So, last year, I made a number of resolutions. Some of them worked out, some didn’t. Here’s how it went:
Health:
1.) Any meals purchased from the cafe downstairs at work will be split in two, half of which will be saved for the next day.
* While I worked at EA, I was pretty successful at this. That only lasted ’till mid-April, but I’d still call it a success.
2.) Exercise at home at least twice a week, if successful, monthly rewards will be applied.
* This didn’t really turn out, though throughout the early and middle parts of the year, I succeeded at getting to the Y more than twice a week. This completely fell apart once Ei-Nyung and I started working at different places, because we no longer had to abide by a routine that had us both getting up at the same time. I hope to resume this in the new year, but need to figure out some sort of motivation to get me out of bed in the morning early enough to get to the pool.
3.) Lose 10 lbs. by wedding, so as not to look like a fatass in pictures. Develop an stick to a schedule to do so. (see step 2, above)
* Not quite. By about a month after the wedding, I’d definitely converted about 10 lbs. of fat into muscle, but I wouldn’t call it a success, in large part because by the end of the year, it’d all converted back. Alas.
4.) Strengthen knee, prior to the honeymoon, that walking around London or Paris is not problematic (min. 5K on a treadmill in one go)
* This I was actually completely successful at. I could run a 5K on a treadmill by the time we went to Paris, and I successfully walked around way more than I would have been able to handle at the beginning of the year. Again, fitness-wise, that’s fallen off towards the end of the year, but for this goal, it was a success.
Games:
1.) Play “good” games to completion
* Hm. I’ve finished more games this year than in years past, and bought fewer games this year than last. I’ve still got a huge-ass stack of games that aren’t finished, but progress is in the right direction, still. I don’t think I’m ever going to finish the majority of my games – I’m just not interested in doing so for most games – they just have too much padding/filler. Games like Gears of War, that are really tight from start to finish… those things, I’ll almost always finish.
2.) Borrow more games from the IRC, instead of purchasing games, unless an understanding of the game requires extensive play, or immediate availability.
* Complete and total failure. 😀
3.) When I know that I am not likely to finish a game, anymore, put it away, so it does not clutter public space. Consider selling, or trading it.
* Improvement, but not success. I’ve traded a fistful of games (via cheapassgamer or TGF) that I knew I wasn’t going to play, at times when I could get decent deals for them. I also put away most of my PS2/Xbox games into a bookshelf, so they weren’t cluttering too much public space.
4.) Only ONE new console purchase this year, unless required by work.
* Sort of success, sort of not. On one hand, I bought only a DS Lite, and Ei-Nyung & her family bought me a 360. But I’d say it’s still sort of a failure. On the plus side, no Wii or PS3 for me this year.
Computer:
1.) Don’t spend so much time at home on the computer.
* A wash.
Mornings:
1.) Do not use the computer before leaving for work, for more than 10 minutes.
* A success while we were going to the gym. A failure afterwards.
TV:
1.) No more than an hour of TV per day – real time, not TiVo time. (excluding games and movies)
* A failure in every way. Battlestar Galactica was too good to pass up, as was House. I probably watched less “idle” TV – when there wasn’t something I was explicitly interested in watching, I’d get up and do other stuff, but still, that’s really grasping at straws.
Movies:
1.) Watch 1 movie per month that we already own, but haven’t yet seen.
* Probably 8/12 months were a success. We’ve still got a big backlog of movies we haven’t seen, though.
2.) Only purchase movies I know I will watch more than five times in three years.
* Movie purchases slowed way down this year, which was good. I’d pick up a couple movies at sales from the local Blockbuster, where I’d get 4/$20, and I’d only get movies I thought I’d watch a couple times, at least. So, in terms of money spent, it was a big improvement.
Rowing Machine:
1.) Fix Clutch
* Nope
2.) Use
* Nope. We moved the rowing machine into the garage to free up space in one of the rooms, once we got the Y membership. I think it’s a fine trade-off, though. One of these days, when we have space to spare (and we do), I’ll bring it back up and use it.
Stuff:
2.) Recycle magazines that are more than two months old.
* Largely done. EGM is the only one I keep hanging around for more than a month, as “bathroom reading,” but everything else has been chucked.
3.) Host a garage sale in June, after purging unwanted items from the garage
* Didn’t happen. Never got off our asses enough. We piled up a bunch of stuff to sell, if we ever had a garage sale, but never actually had the sale. I did manage to sell some stuff via Craigslist, or through work, that we simply weren’t using anymore. Got rid of a BMX bike, an old brown couch, and a fistful of other big things that took up a lot of space.
4.) Donate *all* unused or old computer equipment by the time we have the garage sale.
* Didn’t happen, so it didn’t happen. This should happen this year, though, as we’re trying to get rid of our desktop computers altogether.
5.) Move books from my parents’ house to my house, and organize in bookshelves by end of January.
* Yes, and no. Yes moved books from my parents’ house, ’cause they sold the house and I had to get all my stuff out of there, but bookshelves *organized*? I wouldn’t say that.
6.) Sell or donate board games we no longer play (by end of February)
* Didn’t happen
7.) Purge kitchen (again) by end of February
* Didn’t happen to an appreciable extent.
