Day Zero Project #2: Volunteer at an animal shelter.

I could do the normal thing and type a bunch of sarcastic, witty comments here, but you probably just came here for pictures of kittens. I'll get to those after a few formalities.

The place I volunteered is a cat shelter in St. Pete called Friends of Strays. I both fostered a group of five kittens collectively nicknamed "The Terribles" and have also been volunteering once a week in their adoption center. Where else can your volunteer work be playing with a bunch of awesome cats?

So, go check them out. Volunteer if you feel like it. But be careful; if you foster kittens you may just end up with a cat (or two) of your own...

...at least we did! Introducing Slayer, one of our fosters that we decided to take home because all her siblings got adopted and I didn't like seeing her there alone. She's terrible, but also she can be very cute...when she's sleeping. Mostly she's just terrible.

And Mayor Cuddles Von Mystery, Esq. aka Big Guy aka Big Love. He is an adult I bonded with while volunteering. He is pretty much the best cat that has ever lived. 

And because kitten pictures are the number one way to drive traffic to a site here's some pictures of the kittens we fostered. You'll be happy to know that all have now found great permanent homes.

And finally, as a warning, the following will happen if you foster five kittens. And it won't just happen once, it will happen every single day.

Day Zero Project #68: Ride a roller coaster.

I have a confession. Roller coasters terrify me. Not like "Ohh, those are kinda scary. Let's ride one," but more like "pass out while on a ride" scary. Clown scary, even.

Needless to say, I wasn't 100% psyched to accomplish this goal. But, after years of being bugged by my wife to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter I found myself in an amusement park with a roller coaster and figured that I may as well get it over with.

 I walked up to the Dragon Challenge Coaster line full of confidence. The sign at the entrance said that the estimated wait was five minutes. The Gods were shining on my mission.

"Yeah, you can do this," I told myself as I confidently walked the path past Ron's crashed car.

 And Hagrid's hut. 

"Totally easy. Roller coasters are nothing," I assured myself as I marveled at the Triwizard Trophy.

And then I reached the end of the line. There was no turning back now and I somehow lost most of my confidence in the dark pathways that led me to this point. And to make matters worse it was one of those ones where your feet dangle so, not only was I going to pass out, but I was also going to lose my shoes.

I could turn back, but you don't want to be "that guy" who panicked at the last minute and bailed, so I jumped into the seat, brought down the seat belt bar-thing and started to immediately worry that I didn't bring the bar down tight enough. I was definitely going to fall out of a roller coaster.

And, before I had enough time to quadruple check my belt, the coaster starts to move up it's initial ascent. This part is safe, even I know that. But it's also the worst. The chain clunks loudly, climbing higher and higher, as the roller coaster says "Enjoy this nice view before you lose your shoes and then your seat belt flies open."

Then you near the top. This is where your normal (aka crazy) people start to hoot and holler and generally act as though they are somehow having a good time. I close my eyes and shoot up one last prayer.

There's a series of twists and turns. My stomach ends up somewhere near my throat, which can't be healthy at all. At one point I think I actually black out. I'm pretty sure that my seat belt is working at this point, but now I have a new mission. I just need to stay awake. It would be embarrassing to pass out on a roller coaster, so now I'm just doing my best not to. I take some deep breaths and say things like "You can do this" to myself. I may have already lost my shoes, I'm not sure. I can 't focus on that just this moment.

And then it's over. I have lived. There are shoes on my feet still! I haven't passed out!

"Let's ride the other one," I say.

And I do. And it's terrible. I have to enter a deep Buddhist-like trance state first and still sweat enough to lose three pounds.

My wife rides the only other coaster of the day by herself. I've chanced it enough for one day and I really don't want to lose my shoes.

See below for some random other pictures from our trip. The park itself is awesome. The attention to detail is amazing and the other big rides (which are basically simulators that are like indoor roller coasters that don't bother me for some reason) are well worth it!

