This Saturday I will be spending all day searching for the top ten public toilets in Melbourne.

Check out the Sunrise breakfast program next Monday morning for my final verdict, and thanks to everyone who submitted ideas.

To have a look at the scorecard that I will be using tomorrow, click here.

It is very rare to achieve success without failure first.

So I think it is important for me to show some of my failures along the way to achieving Project 183.

The first failure I will post about occurred back in March, and relates to goal 112, which is to complete a CityChase competition.

To give a short background, CityChase is an Amazing Race style competition, with races all around the world. You sign up as a team of two, and on the day of the race you have a set number of hours to complete a series of checkpoints and then get back to the starting point. The Australian CityChase is held every March in Sydney. You can read more at the CityChase website.

In March 2007, I flew up to Sydney with Nat to have a go, and despite our best efforts, we didn’t finish in time. But with an understanding of the competition, and a desire to knock the goal off my list, I flew up to Sydney in March 2008 with my great mate Andy, determined to cross the line in time.

We arrived the day before so that we could familiarise ourselves with Sydney streets, in the hope it might make it a little easier to navigate on the day of the race. And it did.

But what it also did was wear us out a little more than hoped, and combining that with a really tough course, and not enough endurance training on my part, meant we didn’t complete the race.

I flew back from Sydney so disappointed, because I thought that I would surely have improved enough from the first time that completing it would have been a breeze. It showed to me that being complacent and expecting results to happen for you are the acts of a fool.

So far, this has been my worst goal attempt failure, but I think after two failures, I know what it will take to achieve success next time. Training, training and more training. And a GPS device would be handy too.

Andy and I still managed to have some fun on the day. We found fake moustaches at a $2 shop and planned to run the whole six-hour race with the moustaches on; they fell off after five minutes!

I am one week into my diet, and it has been hard.

We had two functions during the week at work that involved cake (and another today), and I spent the weekend with family playing cards, where more cake, plus lollies and chips, were in abundance.

But I managed to avoid (pretty much) all of it.

I walked every day too, including doing a 45-minute walk before work every morning last week.

And the resulted weight loss was…1.9kg!

Given it was the first week, a big loss was expected. But I am still very happy with my progress.

Eight weeks to go.

This has probably happened to most people.

Without even noticing.

It happened to me, and it wasn’t until I saw myself on TV that I realised it.

I have put on weight.

Not much, but enough to realise I should do something about it before it gets bad. The still shot below from the channel seven news report shows a rather unslightly beer belly starting to develop. The text of ‘he couldn’t hide’ is quite ironic.

So I am starting a program to lose a little bit of weight before I move to London in nine weeks.

This isn’t a goal on the list, but just something extra I would like to do.

I bought a set on scales last weekend, and weighed myself on Monday morning. I am 77.5kg. I have set myself the task to get under 70kg, so am targeting to get down to 69.5kg.

What is LLL? Leaving for London Lighter!

To get to 69.5kg I have a two-prong attack:

1. Walk every morning for 45 minutes,

2. Use a Weight Watchers strategy of only having a certain amount of points allocated per day, where each item of food in the world has a certain amount of points (good food = less points, bad food = more points). Once the points are used up for the day, that’s it. No more food.

Every Monday I will weigh myself and put up the result, so that I am super-accountable to myself and anyone else who cares to keep track of my progress.

Basically, I need to get the blue dot down to where the pink dot is, by the end of the ninth week.

Wish me luck!

Nat and I are a few months into preparations for what will be the biggest goal achieved on the list so far; we are moving overseas to work and live! Goal 84 is to live overseas for six months, but we are planning to stay at least a couple of years.

Where you ask? London.

When? Our one-way tickets are booked for August 25.

Why? Because we can. We were there last July, and had such a great time that we have wanted to go back ever since. So we are.

Just waiting now on the Visas to be approved, and then it will be London, here we come!

I’ve even found a short course in Flash website development in London that I will be booking into upon arrival, which will help to achieve goal 183. Here is the link to the course, for anyone interested.

When I was on Sunrise with Mel and Kochie last Wednesday, they set me a challenge. Have a look at the video, and their reactions when I ask for some free flights up to Sydney!

