Numbers: January 31, 2022

Finally, Magic Monday are officially back, this would be the third week in a row that my procrastination doesn’t get the best of me, and I post how the week’s reading was.

Now, lets get down to business, the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still running smoothly, starting week number 33, and I’m already 100 pages into book number 40 of year, Reyes de la Tierra Salvaje by Nicholas Eames , the first book of the epic adventures of the mercenary band Saga, how I jump to book number 40 from book number 38 from last week, well, I finished the short story collection Dreams Underfoot by Charles DeLint, part of the my newest challenge, one short story a day, which now is entering its 24th straight day .

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 38,402 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,590 registered pages more than last update.My next milestone, 40,000 pages, that according to my projections, should have been reached two weeks ago, and I was aiming to surpass by today, is still 1,598 pages away, judging by this week’s reading, I’ll probably be celebrating by the next Magic Monday this huge milestone.

The end of the year projection of total pages had a significant boost, right now is at 58,808 pages, 734 pages more than the last update. My reading schedule is now 23 days behind, this is a 2 day gain from my last update, my mantra, one step at a time, one page at a time, is finally showing off results.

I start week 33 with a deficit of 4,686 pages, and a total 5,932 pages to get back to balance, the good news is that I had 187 pages more for this week’s quota, and the total for the month of January, which is 5,518 pages, has now a 469 page surplus, leaving 4,150 pages to get back to balance. Being the month February the shortest of the year, and hence the one with the smallest monthly quota, I´ll take it as a motivation to keep on grinding away.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 111,024 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is November 19, 2025, that’s 16 days earlier than the last projection, finally, I’ll make an extra effort to close into the middle of year 2025, but my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed from 993 to 977 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,728 with a daily average of 247 pages, a 2 page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,637 days away, a 41 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is December 29, 2042, that’s 4,225 days after the original plan, 34 days less that the last projection. Finally, just reached 2042, still, my eye on the prize of the coveted end date of 2031, and the very special trip to close-out the final pages of my journey.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 111,024 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,637 days
• Days behind schedule: 4,225 days

Now back to work to reach the 40,000-page milestone, and hitting my daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

Off to read.

azr.

3 days and 2,250 pages

There’s only 3 days on the month of January, well, 2 and the few hours left on this day, and I find 2,250 pages between me and the coveted 40,000-page mark.

That can only mean one thing, some intensive, caffeine fueled reading session.

In all my stats are looking pretty good.

What concerns my January goals for both hours and pages, I have successfully surpass both. Now my main focus is to take on the gargantuan task of reaching 40,000 pages. For that, there’s a couple of great reads to help me along the way.

Starting with the amazingly clever Reyes de la tierra salvaje by Nicholas Eames, book number 39 of the year, following the adventures of the rock-star mercenary band Saga. Its really refreshing to see humor thrown into the mix of an epic adventure story with such ease

The other is volume thirteen of the masterful Manga by Kentauro Miura, Berserk, what will be the faith of Griffith and the Band of the Hawk.

Quite the huge undertaking for the next days, but with only one short story left on the collection of stories of the wondrous Newford series by Charles DeLint, there’s are 414 page practically in the bag. Only 1,836 pages left to resolve.

Off to read.

azr.

Now, for my next act

As I update my reading number in my digital files, the realization that the next milestone, 40,000 pages, is not that far off. Only 2,717 pages are between me and that coveted goal.

I have planned to reach it by the end of this month, being that only 6 days away, I think to myself.

Don’t mind if I do.

That would mean that I need 452 daily pages to do so, bit of stretch for the weekdays, but anything left hanging, I’ll cover it on Saturday and Sunday.

Below you can see how my goals are shaping-up.

The only goal met are my reading hours for January, but everything near or over 50%, which is things pointing in the right direction.

Off to read

azr.

Numbers: January 24, 2022

Welcome to the second Magic Monday on a row that’s actually a Monday, I plan to keep this streak for the foreseeable future .

Now, lets get down to business, the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still running smoothly, starting week number 32, and I’m about to start book number 38 of year, Matemáticas para las Hadas, my the late Mexican author F.G. Haghenbeck, being the story of Ada Byron, genius mathematician, and daughter of famous English poet Lord Byron.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 36,812 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,310 registered pages more than last update.My next milestone, 40,000 pages, that according to my projections I should have reach it last Monday. This leaves me still 3,188 pages, and hopefully in a couple of weeks, I´ll reach that coveted next stepping stone.

The end of the year projection of total pages had a little boost, right now is at 58,074 pages, 324 pages more than the last update. My reading schedule is now 25 days behind, this is a 3 day loss from my last update, this is something I have been struggling with, but as my mantra for the last few months, one step at a time, one page at a time.

