Okay, I admit it. I ran out of dedication. I have in the past 2 weeks, I've missed  half of my days. I think that part of the reason there is feedback; I am too nervous/shy/whatever to say "hey, you wanna see a card trick" to adults, but don't feel like Cora gives me a proper audience since she's 6. Without feedback, showing the tricks is hard to get right.

Any rate, I'm actually pretty pleased overall though; I started with more than a week left in August, so I did more than 30 days total, and I think that...
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So, on the recommendations of one of the YouTube videos I watched, I bought the book The Royal Road to Card Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue. It was written in the 1950's, but the magician I was watching said that this book is solid gold. It covers a lot of the fundamentals of card magic, the shuffles, holds, passes, and other sleights. I started reading it and it seems to be very thorough. It mentioned in the intro that they would "rather have you emulate the tortoise than the hare". That's good because I feel like a...
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Didn't have a bunch of new stuff. I learned a couple tricks 2 days ago, but I feel like I need more in terms of technique, so I've done a lot of practicing. I've gotten pretty good at a double-lift, getting about 70-80% success rate on those. Of course, I still get stumbles and triple-lifts, so that's still ongoing. Always will be, I suppose!

Today I started another technique, the color change. This is another thing I can practice while just hanging around, I think, similar to how I've been practicing double-lifts and passes. Still not great with the passes;...
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[embed]https://youtu.be/kCJoDPsWIw4[/embed]

All about forces today. I looked up what I should study next, what techniques, and this is what came up. I'm still practicing most of the rest, though I've slipped on my passes some in order to get up to speed on the double-lift. I'm gonna have to get back on those.

Since my last post, I worked on a couple more passes (Hoffman pass and Riffle pass) then started on a couple different double lifts. Double-lifts are pretty tough, so I'm gonna have to work on them quite a bit to get them to be reliable!

[embed]https://youtu.be/YdmclKHnsnM[/embed]

[embed]https://youtu.be/jQ45VE8fw7I[/embed]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv-xZQVQ-bg[/embed]

Haven't uploaded a video for the last couple of days because I was practicing doing passes; since I did a video on the classic pass a couple days ago, I figured I didn't have to upload basically the SAME THING.

Plus, it was really hot and I was shirtless at practicing time both days, so there's that; didn't want my "bod" all over the internet, causing sensations and crap.

[embed]https://youtu.be/igMMrbfVH_A[/embed]

[embed]https://youtu.be/FEmcE7BNhNk[/embed]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnLf41hgvME[/embed]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy5dFVK3lhQ[/embed]

Yeah, I figured it would end up being this. I mean, I really want to learn how to do neat card tricks (not that I have an audience, but still) and I've been watching videos of them for some time. I was trying to do something else, but I figured "why wait? 30 Days is for me to do what I want; I don't need to balance things from want to need to whatever else".

And so I decided that I'm going to do magic! For the next 30 days (plus 11 because I'll just carry it through the end...
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[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Yx6Pud1MI[/embed]

It seems that I get to cross another thing off my list. I've decided to give the baseball cards away. Mayhap I'll regret it at some point, but it's easier for me to just give them away instead of going through all of them or selling them. Someone else will be able to enjoy them more than I will... maybe. Who knows. It's possible they'll get disappointment too. But, if they do, at least I'll have the room back :-)

So, starting tomorrow, I will do one of the REAL ones, one of the tasks which is straight for improvement....
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Yeah, so that took significantly less time than I'd imagined. All the posters are all photographed, I've thrown some away, and I've created a post on imgur (http://imgur.com/a/TeX14) which shows the posters I am gonna try to give away. Or sell. There's a couple which may get me some money, but looking at eBay I don't expect to get a bunch. Oh well, c'est la vie. If nobody at work or on Facebook wants them, I'll try listing them for like $15-20 each plus shipping; a poster tube is going to be about $2.50 per, and if I can...
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Finished with the photos today; I guess now I have to figure out what's next. I'll transfer a few extra bucks to my savings account for my reward. Perhaps I'll use the money to buy one of the cameras I've been looking at. Or something; who knows?

On to what's next. I'm thinking to continue with either baseball cards or with posters; one of the other there's-an-end-to-the-project things. Hmmm...

(opens google.com, enters "coin flip")

Comes up heads; guess that's posters.

So, the task now is to go through my posters and photograph them and catalog them. I don't know how...
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I have 10 days down and am right on track. However, I had a thought about the rules of this thing. I think it's time to update the rules. Oh, and probably time to write out the rules or something. Maybe. Perhaps.

So, the thought I had was that there are two different types of things I've been looking at adding to my 30 Days task calendar and, as such, I should probably treat them differently.

First, there are the open-ended things which I can theoretically continue forever. Some examples:

• Take a picture every day
• Practice a skill every...
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I'm back at it! Well, right this very instant, I'm typing this before I get back at it. Probably not the best strategy, but screw it!

Any rate, I mentioned gamifying this, adding metrics, etc. Unfortunately, I don't recall what exactly I had in mind (or if, indeed, I had anything specific in mind), so I guess I'll just have to wing it!

Gamifying to me means that you make a game out of it, which adds the concepts of scoring, set bounds, and winning or losing. Once this is a game, it's a challenge. An example of this would be...
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So, I'm not going to be able to process 100 photos per day today or tomorrow; I'm enjoying a nice weekend in Carmel with Shanin. Darn!

This brings to mind what the 30 Day challenges mean to me. As mentioned, it's a way to improve myself gradually; one thing at a time. Also, it gives me a chance to see if I take to any particular things without putting a bunch of effort, time, or money into it -- just get my toes wet, as it were. Some months, like this one, it will be things I want to accomplish...
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One thing that I found was that I have a bunch of things I want to start doing; I find myself not wanting to wait for the next month to add another thing to do for 30 days. Of course, this is something which can contribute to my not succeeding; if I don't focus, it's harder to accomplish one thing. So.. focus!

Well, I didn't get 100% completion on my 30 Days goal in July; I got 19 days out of 31 so, while I did the majority of them, I didn't quite get 2/3s. Turns out it's kinda difficult to do two things every day: find something that's photo-worthy every day (some days I kinda cheated, but overall, I feel I stuck to the spirit), and actually remember to do that. I'd often find myself at 11:30 at night saying "Damn! I forgot to take a photo!"

Ultimately though, while the 30 Days thing is supposed to be a stab at setting...
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This month, every day I'll process 100 pending photos in Lightroom