Here is what I will be scoring on:- Opening/closing hours

- Overall cleanliness

- Quantity of toilets

- Toilet paper quality

- Availability of showers/baby changerooms

- Ease of access

- Graffiti levels

- Availability of hot water

- Presence of a bin

Does anyone have any suggestions for additional criteria, public toilets they think are worthy of being in the top ten list, or would like to be part of the expedition to find the top ten?

UPDATE

Three more criteria to add to the list (I will probably reduce the final list later)

- Smell

- Layout of the bathroom (not too cramped)

- Availability of soap

Thanks to Rachel and Sarah for the suggestions.

Month completed: June 2008

This goal was on the list because of all the movies I haven’t seen (and there are lots I haven’t seen), the Matrix is the one that really surprises people (”You haven’t seen the Matrix? I can’t believe that”).

And any “Hello Mr Anderson” reference would go straight over my head.

So Saturday was spent watching all three movies from the Matrix trilogy.

Here are my reviews:

The Matrix - a benchmark for all future science fiction movies - 5 out of 5

The Matrix Reloaded - not as good as the original, but still a strong story - 4 out of 5

The Matrix Revolutions - a shocker. The plot was lost in a sea of (albeit) impressive special effects - 2 out of 5

I would recommend seeing the first movie, but perhaps not the others, because if you see the second, you will have to suffer through the third.

Now, where’s my exit?

Month completed: June 2008

I can officially say that the achieving of this goal has been fantastic for a few reasons:

1. Goal 141 is now achieved;

2. The benefits of public transport have been pushed into the public eye, at least for one day, which is important as the price of petrol continues to skyrocket;

3. Others have been inspired to start their own lists - click here to see the site for someone has started their own list to do before turning 30;

4. Project 183 has now had its 15 minutes of mainstream media fame!

Apart from achieving the goal, I learnt that there seems to be a strong interest in positive news stories. In separate posts, I will include samples of the TV, radio and newspaper articles done on Project 183.

To summarise the trip and the interest that followed, here is my 7-point summary:

1. Trains tend to run pretty much on time, shown by the fact that I arrived at the end when I said I would

2. Toilet stops and a big breakfast are vital

3. So is an iPod full of music

4. Oakleigh and Alamein are my two favourite stations

5. Werribee is the most scenic line

6. There are lots of people who want to give the trip a go

7. And an equal number that have already done it

My trip highlight? Riding in the driver’s carriage for about 5 stops. Not something everyone can say they have done. Here is me in the front carriage.

To finish with, two final points require some clarification:

1. No, I didn’t do the Stony Point section or the Showgrounds and Flemington Racecourse stations. The latter stations are only open on certain days of the year, making it hard to include them, and the Stony Point part is a diesel service. But the challenge is open to anyone to complete the network PLUS these lines. If you can do it, I take my hat off to you.

2. Connex confirmed that since the Craigieburn line started operation in September last year, no one has come forward to claim that they have done the whole network, until I did it on Tuesday. That’s why Connex made the claim that I was the first. Not that being the first was ever my objective. I just wanted to do it. In fact, if other people have already done it, that’s awesome.

Thanks again to everyone for your interest in Project 183, and I hope that you can all stay in touch and cheer me on to keep achieving. Maybe you have even been inspired to start your own list, in which case I say best of luck.

Thanks to Connex for putting out the media release that generated all the media interest, and to Telstra for the phone and laptop I used on the day.

And thanks to Nat, the love of my life, for putting up with the craziness the last week has been.

I have now responded to most of the comments that have been left for me (mostly by email, rather than clogging up the comments boxes), and the willingness of others to help me out has been great. Some of the offers I have received include:

- A trip to the farm to milk cows

- Acupuncture

- Potential work at an ad agency

- Investment portfolio setting up

- Richard Branson’s details

- Beer-making lessons

- Scuba-diving

- Going to a buddhist retreat

- Going geocaching

- An animal rescue company that can provide snakes to put around my shoulders

- Half-marathon training partners (x2)

- To join an Oxfam Trailwalker team

- Plenty of suggestions for new goals, including going to visit Santa in Finland and shaving all of my body hair off

- A stand-up comedy routine for me to perform

Keep ‘em coming. To get through the last 150 goals, I need all the help I can get.

I heard a great quote the other day:-

If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space - Cindy Tillbrook

How true is that?