Completed Address Autocomplete

Total Unlocked: $230

Spent: $136.73

Balance: $93.27

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
[Misc Support cards]
[Regi deck]
[Ice Rider cards]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
Duraludon V x3
Shaymin V x2
Darkrai V x3
Darkrai Vstar
Gengar VMax
Palkia V
Another Darkrai Vstar
Dialga Vstar x3
Dialga V x2

I finished the Address Autocompletion project. It turned out to be significantly more complicated than expected, largely due to domain restrictions the 3rd party applied for using their API. Because of these restrictions, there was no way to test things in development, which created a delay between when I'd get things mostly working (I hoped) and when it was available for me to test to see the results (e.g. after Brian had deployed it to production servers). In the end, we got it completed before anyone even knew about the new system, so it was all well and good. This unlocked $30, counting as a one-level stage.

On the Pokemon side of things, I found great deals on getting another Darkrai Vstar ($7) and a set of 3x Dialga Vstars ($15 total). So I went ahead and paid the $5 needed to get 2x Dialga Vs. This rounds out the decks I will be using for IRL play until the next set releases.

Replacement Orders Complete-ish

Total Unlocked: $200

Spent: $109.33

Balance: $90.67

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
[Misc Support cards]
[Regi deck]
[Ice Rider cards]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
Duraludon V x3
Shaymin V x2
Darkrai V x3
Gengar VMax
Palkia V
Darkrai Vstar
Dark Patch x3
17x Misc Pokemon Go cards

Last week was a short week, with Monday being the 4th of July Holiday. I did complete a few tasks, but the only one that was big enough to unlock any funds was the completion of the Replacement Orders DB Efficiency upgrade. That unlocked $5 for the task itself, and $25 more for the Replacement Orders level completing.

Tasks on the horizon include:

• Address Autocomplete API Integration - will unlock $5 or $30, depending on complexity.
• Return Status Project - will unlock $30 to $55, depending on complexity.
• Consumer-to-Business Transitions - will unlock $30.
• Customer Support Ticket Interfacing & Tracking - will unlock $30.

There is a chance that all of these things are completed this week. But more likely, I'll finish the Address Autocomplete and Return Status projects.

From a Pokemon perspective, I have purchased a single copy of Palkia V and a single copy of Darkrai Vstar. I will be acquiring two more Darkrai Vstars, and may acquire a Palkia Vstar or two as well. Other than that, there are not many cards currently in rotation that I will be buying. However, testing has shown me that I will also want to get a playset one of the headline cards from the next set, as it has performed amazingly well in the limited testing we have done. Thankfully, I found a way to use my pre-existing judging points to get a free order of nearly 100 packs of the next set, so that should mitigate my costs.

On another note, I'm focing myself to start including some element of exercise into my life as often as possible. To make that a priority that I don't ignore, I am adding the requirement for at least a few reps or minutes of exercise ANY DAY that I play Pokemon. Whenever practical (e.g. weekends mostly), that has to happen BEFORE I start playing.

Consumer Transitions, Replacement Order Updates, CS Ticketing & Dark Deck Purchases

Total Unlocked: $170

Spent: $84.60

Balance: $85.40

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
[Misc Support cards]
[Regi deck]
[Ice Rider cards]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
Duraludon V x3
Shaymin V x2
Darkrai V x3
Gengar VMax

The last couple of weeks, I have spent a fair amount of time pursuing projects that don't-quite-finish. Sometimes that has been due to other priorities rising to the top. In other cases, it's because of factors outside the company's control. In any case, that leaves me very close to finishing up a number of stages, but not quite there on any of them. Here's the blow by blow:

• Customer Support Ticket Interfacing & Tracking: We have a third-party customer support system. It's currently entirely separate from the rest of our backend site. But we are integrating things together to make it easier on our Customer Support Agents to keep on top of things, since happy customers mean good things to the whole business. Except, this was put on pause while we worked with the third party site to overcome some obstacles (e.g. their API had very low rate limits). We've sorted out a few ways around this issue, but won't be circling back to it until the high priority projects are done, as well as the Consumer Transition project (below). This is probably at 80% complete.
• Consumer-to-Business Transitions: We are around 90% complete with a single-level stage around the project to enable automated transitions from an account and all connected features to go from being an individual user's consumer account to being part of a business's heirarchy of accounts. This will ease a lot of work for our account staff, but went on hold this week to address two large projects that were higher priority.
• Replacement Order Updates: After an onsite demo/test of the Replacement Order System, a few small bugs were found, and a laundry list of nice-to-have requests came back. The goal has been to get this ready for release by the end of the week. It became the highest priority item, as it apparently makes a ton of things easier and will actually support a much broader part of the business than us Engineers even realized. Moreover, I achieved that goal. The high priority stuff is done now! But there's one lower priority task remaining before this stage is deemed complete. I'm splitting the stage into 3 levels:
  
  1) Listing Page Updates -- Complete ($5 unlocked)
  2) Details Page Updates -- Complete ($5 unlocked)
  3) Database Efficiency Updates -- Pending
  
  The first two levels were by far the most important in terms of fast turn-around and ability to deploy everything to production. The DB Efficiency Updates basically consist of shifting a large number of Entity-Framework database pings into a single database call of a stored procedure, and then using in-memory datatables to more efficiently load and process everything for these pages. The EF version works fine, and was probably preferrable for getting the initial version out fast while allowing easy rapid adjustments. But now that things are getting finalized, EF methods result in a lot more database hits than we want, which will be slower page performance as things grow. So we're getting ahead of that ever being a problem, by moving it all to an SP-driven system with a single DB hit.
• Return Status: Lastly, the next highest priority after the finishing the Replacement Orders, is a new 6-part project around Return Statuses. I haven't delved into what this one is about yet, but it will be the largest priority for next week. I'm not sure how many levels will feel like the right number for this stage, but I'll figure it out next week.

All together, that's another $100+ worth of work-stages that will be unlocked in the next couple weeks. For now, I've stepped forward to acquire some of the parts for a couple of different Dark Decks. I traded to get 2x Gengar V + 1x Gengar Vmax. Then I purchased 3x Darkrai V + 1x Gengar Vmax. The goal here is to end up able to run up to a 2-2 line of Gengar Vmax and up to a 3-3 line of Darkrai Vstar. Testing will determine exactly which counts we want to settle on. I'm still holding off on purchasing Darkrai Vstars as they are the only cards involved that are still likely to see a significant reduction in price (and because I don't know if I will end up wanting 2 or 3 of them).

A Few Pokemon Purchases: Duraludon, Shaymin, and Ice Rider

Total Unlocked: $160

Spent: $65.36

Balance: $94.64

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
[Misc Support cards]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
[Regi deck]
[Ice Rider cards]
Duraludon V x3
Shaymin V x2

After saying that I wasn't going to buy anything, I ended up buying a few things over the weekend: 3x Duraludon V from Evolving Skies (I have copies of the superior, Champion's Path version, but it is rotating in a few months and I believe Duraludon will be a reasonable deck for play post-rotation), 2x Shaymin V, 4x Ice Rider Calyrex V from Chilling Reign, 1x Ice Rider Calyrex V promo (because I want the option to include a sniping attack), and 3x Ice Rider Calyrex VMax. All told, that was $21.72, which has been updated in my purchase info

Level 5: Smart-text Links & Header Search

Total Unlocked: $160

Spent: $43.64

Balance: $116.36

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
[Misc Support cards]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
[Regi deck]

Last week, my boss was once again out of town. The week started off on a low point, as the owner of the company held a staff meeting themed all around customer service. And he went person by person demanding new ideas for improving customer service. For myself and a new employee (who had no new customer service ideas), he chastised us with a tirade about how customer service should be at the center of everything we do, no matter what level or department we work at in the company. That sent me off the deep end for about a day, and I seriously pondered quitting. But I righted the ship of my mental state by watching a video conversation between myself and my boss, in which we discussed the ins and outs of what I was actually supposed to be working on (right before he left). That conversation put me back into the mindset I needed to be in, and over the course of the week, I was able to knock out all of the projects my boss had lined up for me.