 

 

 

Day Zero Project #44: Have a psychic reading.

Having a psychic reading should have been one of the easier goals to accomplish on this list. Find a place that says they do fortune telling, plop down $50 and sit in front of a psychic who will tell you what your future holds.

Easy enough, right?

But, for some reason, I was nervous about doing this. It's probably because I don't believe in it and I was worried that I'd have an expression on my face that said "You are crazy" during the entire process. Another part was that I thought it might be some sort of weird situation in a dark room with candles flickering while a weird person waves their arms around a crystal ball and tries to read the color of my energy field.

Credit: Kyrukai (website)

 Neither of those sound particular appealing to me.

Nonetheless, after finding out that I had a few friends who were using their Saturday to get tarot readings down the street from the morning gathering spot I decided that their going was a sign and I added my name to the list for a visit to Enchanted Notions & Mystical Potions.

I showed up at the appointed time, nervous and expecting candles and what I got was a very normal looking shop at the end of the Crislip Arcade with a woman sitting who looked nothing like the crazy crystal ball gazer I was expecting. It was bright and sunny in the room and there wasn't any noticeable evil-looking flickering candles, either. So much for those stereotypes!

What I did get was a reading through some tarot cards that were laid out like this:

Which, for you aspiring tarot card readers, translates into something like this:

Basically, she did a basic overview of me and then we talked about some things like health and career and whatnot. I didn't know I was supposed to have some specific questions in mind, so I missed an opportunity there, but that's okay.

I wouldn't say I've been converted to a believer in this sort of thing, but it wasn't as weird as I thought it would be. If nothing else, it gave me something interesting to talk to friends about for the next few days as we went back and forth with what was said and if who amongst us believes and who doesn't.

Plus, if she is right I'm headed for a new career opportunity in the next eight months or a promotion at my job early next year so let's hope that part was right!

Day Zero Project #73: Finish a crossword on my own without cheating.

Finish a crossword?! How difficult can that be, right?

Wrong.

Crosswords are hard. At least the ones in the newspaper are. I could have cheated and bought one of those World's Easiest Crosswords books, but where's the sense of accomplishment in that?

So, like any problem, I attacked it with a plan. I knew that I probably wouldn't finish the first puzzle I started so I figured I'd just try every single puzzle in the Sunday paper every week until I finally finished one. That first Sunday I got to the puzzle and made a little progress but eventually failed.

Next Sunday. Failed again.

Next Sunday. Failed again.

Then I repeated that process for many more Sundays.

But then I learned a secret from a friend at the Cheers of coffee shops, Brew D Licious. Sunday is the toughest day of all the crosswords. I was doing the crossword puzzle equivalent of picking up a guitar for the first time and booking my first gig one day later at Madison Square Garden. I was destined to  fail.

"Try a Monday one," she said. "I think you'll find that much more to your liking."

Turns out crossword puzzles get more difficult as the week goes on, culminating with the ultra-difficult Sunday version I'd been failing at for weeks. And so I tried a Monday one.

And aced it!

A few lessons here. One, if you can't figure something out, go hang out at a coffee shop until someone shows you the answer. Two, you gotta crawl before you can walk...or finish a crossword.

And now I'm off to try my hand at the Tuesday puzzle.

Day Zero Project #84: Lose 10 lbs.

Common Internet knowledge is that if you want to get a whole bunch of hits on your blog you title your post something like "How to lose 10 pounds" or "Super Awesome Amazing Shortcut to Cut the Pounds Fast." So, if you've come to this post to look for the absolute best way to lose 10 pounds through some sort of miracle food or shortcut or something along those lines, I'm sorry.

That said, I did manage to lose more than 10 pounds (over 16 actually), but it took a pretty long time and I didn't do anything that special. My miracle advice? Eat whatever you want, but track your calories (I use LoseIt, but choose what you like).

