2009 Resolutions

Each year I look forward to making some new goals for myself. For 2008 I resolved to not look at my stocks, to exercise every day, and to not eat fast food. Sadly this is the first year I can recall where I was not successful in meeting my goals.

It is perhaps an understatement to say that this year was a great year to avoid glancing at stock prices every day. I may well have ended up with an ulcer if I had been watching them the same way I did in 2007 - so no problems meeting this goal, but in 2009 the crying can begin.

Exercising every day turned out to be more challenging than I had bargained for, so I fall into the major fail category here. I made it about five months doing my little push-ups and curls, with a couple occasions within that five months where I fell asleep before exercising because I had a couple adult beverages.

I completely avoided fast food as defined in my resolution through all of 2008. I look forward to partaking in my first fast food of 2009, which I have decided will be a beef chalupa supreme from Taco Bell.

Given my failure with exercising and it's link to drinking I have a set of 2009 resolutions that will hopefully be more realistic to achieve and tie into "work nights".

First, I will not drink alcohol or eat dinner out when I have work the next day. Here are a few points of clarification. This means no drinking at a BBQ or party on Sunday - including the Super Bowl. I can go out to dinner on Friday or Saturday and I can have alcohol on those days. The only exception to this rule is if there is a work related social thing such as a happy hour - and in that case I could have no more than two drinks. I do go out to eat for my lunches at work, so that will still be permitted - but I am not able to go out to eat for lunch on Sunday.

Here are a couple more related to work days. Each day at work I will spend one hour programming, reading about programming, or studying for industry certifications (I think this is going to be the toughest resolution). I will also get some exercise by taking a walk every day at work. No set distance on that walk, but I think I can do around two miles a day.

Here are the last few. In 2009 I vow to take more pictures than I did in 2008. I've been in a slump for a while, and I think it's high time I got back in the saddle so to speak. I plan to read (and by read I mean listen to audio book) at least one book each month. Last, I want to be in relatively good shape for our Smith Mountain Lake vacation in July, so I will stay under 175 until that point.

That is about all. Hopefully I can be more successful this year than last.