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Dave's Thoughts and Plans

Posts Tagged resolutions

2011, Here We Come

Dec 31

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | 1 Comment

Now that I have made the last decision I needed to make for 2010 (which New Year’s Eve party I would be attending) I now face my first 2011 decision: what resolutions should I take with me into the new year as noble goals toward self-improvement?  I’ve been reviewing my choices (from among the 23 or so I put down in the blog over the first part of December) and here’s what I’ve come to:

  • Designate a week where I will reply in the affirmative to every (reasonable) request to go out, hang out and otherwise get out (of my comfort zone).
  • Take Max on a camping trip at least twice, for a period of two or more days each, possibly with other friends involved on the trip too.
  • Track my spending for at least month to create a simple budget.
  • Plan no more than six meals “out” each week for a month, with a “these meals planned” calendar on my fridge at home.

There are a few others that are right over my horizon if I complete these satisfactorily.  Four goals that are relatively timebound should be a good start – we’ll see how it goes!

Finally, thank you, dear reader, for sticking with me during this very interesting and enjoyable year-of-blogs!  I’ll be back in the New Year with some different types of content and I’m sure a few regular-style blogs too.

Happy New Year, everyone! :)

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Year in Review: Resolutions 5

Dec 29

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

Today was a pretty incredible day, even though it feels like I didn’t actually accomplish very much.  I went to pick up a new awesome beanbag chair – a huge one! – through a series of sunny snowshowers, which was surreal.  I also managed to get my new Dance Pad set up with StepMania (the open source version of DDR, thanks Nate and Sam!) along with the old DDR song mixes from the PS2 that Todd and I used to work out to… so the circle is complete!

Onward, to finish up these resolutions!

9. Travel to one of {mainland Asia, Australia, sub-Saharan Africa}.

Hrm.  Well, if I had indeed done any sort of planning on this one beyond simple thought, I might give myself some credit, but the sad truth is that I didn’t.  I got a little wrapped up in other travel this year – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florida/Grand Cayman/Jamaica, San Juan, Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Madison – that I didn’t really ever have the presence of mind to plan out a trip to Asia/Australia/Africa.  This is still a long-term goal of mine, as I love traveling to new places, so I may see what I can do planning-wise next year.  Overall, major failure. :(

10. Stress less.

This one is super difficult to evaluate – am I less stressed now than I was in past years?  In my work, yes, I think so.  Even though I am often busier in my new role as game designer, I am happier and managing it better.  In my social life, it’s kind of a push – I have a lot of great folk I see, but I stress sometimes because of awkwardness among friend groups or because I just don’t have enough energy or time to see them all.  I stressed quite a bit about women this year, but I wouldn’t say that’s particularly different than other years. :D  Overall, I’ll give this the barest of minor successes.  I have a ways to go, but I have started along the path to more stress-free living.

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Year in Review: Resolutions 4

Dec 28

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

Mike and I were just having a conversation about my blog for the year (and how he has been a loyal reader!) when I told him my post about him on 9/1 was the most popular this year.  That of course led him to promote it on FB and Twitter. :)  In the meantime, time to get this series on my prior resolutions finished so we can move on to (specific) resolutions for next year!

7. Go out (as in, social activity outside my normal friend circles) at least three times a month.

I didn’t plan it exactly, but I ended up going out about three times on average to karaoke once the year got rolling, and about once a week on average over the weekend to… something new.  Of the social activities I participated in this year, my favorites were my friend Amy’s performance in Belltown, The Stranger’s Hump (amateur porn film festival) and Event & Adventures’ outing to Comedy Underground with Dhuse and Emily.  Overall, I’m going to give myself a minor success, because although I didn’t exactly go “outside my normal friend circles,” I did strengthen and build quite a few friendships anyway!

8. Study some physics books and take two GRE Physics practice tests – receiving a better score on the latter!

Oof.  I totally bailed on this one.  Physics does still really interest me, and it really bugs me when conversations come up at work that I should be able to contribute to in a scientifically-minded way but can’t because all of my previous knowledge has leaked out.  This goal was probably too ambitious anyway – I should start with a refresher course if I start back into Physics, because the ordered, structured and most importantly *scheduled* activity will be a good starting point.  Overall, major failure! :P

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Year in Review: Resolutions 3

Dec 27

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

I’ve been trying to kickstart this coding project I’ve been meaning to do, but man, the tedium of data access is really bogging me down.  I will probably switch to game designs tomorrow, although tomorrow might be JAM PACKED with ADVENTURE.  We’ll see!

