Another year, another post

Merry New Year!

No, wait, that's not it.

Ho-hum New Year!

No, no. Uh... gee...

Oh, wait, I've got it!

Happy New Year!!

Or something like that.

Ok, so it's a new year, which means that it's time to come up with some new year's resolutions. As I've said in the past, I tend to think that resolutions are mostly silly because it is usually only a matter of (a short) time before those resolutions are broken/forgotten/ignored. I'm not particularly interested in self-improvement, but I do have a small set of goals for the year.

Number 1: More guitar practice. As I suspected, getting the Godin really encouraged me to play more. Of course, it also highlighted the fact that, despite hacking away at it for seven years, I still can't play the damned thing. I'm going to try to find a way to get in at least 1 hour of practice in a day. This is one that Andrea probably won't be too happy about, but I'll try to find some way to do this without impacting her time too much. :)

Number 2: Another marathon. I ran the Bluenose marathon back in 2005 (as I talked about lots here) and I've been trying desperately to run another one, but something always gets in the way. In 2006, I was sick for about 4 months, making training impossible. In 2007, I was sick for almost 6 months and ended up off the continent for race weekend. I'll be starting up my training tomorrow (Jan 2nd) and hopefully I'll stay healthy this time through. If not, I'll try for one of the summer or fall marathons. My knees aren't too happy these days, so this may be my last kick at the can.

Number 3: Finish the damned DVD inventory system. I've been working on this thing off and on (mostly off) for the last 4(?) years now. I've been using this as a tool for learning/using new technologies. The problem is that it is taking so long that technologies change before I finish. It started out just going to be some sort of Perl-based app. Then it was going to be JSP. Then I decided to use Struts for the GUI. Then Struts 2 came out. I'm hoping a Struts 2 book becomes available soon, since it's been hard to find the documentation I'm looking for online. At this rate, even Duke Nukem Forever will be released before I finish.

Number 4: This one is a bit of a stretch goal - more writing. In particular, more blog updates. I come up with things I want to write about all the time, but writing is a slow process for me. I'm also still wrestling with the scope of this blog. My life isn't interesting enough to be any sort of diary. I like technology and various "toys", so I'd like to focus on those topics whenever I can. Certainly, I'm hoping to do better than one post every 4 or 5 months. :)

See? That's a pretty short list, and there's nothing too outrageous there. Let's see how I do.