounds have been from the dessert themed level, but I don’t think that’s actually going to be level 1. For level 1 I am working an outer space theme. Here’s some partial progress.

Have a great Wednesday y’all. I’m in an uncharacteristically (lately, anyway) good mood. Hopefully you are too. I am feeling capable today.

Coming at you from later in the day Wednesday, 2:30pm. I’ve done three loads of laundry and run a 5k AND gone to the grocery store. I’m rolling today. I am about to do some Mega Man 4 practice. Keep it up y’all.

Thursday Mini Updates

Coming at you from Thursday morning. 11:15am. Half an hour of game dev is in the books. I’m feeling good again this morning. I had a great eating day yesterday, great game dev day, packed chores day, ran a 5k, and worked half an hour of speedrunning in. Now to repeat that, without crashing. Let’s do this!

Oh, I also got two things done yesterday that I have been meaning to do forever. First, I purchased and set up a sound bar for our main television setup. Sweet. The second is I set up an initial meeting with an estate attorney to set up wills for me and Erika. Planning for death! Cool!

Have a great Thursday!

2:15pm Thursday - just finished the 5k for the day. Also cleaned up the kitchen. I am definitely trending in the direction I want to trend in. Hopefully you’re also winning the never ending battle against life today.

Friday Update

I didn’t get to speedrun yesterday. I ran out of gas after a second consecutive full day. Right now I have a special focus on not burning out. I have a lot of good days, but when I crash and burn, there’s no telling how long it will take before I start a new streak of living life the way I want to live it.

One thing I could sense yesterday is that my ideal day forces me to push. Game dev, speedrunning, real running of a 5k, and chores. I feel like doing three of the four is hard but comfortable enough, while doing all four is hard and a stretch. Eating healthy food looms as a more-passive fifth thing to tire you out.

I think it will be helpful to go into my lower-energy days with one of my things ‘on the bubble’ - as the thing I am prepared to skip if I don’t feel like I have the energy for it. Yesterday speedrunning drew the short straw simply because it’s the last thing that I do in the day sequentially. I also felt a twinge of ‘that was a failure’ for not getting to it in the moment. But, when I look at how this week is going as a whole, I feel like it’s going well.

So, today I am putting the 5k ‘on the bubble’. If I don’t get to the 5k, I won’t feel bad about it - and really, my legs could use the rest anyway. I will do game dev and speedrunning today though.

On a different note - last night I had a dream that I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. I have always been interested in the AT, ever since reading Bill Bryson’s book A Walk in the Woods, around 15 years ago. I think I can benefit from viewing game dev like hiking the AT. You hike the AT one mile at a time, and eventually it ends. The thing that makes it simpler than game dev is there are maps and landmarks to prove to you that you are indeed approaching the end. Game dev on the other hand feels endless. But, really, working on game dev is like walking the trail. It does eventually end, and I need to keep creeping along the path.

I’ve been watching this video of one person’s journey on the AT this morning. I have found it a motivational way to start the day.

Happy Friday! Let’s do this.

More Friday update - the beginning of an outer space parallax background. Next steps: replace the cake ground with space rocks (the cake is a holdover from my dessert themed level) and make the planets move at two separate speeds rather than the same speed.

Saturday Update - coming at you 10:30am on Saturday. Yesterday I did the minimum in game development and speedrunning at a half an hour each, but I am still feeling good about progress. The first level of the Mega Man 4 speedrun is dishearteningly difficult; I am still learning it.

Today is movie night, so at 3:30pm my brother and his wife will be coming over. We generally pick up food from the local taco truck afterwards. The planned movie is The Surfer, the 2024 movie starring Nick Cage. This movie has some incredible ratings online. Check these Google reviews:

This looks really promising! Before 3:30pm I would like to do some speedrunning and run a 5k. Game development is taking its turn being on the bubble today, so maybe I will get to it, and maybe I won’t.

Have a great Saturday y’all!