I started week 32 with a deficit of 4,873 pages, and a total 6,119 pages to get back to balance, I came short by 54 pages.The January monthly quota there’s still 964 pages left ,and 5,583 to get back to balance, number that should be reach by the end of the month February, motivation enough to keep on grinding away.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 112,614 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is December 5, 2025, that’s 13 days earlier than the last projection, finally, I’ll make an extra effort to close into the middle of year 2025, but my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed from 1,006 to 993 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,741 with a daily average of 249 pages, a 1 page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,678 days away, a 31 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is February 1, 2043, that’s 4,283 days after the original plan, 24 days less that the last projection. In spite of everything, I managed to edge closer to 2042, with my eye on the prize of the coveted end date of 2031, and the very special trip to close-out the final pages of my journey.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 112,614 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,678 days
• Days behind schedule: 4,259 days

Now back to work to reach the 40,000-page milestone, and hitting my daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

Off to read.

azr.

Numbers: January 17,2022

Magic Monday are finally back, and it only took me a month to get them back on track, I deserve a reward.

Now, lets get down to business, the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still running smoothly, starting week number 31, and I’m about 1/2 done with book number 34 of year, the third and final book, The Stone Sky, of the Hugo Award winning series The Broken Earth by the amazingly talented author N.K. Jemisin, and the final confrontation between daughter and mother is just looming over the horizon, as we learn what passed civilizations had some hidden agendas for the use of the mysterious obelisks, and the oreneges true purpose.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 35,502 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,245 registered pages more than last update.My next milestone, 40,000 pages, that according to my projections I should have reach it today, January 17, 2022. Leaving me with 4,498 pages short, but judging with how this couple of weeks have developed, I’ll close that gap pretty soon.

The end of the year projection of total pages gained a little amount of ground, right now is at 57,750 pages, 499 pages more than the last update. My reading schedule, better known as my Achilles heel, is now 28 days behind, this is a 2 day loss from my last update, this is something I have been struggling with, but as my mantra for the last few months, one step at a time, one page at a time.

I started week 31 with a deficit of 4,819 pages, and a total 6,065 pages to get back to balance, I had 416 pages of surplus this week, ending week 30 with a total of 1662.The January monthly quota there’s still 2,156 pages left , and 6,775 to get back to balance, number that should be reach by the end of the month, motivation enough to keep on grinding away.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 113,924 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is December 18, 2025, that’s 10 days earlier than the last projection, finally, I’ll make an extra effort to close into the middle of year 2025, but my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed from 1,016 to 1,006 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly pages needed are now 1,753 with a daily average of 250 pages, a 1 page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,709 days away, a 31 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is February 25, 2043, that’s 4,283 days after the original plan, 25 days less that the last projection. In spite of everything, I managed to edge closer to 2042, with my eye on the prize of the coveted end date of 2031, and the very special trip to close-out the final pages of my journey.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 113,924 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,709 days
• Days behind schedule: 4,283 days

Now back to work to reach the 40,000-page milestone, and hitting my daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

Off to read.

azr.

A (almost) mid-month update

Up until now, the Goals app is working fantastically for keeping my day-to-day progress.

Approaching the halfway point of this first month of 2022, I wanted to share how things are developing.

First off, my daily habits: read 178 pages, read for 2 hours, and read a short story, are as follow.

On average, I’m hitting my daily routine 7 out of 10 for reading 2 hours, 8 out of 10 for reading 178 pages a day, and for the newest, read a short story, 5 out of 10, with a current tendency to get to 8 out of 10 by next week.

In my weekly and monthly goals, I’m just inches off hitting 50% on my pages and hours for January, passed the halfway mark for total pages for the year, and just a few pages from reaching 50% on this week’s reading.

As much as I love this digital medium, this weekend will be dedicated to catching my bullet journal up to speed. It has been really neglected.

Off to read.

azr.

Numbers: January 11, 2022

I’m actually getting closer to posting my weekly on Monday, last week was on a Thursday, now on a Tuesday, that’s what I call progress.

Now, lets get down to business, the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is still running smoothly, starting week number 30, and I’m about 1/3 done with book number 33 of year, the second, The Obelisk Gate, of the Hugo Award winning series The Broken Earth by the amazingly talented author N.K. Jemisin, and it just picks up the pace from the first book, the quest continue to fully understand the mysterious obelisks and the search of the Moon, I actually don’t want to spoil anything else, this series is a must for any fantasy/science fiction lover.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 34,257 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,881 registered pages more than last update.My next milestone is 40,000 pages, that as I mentioned before, and according to my projections, it should be reach by January 17, 2022. Leaving me with 5,743 pages in about 6 days.

The end of the year projection of total pages gained a significant amount of ground, right now is at 57,251 pages, 1,092 pages more than the last update. My reading schedule, my Achilles heel, is now 26 days behind, this is a 3 gained, this is something I have been struggling with, but as my mantra for the last few months, one step at a time, one page at a time, is finally paying off.

I started week 30 with a deficit of 5,235 pages, and a total 6,481 pages to get back to balance, for the January monthly quota there’s still 3,602 pages left , and 8,221 to get back to balance, number that should be reach by the end of the month, motivation enough to keep on grinding away.

