And so it begins.
Today Stacey and I start the third annual little sojourn in to the world of meatless living. For the month of March we will abstain from consuming the flesh of animals. Much to the distress of my grandmother, it turns out that a fish is indeed in the animal kingdom, and consuming its muscle tissue would break our rules. Tonight we dine on vegetarian chili, should be a tasty month of alternative eating.
Somewhere between 1976 and 1987 Stevie Nicks went from hot, to not hot. The scientific world has been battling with the question of when that exact moment was – I look to you to bring us closer to that answer. Thank you and god bless.
Bummer, I did not accomplish all my goals for 2009. That said, I still feel I did quite well in 2009.
First resolution was to “not drink alcohol or eat dinner out when I have work the next day”. This one was a win, and as far as I can tell it is a habit I will continue to follow.
The next one was, “Each day at work I will spend one hour programming, reading about programming, or studying for industry certifications”. There were many nights drifting off to sleep with a Python book or some BGP test material. I actually made it until nearly Thanksgiving before I failed at this one (the excuse is that I was too engrossed in a project at work to spend time on this). Anyhow, it made for a remarkably productive year. I passed the Cisco BGP test and managed to get fairly sharp at Python (oh, and put up a fairly comprehensive Python tutorial podcast).
I also vowed to go on a walk every work day. I did some serious walking in the last year. I typically go for a walk in the morning for a couple miles, then one at night for a couple more, with a mile or two spread out throughout the day. Unfortunately, there was one Friday where I did not get outside to walk or walk while at work – dahhh, so close, but missed that one day.
I also wanted to “read” a book every month – which mostly meant audiobooks. Although there is no doubt I polished off at least 12 in 2009, I certainly did not complete one in every calendar month – so I fail. I did polish off Atlas Shrugged, which is pretty darn large – and I read an honest to goodness dead trees book, The Cuckoo’s Egg.
Thanks to the walking I had no trouble keeping my weight under control this year. I probably weighed in around 20lbs beneath my threshold when we went to the lake. Mission accomplished.
I only came up with one resolution this year. I will walk every street and path in my community, Countryside. I’ve been tracking my progress on a Google Map with the Tracks android application. The tough part of this will be all the paths through the wetlands down toward the Potomac – some of them are muddy nearly the entire year. Anyhow, I think I just need a year of setting the bar slightly lower to recoup.
View Countryside Walking in a larger map
