The March Reboot Check-In That Happened In April

I had this epiphany at the beginning of September: This thing that I’m doing? This series of choices I make every day? It isn’t working. I don’t like the way I feel, I don’t like the way I look, I don’t like the things I’m doing. Things need to change.

So I took a long, hard, serious look at myself, and concluded that some things needed to change.

Drink less beer.
Read more (and Reddit does not count as reading).
Write more.
Watch more movies.
Get better sleep.
Eat better food.
Exercise more.

It’s been about six months since I decided to hit the reboot button on my life. I’ve checked in about once a month since then, to see how I’m doing, celebrate the victories, and identify where I can do better.

Let’s see how I’m doing.

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The February Reboot Check-in That Happened in March

I’m really not good at titles, you guys.

So it’s time to check in on my life reboot, and see how I’m doing. As I did last time, I’ll grave — grave? Well, that’s a Freudian slip of the touch-typing fingers, isn’t it? — grade myself on a bit of a curve.

Here are the things I committed to doing, back in October:

Drink less beer.
Read more (and Reddit does not count as reading).
Write more.
Watch more movies.
Get better sleep.
Eat better food.
Exercise more.

Let’s see how I’m doing since my last check-in, near the end of January. Spoiler: pretty good.

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Life Reboot: Status Report

It’s been just over a month since I wrote about rebooting my life, and I thought it would be a good time to check in, see how I’m doing, and give myself some grades. If you were inspired to reboot your life, maybe this is a good time for you to check in, too.

So the only way this works is when we’re honest with ourselves. We have to honestly assess how we’re doing, take credit and feel good about the stuff that we’re crushing, and work harder on the stuff where we aren’t. I think we also have to be gentle and kind with ourselves. Regardless of how you end up grading your efforts, if you can honestly say that you are doing your best — and you accept that your best can vary from day to day — you get points for that.

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Seven Things I Did To Reboot My Life

About twenty years ago, I had a portable spa in the back yard of my first house. One day, the heater stopped working, so I called a repairman to come out and look at it. He told me that there would be an $85 charge no matter what, and I told him that was okay. When he got to my house, he opened up the access panel where the heater, pump, and filter lived. He looked inside, then looked back at me.

“Did you try pushing the reset button?” He asked.

“Um. No,” I said.

He pushed the reset button, and the heater came back to life.

“That’ll be $85,” he said. I paid him.

This post is about realizing that I was sitting in cold water, and not doing anything to turn the heater back on. This post is about how I hit the reset button.

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HopCon is coming!

It’s become an annual San Diego Comicon tradition: HopCon, at Stone Brewing’s Liberty Station. We release W00tstout, have a big old party, and tap a bunch of rare kegs and interesting casks for fans of great beer to enjoy … and the whole thing is a fundraiser for The Hero Initiative!

This year, something special is happening, and I’m turning it over to Mike Palmer to tell you exactly what that is:

Among the über-cool upgrades we have in store for Hop-Con 3.0, we’re taking the giant plot behind building 12 (aka the garden bar) and turning it into the HOP-CADE! Our dream of creating an outdoor arcade and beer garden from last year has been realized. We’ll have only IPAs on tap, our oversized lawn games (Jenga, Connect Four, etc), two pinball machines (Twilight Zone and Theater of Magic), Donkey Kong, Miss Pac-Man and a Skeeball machine. Not enough? How about an arcade game with a 25 foot screen driven from a used beer barrel converted into a vintage arcade console? This last feat will be created by our friend Hunter Bond, Troll Slayer and resident Pinball Mechanic at J!NX, with custom metal routing by San Diego’s ReproHaus. This is all in addition to the five vintages/variations of Stone Farking-Wheaton w00tstout, exclusive beers we brewed with Aisha Tyler and Kevin Eastman, epic food and all-around geeky good times. See you on July 8th!

Tickets and more deets can be found here…
hopcon.stonebrewing.com

I think this is pretty great. This year, HopCon is not just for people who love great beer, it’s also for people who love great beer and classic arcade games, which is basically a Venn Diagram describing me.

Tickets are going fast, so if you want in, go get yours today!