As I finally kick off my 20% project I wanted to take some time to mention some of the many other ideas I had when this opportunity first came around. Of course, I had to keep in mind some important aspects of this. The first being that it needed to be something I enjoy enough that it wouldn't feel like work. There's no sense in taking advantage of an activity like this if it wasn't going to include something I'm fairly passionate about. Secondly, it needed to involve some form of creation or making. That is, at the end of it, whether I was learning, building, or doing something, I need to produce some type of ultimate tangible result. Finally, the last requirement stipulates that there exists the possibility of failure. So with these in mind, here are some initial ideas I had for my 20% project (With my declaration coming next blog):
Anyone who knows me well knows I'm an absolute die hard sports fan. I love all of it (Well almost all). It's something that has made itself part of my personality and ultimately commands a big part of my interest and attention. Naturally, one of my first ideas was to work on my horrible batting (I can barely make contact with 60-70mph) or improve my long range shooting for basketball. My other long shot idea was to attempt and learn to play ice hockey. I know and love the sport but I'd likely resemble Bambi on the ice. In the end, I didn't feel like I'd be creating anything for the first things and simply aiming to improve percentages wasn't significant enough for me. As for playing hockey, it would not only take much longer than 5 weeks to learn but be extremely expensive as well.
It should be no surprise that in addition to my sports obsession, I am also an avid fantasy sports player. In fact, I am the commissioner of my own fantasy football league. Aside from keeping things in order, a hobby of mine is writing weekly columns for for the league page. In recent years, I've received some compliments on my writing style as well as some complaints when I haven't written a new column within a few weeks, so I appreciate these small gestures as tokens of validation. I'm a big fan of ESPN's Bill Simmons' and would love to emulate him, however, something like this would be time consuming and lacks the ability to measure its success.
It's my favorite food on the planet. I think I could eat sushi 3 times a day 7 days a week, so learning to make fresh rolls would be both awesome and delicious. I don't believe it would take a long time nor do I think it would be extremely complicated. After some quick research though, this could be potentially expensive. "Sushi grade" fish doesn't exactly come cheap (Between $20 and $40 per pound) and stumbling through an experimental food making experience doesn't help my cause in that regard. I would love to some day learn to masterfully make sushi, but I believe that is for another time.
I've been playing piano since I was about 5 or 6 years old and am for the most part self-taught. As a result I have little to no ability to read sheet music and mostly pick up songs by ear, trial and error, or video tutorials. As beneficial as it would be to learn, my glaring concern with this idea is that I'm not very passionate about learning it. Many would suggest that part of mastering a musical instrument is becoming proficient in all of it'a aspects. But I can't shake the notion that, despite loving to play piano, I am relatively apathetic towards learning sheet music.
You don't live in San Diego for a decade without encountering the city's notoriety for being a mecca of micro brewing in the US. There's dozens of local breweries strewn around the area, many of which aren't lacking in quality, and it has contributed to a developing beer culture here. So much so that mini brewing kits have become a popular trend. I even know a few friends and family members who've tried. I'd be lying if I didn't think it was a cool idea to try myself. Again though, several hurdles derailed this idea including cost and cost. More significantly, while I can certainly fail to brew a beer, how do I measure how successful I am? How do I display my results. The final straw here was that I ultimately decided to concede to a more appropriate and fitting project.
- Develop a sports attribute
Anyone who knows me well knows I'm an absolute die hard sports fan. I love all of it (Well almost all). It's something that has made itself part of my personality and ultimately commands a big part of my interest and attention. Naturally, one of my first ideas was to work on my horrible batting (I can barely make contact with 60-70mph) or improve my long range shooting for basketball. My other long shot idea was to attempt and learn to play ice hockey. I know and love the sport but I'd likely resemble Bambi on the ice. In the end, I didn't feel like I'd be creating anything for the first things and simply aiming to improve percentages wasn't significant enough for me. As for playing hockey, it would not only take much longer than 5 weeks to learn but be extremely expensive as well.
- Create a sports blog
It should be no surprise that in addition to my sports obsession, I am also an avid fantasy sports player. In fact, I am the commissioner of my own fantasy football league. Aside from keeping things in order, a hobby of mine is writing weekly columns for for the league page. In recent years, I've received some compliments on my writing style as well as some complaints when I haven't written a new column within a few weeks, so I appreciate these small gestures as tokens of validation. I'm a big fan of ESPN's Bill Simmons' and would love to emulate him, however, something like this would be time consuming and lacks the ability to measure its success.
- Learn to make sushi
It's my favorite food on the planet. I think I could eat sushi 3 times a day 7 days a week, so learning to make fresh rolls would be both awesome and delicious. I don't believe it would take a long time nor do I think it would be extremely complicated. After some quick research though, this could be potentially expensive. "Sushi grade" fish doesn't exactly come cheap (Between $20 and $40 per pound) and stumbling through an experimental food making experience doesn't help my cause in that regard. I would love to some day learn to masterfully make sushi, but I believe that is for another time.
- Learn to read sheet music
I've been playing piano since I was about 5 or 6 years old and am for the most part self-taught. As a result I have little to no ability to read sheet music and mostly pick up songs by ear, trial and error, or video tutorials. As beneficial as it would be to learn, my glaring concern with this idea is that I'm not very passionate about learning it. Many would suggest that part of mastering a musical instrument is becoming proficient in all of it'a aspects. But I can't shake the notion that, despite loving to play piano, I am relatively apathetic towards learning sheet music.
- Brew a homemade beer
You don't live in San Diego for a decade without encountering the city's notoriety for being a mecca of micro brewing in the US. There's dozens of local breweries strewn around the area, many of which aren't lacking in quality, and it has contributed to a developing beer culture here. So much so that mini brewing kits have become a popular trend. I even know a few friends and family members who've tried. I'd be lying if I didn't think it was a cool idea to try myself. Again though, several hurdles derailed this idea including cost and cost. More significantly, while I can certainly fail to brew a beer, how do I measure how successful I am? How do I display my results. The final straw here was that I ultimately decided to concede to a more appropriate and fitting project.