Those projects included:
1) Creating a javascript package that we could include on pages throughout the company's backend, which would run various regular expression checks against fields that were given the css class of "smart-text" where-in each regex that was applied could convert the resulting matches into a link to one of a few different parts of the site.
2) Updating our header search functionality to use a better, more efficient method of finding and supplying autocomplete matches.

Completing these projects counts as two stages and one level, and accordingly unlocks another 2x $5 + 1x $25. This week, I'm working on Level 6: Freshdesk API interactions. Currently, this looks like another two-stage level, but we'll see how it ultimately ends up once I dig in further.

Also, as a closing note, things are on hold for Pokemon purchasing until I work out what decks I'm going to run in the next format. I will likely resume live competition in that format, so I want to figure out what will be best for actual play at that point. Given that major pieces of all current decks are expected to rotate out (e.g. no longer be useable), I want to wait and see what emerges as the next decks I enjoy before I spend anything else on building them. Most of what I've acquired thus far is cheap cards that will not rotate this year, so things are in good shape in that respect. But many of the remaining cards on my list start to get a bit more pricey, so I want to be sure I want them before I spend the money.

Level 3 and also Stage 2-6 Complete

Total Unlocked: $125

Spent: $43.64

Balance: $81.36

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
[Misc Support cards]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
Regigigas x2
Regidrago x3
Regieleki x3
Regirock x2
Registeel x2
Regice x2
Shaymin VStar x1
Canceling Cologne x3
Cyllene x2
Eevee x2
Feather Ball x4
Gapejaw Bog x4
Gardenia's Vigor x3
Grant x4
Gutsy Pickaxe x3
Hisuian Basculin x3
Hisuian Heavy Ball x2
Mightyena x2
Miltank x1
Poochyena x2
Switch Cart x4
Trekking Shoes x4

Monday was a holiday (Memorial Day). Tuesday, I wrapped up the end of Levels 3 & 4. Wednesday, I started and finished the newly created Stage 2-6, when my boss's return from vacation brought with it another round of 10 requested changes to the Replacement Order System. Thursday, I started and finished two more small tasks, and today I've completed a small bug fix. Altogether, by completing that stuff I unlocked another $65 (calling everything I've done a level or even a full stage on its own would be way too generous), and also got some praise from my boss about my fast turn-around. I guess this gamification motivation system is working :)

I went ahead and used my newfound riches to buy everything for a Regigigas Deck, as well as pretty much all of the important supporting cards from the new set. This should serve me well going forward, but there are a few more decks I have my eyes on once prices settle.

Level 4: User page integration into Replacement Orders

Total Unlocked: $60

Spent: $28.76

Balance: $31.24

Cards:
[Whimsicott V deck]
Hisuian Sneasler V x3
Boss's Orders
Telescopic Sight
Bronzong
Rapid Strike Scroll of Swirls
Single Strike Stonjourner
Moon & Sun Badge

I finished stage 4-1 yesterday (adding buttons to the user page to create replacement orders), and stage 4-2 today (adding a display to the user page to show all current + past replacement orders). That completes stage 4, except that I'm expecting my boss to request a number of changes when he gets back, as he'll have his coding and styling preferences to request implementation. Accordingly, I've unlocked another $10 in purchase power, and will unlock $25 more once things meet with his imminent change request. Monday I'll warp back to stage 3-2, so that I'll be inches away from completing both Level 3 and Level 4.

Now that the latest set has released, some card prices are plummetting. That let me acquire most of what I lack for a decent deck featuring the new cards, all while spending only $5. I have my eyes on a very strong deck for the likely sum of a whole $10, once the weekend passes and prices continue to fall a bit further.

