Inventory & List of Priorities (2a)

Please continue checking the wrecking; we’re almost there.

So I’ve made my list and I’ve organized it. And here’s what I’ve got so far:

I’m leaving off the “Gig” topic for now. There’s a lot to it that I need to spend more time researching and thinking about. Two of those points (Attorney & Teaching) involve an complete directional change in my career. My current mindset is a bit too shaky for me to be making decisions that drastic at this time.

The “Gig” topic won’t be far from my mind, though. I spend a lot of time on the internet and I’ve seen some possible options for part-time (e.g. while not-at-work) gigs in social media and writing. I’m in a handful of social media and writing groups on LinkedIn, so I’m fairly well in-touch with the internet possibilities (copywriting, etc.) for those outlets. I’ll keep my eyes open for things that look interesting; this will be an ongoing kind of goal that doesn’t require much more than that.

That leaves me with my “Do” and “Have” lists. As Apoc so aptly pointed out in yesterday’s comments, the “Have”s tend to support the “Do”s. So I’m going to start with the “Do”s:

Of those, getting my winter patch for the Catskill 3500 Club has the most rigid requirements. To wit, in order to qualify as a “winter” peak, I must climb each of the 35 mountains in the Catskills that are over 3500 feet between December 22nd and March 22nd. There are 13 weekends in this time frame and I have 27 mountains left to climb in that span. Yes, that works out to about 2 mountains per weekend – in the snow – give or take. This is a tough goal, but not an unattainable one, given that

each weekend has two days,
climbing more than one mountain per day is entirely possible,
I’ve climbed all these mountains before,
I own the proper gear, and
the Catskills are close enough for me to do day-trips (i.e. drive up, climb mountain(s), drive home for a hot shower and meal and a night in a warm bed – rinse and repeat if necessary).

So all that’s left is to sit down and figure out which mountains I plan to climb on each of those thirteen weekends. I’ll spare you those particular details, dear reader. Stay tuned: each weekend is sure to be encapsulated in a blog post.

Next on the list is the Adirondack 46ers patch. This goal is completely attainable, albeit over a longer period. I have thusfar climbed 2 of the 46 required peaks. Given:

that this goal will probably take me a year or more of weekend hiking to complete,
that the weekends between 12/22/2009 and 3/22/2010 will be spent in the Catskills, and
that the May/June months in the Adirondacks are more-or-less unhikeable due to black fly season,

I’m going to put this goal down as “long-term” and basically back-burner it for the purposes of this inventory. I’m going to need to get in shape for the Catskill 3500 Club winter patch goal, and I’m also going to need to get used to driving up to the ‘dacks (and learn my way around), so I’m going to try to get up there and knock a few of the high peaks off my list between now and 12/22. The best way for me to do this will be to drive up on Friday night and stay somewhere in the area so that I can get an early start on the hike on Saturday morning. To this end, I’ve already found a couple of inexpensive hostels in the area at which to stay. I’ll email them this week for details and booking requirements. This also means that I’ll have to find someone to cover me for my Friday night commitments for a few weeks here and there.

The rest of the bullets on the “Do” list are fairly easily eliminated:

MAT (Miller Analogies Test): Just take it. Sign up this week for the next available seat and commit. Study/prepare as needed.
Practice my bass and do pushups: Just do it. Finger the strings a bit each night; do a few pushups every morning and every evening.
Bar Exam: No change: Still a major life-decision; see “Gig”.
Book: Maybe consolidate my blog posts and put together a book on my hikes.

Finally, as I mentioned before, the things on my “Have” list dovetail almost completely with my “Do” list. And I think the iPhone my be the answer to the GPS and digital camera desires: the iPhone has a camera and I think I’ve found a GPS application for it that does pretty much everything I want in a GPS unit (which is basically a detailed tracking of my progress while hiking).

The wardrobe aspect of my “Have”s list is something I can figure out as I go. I feel no pressure to completely refresh my wardrobe right away. The suits I currently own are fine; maybe I’ll buy a new one at some point if I have the scratch and the overwhelming desire to do so, and I’ll leave the replenishment of my argyle supply to Mom at Christmas and impulse buys.

No, dear reader, I’m not forgetting that “Girl” is on my list of “Have”s as well. That’s another one that I’m going to back-burner for the moment. I’m very tempted to set up a Match.com profile – it seems to be the best website for a single dude in NNJ to join and get dates (you should meet some of the retards I know that get dates from that site) – but especially after my eHarmony experience, I’m wary of fantasizing a(nother) website into the realm of panacea.

Besides the fact that Match.com is going to run me about $138 for a 6 month membership, I also need to consider the fact that I’m a gentleman and enjoy paying for things on dates. I’m not completely backward, going dutch or letting the lady pay is fine by me, but I’m kind of a stickler for taking a girl out on at least the first few dates. And if I assume that I’ll get some dates from Match (ergo, it would be worth the membership fee), I also have to assume that I’m going to be out-of-pocket quite a bit of scratch for said dates.

I’m going to think more on the Match.com thing. Philosophically, if I’m doing all the things on my “Do”s list, I’ll be having a damned good time and will be giving off all kinds of successful come-fuck-me vibes. That said, I’ve been doing said things and giving off said vibes for quite a while now, with not much to show for it in the XX chromosome category.

Yes, I understand that I’m blurring the fuck/love line right now, but that’s strictly for the purpose of brevity. This is really more of a topic for a whole ‘nother post entirely. So I’m going to leave it at that. Besides, if I’m dropping the f-bomb in with my oh-so-professional writing style more than once in 500 words, then it probably means that my filter is off and I’m just heading down the road of morning-after embarrassment. So yeah, I’m leaving it at that. Er, this: the whole girl-issue is so far from far-from-my-mind that I think I’m better off thinking about other things for a bit. You dig?