It came 3rd!! Say what now?
April 21, 2011 § 1 Comment
By ‘It’ I mean Me. Moi. Polly. Polly M.
thirdscoop
But how did this happen, Polly. I thought you thought you were 16th?
Picture the scene – I had (literally) just posted yesterday’s blog edition about my 16th place finish and then logged into the Keas Health Challenge like any other day….
Top of my Keas Health Challenge Homepage:
a tiny banner that filled me with nervous anticipation...
Ooh. I say (yes, out loud).
I click….
I am stunned. You see, I was proudly wearing my ‘Polly finished 16th and is very chuffed’ T-shirt (not literally). But there it was in the lovely rainy/cold light of day:
polly came 3rd?
I was in genuine disbelief (along with a little jumping up and down). Seriously, though, how could this be? After all, I had maintained a top twenty (ish) position throughout most of the challenge and was feeling very self-important health-wise already. Now I was staring at a top five place (and a sweet fifty bucks in prize-winnings).
I quickly picked myself up from the floor, composed myself, and started scribing an email to my ‘contact’ within Keas.com. I had to know how this could be…..
Turns out the Keas Health Challenge is designed so that you are only eligible to win one prize; so any of the team winners from the Top Five Teams could not also be included in the Top Ten Individual placements (they were calculated out of their real finishing place, if you will). I simultaneously felt bad for the real 3rd placed challenger; totally confused; and filled with wonder.
I imagine the Keas.com wonderlings are questioning their genius at this internal algorithm/idea to let winners only win once. Personally, for completely selfish reasons, it is a brilliant plan. It is Genius. Another FIFTY bucks for Polly M. Many thanks.
As mentioned in my previous blog post; I was to fill my Dad in with all the deets during a Skype moment. Now, my Dad is a sweet, funny, caring human who dutifully taught his daughter that ‘honesty’ is a positive character attribute. That said, for some reason, he had to remind me that I had missed out on some points early on and ‘could my daughter have won?’ was on his mind (you probably don’t recall either, I had to go back and remind myself of the reason – the incident known as ‘the pedometer crisis’); he maintains that I should have taken the points anyway since I did the walking just not the pedometer-wearing part (but Dad, the intention of the To-Do was to WEAR a pedometer). Silly Daddy. I know you are rooting for me (which I appreciate) but say, do you have a different moral universe when the word ‘competition’ is involved? Hmm.
For the sake of the 1st placed Challenger I will add that they were a genuine point superstar; hundreds of points clear of the field. Dad, not even a pedometer wearing marathon would have helped. So, I’m still giddy; thank you very much Keas; you are still ‘super awesome‘ in so many ways (and no, not just because of the cashola).
Oh, and to the ‘real’ 3rd place Challenger out there (whoever you are); let’s do a virtual lunch sometime and (so long as the entire bill is under $50..) it’s on me!
Yay!
Keas Health Challenge, the #8 (maybe), and Polly (Part One)…
April 20, 2011 § 1 Comment
So – The Keas Health Challenge reached its climactic conclusion at 1159 hours Sunday, April 17 2011 (PST)….
Does your blog title indicate you came 8th or what?
Erm.. Polly didn’t, no but…
Team Kea Power! did. (I think)* See, we were brilliant healthy beans overall especially since we had maintained our top ten placement for many weeks.
As for Polly M’s final placement – 16th (I think)* I deserve a Yay! for that. There were over 500 players total. Not bad, not bad. (8 + 8 = 16; Polly thinks that is a weird coinky-dink). I definitely think it was a massive success all round (personally, start-up-ery, and co-challengers-ery). I sure feel healthier now than I did twelve weeks ago (and, yes, I have SO much more to say on this but patience, readership).
*(so to the asterisk): I have to caveat my final placement reporting with the fact that I don’t actually know who finished where OFFICIALLY. They (the Keas.com wonderlings) have yet to announce it (or maybe it is a secret winners-only circle of knowledge..).
As is my won’t; I ‘commented’ on this phenomenon and so (perhaps) can confirm the Team Challenge Winners…
HealthyKeas Comment Stream
Polly M: So what was the final outcome? I was going to give a “woo” to the winners but realized that the leader board may have changed since this morning at 0001hrs (military time from Polly there).
Challenger (a.k.a. ‘The Points Assassin’ and Team Brothers and Sisters member): we accept your woo
Does that answer the Team outcome? If so, Woo! to Team Brothers and Sisters. Nice job. Bravo; clearly a healthy probably-family-members group.
Mysteries still remain: who won the individual honours and do I get to take a ‘Polly came 16th and is very chuffed with herself’ victory lap?
questioningscoop
Oh – though I may not have won in the rankings – guess who did receive a lovely FIFTY bucks last week courtesy of Keas.com? Yes, me. I got it simply for filling out the Keas.com survey! Yay!
Believe it or not.
No, Dad, it wasn’t rigged to have me win. Why would they even do that, eh? (note to Dad: I obviously appreciate how highly you imagine Keas.com think of old Polly but I am your daughter; being biased in my favour comes with the territory). I just filled out the survey with my musings on the Keas Health Challenge and got entered into the RANDOM drawing for so doing (yes, I considered the fact that my odds would have improved were I the ONLY one to fill the puppy out).
