Just some goofy stuff....enjoy

Why So Random??

Ever notice how life seems to have so many random elements? Car accidents. State lotteries. Some cancers. The roll of a die. There seems to be so much happening that is out that is not in our control.

When I think of randomness, some quotes and ideas come to mind....

"Expect the Unexpected"

"Most people are content to let perfect days happen at random rather than PLAN for them. "

"Why so random?"...actually the quote is 'Why so serious?', but if you say, 'Why so random?' in Heath Ledger's Joker's voice, sounds a bit goofy but fun. 

"The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.", Sidney Poitier

If you read my last blog post, you would have noticed that I plan on taking four action plans. Starting one plan a month. But randomly. 

Why so random?

I probably see a lot more randomness in life than most people..especially being a funeral director. I have seen a lot of random things happen to people and their families. Plus, I never really have been much of control freak. Sometimes when I am on a walk or hike and I come to a crossroad, I have flipped a coin to see what path I'll take.

My laid back demeanor also helps. If you ask my girlfriend, Becky, what my favorite personal quote is, she'd tell you, "No worries".

Here are my personal hurdles I want to jump before I head out on Route 66 next year....

QUIT SMOKING. A no brainer here, right? Wrong! I am addicted to nicotine and the stupid deadly habit of smoking cigarettes. I have quit smoking many times but for some reason or another I return to the habit out of pure selfishness.

Once I quit for 5-6 years. To keep a long long story short, I made a promise to quit to my wife and kids at a fixed date/milestone in my life. I did it without a problem and was smoke free until the divorce. Yep, I started up again. No excuses. I just wanted to.

Another time, I had a $100 bet with a co-worker and quit for a year. I won, then started up again. No excuses. I just wanted to.

Not too long ago, I quit for a month for a chance to win $5000. I didn't win. Yep, you guessed it, I started up again.

As you can see, I basically need a big carrot to quit. Now that I have decided to Geocache and Explore Route 66, my big carrot is back. 

My game plan is, when it's time to quit, is to deposit into my saving account $7 a day (a little less than the cost of a pack of cigarettes). This will help with the hurdles of MONEY and ENERGY for the annual trip down Route 66.

QUIT DRINKING POP. Another no brainer, right? Wrong again! Because of my battle with energy levels, I have allowed myself to get dependent on the sugars and caffeine in pop and energy drinks. 

I had a trade service in the funeral industry where I was on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The trade service was draining physically and, for 10 years, I didn't have a regular sleep schedule. Consuming pop was my crutch (along with cigarettes). The pop drinking really hasn't lessened at all even after I got out of the trade service.

There are days where I love drinking pop and then there are days where I hate it (especially on days when I wake myself up with the caffeine but feel like crap because of the pop).

When I quit drinking pop, like when I quit smoking, I am going to deposit a fixed amount per day into my savings account. Right now, I think I am spending about $3 a day on pop.

START WORKING OUT. It only makes sense that including a work out plan in my life that will help me lose weight which will help me increase my ENERGY level in a more natural way. 

There was another time in my life where I weighted a lot, like 299 pounds a lot. As much as my wife tried to convince me to start taking care of myself, I had no interest. Why? I had no carrot.....until....

When we, as a family, moved to Rogers, Minnesota, I stubbled upon a professional wrestling school. I LOVE watching wrestling and the thought of a small chance of me getting into the ring and beimg a totally different character appealed to me big time. The deal I made was that if I get myself down to 200 pounds, I got to join the school for at least one year. Now that was a big carrot. So what happened?

I got down to 220 pounds and then the school moved to Minneapolis. My carrot went bye bye. I then went back to my old ways.

I know I can do it. The only true problem is I selfishly need a reason to keep me motivated. (Something to explore in future blogs)

START EATING BETTER. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with working out, but I got to concur one molehill at a time. When I tackle this hurdle, I plan on reducing my sugar intake and increase fruits and veggies to my diet. 

I also plan on eliminating going to fast food places. To do this, I am going have to make a huge effort in bringing in my own lunches to work instead of utilizing the fast food lanes. 