For the first 500,000 pages, I have only 115,169 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is December 28, 2025, that’s 19 days earlier than the last projection, finally, I breach into the year 2025, but my sights are still pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed from 1,035 to 1,016 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, my weekly needed is now 1759 with a daily average of 251 pages, a 3 page a day drop from the last projection.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,740 days away, a 49 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is March 22, 2043, that’s 4,308 days after the original plan, 41 days less that the last projection. In spite of everything, I managed to edge closer to 2042, with my eye on the prize of the coveted end date of 2031, and the very special trip to close-out the final pages of my journey.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 115,169 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,740 days
• Days behind schedule: 4,308 days

Now back to work to reach the 40,000-page milestone, and hitting my daily, weekly, and monthly goals. But that’s a story for another post.

Off to read.

azr.

Short story challenge, the comeback

With the beginning of each year come new ideas and challenges to make this project just a bit more fun.

One of these challenges, which is an old one, is reading one short story per day from the an array of anthologies that have been sitting on my shelves far to long.

To restart the challenge I have selected three books, the first, and with just a few story left, is the classic collection by brilliant writer Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man, to follow this tough act, Dreams Underfoot, a collection of short stories that its said to be the best starting point to Charles de Lint’s enigmatic series of Newford, and to top it off , the return to the dark crevices of the classic graphic novel by James O’Barr, The Crow: Shattered Lives & Broken Dreams, a collection of poems and short stories from famous writers and musicians.

Today’s story is The City from Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Can a City wait patiently for thousands of years to be inhabited?, let’s find out.

Off to read.

azr.

First week of 2022

To start off this new year’s, I’m trying out a new app to keep track, on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, how my reading is going. Also, some daily habits in order to the main objectives.

The app is called Goals , and you can keep track in different measurements, like pages, books, quantity, time, and many more. This gives me an instant sense of how things are shaping up, and if I need to pick up the pace in anything that’s slacking.

To start off, there’s 2 daily habits , read 178 and read for 2 hours.I must hit at least once a day.

And 4 main objectives, that go from the total of pages for year fourteen, thru my weekly minimal quota, and my goals, in pages and hours, for the month of January of this year.

I’ll be updating the monthly and weekly objectives as needed, and hopefully that red bar that stands out will be full come June 6.

Off to read.

azr.

Numbers: January 6, 2022

This is the first magic Monday update, I know is Thursday but I was enjoying my Christmas break so much that the status report of reading went over my head, but to keep a steady news feed of how things are going, starting on Monday, January 10, true Magic Mondays are making a comeback, along with two dormant sections of this blog. Caffeine Pilgrimage and The Table, my journey thru the growing coffee house and restaurant scene in the city.

Now, lets get down to business, the 52 book in 52 weeks challenge is still running smoothly, with still a few days left on week number 29, I´m about to reach the midway point on book number 31 of the year, the the first book, The Fifth Season, of the Hugo Award winning series The Broken Earth by the amazingly talented author N.K. Jemisin, from the first pages, this book grabs you and it doesn’t let go, the intricate patterns of the ironically named continent, The Stillness, brings another way to approach Fantasy, and how the author builds the world and its turmoil, just takes your breath away. I’m more that ready to jump into the next two books.

Now let’s talk about MY NUMBERS, the current total is 32,376 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,710 registered pages more than last update.My next milestone is 40,000 pages, that as I mentioned before, and according to my projections, it should be reach by January 17, 2022. That leaves with 7,624 pages in about 11 days.

The end of the year projection of total pages lost a bit of ground, right now is at 56,159 pages, 242less pages than the last update. My reading schedule, which keeps me up at night, is now 29 days behind, this is a 2 day loss, this is something I have been struggling with, but as with everything, one step at a time.

I started week 29 with a deficit of 5,283 pages, and a total 6,480 pages to get back to balance, for December the monthly quota streak was lost, coming short by 311 pages, this is puts me in a bit of a disadvantage, with my sight pointed at those 40,000 pages, any little set back makes it much harder to start hitting a constant stride.

Now, for the first 500,000 pages, I have only 117,050 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is January 16, 2026, that’s 15 days earlier than the last projection, still my sights are pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed from 1,050 to 1,035 days behind schedule.

The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, the weekly average needed is now 1,778 with a daily average of 254 pages, since the last projections, the daily average dropped 2 pages per day.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 7,789 days away, a 37 day gain from the last projection, making the end date is May 2, 2043, that’s 4,349 days after the original plan, 25 days less that the last projection. In spite of everything, I managed to edge closer to 2042, with my eye on the prize of the coveted end date of 2031, and the very special trip to close-out the final pages of my journey.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

• Pages to reach 500,000: 117,050 pages
• Days to reach 1,000,000: 7,789 days
• Days behind schedule: 4,349 days

Now back to work to reach the 40,000-page milestone.

Off to read.

azr.