Though the winners are out there someplace and the challenge is over; fear not on two counts: 1) I will be posting my random in-direct-to-Keas feedback on the Challenge via this blog in coming days; and 2) the aforementioned wonderlings at Keas.com haven’t taken the site down – we are all allowed to keep playing (without the cashola incentive, she adds, but curiously – some weird health things have emerged from this)… Yay!
So as if this long blog post wasn’t enough already:
to be continued…
***LATE BREAKING UPDATE**** @ 9.31am (PST) Polly received the OFFICIAL announcement of winners courtesy of her HealthyKeas Health Stream HomePage thing… (Dad, I can give you the deets when I see you on Skype later; everyone else, sorry, details will be forthcoming either later tonight (PST) or first-thing tomorrow (also PST). oh, Polly! No fair!)
Keas Health Challenge – The Last Seven
April 11, 2011 § 2 Comments
It’s the final week of the Challenge!
The excitement in the virtual air is palpable….
nervouscoop
Team Kea Power! News: alas, we are out of the running for a TOP FIVE cashola-winning finish. Our Team Leader did the maths* early last week; even a last minute concerted effort/dash for the virtual finish line wouldn’t help. All Kea Power! to us, though, we are still maintaining a top ten healthy place (currently 8 out of 234 teams, no less); I think we did a great job.
As for my personal total (and since I haven’t done the maths because I want to hope it ain’t so) there might still be a Top Ten and Fifty Buck Cashola Pot in my future. Time (a.k.a these last seven) will tell, I guess.
Have to be honest, readership, I am SO SAD that it is almost over. The Keas Health Challenge is simply fantastic and I am a lucky one to have played for a spell. It has been a lovely addition to my day. I have been thinking about the personal health effects of this endeavour and will definitely do a conclusion/summary post when the final totals have been calculated (sometime next week).
In terms of some recent KHC nuggets:
Well, last week, in Comment Stream Land** (the feature that gets us all type-chatting to each other in a social-network-esque fashion) there were are few noteworthy moments for Polly M. (read both lovely and a single rather embarrassing one). The lovely moments involved some connections I hope to continue in Beyond KHC Land and related to other Challenger’s positive messages of encouragement and health. Yay!
The embarrassing (a.k.a. a typo) moment involved my referencing another Challenger’s comment by mis-typing their name. Nope, it wasn’t just a typo where you add a letter here or forget a letter there; I literally used a completely different word and though not a word that falls in the ‘rude’ category it was still NOT THE CHALLENGER’S NAME. Poor Form, Polly. You just gotta get someone’s name right, right? For the record, I sincerely hope any amusement gleaned (both here and in KHC Land) was/is at Silly Polly’s expense. To the Keas Health Challenger I mis-referenced; again, my apologies.
Imaginary Reader: Don’t worry, Polly. At least it wasn’t the head honcho of the whole Keas.com thing or anything (now that would have been embarrassing…)
Polly M: erm… well…
And the notes….
*maths – an intentional inclusion of the plural version; that is how us Brits say it. U.S. readers – it’s fine to giggle at this, since from your viewpoint it will likely sound silly WITH an ‘s.’ From my perspective, though, having been culturally exposed to the ‘s’ version my entire life; I am always left hanging for more.
** exactly how many different ‘Lands’ do you reside in, Polly? Will you ever stop adding ‘Land’ to the end of stuff? Erm… probably not (I know at least one person who thinks it is both cute and sassy. Yes, that would be me…).
Sheepish Polly…
April 6, 2011 § 1 Comment
Going back to an earlier promise…..(an update to the Monday-am-horror-moment-mid-dance-cool-down)…
Erm… I have an update coming…*
Silly Polly. She should have logged into keas.com BEFORE writing the post.
scoop o sheep
Yes, all the drama was for naught. Turns out the super humans over in Healthy-Keas.com-Land had me covered: you are meant to ‘report your progress’ on Monday. I need not have fretted so about my lack of reporting during WonderCon and my assumed massive point loss.
Hence my sheepish feeling.
I put ‘report your progress’ in inverted commas because the full extent of my silly-headed-ness relates to this phrasing. Keas.com send a Monday email with that exact subject line: ‘report your progress.’ Yes. I know. Wow. Silly Polly is right.
Somehow, on Monday mornings, my brain translates ‘report your progress’ to mean ‘let’s take a look at how you did last week but you are not permitted to make any updates since the Sunday Night Cut Off has been enforced.’
But there is no Sunday Night Cut Off. ‘Tis just a figment of my imagination.
At 10am Monday when I finally logged in to Keas.com; that new knowledge brought overwhelming relief. If my Kea Power! Team Mates happen to read this, I am hoping that (along with the probable eye-rolling and ‘oh Polly’s') they will share some of that relief. Especially since more than 100 points were at stake and we would have been seriously off the mark. For the record, we are hanging out around 8th place; cashola winnings are if we make it to the Top FIVE….
*and yes, Polly did indeed just re-link to her post containing the link to her original post – gotta keep everyone in the shescoops.com loop, right? (maybe, Polly, but forcing your readership to navigate all over the place, will probably get annoying fast. The idea is to keep enticing them back….).
