Weekly Accomplishments (Feb 1-14)

I decided to try being accountable of my life and start documenting anything meaningful or significant that I accomplish each week. To do this I’ll note whatever I do each day and on Sundays I’ll pick 2-3 interesting things to go on the public record. This way I’m hoping to be more motivated to follow up on my own plans (simply stating them to the public doesn’t do much) and to keep my friends all over the world (and stalkers) in the loop of what I’m up to.

For the inaugural post I’m covering the first 2 weeks of February 2010 since some of the things I did crossed the weeks and because the 2 back-to-back snowstorms decreased the number of workdays. Without further ado, here’s the list:

• Helped organize the historic and record-breaking (for DC) snowball fights on Feb 6 and Feb 10 in Dupont Circle. For the first one, I also was the organizer of the official after-party at One Lounge. The first snowball fight made all national and many international news for bringing over 2,000 people. The second one was much smaller (no more than 300 people) and gave the opportunity to cover it to other news outlets. (Disclosure: my friends own the venue and I consult them on social media marketing.)
• Did my taxes for 2009 by myself. This is more of a personal accomplishment because for whatever reason many Americans are afraid of filing taxes by themselves. I can understand contractors and business owners (been there done that), but everyone else can easily do everything with 1040A, which includes most of the standard deductions (loan interests & pension funds). After struggling with Free File Fillable Forms (the system asked me for papers I should not have had), I struggled with Intuit’s Turbo Tax Online (it likes to upsell and show needless animations) but in the end managed to submit my tax returns online. Being a DC resident, I was lucky that Office of Tax and Revenue also offers free online filing, which took me barely 10 minutes to complete.
• Photographed Art Soiree’s Single Valentine party at One Lounge on Valentine’s Day. I haven’t done any photo work at parties for several months and quite honestly I was worried a bit about the quality of the results. The photos haven’t been posted yet, so I won’t know for sure until some time next week. Though I’m content with killing two birds with one stone: the pictures will be used for promotion of both Art Soiree and for One Lounge. (Disclaimer: Tati & Sandro behind Art Soiree are also my friends.)