In fairness, I have some sort of weird metabolism that allows me to lose weight just by thinking about it. But my wife does not have this same genetic defect and managed to lose weight the same way. Sure, you could probably spend a whole bunch of time eating superfoods like wheatgrass shots and kale shakes, but personally, I prefer to just eat my Funyuns and drink some 3 Daughters Beach Blonde Ale in moderation. It's just easier for me because, seriously, have you ever tried a Kale shake? Not a pleasant experience.

I wanted to try and lose an even 20 pounds but 1) Katie said that if I lose any more weight she's going to leave me and 2) I'm really bored with tracking calories. Oh well, I feel like I'm at a healthy weight and so I'll go ahead and mark this goal done.

Also, who came up with these healthy weight range charts?

I'm 5'10" and this thing is saying that my healthy weight range is 132-174. Good news is that I'm in my range (albeit on the high end). Bad news is that I could read this and think "Hey, I should really weigh in the 130s." If I weighed 132 pounds I would be grossly skinny.

Get it together Mr. Government Health Guy.

Day Zero Project #46: Build a blanket for and sleep in it.

I learned something interesting over the past week. If one adult tells another adult that they have spent the entire weekend in a blanket fort the typical response is something along the lines of "That's awesome!"

I would have expected such responses as "Why?" or "That's stupid." or even "How old are you, 12?" But nope, every single adult that I know seems genuinely excited that we spent last weekend in a tiny house made out of a comforter, two sheets and a whole bunch of pillows.

And they should be. It turns out that being a grown-up in a blanket fort is just as much fun as I remember it being when I was a child.

Sure, the type of fort is totally different. For myself, blanket forts were war bunkers where G.I. Joes fought the Transformers until the little green army men swooped in and destroyed them all. For my wife, I'm sure they were hangouts where her and her best friend would talk about which boy from Party of Five was cutest.

As adults, much to my chagrin, there were no little green army men. And Katie was disappointed when she learned I have never even seen one episode of Party of Five. But that's okay. What we did have was our own little world away from the bigger, sometimes more stressful one, where we could enjoy each other's company while eating pizza and ice cream and watching movies: New Jack City because Katie's never seen any old rated R movies (and I saw too many) and Adult World because Emma Roberts and John Cusack are both the bee's knees.

And, unlike when I was a child, I didn't have to wake up with a sore back because I'd somehow fallen asleep on Optimus Prime. Instead I just woke up with a sore back because I'm old and that's how I wake up every day.

Day Zero Project #75: Attend a roller derby.

This is one of those goals from my list where I had no idea what to expect. Outside of a very basic idea that roller derby might be a bunch of people in tights going around in a circle and eventually pushing each other into alligator pits à la this crazy Roller Games show I watched as a kid.

The show was terrible. It was also the basis of all of my roller derby knowledge, which I have now learned was almost entirely false.

True, there are some people in tights (although not quite as flamboyant as on the show). And, true, they do go around in a circle. But that's where the similarities end.

I had expected some sort of theatrical violence with no real semblance of a sport, but what I got was a lesson in a new sport that is actually pretty cool once you can figure out the rules. By the end of our evening at the roller derby we both found ourselves cheering on the jammers and noticing some of the finer points of the game. And perhaps most importantly, the team that I decided to root for (the Switchblade Sisters) managed to take home the win over my wife's choice (the Black Widows).

I highly recommend checking out a match if you ever get the opportunity. If you happen to live in the Tampa, FL area, check out the Tampa Bay Roller Derby at Downtown Skate in Tampa, FL. Before you do, take a quick look at some derby rules online and it will save you a lot of Googling at the track. It was a lot of fun, but I will say that if you don't know the rules, there's a whole lot of wondering what they heck it is that you are watching.

I take horrible action pictures, so I apologize, but here's some more scenes from our night at the derby.

As you can tell from the pictures there was no sudden death over time with an alligator pit. But that's okay, the game was plenty fun without it.