3b ==> Warp

Total Unlocked: $50

Spent: $23.34

Balance: $26.66

Cards:
4x Whimsicott V,
3x Whimsicott VStar,
2x Fan of Waves
1x Zacian V CEL

Monday, I spent the day completing what I'll call Stage 2-5. It was a bonus level to address 10 things that had changed about the implementation for the project Level 2 (Replacement Order Interface). $5 unlocked, but it doesn't count as a new level.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I completed Stage 1 of Level 3: Integrating support for custom tags into our anomaly tracking system. Stage 3-1 was about integration into the interface for individual anomalies. 3-2 is the rest of the project, which is integrating into the listings pages for all anomalies. That unlocked another $5.

However, I've been asked to warp to Level 4: Integrating the Replacement Order System into additional existing parts of the site. So I'm warping to Level 4 for the rest of the week, and then coming back to address 3-2 when Level 4 is complete.

As a side note, I'm currently holding off on making purchases of new cards, because a new set was just released. Many cards from this set are going to be among my next set of purchases, but at the start of release, the prices are ridiculously high compared to where they will be just a few weeks from now. Since I'm not actively competing, I can afford to wait for that price drop.

Level 3!

Total Unlocked: $40

Spent: $23.34

Balance: $16.66

Cards:
4x Whimsicott V,
3x Whimsicott VStar,
2x Fan of Waves
1x Zacian V CEL

I finished level 2 (and, as a sub-component, stage 2-4)! That unlocks $5 (for the stage) and either $25 or play in a tournament (for the level). Since I'd still be over my unlocked spending if I did anything other than take the $25, that's the route I'm taking.

I've walked Rufus once this week, and intend to do a second walk within the next hour. We'll see if that walk leaves me feeling pain.

Levels 3 and 4 will each consist of 2 stages that represent related projects, each of which looks significantly simpler than the project that encompassed Level 2. Specifically, Stage 3-1 will be Anomaly Details Page Updates, Stage 3-2 will be Anomaly Listing Page Updates, Stage 4-1 will be Device Details Page Updates, and Stage 4-2 will be Device Listing Page Updates. I expect each Level to take 1-2 weeks.

Level 2A-4a and Spending on Whimsicott VStar

Total Unlocked: $10

Spent: $22.26

Cards:
4x Whimsicott V,
3x Whimsicott VStar,
2x Fan of Waves

I ended last week by finishing the 3rd task (e.g. work level 2-3). That unlocked another $5, bringing my total to $10. However, over the weekend there was a pokemon prerelease, wherein timing for buying can be a big factor in how much money you can make off of selling cards and sometimes it can even determine whether or not you can purchase a prerelease kit at all. Thus I elected to go ahead and buy a kit for $20 (in part because I had a coupon that made it $20 instead of the normal $30). And I managed to get quite a few good cards. I've already sold one of them for the $20 price I paid for the whole set, and at least 2 more should sell for somewhere in the $10-$30 range.

With that sale under my belt, and with my daughter expressing an interest in learning more about how to play, I decided to go ahead and spend some money putting together a deck that's reasonably strong and also reasonably straight forward: Whimsicott VStar. Accordingly, I bought the cards for it. So all told, my total spending this weekend on Pokemon cards was $20, minus the $20 I have coming in, plus the $22.26 that I spent on cards for the deck to teach my daughter with. I've exceeded the funds that I had available, but I feel like doing so was justified, and I know that I'll unlock the rest of the required funds within the next few days.

I completed two days of dog-walking last week, which means I'm landing back on level A-a for that one. Here storms played a role again, but an equal contributor came from the fact that my walking shoes randomly started hurting my feet on both of the days that I did walk. Each time, it left my toes on my right foot feeling a bit squished, remaining sore for the rest of the day and into the night. So not walking him more was roughly equal parts laziness, cramped schedule, and conscious decision due to minor injury. I'll plan to do some sort of walking with him this week, in different shoes. I'm not yet even contemplating whether or not I reach level B yet.

