New Year's Resolutions for 2008

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

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

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”
Edith Lovejoy Pierce

• SAME AS LAST YEAR: TENNIS AND THE WEIGHTS

Same as last year's failed resolution.

STATUS: Failed miserably. Again.

• SAME AS LAST YEAR: LUNCH

  Same as last year's failed resolution.

  STATUS: Failed miserably. Again.

• SOLVANG CENTURY BIKE RIDE!
  

  My sister has challenged me and I have accepted. 100 miles is more tedious to ride than exhausting, although it is that; my butt, however, is already sore thinking about that athletic feat. But it will be fun to do with Katie, as we make a weekend out of it, and it is an excuse to work out harder.

  STATUS: Although sick as a dog and having not trained at all for months, I still performed very well in this race, albeit at onely 50 miles. Coughed like a comsumptive during the race, however.

• SUMMER WWII BURNS SERIES

  This summer sit down and watch it from beginning to end and absorb it.
  

  STATUS: No go, but there is plenty of time for this treat. No worries here.

• HELP OUT MARIA MORE OFTEN

Clean up more around the house and ease the crushing burden that rests on us working parents.

STATUS: Not bad at all! I am doing pretty well here.

• CSS AND FLASH

Take all you have leared in the past month about CSS and modify existing web addresses accordingly. Not a small job for summer of 2008.

STATUS: Pretty good here. Tedious and time consuming, but I learned and can do it.

• RSS FEEDS

  Figure this out from the top to bottom. All work lectures in digital format in RSS feeds.

  STATUS: Pretty darn good here, although getting everything done into an RSS feed will take a few years.

• FLAT SCREEN HDTV

Over the course complete HDTV purchase by building home theater with digitial reciever and 7.1 sound system.

STATUS: Done. And done well.

• START A 457 AND 529 SAVINGS PLAN

Same as last year, except I have an appointment with the money guy in early January of 2008.

STATUS: Half way there.

• MEMORIZE POEMS

For Julia I will memorize poems and recite them to her as a game as she grows and learns to talk. My wife can read those farcical children's books with her, as I cannot. You already know quite a few poems by heart, but add these (at least) to the list: "Verse of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien, "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "Holy Sonnet X" by John Donne, "Poema Quince" by Pablo Neruda, "Tears, Idle Tears" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, Shelley's "Political Greatness" and "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keat's "Ode to Melancholy" by John Keats.

STATUS: What was I thinking? More to the point, I memorized "Baby Beluga" and "The Wheels on the Bus." Someday this might be more relevant.

• CTEL MESS

Pass that damn test and put a final end to the miserable waste of time played out over no less than 16 years which has been my teacher certification program.

STATUS: Total success. And total waste of my precious, limited time.

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

Surprising for the circumstances, I gained good reading momentum from last year which I hope to keep up:

STATUS: I read many fewer books for work, but that seems totally fine with me. It was a good year of reading good books and watching good movies, considering that I had a baby in the house and was busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger.

First Rung:

• "Anabasis: The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
  • (DID READ - dissapointed)
• "The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s" by H.W. Brands
  • (DID READ - much denser than I thought it would be)
• "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life" by Robert Reich
  • (DID READ)
• "Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie"
  • (DID READ)
• "Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness" by Edward Abbey
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Under God: Religion and American Politics" by Gary Wills
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Truman" by David McCullough
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Conquest of Gaul" by Julius Caesar
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Man in the High Castle" and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Phillip Dick
  • (DID READ SHEEP - WEIRD!)
• "The House of Mirth" by Edith Wharton
  • (DID READ - not much mirth in this book)
• "Tested" by Linda Perlstein
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Generation Kill" by Evan Wright
  • (DID READ)
• "The Great Expectations School" by Dan Brown
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" by Kaylie Jones
  • (DID READ)
  "Personal Memoirs" by Ulysses S. Grant
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union" by Robert Remini
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944" by Richard Atkinson
  • (DID READ)
• "Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion" by Edward J. Larson
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Age of Reform" by Richard Hofstadter
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
  • (DID READ - interesting character study!)
• "The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861" by David Potter
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste" by Tom Hodgkinson
  • (DID NOT READ
• "Beaufort" by Ron Leshem and Evan Fallenberg
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Fifth Woman" by Henning Mankell
  • (DID READ)
• "Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds" by Joanne Jacobs
  • (DID READ)
• "Living My Life" by Emma Goldman
• (DID READ)
• "The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star" by Nikki Sixx
  • (DID READ)
• "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell
  • (DID READ)
• ""Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times" by Studs Terkel
  • (DID READ)
• "First Do No Harm" by Lisa Belkin
• (DID READ)
• "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder
  • (DID READ)
• "The Abstinence Teacher" by Tom Perrotta
• (DID READ)
• "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland" by Bill Holm
  • (DID READ - intriguing voice in a minor way)
• "No Man Knows My Name: The Life of Joseph Smith" by Fawn M. Brodie
  • (DID READ)
• "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
  • (DID READ - sheriff's musing most interesting!!)
• "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by Barack Obama
  • (DID READ)
• "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" by Barack Obama
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Teaching Life: Letters from a Life in Literature: by Dale Salwak
  • (DID READ - first half worth reading, if only to remind myself what I dislike in traditional academics)
• "Equus" by Peter Shaffer
  • (DID READ)
• "The Given Day” by Dennis Lehane
  • (DID READ)

