New Year’s 2003

Wow - another year has come and gone. The older I get (and it’s not like I’m that old, but hey) the faster the years seem to go.

2002 was a particularly rough year near the end. We had a death in the family, with my wife’s great-grandmother passing away. My stepdad developed lung cancer again, and also got pneumonia right before Christmas, so he was in the hospital during Christmas.

Aside from the hospital stuff, Christmas was actually a nice highlight. We got some nice stuff. For the first year ever since I’ve owned a console video game system, I didn’t put any games on my list. The only game that would have been there was Metroid Prime anyways, and my wife picked that up for me due to my academic performance in the fall. We got two blenders and are going to take one back and get a nice pot, I got the most awesome blanket from ThinkGeek.com. I also got the Crystal Stix I’d mentioned in a prior post. Lots of other great things, like the newest Trivial Pursuit, genus 5. It’s amazing, I actually know some of the questions now, and two copies of Monopoly. I now own a normal copy, the dot.com edition (which is a riot in and of itself, because it was just prior to the big bust, so half of the sites don’t even exist anymore), and now The Simpsons version and a Pedigree Dog Food version for Dog Lovers. I didn’t even know they made that, but my mom said it was $2.99 with a proof of purchase, so they got it anyways. I’m on the fast track to being a big monopoly collector.

So, with all that behind, a new year is starting, and like always, I have a few resolutions. I think most people make them, but only hang on for a few weeks if that. I’ve actually done pretty good in the past with resolutions, or at least a few months longer than the average. I’ve got quite a bit in mind this year.

First and foremost, I want to work on being the best husband I can be. Sometimes I make some stupid mistakes, but in the end she still loves me and forgives me. I can’t ask for more than that. I don’t really deserve such a loving wife, and I’m glad she sticks with me. I want to be the best I can be for her.

Secondly, like most people, I want to lose some fat. Now, I don’t necessarily mean weight. It seems that when I work out, my weight stays about the same, but my muscle tone definitely changes. I have a big frame, I’m going to be statistically overweight most likely anyways, so I want to get the fat out and work up that muscle. Not like I’m some muscle-guy, but hey, it’s nice to look good and feel good about yourself.

Third, I’d like to work more on my supposed computer hobbies, if you can believe that. If you look at any of the main blog sites that I post to, you’ll notice that they’re all pretty much un-customized. All use pretty much stock templates with subtle tweaks to make it look a little bit more what I’d like it to look like. My goal is that by my birthday (February 1^st), I’d like to have the main RandomThink.net site totally revamped. My LiveJournal will probably get dumped, or just mirrors of posts. It’s nice and all, but I just prefer the control I get from running my own site. Inherent in this whole “work on my hobbies” bit, I’d like to increase the frequency of my posting. I like posting, it’s very enjoyable and helps to just get it all out at times, but I wind up spending too much time reading comics online or cleaning up my e-mail box. I swear, I wish I were as fastidious with my real life environment as I am with my e-mail box.

I’m thinking of turning the main RandomThink.net page into something else entirely, maybe still a blog but only with the latest post or two, and maybe starting a comic. I’d love to run a comic, but I’m just not creative enough to come up with ideas. I can kinda draw, but I’m not great. However, it appears that you don’t have to even be remotely good to be noticed, so hey, I’m in luck there. I could also be cheap and do it in some sort of vector graphics program, like some of the people out there, so that it’s easy to create a new comic. It just requires creativity and devotion, and I don’t know if I have enough time to really do all that. I wouldn’t mind also maybe turning it into a place to show off odd images, or maybe some sort of message board. I tried the group blog thing, and although a lot of people still can log in and post on the main page, it doesn’t happen. I’d contemplated moving my personal blog to the main page, but I like having a sub-space for that. Helps to keep things a little bit neater and tidier.

For the first time ever, I’m going to triple-cross-post this to all of my main blog sites that I linked above. I won’t do this all the time, but maybe with rather large and detailed posts like this, ones full of thought and some time investment, I might do this cross-posting thing again.

I hope that if you’re still reading this, or even if you just skipped it all and went to the end, that you had a very happy holiday season regardless of what you may or may not celebrate, and that this New Year would bring much joy and happiness into your life. Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts - I hope to bring them to you on a more regular basis now. Happy New Year!