Starting New History
Today is gonna be an interesting animal since I am at the starting point of a couple of things. First off, it is the start of what I am calling my Cheetah 12-week year. It’s also the day I have decided to dive a bit deeper into my fun time reading Dune by kicking off what I am calling my Atreides Parallax. Tie both of those starts with my ongoing game sessions in LOTRO, my reading of The Eye of the World, and my running, and I have a pretty full plate today.
The Rundown
- Starting Cheetah 12-Week Year
- Kicking off my Atreides Parallax
- Leveling up in Ered Luin
- A Spitfire Wisdom
- Running to my Angels
The Goods
A New 12-Week Year
I don’t recall how long ago I read The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Morgan and Michael Lennington, but I’ve been trying to utilize the ideas from that book for at least a year now. The basic idea is to focus on planning out the next 12 weeks as though they are actually the 12 months of the year. By looking at a 3 month period as a ‘year,’ I feel I get more accomplished because I am setting goals better, trying to finish things off before the end of the ‘year,’ and seeing how much I can actually get done during my 12 weeks.
Today starts my 3rd 12-week year that I am tracing and have given a name to. I like names, and I decided earlier this calendar year to start naming my ‘years’ after animals. Cheetah is my 3rd after Aardvark and Badger. Hopefully, it will go as well as the past 2.
Kicking off my Atreides Parallax
Since I read through Dune and rambled about it a few weeks ago, and I figured it was time for me to assimilate some of what I read and try to make some better sense out of what an incredible story it was. To that end, I am taking a look at each of the chapters and trying to identify some of the key items – characters, events, places, and such – that are important to the chapter and to the story. I figure that I enjoy diving into a story on many levels, so why not talk about it here.
Leveling up in Ered Luin
Today Pangolyn and I are still working our way through some of the Gondamon quests lines in Ered Luin. We started the day at level 13 with a goal of getting closer to the level 15 that the next main story quest shows as a target level.
There are tons of quests in the area, and I started with the task board and then went to some of the sturdy Dwarves to figure out what I should be doing. Before long, Pangolyn made it to level 14, but while that was my main goal, I still had quests to finish off. Oh well, I’ll probably spend another game session in the area to get them all taken care of.
A Spitfire Wisdom
Chapter 16 sees the Wisdom of Emond’s Field catch up to our fellowship, and it is quite an understatement to say she’s not happy. Nynaeve is pissed that Moiraine ‘kidnapped’ the villagers and is demanding that the ‘witch’ let them come back home. Rand is having none of it and tries to reason with the Wisdom that he and his friends need to stay away from the Two Rivers, so the Trollocs don’t attack their families again.
It’s a Must-Read chapter that ends with Nynaeve and Rand talking about where Rand was born and why the Aes Sedai is interested in the young Two River’s folk.
Running to my Angels
Finally, after so much running, I have made it to Anaheim Stadium and the home of my Angels. I don’t know how many games I have attended here, but I went to a couple of games of the 2002 World Series with my Dad…saw an All Star Game in 1989 with my Grandfather, and sadly haven’t been to a game there (or anywhere) in 3 years. It’s also been the starting location for an OC Marathon that I ran and where I attended the Glass Spider Tour of David Bowie.
So many memories, it’s great that I was able to include it in my Run of California.
It’s a Wrap
So, today is pretty packed. Running, reading, and gaming are only the start, and as I set my eyes on having a great 12-week year and start diving into my reading of Dune, I’m pretty happy with how the day turned out.
Overall, today was a good day, and I hope you all had an interesting and enjoyable day as well.
Ramble 69 Cheetah 2| Starting New History