Unless my life sees some major changes this year, 2017 may mark the last list of 100!
It’s January 13th—I’ve spent nearly two weeks of my new year agonising over 100 items that matter enough to hit a list of goals and aspirations for the year ahead. And that’s a key difference from the lists that came before it.
Before it was a task list—I’d look around at everything that needed doing and jot it down, because my life would obviously be better with them out of the way.
But task lists aren’t inspiring. They’re not motivational. As a creative, that’s like dropping a pile of 100 things I dread on my lap and nagging myself to get ’em done by the year’s end.
Once I realised what I was doing to myself, so much so that I just went through my least successful year yet for my list, I knew I needed to make a change for 2017.
I’m particularly proud of the list I’ve put together for The 2017 100. I didn’t take any shortcuts—I wrote out 100 things that’d help me live the life I’d like to lead and prove instrumental along the path there. Rather than hurriedly scrawl out a list I’d likely ignore ’til December, I wrote one that I’d happily check off, knowing that each accomplishment would take me a step closer to a far better 2018. I feel like I’m finally getting it right this time, and I hope that shines through as you give it a look for yourself!
But that’s enough of my chatter—I’ve already made you wait long enough. Here for your consideration is The 2017 100—because it’s not what you do… it’s how you do it!
So somewhere in my crazy mind, I’d convinced myself it’d be a good idea to write my wrap-up for The 2016 100 all as one post, because I’m always so curt with my posts, of course. A few days of working on it quickly killed that idea, and here were are with the second part of my wrap-up, covering the things I didn’t get around to in 2016, but still plan to manage this year, as well as my reasons why.
(Note: You will see these in some form in The 2017 100, so you know—don’t be too surprised.)
What I Didn’t Do, But Still Want to Do Next Year
7) Stop biting my nails—Ugh. What I probably need to do first is reduce the amount of stress in my life to get a better chance of dropping this disgusting habit. I had a good run early in the year, but hey. Maybe I’ll have better luck this time! 8) Get rid of the wedding thank you cards I never sent—I don’t think those past thank you’s are getting sent. It’s just… not something I’m doing. Instead, I think I’d love to start sending Christmas letters with some personalisation. I’m not a complete jackass, guys, but there needs to be a point where we agree to move on. 13) Sort out my old TD employee RSP—Any outstanding finances in general, really: part of being an adult is knowing how much your insurance will pay out. What your benefits cover. What’s in your stock portfolio. 2017 Casey Palmer needs a better handle on all this kind of stuff!
14) Consolidate everything down to a single notepad—I mean, you don’t see the magic happening, but my desk and dining room table are plastered with pages of notes as I draft out my posts. Will it happen? Maybe. Do I want it to? Oh heck yes ?
I can’t even lie, guys—coming up with a list of 100 goals for the fourth year in a row was hard — ridiculously so. I’m a very different me than I was when The 2013 100 came out, back when free time was still an abundant commodity I didn’t even know I was taking for granted, trying to fill it with countless things that’d keep life interesting.
A problem I most definitely don’t have in 2016!
As I work at surviving the upcoming year—especially with our second child’s imminent arrival—I needed to make the list a lot more realistic; I’m all too skilled at chasing ambitions that exceed my lifestyle’s capacity, and I’ll need to keep wary of that in 2016 if I want to see myself make it out the other side!
So without further ado, The 2016 100. It took a couple of days to polish off after recovering from the gauntlet that was 2015, but I feel like it’s a list that will really make waves in this life o’ mine should I see it finished!
But hey—that’s what I say every year 😂
Thanks for reading!
1) Write an amazing series for Black History Month 2) Win a vacation for my dry cleaner 3) Watch Creed; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Martian; Ant-Man 4) Take Eric to a sporting event so he can stop complaining about getting left from sporting events 5) Phase my old 3.5″ hard drive out 6) Get rid of my old electronics 7) Stop biting my nails 8) Get rid of the wedding thank you cards I never sent 9) Clean out the basement crawl space 10) Build shelves into the crawl space 11) Give my FWD Powershot 2 to my old manager the hockey coach 12) Do the CN Tower Edgewalk 13) Sort out my old TD employee RSP 14) Consolidate everything down to a single notepad
Though a chiropractor I started seeing late into 2015 told me I’d developed some mild sciatica in my back, I didn’t need him to tell me I carry too much STUFF. In a digital age where we can pack mountains of information into a single device, there’s really NO NEED for me to carry all the draft posts and note that I do—save the fact that working from hard copy’s the way my brain’s WIRED.
In 2016, I need a little more focus to keep all my ideas stored in one place so I’m not constantly carrying EVERYTHING in my house made of paper, knowing that I probably scribbled SOMETHING on ALL of ’em.
15) Sort out the Internet situation at home so I can stop relying on tethering to LTE data 16) Learn enough Spanish to understand my sister-in-law’s Mexican wedding in May 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? 18) Try Uncle Tetsu’s cheesecake 19) Get to 0 drafts on CaseyPalmer.com by converting everything into live posts 20) Install the growth chart for my kids that we got at my office baby shower 21) Update all the old content on CaseyPalmer.com 22) Upgrade the site infrastructure to better support contest traffic 23) Redesign the heck out of the blog (Twenty Sixteen, what up) 24) Find the time to pack more lunches for work 25) Clean up and optimize my Pinterest account (I still have that copy of Pinterest Savvy lying around somewhere) 26) Shave more regularly 27) Hand out my remaining business “cep” cards so I can put in a new order (wait—do we still do business cards?) 28) Clear out the bookshelves to prepare for Baby #2 29) Replace the lost key to our 2011 Ford Edge 30) Figure out what I ACTUALLY need to run my site and invest in THAT. 31) Replace our bathroom sink 32) Meet with the people who I never seemed to schedule in through 2015 (Aaron, Emma, Ria, Adrienne, Dianna) 33) Get a Brookhaven Computer Cabinet
The 1% of the Casa de Palmer workspace I use to do all the things isn’t the best—in fact, it’s falling apart. As I get older and start formalizing my #BloggerLife, Sarah and I agree that my workspace should evolve to show that. It’ll take some saving to make it happen, but it’d be a nice addition to the home.