After getting into the habit of eating better, this should be a major factor of increasing my ENERGY levels naturally.

So which hurdle am I going to work on first randomly?

Drumroll please.....................

START WORKING OUT!

Wish me luck, say a prayer (or two, or three, or everyday) and I will keep you informed on how it's going.

Thanks for taking the time out in reading this. If you'd like to leave a comment or ask some questions, click the 'comment' down below. If for some reason the website won't allow you to leave a comment, feel free to email me at richhavlik@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

For you out there reading this and are squirming at the thought of doing anything without some kind scheduled plan versus randomly selecting actions, let me suggest this. Take a walk and carry a coin. You might just have some fun.

Time, Money, and Energy

Hello Everyone,

Any journey or goal has hurdles. Some are few and easy. Some are many and difficult. Some are natural hurdles like needing a degree or education for a job, learning to walk before you can run, etc... 

Some are self imposed hurdles. For example, running a 5k race. You could just sign up and run a 5k despite your physical condition. You don't even have to train ahead of time if you don't want to.  You could even run in high heels if that's your thing. Most people would try some kind of training. Maybe start at gym and do a scheduled workout or start walking around the block and eventually start jogging around the block. Whatever you choose to do before the official start of the race is entirely up to you. 

Geocaching Route 66 has some natural hurdles; TIME, MONEY, and ENERGY.

TIME is going to be the easiest one to jump...for the most part. Professionally, I'm a funeral director. As you can imagine, funeral directors have odd schedules especially since the industry is a 24-7 beast. Someone always has to be on call, work evenings, and/or deal with families at emotional times. My work schedule has me working 10 days in row (which two nights are when I am on call). I then get to enjoy a four day weekend off. Next year, I'll have 10 vacation days. My plan is to take my 10 days off in a row which, bookended with 2 four day weekend off, will give me a stretch of 18 days work free. I don't think I can complete the whole Historic Route 66 in 18 days, but I am planning on revisiting yearly until I complete Route 66 on a beach in California. The only major decision I have to make is when to start this journey.

MONEY is a hurdle in just about anything we do. I mentioned before I am going to have to do this on some kind of shoestring budget. Because of recent situations (including someone totaling my van in an accident) that shoestring budget might get a little tighter. I do have a couple of action plans to help me in this area which I will talk about in future blogs. So, another part of the game plan for Route 66 will be starting in Chicago and go as far as I can until I either run out of time or money.

ENERGY will be an interesting hurdle. Driving, exploring, site seeing, geocaching, and blogging every day for many days in a row could demand quite a bit of energy. I also have to admit I struggle with energy levels on a daily basis. I currently weight the more than I ever have...over 300 pounds. I am also way over dependent on nicotine and caffeine to keep me going through out the day. Along with working odd hours, this will be my biggest challenge. A lot of my action plans will be helping me over coming this hurdle.

To help me jump these hurdles, I have chosen a few game/action plans. This is where most of my blogging prior to Route 66 will be about...Quit Smoking, Quit Drinking Pop, Start Working Out, and Start Eating Better.

In my next blog, I will randomly select one these actions. I will then continue to randomly pick a new plan to start each month for the next 3-4 months.

In the meantime, feel free to write a comment in the comment section below. Let me know what you think. If you think about it, I have basically put you in a spot to be my accountability partner(s) and your feedback would be an asset in my journey. Also, if you struggle in these areas as well, let me know. I'd love to hear your stories. Did you start yet? Are you in the middle of your journey? Did you over come some hurdles yourself?

Hope to hear from you soon. 

Until next time...Enjoy Life...hurdles and all.

Rich

  

Geocaching and Hurdles

Hello,

Some of you might be wondering what is Geocaching. According to geocaching.com... 

"Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location."

The containers vary in size from the size of an easer of a pencil to the size of an ammo can. They all have one thing in common, a log book. When you find the geocache, you sign the log, then replace back where you found it. Some of the bigger containers will have little toy/trinkets inside. The deal is that you are allowed to take something out as long as your replace it with another toy or trinket.

