I’ve updated my [2018: Goals](https://www.jonmcosgrove.name/2018-goals/) post with final results.
Similar to last year, here is a list of my goals for 2019. I plan to update this post throughout the year with progress reports.
– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture
– Complete 1 Kickstarter project
– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business
– Read 20 books
– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19
– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum
– Contribute to a healthy new daughter
– Run a 10k race
– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project
– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 relative to 12/31/2019]
I have a few thoughts on what makes a worthwhile goal.
They should be very specific in the sense that a result is either clearly relevant or not to the goal. A wooden project could be a cutting board. A piece of wooden furniture is by definition going to be a project with at least 3 components, occupy three dimensions, and require planning and a considerable investment of time to complete.
The should be objectively measurable. 1500 words of creative writing can be measured, by counting up the words. Tooth whiteness can be measured regardless of lighting with a camera and calibrated color samples.
They should be simple targets representing a more involved effort which requires commitment over time or high quality results. Earning money from an online business requires lots of planning, work, and likely the acquisition of new skills for someone who doesn’t currently have an online business. Making a commit which is included in the actual code base of an open source project requires solving a real problem and doing it in a quality way, as judged by others.
*[http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/6/772#sec-6](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/6/772#sec-6) – Measuring spectral variation from calibrated photographs
Update 5/5/2019
Jane came, so yeah… not a lot of progress. In fact, this is only my second visit to this blog since she arrived. We’ve been busy with her and I’m busy at work as well. The best thing I have to show for this list right now is my reading progress. I’d say I’m on track there if I include audio books. Also The Dream Machine is 794 pages, and Future crimes is 563. (Side note: if I were an editor, I would have made both of those books about 35% of their actual length and the reader would have gained the same amount of understanding.)
– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture
– HA!
– Complete 1 Kickstarter project
– Nothing really on the horizon here. I have done some work on a coffee grinder attachment but it is kind of dumb.
– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business
– I finished an online store to sell circular electrical connectors. I think this could make some sales however I need to spend a lot more time to make the site more user friendly, and perhaps change out the product line. I haven’t earned any money. In fact I’m in the hole for about $110 after hosting, domain, etc…
– Read 20 books
– The Oyster War, Summer Brennan
– The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop
– The Space Barons, Christian Davenport
– The signal and the noise, Nate Silver (audio)
– The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (audio, re-read)
– Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman (re-read)
– Future Crimes, Marc Goodman
– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19
– 🙁
– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum
– Contribute to a healthy new daughter
– IN PROGRESS…
– Run a 10k race
– I’ve registered for a 10k trail race in the Oakland Redwood park this July.
– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project
– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 relative to 12/31/2019]
– I finally got a toothbrush to take to work last week. Not much progress here
Update 8/17/2019
– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture
– No update
– Complete 1 Kickstarter project
– No update
– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business
– No update
– Read 20 books
– The Oyster War, Summer Brennan
– The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop
– The Space Barons, Christian Davenport
– The signal and the noise, Nate Silver (audio)
– The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (audio, re-read)
– Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman (re-read)
– Future Crimes, Marc Goodman**
– The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean
– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19
– Not going great, but I have lost 2-3 pounds and usually weight in around 192.
– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum
– Contribute to a healthy new daughter
– Jane is doing great, she is almost 6 months old and I’m having a ton of fun with her, although she does seem to have a negative impact on all other goal progress (see goals 1-6)
– Run a 10k race
– [Complete](http://www.jonmcosgrove.name/10k-oakland-redwood-regional-park-ca/)
– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project
– I don’t know that I’m actually allowed to do this due to my job…
– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 08/17/2019 relative to 12/31/2019]
– I’ve just taken the photos relative to a grayscale test ramp today
– I do not have the equipment to measure the reflectance of my teeth or the paper per the article but I should still be able to take some measurements for comparison by adjusting the exposure to match the known printed values, then determining the RGB values for my teeth.
– Photo setup:
– rear camera iPhone XR
– Halide camera app, raw image format
– in office with desk lamp on bounced off the South wall
– My teeth are pretty yellow compared to the paper! Too much coffee I suppose.
– Raw image uploads not supported, see… Dropbox/photos/2019-goals/
– JPEG not for calibrated comparison
– [](https://i0.wp.com/www.jonmcosgrove.name/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/IMG_2505.jpg)
** I read about 50% of Future Crimes (~300 pages) and then stopped. Its an interesting topic but that author needs to get a stronger editor. I think some authors just like to fill up pages, and the editor apparently didn’t do much to curtail the repeative text before print. Not recommended.
## UPDATE: 01/11/2020
2019 is complete. Summary:
– Complete 1 piece of wooden furniture [FAIL]
– Complete 1 Kickstarter project [FAIL]
– Earn 1 dollar of self employment income from an online business [FAIL]
– Read 20 books [FAIL]
– Weigh less than 182 pounds on 7/1/19 and 12/31/19 [FAIL]
– Complete 1500 words of creative (non blog) writing and post in a public forum [FAIL]
– Contribute to a healthy new daughter [COMPLETED]
– Run a 10k race [COMPLETED]
– Make a commit which is merged into an open source software project [FAIL]
– Make a measurable improvement in teeth whiteness* with brushing and flossing only [01/01/2019 relative to 12/31/2019] [FAIL]
Well, it has been a dismal year, only 2/10 completed. Number #7 turned out to impact the remainder more than expected, but at least #7 is in the green.
Here is more of a breakdown with some brief commentary:
– I decided that woodworking in the driveway really is too much of a pain. Moving everything outside and then back in for a few hours of work is too much of a barrier. I need a garage (see 2020 goals)
– I didn’t do another kickstarter this past year but I did spend some time working on a prospect. The planetary gear attachment for my coffee grinder was a canidatate but ultimately I realized the grinder wasn’t well suited to handle the loads. I have one ambitious project going on now which may be a future kickstarter canidate and one other potential Etsy store idea.
– See #2. My Circular connector store hasn’t received any attention either, but its still live gets a few random hits each week. Hopefully no one buys anything, I might not notice for a few months!
– I’m tired. This year with #7 combined with my job meant less reading, but I did get some done. I’m not going to include Jane’s books.
– The Oyster War, Summer Brennan
– The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop
– The Space Barons, Christian Davenport
– The signal and the noise, Nate Silver (audio)
– The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (audio, re-read)
– Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman (re-read)
– Future Crimes, Marc Goodman**
– The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean
– The Box, Marc Levinson
– Mr. g, Alan Lightman
– In Praise of Shadows, Junichiro Tanizaki
– Fail. I weight about 195. Around August I got to 190 after a caliorie counting challenge at work but lets face it, I’m not going to do that for very long.
– No progress other than brain storming a list of topics and outlining one of them.
– Complete.
– I ran the Oakland Redwood Urban Coyote 10k. It was HOT!
– I’m actually not allowed to do this per my job but I did make a ton of commits to work dev projects. Also see #7.
– Fail. My teeth are pretty yellow. Sometime I forget to brush my teeth now (see #7) and I drink too much coffee (see #7).
… Lost to the sands of time…
The last known update to this post occurred on 20200111 — > recovered 20260907 hooray
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