Second Rung: On the radar screen but longer-term goals:

• "Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Native Son" by Richard Wright
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "McTeague" by Frank Norris
  • (DID NOT READ)
    
    
• MAKE SOME KIND OF DENT ON THE NETFLIX QUEUE WITH THE NEW FLATSCREEN LCD TELEVISION--

• "Harlan County"
  • (DID NOT WATCH)
• "Into the Wild"
  • (VIEWED)
• "This is England"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Philadelphia" There is much to mine here! Watch this film again carefully.
  • (DID NOT WATCH)
• "There Will Be Blood"
  • (VIEWED)
• "3:10 to Yuma"
  • (VIEWED, better than expected)
• "28 Weeks LAter"
  • (VIEWED- like predecessor, scaring the bejesus out of me)
• "The Fog of War"
  • (VIEWED - self-serving and a bit of a let-down, but worth viewing, in a minor way)
• "Amazing Grace"
  • (VIEWED)
• "My Son the Fanatic"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Dark Night"
  • (VIEWED
• "Lions for Lambs"
  • (VIEWED)
• "In the Valley of Elah"
  • (VIEWED
• "Why We Fight"
  • (DID NOT WATCH)
• "Things We Lost in the Fire"
  • (VIEWED)
• Seven Up" series
  • (VIEWED ALL OF IT!)
• "No Country for Old Men"
  • (VIEWED, not bad but book made it much better)
• "Red Belt"
  • (VIEWED)
  "Bella"
  • (VIEWED)
• "American Gangster"
  • (VIEWED)
• "We Own the Night"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Into the Wild" (and read Krackauer book, too!)
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Assassination of Jesse James"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Paradise Now"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Last King of Scotland"
  • (VIEWED)
• Michael Clayton
  • (VIEWED)
• "Atonement" (and read McEwan book, too!)
  • (VIEWED; READ)
• "Rome" HBO series
  • (VIEWED)
• "Thank You For Smoking"
• (VIEWED)
• "Lake of Fire"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Bladerunner," Director's Cut
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Devil Came on Horseback"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Beowulf," Director's Cut
  • (VIEWED)
• "American Gangster"
  • (VIEWED)
• "2006 Giro d'Italia: Benissimo Basso!" "
  • (VIEWED)
• "Rendition"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Saints and Soldiers"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Across the Universe"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
  • (VIEWED PART OF IT)
• "Battlestar Galactica"
  • (VIEWED ENTIRE SERIES UNTIL FOURTH SEASON)
• "The Bucket List"
  • (VIEWED)
• "We Own the Night"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Eastern Promises"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Things We Lost in the Fire"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Sea Inside"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Lions for Lambs"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Four Feathers"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Bella"
  • (VIEWED)
• "August Rush"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Charlie Wilson's War"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Into the Wild"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Cloverfield"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Great Debaters"
  • (VIEWED)
• "American Experience: Alexander Hamilton"
  • (VIEWED)
• "American Experience: Walt Whitman"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Woodie Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Pete Seeger: The Power of Song"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Bruce Springsteen: Videobiography"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Flight That Fought Back"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Gone Baby Gone"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Perfect Score"
  • (VIEWED)
• "American Experience: The Mormons"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Fidel Castro: American Experience"
  • (VIEWED)
• Frontline: Growing Up Online"
  • (VIEWED)
• "In the Womb"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Terra Incognita: Stem Cells"
  • (VIEWED)
• "What Would Jesus Buy?"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Shooting Henry Hill"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Equus"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Andrew Cargnegie and the Age of Steel"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Spartacus"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Evolution: The Mind's Big Bang / What About God?"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Hancock"
  • (VIEWED)
• Mountain Patrol: Kekexili
  • (VIEWED)
• "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Dark Knight"
  • (VIEWED)