The 2016 100 Wrap-Up, Part 1: The 26 Things I MANAGED To Do.

So in some parallel universe, I somehow imagined I’d be able to do this all in one post, since my writing generally lends itself to really brief work.

?

When I woke up and smacked some sense into myself, I scaled my voluminous tome down into pieces people could actually consume, and today I bring you the first instalment!

The 2016 100—The Things I Did

I know longtime readers are wondering whether I’ll put out another list of 100 resolutions for 2017, but 2016 and I have unfinished business.

You might remember The 2016 100—it made a brief appearance at the beginning of the year and then never showed up again. But that year was busy, man—we added a new son to the family. Five days later, I started putting out Tales from the 2.9 and surprisingly filled 29 days of content straight with minimal notice. Two radio interviews. A TV panel appearance. One national news feature. A piece in The Globe and Mail for Father’s Day. I had to part ways with a few clients and gladly took on some new ones. I manned up and handled my business at home, which meant saying “no” to a half dozen trips away from home. 2016 did not hold back—and that’s probably why I didn’t pay The 2016 100 as much mind as I thought I would’ve when I wrote it.

I’ve been saying it for years the more I do this—maybe I’ve been writing these lists for the wrong reasons. As I scribbled away at The 2017 100, I realised that no matter how much I tried to be my own taskmaster, that just isn’t my style.

But let me address what I’ve learned when The 2017 100 gets its proper release. For now, let’s focus on The 2016 100 and what became of it all!

The List

1) Write an amazing series for Black History Month—if you haven’t read Tales from the 2.9, I urge you to do so! There were plenty of stellar posts, and I’m currently gearing up for round two with a renewed focus for Canada’s 150^th birthday!
3) Watch Creed; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Martian; Ant-Man—I watched Creed, The Martian, and Ant-Man—I’m just going to send Mad Max: Fury Road to 2017 and call this one done.
5) Phase my old 3.5″ hard drive out—I’ve long since moved to the cloud and two 2.5″ externals. Life is good.
6) Get rid of my old electronics—Been recycling electronics like a madman this year, and hope to continue decluttering well into 2017.
9) Clean out the basement crawl space—You know how you keep a space clean? Own less stuff. Pretty sure Value Village didn’t mind the number of deliveries we made this year!
15) Sort out the Internet situation at home so I can stop relying on tethering to LTE data—Internet’s stable. Still not as fast as I’d like, but good enough to keep me on top of my #BloggerLife.

16) Learn enough Spanish to understand my sister-in-law’s Mexican wedding in May—I had a pretty good run with Duolingo to the point I could hit the grocery store on my own and get everything I needed! I’d recommend this app to anyone!
17) Find time for date nights, which will involve finding someone who wants to babysit two kids… how about we just find more awesome things to do at home, just in case?—Sarah won’t agree, but we’ve started finding more friends and babysitters willing to look after our kids! Doesn’t mean we always make the best use of our time away (Arrival, I’m looking at you…), but it’s progress.
22) Upgrade the site infrastructure to better support contest traffic—My team’s been integral to keeping this place going even when traffic shot up 17x (what up, Starbucks for Life post?) Gotta hand it to the crew at Whiskey Cloud for helping make this happen!
23) Redesign the heck out of the blog (Twenty Sixteen, what up)—I did it. And now I need to do it again… because I’m fickle. Blogging is hard, y’all.
26) Shave more regularly—I don’t even know what “more regularly” means. I can tell you I made it through most of 2016 without looking like a hobo—how ’bout that?
29) Replace the lost key to our 2011 Ford Edge—A dealership visit and $300 later, we’ve learned why one does not misplace their car keys.
31) Replace our bathroom sink—I patched it. I can live with patching for now. But on that note, I got a heckuva lot handier this year (including helping clear a clog below our stacked washer/dryer), so hurray for that?
41) If we’re just using it to watch Netflix ANYWAY, replace the Playstation 3 with an Apple TV or Roku 3 or SOMETHING.—My time with the Netflix Stream Team helped me downsize and donate the Wii and PS3 to a friend who uses them far more than I did!
45) Mend the Herschel knapsack.—Done and still being used as a very trendy diaper bag for the boys.

46) Get new glasses and MAYBE sunglasses.—Rocking two new pairs and completely addicted to l.a. eyewear for future frames!
51) Get rid of my old HP legal-sized scanner that’s incompatible with the current Mac OS X and is just taking up room.—My father-in-law took this off my hands and we replaced it with an HP Officejet Pro 8610, which was great… until our toddler destroyed its USB drive. Because parenting.
57) Get new orthopaedic shoes.—Visited my chiropractor very regularly, and my footwear game’s totally on fleek.
60) Hit up a local sleep clinic and get tested for sleep apnea.—Did it up. I’m trying out a CPAP machine now that seems to help a lot. Who knew that sleep could help???
70) Figure out what to do with Justin’s htc one that’s been sitting around since the last HoHoTO we went to!—Bought it from Justin and gave it to a former colleague in dire need of a replacement.
71) Create my marketing kit and digital portfolio for CaseyPalmer.com—I actually did this, but never advertised it. That’s something I want to do more of in 2017.
85) Submit my outstanding insurance claims—I got my adult on and dealt with this! Because who likes money outstanding oin their financial records?
86) Submit my work expenses from that trip I didn’t really want to take but had to pay out the nose for—Same as 85! Not doing that again anytime soon.
92) Get massages regularly—I did this a ton in 2016, but I don’t see as much time for it in 2017… yet.

94) Instagram more regularly—daily if you can pull it off!—I Instagrammed more, but still not as much as I’d like. I know I can do better, but I also know I’m but one man. The eternal struggle continues.
96) Figure out what I want to get with all my Air Miles—Air Miles will be a future case study in what happens when you put out horrible blanket conditions and what then happens when you change your mind and leave countless members stuck with stuff they didn’t even want. That said, we luckily didn’t redeem in 2016, instead looking to use them toward a trip for my wife and infant son to Calgary sometime this year!

So ladies and gents, there’s the first 26! Stay tuned tomorrow for the things I didn’t get around to, but hope to take care of in 2017! And don’t worry—we’re just a few posts away from The 2017 100 and everything I’m looking for in the year ahead!

Hope you’re having a great new year, and until the next,

–case p.