New Year's Resolutions for 2007

NEW YORK TIMES SQUARE:
Two young ladies with specialized eyeglasses await the onslaught of the New Year!

What should I do? Where to go? How to live?

"Our ideals resemble the stars, which illuminate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the men who, like the sailors on the ocean, take them for guides, will undoubtedly reach their goal."
--- Carl Schurz

• SURVIVE UNTIL SUMMER VACATION!
  

  Finish out my monster AmEx classes through final and AP exams, childbirth and new parenthood - and then you can catch your breath all summer and be at home with your baby daughter and wife!

  STATUS: I survived, but it was uglier than I thought it would be. Took me half the summer to recover my health.

• WRITE FOR SELF SEMI-REGULARLY

  Teacher, tend to thine own garden!

  STATUS: This was a smashing success. I cut and crimped my time here and there, but I sat down and wrote a lot last year.

• CONTACT FRIENDS MORE REGULARLY

Even a phone call when they are far away to push away the distance and vicissitudes of time can make all the difference.

STATUS: This modified success.

• UPGRADE COMPUTER

Move to Vista and a new, custom computer in summer in consultation with Jim.

STATUS: A success. Bought parts from Newegg with expert help and assembled computer from scratch: kick-butt video card, two RAIDs, seven internal hard drives, and water-cooled quad-core processor: total success. (But shunned Vista and decided to stay with XP until last possible moment -- a good call!)

• MOVE FROM SD TO HD VIDEO

Make your peace with the new, awesome HD format for shooting and editing.

STATUS: A smashing success, although it will take years for HD burners and HD media to make it to the consumer. Bottom line: I have hours and hours of HD video of baby daughter -- and this will be a smashing success that pays dividends years and years from now. My experience out on the "bleeding edge" of technology was an expensive success.

• TENNIS AND THE WEIGHTS

You spent significant money getting everything ready, so why let it lay fallow? The bike is great fun and all, but diversify your workouts. It is simply a matter of will.

STATUS: Total failure.

• LUNCH

  There must be some way I can quickly and easily get a filling meal inside me while at work! Power and granola bars at my desk are just not enough...

  STATUS: Total failure.

• START A 457 AND 529 SAVINGS PLAN

Start plans for putting money before taxes for Julia's college and our retirement.

STATUS: At least I got the ball rolling...

• BUY NEW CAR AT END OF SUMMER

Perhaps a Honda CRV that is more baby capable?

STATUS: Done!

• POST TO BLOGSITE MORE OFTEN

Post little snip-its, like my students do, if necessary; it is better than six months without a posting.

STATUS: This was a smashing success. Very great sense of fulfillment!

• VISIT BRIAN IN MOORPARK AND JOSH IN VENTURA

Why have you lived here for six years and still have no friends in Ventura County?

STATUS: Not great on this one but not a total failure.

• RENEW PROFESSIONAL LICENSE

Just because it is stupid paperwork does not mean it is unimportant.

STATUS: Done.

• MAKE SOME KIND OF DENT IN THE "TO READ" BOOK PILE --

This year will be even more pressed for time than usual, but I have a modest book list:

First Rung:

• "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Harvey Karp
  • DID READ - was useless when baby arrived)
• "On Becoming Baby Wise: The Classic Sleep Reference Guide Used by Over 1,000,000 Parents Worldwide" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam
  • (DID READ - directly contradicts Karp book, leavning me confused)
• "What to Expect the First Year" by Heidi Murkoff,
  • (DID READ -- kind of helpful in an abstract way, but not much in the face of real life challenges of taking care of an infant)
• "Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter When She's Growing Up So Fast" by Joe Kelly
  • (DID READ - a few jems but much politically correct mush about women and role of media blah blah blah)
• "Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance" by Ian Buruma
  • (DID READ -much food for thought here...)
• "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military" by Husain Haqqani
  • (DID READ - what a fucked up country!)
• "1776" by David McCollough
  • (DID READ - giving middlebrow history a bad name)
• "Illness as a Metaphor" by Susan Sontag
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "One Bullet Away" by Nathaniel Fick
  • (DID READ - great book)
• "The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order" by Michael Howard
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The March: A Novel" by E. L. Doctorow
  • (DID READ - not great, not bad)
• "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
  • (DID READ - a harrowing novel that unexpectedly redeems itself in last few pages)
• "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright
  • (DID READ - a most enlightening read)
• "Sleep Where I Fall" by Peter Coyote
  • (DID READ -- enjoyed it much)
• "The Cult of the Amateur" by Andrew Keen
  • (DID READ -- muckraker non-fiction, just a bit of grain among the chaff)
• "Living My Life" by Emma Goldman
  • (DID READ -- one of the best books I have read in some time!)
• "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
  • (DID READ --Lives up to its sterling reputation)
• "A Class Apart" by Alex Klein
  • (DID READ -- a quicker read than the numbers of pages suggested)
• "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson
  • (DID READ -- uneven, with flashes of brilliance; unsettling)
• States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 by Forrest McDonald
  • (DID READ -- a great book that shows academic history need not be tedious and arcane!)
• The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher" by Debby Applegate
  • (DID READ -- worth the read, but only barely)
• "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick
  • (DID READ -- boring)
• "God is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens
  • (DID READ -- enjoyed Hitchens and his rhetorical gymnastics as always, but did not shares his vitriol towards religion generally)
• The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy)" by Rick Atkinson
  • (DID READ -- bought hardback and read entire book within week of publication)
• "The House of Mirth" by Edith Wharton
  • (DID READ - distinctly unmirthful)
• "All the President's Men" by Robert Penn Warren
  • (DID READ -- what an interesting book!)
• "Children of Men" by P.D. James
  • (DID READ - fascinating first few pages, less strong from there)
• "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby
  • (DID READ - overgrown man-child protagonist embarassment to our sex)
• "The Kobayashi Maru" by Julia Ecklar
  • (DID READ -- junk food read)

• Second Rung:

• "Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines
  • (DID READ - not bad; not great)
• "Family First" by Dr. Phil McGraw
  • (DID READ - waste of time and common-sensical)
    
    
• MAKE SOME KIND OF DENT ON THE NETFLIX QUEUE--

• "Harlan County" (Only watched first installment -- too depressing!)
• "The Farmer's Wife" (Only watched first installment -- too depressing!)
• "Philadelphia" There is much to mine here! Watch this film again carefully.
• "Sexy Beast" (Viewed)
• "The Lives of Others" (Viewed)
• "Syriana" (Viewed)
• "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" (Viewed)
• "So Goes the Nation" (Viewed)
• "Half Nelson" (Viewed)
• "La Sierra" (Viewed)
• "The Departed" (Viewed)
• "Blood Diamond" (Viewed)
• "Cvilization" series with Ken Clark (Viewed entire thing)
• "Dopamine" (Viewed)
• "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (Viewed)
• "Children of Men" (Viewed)
• "Babel" (Viewed)
• "The Pursuit of Happyness" (Viewed)
• "The History Boys" (Viewed)