What I begin with and goals

This is what I'm starting with. Not much but I have a fresh set of strings on it and it's not falling apart (aside from the pick guard). Half of the pegs are broken in it but I have a replacement set just in case and I've also picked up a backup set of strings.
Also going for it this nice little Harmony guitar also has a steel reinforced neck, so it might come in handy if I get into a street fight while playing.

Now I have learned some guitar in the past. In 7th grade I had a class where we learned some basics on the guitar and I've gone through some lessons in books in the past. But I have never really dedicated some real time to learning it. Knowing that I've tried and failed in the past I want to have real realistic goals.
First I want to learn the basic chords. I don't need to know everything but with about 4 - 8 chords you can play a lot of songs.
I also want to get used to a couple of different strumming patterns and more importantly I want to be able to recognize the strumming cues in tab (if there are any) and be able to hear the key differences in songs. This will make it easier for me to learn more without having to do rote memorization every time.
Now this one is the big one. I want to be able to play through at least 5 songs without looking at the tabs/sheet music. If I want to be able to make it through live performing I should have enough material to make it through about half an hour, and because I'll be outside I don't want to deal with sheet music. This will also be interesting because I need to have songs that are easy enough for me to learn them but popular enough and appropriate for public performance. I won't be sitting next to a campfire so singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" wouldn't seem like a good choice.
I am intentionally not focusing on picking or finger work. If I have enough time I would like to learn some basics but I feel that chords will be a better focus for my time, but then again the experts may disagree........ I'll look into that for my next post.

The Project

I've gone for quite some time without having a proper instrument that I play. I've played the alto sax and the bassoon in the past but I don't have either one in my current apartment and there is something about them that just doesn't seem that social, and they aren't exactly the types of things that people would have laying around their homes in case you want to play. I have also been dying to do more singing, so the logical thing was to get a guitar. In this case I ended up taking an old acoustic on permanent loan from my dad. I threw some new strings on the beat up thing and messed around with it a bit but wasn't getting far.
With the weather getting nicer and living so close to Cambridge I thought of an interesting way of motivating myself, become a street performer.
Now nobody would appreciate someone practicing scales and messing up chords while they are trying to enjoy a lovely day so I'm giving myself a little prep time and that's where the 30 days come in. I have guitar, just picked up my street performers permit and I have my voice in good enough working shape. I'm giving myself 30 days to learn guitar and then success or not I'm hitting the streets!