What have you achieved in 2015?

one of the new vacuum elevators; they cheap, reliable and low maintenance

:hmm:
Spoiler :
vactrain.jpg

Cooool! :thumbsup:
 
For my bro's wedding, I once more visited the USA, I had tables at the two biggest comic conventions in Glasgow, and added another foot of height to my stack of inked drawings, from comics and commissions!

Also was teaching, made new friends, played a tonne of CIV2, and created many new ideas for future comics...Not unhappy with my performance this year. Plan to top it in 2016! :)
 
For my bro's wedding, I once more visited the USA, I had tables at the two biggest comic conventions in Glasgow, and added another foot of height to my stack of inked drawings, from comics and commissions!

Also was teaching, made new friends, played a tonne of CIV2, and created many new ideas for future comics...Not unhappy with my performance this year. Plan to top it in 2016! :)


Hi Bro!

How are you doing?! :D
 
For my bro's wedding, I once more visited the USA, I had tables at the two biggest comic conventions in Glasgow, and added another foot of height to my stack of inked drawings, from comics and commissions!

Also was teaching, made new friends, played a tonne of CIV2, and created many new ideas for future comics...Not unhappy with my performance this year. Plan to top it in 2016! :)

That's awesome and glad to hear from you.
 
Plans for 2016:

Go from my temporary job to a permanent.

Forget the plans for admin work, I want to keep my M&S staff discount!
 
However, I should note that the Norwegian arctic circle is far different from what you'll find in North America. The weather during the summer is very mild and temperate due to the gulf stream and hot reindeer

The closest I came to dying was on the kjeragbolten rock hike - I climbed on top of the rock while it was windy (and after a lot of rain). Not really super close to death, but one slip and I would have been gone. Was freaky up there. Had to be super careful. One girl literally took off everything except for base layer. Not sure why that would help, but taking off the boots made sense at least - hers didn't have great grip. And taking off her jacket was a good idea since the wind made it into a bit of a sail. The rest of what she did was I guess probably a bit of a psychological thing.. She went right after me, I was a bit scared for her and didn't even look while she did her thing.. No way would I have been able to do anything if she fell, and I do not want to see that..

That is a perfect example of what I mean when I say I'm not scared of heights per se, but of being scared of heights where there's a large drop with one wrong step. Props to you for doing that; I'm far from certain I would have after the hike even on a perfectly clear, calm day.

Quoting the first part because I'm curious what hot reindeer have to do with the difference between the North American and Scandinavian arctic. :lol:
 
I did good enough that if I got fired from my job, I could probably get another one of similar quality

I saw some cool nature

I got nice glasses

I had a few good months of running
 
That is a perfect example of what I mean when I say I'm not scared of heights per se, but of being scared of heights where there's a large drop with one wrong step. Props to you for doing that; I'm far from certain I would have after the hike even on a perfectly clear, calm day.

Quoting the first part because I'm curious what hot reindeer have to do with the difference between the North American and Scandinavian arctic. :lol:

I had transportation to the trailhead booked well ahead of time, and initially the idea of me climbing on the rock wasn't.. "real" enough, so I didn't think about it. I figured I would probably do it.

When I got there though, it had been raining for a while so I assumed the rock was slippery... and it was very very windy. You hike for about 3 hours before you reach the rock, and on that (not so nice) day there weren't a lot of people there.. and none of them were climbing on top of the rock! So I sat down, started eating my lunch, chatted a bit more with the American girls I met on the way there, and enjoyed the view. I figured nobody was climbing on top because it was dangerous due to the conditions.. I also saw a sign there warning people about the danger. So at that point I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to climb on top of the rock.

But then as I sat there eating lunch, I saw a bunch of people climb on top. I walked around to the other side and watched some of them do it - and it seemed.. well yeah, it seemed scary.. There is a very narrow part you have to cross on the way there, with nothing to hold on to except a tiny metal thing that sticks out of the rock that used to have a chain attached to it - but now for some reason doesn't.