Level 2A-3a

Total Unlocked: $5
Spent: $0
Cards: None

I finished the 2-week task that comprised level 2-2! On to Level 2-3! $5 unlocked!

No progress with walking the dog as of yet. Busy days. May still try to fit it in.

Gamification: Week 2

 Last week didn't see as much progress as I'd have liked. We got a ton of rain, and I let that ruin my forward momentum on walking Rufus, since I'm able to get him enough exercise indoors via fetch and the like in a pinch. Similarly, I didn't quite finish Level 2-2 on work stuff. I'm getting close, and definitely expect to get there by mid-week. I'm not ruling out completing Level 2 in it's entirety this week.

But for now, we're rolling exercise back to stage A-a, so we're on Level 2A-2a once again. Here's hoping for more visible progress soon!

Humpday Gamification Update

I've advanced from 25% of the way through level 2-2 for work and at the start of level A-a for exercise up to 70% of the way through 2-2 for work, and up to A-c for exercise. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to reach level 2A-3d.

The work involved with the Left Column has been much more complicated than I initially forsaw.

Time to Gamify: Initial Rules

I've been really digging the videos from "Better Than Yesterday" on Youtube. Today, I came across one about turning life into a game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6tLGo9yij0

I love it. This feels like it will be so useful in helping deal with the problems I'm facing in daily work motivation.

I'd catch everyone up on everything, but that'd take forever, and frankly, returning to this blog right now is for me. But I'll still give high notes of where things are right now. For future me to read. 

1. My wife and I have been married for over a decade. My first-and-only child turns 7 years old later this month.
2. From a week before she was born until last June, I didn't have a solid job, but solid investments and some good luck paved the way to that not being an issue.
3. As above, I started a job last June. Doing programming with Brian again. ASP.net with C#.
4. Investments can probably continue to make the job unnecessary, but it does provide a nice cushion, and frankly the market sucks right now, so it's better to NOT pull out money (and to dump more in to the extent that's possible). Continuing this job will help with that.
5. This is another job that's pretty much all about the money. I was happy to leave my last gig for that reason. Life's too short and whatnot. But the money is meaningful to my family. And that's important enough for me to stay.
6. I've been struggling HARD with staying motivated enough to actually accomplish much at work. I'm hoping to change that, by embracing some of the Gamification Stuff from the video above. 

Here are the Rules:

1. Each project / distinct task is a level. Some levels are easy. Some aren't. If they are too easy, they can be grouped to create a cluster of stages making up a level. Currently, I'm probably on level 76 or something, but we'll just call it level 2. Because I finished level one in the first half of the current project, and each is big enough to be distinct.
1. Level 2 has the following stages:
   Heading, Left Column, Right/Center Column, and Finalize Order Execution. 
2. Technically, the last one there is part of the heading, but it was set up as a distinct section in the requirements, so it's getting a full-blown stage. 
3. I have completed the stage 2-1: Heading w/o Finalize Order Button. I've started on stage 2-2: Left Column. I'm about 25% of the way through completing stage 2-2.
2. Each stage that I complete, unlocks the purchase of ~$5 in Pokemon cards. Because I'm getting addicted to Pokemon cards. Each level I complete unlocks my choice of the ability to play in an online pokemon tournament OR purchase of ~$25 in Pokemon cards. Purchases unlocked within a given level must be for the same deck, so if I want to build new decks IRL, I've got to reach a new level.
3. Down the road, there will likely be new things that get gamified. New levels added as side quests. For exercise and probably some other stuff. Actually, now that I think about it...
   
4. I'll start the exercise side on the "Walk The Dog" level, which we'll call level A (so that we can progress in both dimensions separately. That means, currently, I'm on level 2A-2a. Walk the Dog will also have 4 stages, but with a time limit of one week for completion (after which time, you get reset to A-a). Not sure what the reward will be for this one though. Will have to think on it.