5. Host three different out-of-town friends (or friend-couples) at my place for at least two days each.

Although I have once again spent some of the year taking friends up on offers to stay with them or at least come hang out with them, I was not successful in my plan to get some of them to come out here and stay with me at Casa de Guskin.  Looking back, this was kind of a bad year for friends to visit me in Seattle – not only did I end up doing a ton of travel for work, but I “canceled” our standing PAX plan by going to Amsterdam and I probably levied pressure to visit at my busiest friends – in hindsight, not the greatest plan to acquire visitors!  Overall, moderate failure.

6. Create a pros/cons document for each reasonable career path I could take.

This one is interesting – over the course of the year, I had a pretty major career shift from web developer to game designer (although I was tending toward game-designy projects while still a programmer).  I did spend time categorizing both of those potential career paths, but I didn’t treat a number of others – return to laboratory science, law, some other business role (like entrepreneur).  Still, I did manage to spend a fair bit of thought on this one in the course of making my career change.  Overall, minor success!

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Year in Review: Resolutions 2

Dec 26

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

This vacation has been nice and relaxing so far, but I don’t feel like I’m getting anything done, exactly.  Which is an odd feeling to have on a vacation, but still.   I have been trying to finish World of Goo, which I have hilariously owned for a while courtesy Sam, but got stuck and left it (not wanting to get overly frustrated by it), and may move on to other video games after that.  I have two games to design and a project to code – I just need to get myself back into a regular “work at home” schedule!

3. Exercise three times a week.

Unfortunately, exercise is one routine I never really got myself back into, and it shows.  I feel pretty out of shape, have for a while, and haven’t been able to consistently get myself to the gym or any sort of reasonable workout ethic.  Over the past year, I have re-started workouts in fits and starts, but never more than twice in a week and often with many weeks skipped.  I *do* have this new DDR workout program going – five days in a row now! – so that’s been helping, but still, mission unsuccessful.  Overall: minor failure.

4. Prepare food for myself at least seven times a week (counting breakfast).

Interestingly, both resolutions today are ones I have been doing much much better at over this holiday break!  I would say that over the course of the year, just like exercise, I have attempted to cook for myself in short runs, and done okay at it.  Especially over the latter half of the year, I have been failing at this goal, but within the last week I have already prepared myself a good 12 meals or so!  So this one is looking up, but I won’t exactly make up the shortfall by year end. :)  Again, getting into an automatic routine never happened with food prep at home.  Overall: another minor failure.

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Year in Review: Resolutions 1

Dec 25

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

I kind of ran out of new resolutions to make, so we’ll leave it at an awkward 23.  As I mentioned before, I don’t think I’ll be doing ALL of them, but I do intend to pick a few to start with by the start of the new year.  So, how did this past year’s resolutions go?  Not particularly well, honestly.  I’ll be evaluating myself on them over the course of the next few days.  Luckily, today is thumbs up for me!

1. Write one blog entry a day.

I think I nailed this one.  Although there were some days I posted late (the cruise, work trips where I forgot, etc.), the record shows I do indeed have a blog per day for the year to date.  More than that, I really feel like I wasn’t making excuses-for-blogs, and I felt like I connected with the correct part of my mind in terms of lettings my thoughts and feelings out onto the page.  If you were to tell me at the start of the year how detailed and widely-varied my topics in this blog were going to be, and how open I ended up being in it, I would not have believed you.  Overall, major success!

2. Spend five hours each week on personal “side projects” – websites, games, etc.

On average, I think I have been spending more like two per week, and I haven’t really completed anything.  I think the biggest problem with this goal is that although it is measurable, it is not appropriate – I think I would have been much better served choosing a side project and resolving to complete it.  When I made Breeze, I definitely felt like the primary motivator of completing it so others could use it worked very well for pushing me forward.  Overall, minor success (I did contribute to this resolution, after all) with an eye toward re-statement in the future!

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#23: Talk the Talk

Dec 23

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

One of the things I really enjoyed doing last year (that is, 2009) was taking some classes with Bill to learn Italian prior to traveling to Rome.  Granted, I didn’t put a ton into it – I enjoy learning, and did it relatively well, but I was/am far from fluent and I was barely able to hold conversations with folk in Rome about food.  It did teach me something valuable, though (well, more than Italian itself), which is that I am much more motivated to learn when there’s a goal for the use of the newly-gained knowledge in sight.  That goal was the trip to Italy Bill and I took in December, and when I set travel plans for next year, I could get a similar learn-test track going with a different language (or even Italian again).