Some days, nothing all that amazing happens—some days you’re just maintaining. #100HappyDays Day 15 was like that: just working on keeping things going with lots of emails, Facebooking and tweets to make sure that the relationships stay alive. Went in to the 9-to-5 early, came home early, and spent a bit of extra time playing with DoomzToo since I was home well before his bedtime for once.
But it’s not like I took photos of any of that 😊
Instead, here’s what I’m reading right now to show my resolve for getting back in the webcomics game!
Dat moment your #PHP be like, "No I don't wanna add another custom post type." #WordPress
I spent some time working on the Fish ‘n’ Chimps website, taking all these pieces of the past decade and putting them together again, trying to build a site that’ll show the journey from then ’til now.
Today was a good day.
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
First off, let me start with an important matter. Here is a work in progress. It’s going okay so far—as you probably know, I’m fairly new at digital colouring, so I’m trying my best at making this look good. It still has a long way to go.
And now for some entries courtesy of the betterother computer.
Mon Sep the 1st—Entry: Comic Conventions
It dawns on me now that I never really mentioned anything about the comic convention I’d attended last weekend. Well, the Canadian National Comic Book Exposition is the biggest annual comic book convention that hits Toronto. I went not really knowing what to expect. I mean, I’d heard a multitude of stories about the conventions from my friends, but I had never actually seen it with my own eyes.
Fortunately, the con’s gotten to the point where you can buy your tickets online. By the time I got there (an hour later than I had originally planned to because I was feeling rather lethargic that morning) with my innate sense of direction, I got in line to register. Yeah, the line was only about, oh, 150 people long. Yes, I kid you not. Fortunately, one of the volunteers saw my printed pre-registration sheet and advised me that the pre-registration kiosk was on the other side of the room. I looked across and saw a solitary kiosk with no line. Sweet.
Alright, so I register and get my ticket and program. Allow me to mention now that I did not once look at my program. Typically male. Maybe I should have—then I might have known what the hell was going on. But this is beside the point. Next year I will definitely be better prepared because in retrospect I was definitely not ready for what would be coming before me. As soon as I shot the shit with some dudes dressed up as Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers for a few minutes…
Casey: “I thought your ass was dead.”
Vader: “You dare address me that way?”
Casey: “Hells yeah!”
Vader: *puts his hand in a motion to use the Force on me*
Casey: *walks away SLOOOOOWLY*
…I made my way into the main event.
Holy crap. That was my initial reaction. My secondary reaction was “What the hell have I gotten myself into?” Granted, I’ve been reading comics since I was four (coincidentally about the same age where I started playing video games), but I wasn’t prepared for the love that some of these people at the convention had for comics. From grown men dressed in completely working Darth Vader costumes to people arguing over whether the eyeholes in Spider-Man’s costumes should move, it was crazy.
But do I have what it takes to be part of the action?
If I plan to get a table next year, that definitely means that I’ll need to get my act together with my site and all. Speaking of which I might be changing web hosts soon. Kenna showed me that she’s under a wicked one that actually allows subdomains. Something I’ll need so that I can separate my comics from the rest of the site easily. My host at webserve.ca is just being assy and not replying to my requests for assistance. So the change might be coming sooner rather than later.
But back to convention talk. So my buddy Zac, he had a table this year. He had a lot of graffiti and manga work (based on Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s mecha), and it was so bloody amazing that I bought one to hang on my wall. It’ll be up there soon.
Another highlight of the con for me was chatting with Ty Templeton.
If you don’t know who Ty Templeton is, he does a lot of writing/inking/pencilling for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Bongo Comics (the imprint that makes the Simpsons comics). I’d originally met him over at my job one day, and when I saw that he had a cheque from DC Comics, I raised my eyebrow. After finding out who he is, we kinda just started chatting about comics in general.
Now, that was idle banter at the bank. It wasn’t until the convention when I ended up hanging with him and his kids for an hour and a bit that we really got to have a good conversation and whatnot. He said my comics remind him of what his were like when he was starting (score)—and now I’m on a first-name basis with him. Shit, he brought me comics the last time he came into the bank. Now that’s cool. So, I’ll definitely be keeping in touch with him.
Wed Sep the 3rd—Entry: Daily Routine
Recently I’ve been waking up feeling rather lethargic. I awake rather early in the mornings (and believe me, not by choice) asking “Why?” I trudge out of bed towards my daily routine of work or errands that need to be done and perform them half-heartedly. It’s like… the motivation that drives me to do things has all but died out. Sure, I can smile at work, but where’s the emotion behind it? I can laugh, but do I really feel the joke on the inside? I feel like I’m a completely different person from who I should be. Like I should be happy with the course that my life has taken so far.
But I’m not, and I don’t know why.
Sat Sept the 6th—Entry: And What Else?
So you might be wondering what I’ve been up to if you haven’t gotten the chance to talk to me in the last little while. Between compiling episodes of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and X-Men Evolution, I’ve been working diligently on getting things together for school, and a new site update together. And yes, that does include some comics. In fact, a lot of comics. Ideas have started to flow, and things are coming together. I finally have an excuse for all the reference material that’s been stockpiling in my room 😂
The new Doomz revolution. Coming soon.
Peace.
–case p.
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