More and more people were doing it, so I gave my camera to one of the American girls I met earlier, and I got in line. Stayed positive, didn't look down, and did my thing. Standing on top of the rock felt.. liberating!.. but also scary. I got off as soon as the girl signalled to me that she took my picture (she didn't zoom in though because she's an idiot, so the pictures didn't come out great

But I had a goPro strapped to me so you can watch this whole thing if you fast forward to 8:45 or so. You might have already seen this video - it's my Norway trip highlights video.. but if not, here you go! Here's me standing on the kjeragbolten rock (fast forward to 8:45 or so.. or watch the whole video)

Spoiler :

As for hot reindeer, those are yours to discover ;)
 
Heights scare the hell out of me, honestly. Climbing up is one thing, but on my way down I'm most certain to have trembling knees and ankles and wet pants before I make like a quarter of the way. Then I hold tight and close my eyes, and you'll probably need a firetruck with a ladder or a helicopter to have me transported down.
 
Are the sticks of any use for hiking? i find safer to have both hands free.
 
I made a small amount of wage-earned, part-time money, quadroupling my life's earnings. Paid a bunch of friends back from 2013 and 2014 things.

Had a girlfriend, for the first time in years.

Have a very different, simpler, more useful way of judging good from bad.

Recommitted to music, which is what I should be doing.

2015 was a very uncomfortable, very good year for me.
 
Realized another small achievement I made in 2015: I lost money on the stock market. Not a lot though, and the real good thing about that is no longer just letting it sit in a bank account with 0.2% interest. Since it's diversified I expect it will recover its losses before too long.

More and more people were doing it, so I gave my camera to one of the American girls I met earlier, and I got in line. Stayed positive, didn't look down, and did my thing. Standing on top of the rock felt.. liberating!.. but also scary. I got off as soon as the girl signalled to me that she took my picture (she didn't zoom in though because she's an idiot, so the pictures didn't come out great

But I had a goPro strapped to me so you can watch this whole thing if you fast forward to 8:45 or so. You might have already seen this video - it's my Norway trip highlights video.. but if not, here you go! Here's me standing on the kjeragbolten rock (fast forward to 8:45 or so.. or watch the whole video)

Spoiler :

As for hot reindeer, those are yours to discover ;)

Wound up watching the whole thing, made me want to go to Norway again. Those were some impressive hikes - along with going out on the rock, the Romsdalsleggan Ridge one may have been up there on my possibly-too-much-heights scale with the steepness of the trail and many sharp rocks. But what views and trails! The fjords, the mountains, the bicycle trail in the middle of the snow.

Side note, but I saw you had a Cloetta Sportlunch bar, and was curious if you knew the difference between them and the Cloetta Kex bar. The pictures of Sportlunch online look really similar to the real-life Kex bar that you've inspired me to eat, and I couldn't find a description of the difference. Maybe that it's easier to break off snack-size bites, or somewhat more protein/healthy nutrients?

I don't know if hot reindeer are a good thing or not! :shifty:
 
The year is not over yet. The stock market (DJIA) has not done much this year so don't worry if you are down a bit.

It can always be worse. You could have been fully invested in FCX or something like that. Actually that is a good example of the value of diversification.

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Yeah we really dropped the ball on that one. Sorry everybody! In my defence, he didn't venture far enough north to spring any traps of mine.

And I was out of the country at the time so couldn't really do anything about it either.

Let's see, for myself:

- Stayed on course with the same job, same wife, same children, same house. Did my part to keep the family warm and fed and reasonably entertained.

- Managed to more or less maintain my own physical shape and health.

- Read some books and stuff.

- Made significant progress towards turning our attic from a messy storage space to a habitable room.
 
The year is not over yet. The stock market (DJIA) has not done much this year so don't worry if you are down a bit.

It can always be worse. You could have been fully invested in FCX or something like that. Actually that is a good example of the value of diversification.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

Indeed, I'm not concerned about it. I have it invested for the long term, so what it does in one particular deal isn't that important. The only possible near-term reason I'd move it into safer areas such as bonds is if I were to decide to go to graduate school, and planned to use part of my savings to help cover expenses during that time, but at this point that possibility is far enough out that I'm okay with mutual funds. Don't want to invest enough time in it to pick out particular stocks in a diversified fashion myself.

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