After you find the geocache, you then go on the computer later and log your find there as well. Geocaching.com does an awesome job playing around with stats.

When I was divorced and barely had a couple of nickels to rub together, I was looking for activities to do with my daughters that was cheap and fun. I was listening to a podcast, Stuff You Should Know, they were talking about geocaching. After listening, I checked out the website and found out I could sign up for free. I also figured that the only real expense was gas for the van and my time. The only hurdle I had at that moment was that I was in need of a GPS.

My dad had one. I don't remember the make or model of it, but at that time I willing to take what I could find. I checked the website for the closest geocache (which was located in a nearby park). 

I was excited. This sounded fun and I was hoping the girls would like this too.

The next time I had them, I took them out. My timing couldn't have been worse. For some reason we waited until it was dark, it was in the Fall, and it was cold. We parked the van in the lot, grabbed a couple of flashlights, and headed out. 

I had a horrible time trying to figure out how the use the GPS, but I thought I got us pretty close to where the geocache was suppose to be. We looked, and looked, and looked, the girls gave up and went back to the van, I looked, and looked, and looked, and then I finally gave up and headed back. My nose was running and my finger tips were getting numb. They thought geocaching was stupid. It turned out that the container that was suppose to be in that area where we looked was stolen.

Over the next few months, I went out on my own after saving my pennies for a better GPS. I had a blast. I got hooked. I waited until warmer weather to take the girls out again and see if I could change their mind about dad's new hobby.

In the Spring, I took them to a hiking trail in Maple Grove. We went to a spot where there was suppose to be a geocache. We looked together as a group for about ten minutes, they gave up and I kept looking. Couldn't find it. Their feelings of geocaching stayed the same, if not worse. Turns out this geocache went missing like the first one I took them to.

I still play the game and I currently found 1100 geocaches. I have slowed down a bit after I hit 1000 finds, but still go out every once in a while.

I had to jump some hurdles to get to 1000 finds. Getting a better GPS, getting some experience under my belt so finding caches became easier even though I don't consider myself an awesome geocacher, and finding the right times to go out.

Geocaching and Exploring Historic Route 66 is going to take some major hurdles....Time, Money, Energy (all of which I will talk about in future blogs).

No journey is worth it without having some kind of challenge to it. Is the taste of victory sweeter if it is handed to you versus working for it?

Life is one big huge journey filled with many littler journeys. Each journey has hurdles and stories to tell. Sometimes we fail, but most of the time...we win. I plan on winning this one.

Starting Over

(side note right off the bat....restarting my blog on this site...the last website, I think, went belly up)

Welcome

I have to tell you the truth, I don't have much of a clue of what I am doing, but I am going to give it a shot and see where it goes.

I suppose you want to know why I even started this blog. I do have a couple of reasons, but I guess we should start from the beginning. 

Been divorced since 2009. I have five kids. At the time of the divorce, only two kids were still in school (Hailey and Faith). My pattern for vacations was always kid centered. Time off in the Summer to go camping. Time off in the Winter to spend an extra day or two with the girls during the their Winter break.

Fast forward to 2015. My oldest son, David, asked me not too long ago, "If you took a vacation for yourself, what would you do?"

I drew a blank. I had no idea what to do if I had extended time off for myself. So I thought about it for a while...which can cause all sorts of problems. 

The only thing that popped into my head and seemed interesting to me was to explore the Historic Route 66. 

Not only explore Route 66, but also geocache Route 66.

Not only explore and geocache the Historic Route 66, but record it and share it with you. Don't you feel special now?

Recording my travels on Route 66 and sharing it with you shouldn't be all that hard of a task in itself, but like many goals and journeys, there are hurdles. Some are natural hurdles and some are self imposed hurdles. It's the self imposed one I also want to blog about.

I also remember a quote from a motivational speaker that said, "If a life is worth living, it's worth recording."

This blog is going to be a way to record a bit of my life and I am leaving it open for others to freely read. Perhaps I may inspire someone to make a change in their life as well. Maybe, this will be plain entertaining. Hopefully, it'll be fun for all of us.

Welcome and thanks for joining me.