New Year’s Resolutions

I’ve made new year’s resolutions for years, but I’ve never documented them anywhere. They’ve just been something I’ve kept in my mind and strove for as the twelve months unfolded. One year (1991?) I made it my goal to read everything by Dr. Seuss. Another year (2004), I made it my goal to learn to juggle and to read all the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories.

Of course, there are always the ‘big’ goals: eat better, exercise more, and – on a more personal note – move out of this house. Those are all good things to strive for, but I don’t consider them new year’s resolutions. I usually reserve the fun stuff for new year’s resolution. So here’s some fun stuff I want to accomplish this year:

1) Learn to yo-yo.
I can do the boring part, where you let gravity grab the yo-yo and then let momentum bring it back into your hand. But I want to learn the fun stuff. Owen loves his two yo-yos, and I am now the proud owner of one myself. I used part of my Xmas gift (a certificate to Amazon.com) to purchase a book on yo-yo techniques, so once it arrives I’ll begin in earnest.

2) Brush up on my German
I used to be pretty decent at travel German. Alas, I let it slide. It’s time to get some tapes and listen to them in the car once again.

3) Read “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn”
My wife tells me they’re good reads, and I do like 19th Century fiction. So I guess it’s time I tackle these.

4) Run in a race
Yeah, I’ve done this two years in a row now, but I want to do it again. In early November, the company I work for organizes a 6K race, so that’s my race of choice, if possible, again this year.

5) Edit the wedding video
Our wedding was video-taped by two people, for a total of 4 hours of footage. My goal is to finally dump all that into my computer and edit it down to a watchable 1 hour (or less) video. I hope to have it done by our anniversary. Maybe we could give a copy of the video to our friends and family members as kind of a reverse anniversary gift. If I can do this by August, then I hope to…

6) Preserve other old videos
Specifically, my graduation party, a for-the-heck-of-it party I attended in 1988 and something called “Explorations in Videotaping” are all languishing on VHS tape, degrading more and more with each passing year. I’d like to at least get these into digital format by year’s end.

And, finally…
7) Finish my book
If you know me, you know I’ve been writing a book. I started writing it well over a year ago, and I still have several chapters left. I’d like to wrap up the epic this year.

I’ll recap in 365 days.