So, I’d like to learn a language.  But more important than learning the language is being comfortable speaking it.  I made it all the through the Spanish series in high school, even passing the Spanish AP exam, but I could never really speak it (just read, write and understand).  It’s really important to me to be able to hold my own in a conversation with a native, so that’s my target.  I haven’t decided what language yet (that will probably be influenced by my travel plans), but I’ve got a good feeling about shooting to learn one next year.

23. I resolve to learn a language to the point where I could hold a reasonable conversation with a native speaker, and then apply my skills on a trip to a destination where that language is primary.

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#22: Yes Man

Dec 22

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | 2 Comments

So, I may have mentioned this previously, but two of my friends – Lee and Michelle – mentioned how much success they’ve been having with saying “yes” to going out / doing things pretty much all the time.  Both have also had an excellent year, by the sounds of it, so I am intrigued.  I tend to be a bit conservative with my time – I don’t go to every event I can, due to a variety of excuses, some of which are reasonable (need to get home to feed Max) and some of which are less so (I don’t feel like socializing that day).  I could definitely see a lot of benefit to “letting go” of my inhibitions in this way and just going with the flow, at least for some period of time – I don’t think I could do it indefinitely because I am genuinely afraid of losing that much control over my life.  (Maybe that’s crazy, but oh well!)

Anyway, I think a wonderful experiment would be to take a week and just show up for everything I get invited to, go out with any friend who asks, and say “yes” (within reason) to everything asked of me.  I am posting this publicly, so I’m putting some trust in my friends (*cough* you know who you are) who might take advantage of me during this period, but I guess I’m not saying when I will do it, so that point may be moot!  As I am well aware, you can’t meet new people unless you put yourself in a position to meet new people, and you can’t have new experiences unless you are out, well, experiencing.

22. I resolve to designate a week where I will reply in the affirmative to every (reasonable) request to go out, hang out and otherwise get out (of my comfort zone).

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#21: Fashionable

Dec 21

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | No Comments

This is kind of an odd subject, but I feel like I could use more style in my life.  I understand the backwardness of trying to plan out a hip look, rather than let it flow more naturally from who I am.  I have never really had any “lessons” in how to dress or how to look good in any normal sense.  I am a pretty good mimic, so I can copy friends and how they look a little bit, but most everything else has just been my personal opinion about what looks good on me.  Fashion sense seems like it’s both about how other people perceive you, and how you perceive yourself.  I am not too worried about the self-perception thing; in fact, if anything, a change in my wardrobe or general style might be well suited to making me more comfortable with myself. (That construction was a little awkward… but you get the picture!)

One thing I considered was ties – I already wear collared shirts to work most of the time, and wearing a tie is an interesting in-between to suited up and my normal “work clothes.”  I do wonder whether being more formal than I already am (basically button-down shirt and jeans, nothing too fancy) will have a negative impact on people I hang out with.  Only one way to find out, I guess!  Other possibilities: wacky hat, more color coordination/variation (I have no real sense about this; I just like the color blue), a better overall plan for stuff to wear across multiple days (as opposed to “whatever is clean and handy and I feel like that day).

Then again, maybe this just isn’t worth worrying about?

21. I resolve to take a closer look at how I dress and my general “style,” possibly with consultation with friends, and spend at least a week doing something different with my overall look.

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#20: Snail Mail

Dec 20

Posted by davetron in Blog2010 | 3 Comments

I kind of loathe receiving mail in the mailbox.  Like, we are in the future now – why waste all that paper?  I appreciate the occasional postcard and envelope from friends, and I definitely enjoy packages that are shipped to me, but there’s a ton more junk in my mailbox than those things… what the heck?  All of the notices that I am receiving because they are important would be better served by being in my email inbox (which I check compulsively) and all of the ads and credit card offers would be better served by being on fire.

So, I want to take on a small mission to eliminate the junk in my mailbox.  It should theoretically be possible to contact and pester the various places that are sending me things and tell me to either (a) send it electronically (where my “spam” filter is much better!) or (b) discontinue sending it at all.  I realize that this will likely be an uphill battle, where even being on the phone with various marketers is likely digging me into a pit, but maybe I can trick them into dropping me from their mailing lists or something.  It may take some thought, but oh how nice it would be to receive only useful mail.

20. I resolve to reduce the waste in my mailbox to as close to zero as possible, while still receiving important mail from friends &c.

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