Clothing:
1.) Box up “nostalgic” shirts that I no longer wear regularly (TEP, water polo, etc.) to keep as souvenirs, so they do not take up closet space (by Jan. 3).
* Done
2.) Purge closet of worn or unused clothing on a monthly basis
* Done, to a limited extent. Culling of T-shirts I didn’t wear has been an ongoing process, where I’ll only re-stock the closet from the right, so periodically, I’ll go through the shirts on the left, and pull some out I’m pretty sure I’ll never wear.
3.) When clothing develops holes, or excessive wear, stop wearing that article of clothing. Donate, throw out, or patch, as necessary.
* Done.
4.) Purchase no new t-shirts this year (you have enough already)
* I bought two shirts. One was an Oaklandish t-shirt, the other was an “Obey Gravity: It’s the Law!” shirt I couldn’t pass up. Maybe the Gravity one was last year, I don’t remember. But the Oaklandish one was recent.
House:
1.) Lawn – demolish front lawn & cover with ground cover (mulch, moss, whatever) by end of February!
* Quite surprisingly, done. The front lawn, with the prodding and help (okay, driving force) of my mom, we completely tore up the front lawn, put in stone retaining walls, and repopulated the lawn. It’s been hard to keep it up, and it needs trimming and weeding, when it’s dry enough to do so, but it’s still in pretty good shape, despite the fact that the weather has confused all the plants.
2.) Put up interior trim in finished rooms
* Sort of done. Not in our bedroom, but I did put up trim in the downstairs. Still have to stain it, but… yeah.
3.) Put up vent cover on exposed vents in downstairs living room
* Nope. Gonna get Colin to cut us a nice CNC’ed piece of wood to cover up one of the vent holes, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
4.) Get upstairs drywall done (after roof leaks are fixed)
* Roof leak not fixed, so not done. This is on the schedule for April of this year.
5.) Get roofer to fix roof leaks in front of house
* I came as close as I could to success on this without succeeding. I had an appointment with the roofer to finally come out and do the warranty repair, when he gave the only excuse I’d buy without question – his dog was gravely ill, and so he was stuck at the vet. I feel like a sucker now, though, because it’s been weeks and weeks, and he hasn’t done so much as call me back. *sigh*
6.) Do laundry at least twice a week
* Nope. Probably better than we were last year, but still terrible at this.
7.) Put up “point system” chore board by Jan. 10th
* Yeah – so, I did this, and it worked really well. And then at some point, we collectively fell of the wagon, and that was that.
Creative:
1.) Work at developing one skill, equivalent to the effort required for NaNoWriMo (music, writing, painting, cooking, drawing, etc.)
* Done, for cooking. I think this year, Ei-Nyung and I went from competant at-home cooks to pretty good ones. We’re still not to the point where we’re creating recipes from nothing, for the most part, but if you put down *any* recipe in front of us, I’m confident we can pull it off.
2.) Do at least one editing pass on last year’s NaNo project, format for book form, and get it printed (two copies for archiving, one for use)
* Failed
Cooking:
1.) Cook at home every weekend day, with three meals as exceptions per month.
* Nope. Better than last year, but not by much. We did cook more at home this year, but still ate out a lot.
2.) Create a “cookbook” at home, listing recipes that we know work, organized by how long it takes to cook them. Create a means to generate quick recipe lists, based on what we already have in the house on a regular basis.
* Nope
2a.) Try using the Jornada, which we never use, for task 2, by end of January
* Nope
3.) Create recipes that “work together” to use ingredients. i.e.: If chicken comes in packages of 8 thighs, and a recipe uses 5, have a recipe ready that uses 3.
* Nope
4.) Once a month, buy an ingredient I’ve never bought before, and cook with it.
* Nope
Relationships:
1.) See my mother at least once a month for non-dog related reasons.
* This was a success, until they moved. After that, not so much.
2.) Call my father once a month, for non-work, or mother related reasons.
* Failed. Alas.
3.) Call my cousin once a month.
* Failed. I did call him once or twice this year, which is basically an infinite improvement over years previous. So, hopefully I can keep that up, at least.
4.) See Aneel and Dave once every three months each.
* Failed.
5.) Create a “scheduled social event” that occurs once every three weeks, in the city, at the same location, and time every time it occurs.
* We had this going for a little while, and it was actually pretty cool. The problem was actually that it happened *too* often, and once you’ve missed two or three events, it just falls off your calendar. But when we’re regularly have a couple people show up at Crossroads to chill, it was actually a lot of fun.
Work:
1.) Understand what is necessary to achieve a “Lead Designer” position, and develop a plan to get to that position within the next two years.
* Done.
2.) Continue to progress at the same ridiculous, and sort of absurd rate I have been over the last two years.
* Hm. This is sort of an interesting question, because I changed jobs in the middle of the year. I’ll get to that later, though.
3.) Don’t get complacent, or negative.
* Failed. I got extremely negative toward March of ’06, but it wasn’t unjustified. The management of the team changed, and competant, friendly, caring people were replaced with utterly inept buffoons. The team dynamics completely fell apart, and though I did my best to affect positive change, you can only get your ass handed to you for being the messenger so many times before the only reasonable response is, “Fuck this shit.” So, I quit on my terms, and I don’t regret it. There are other things I regret about work this year, namely that I did manage to crank out the worst game I’ve ever worked on this year, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about that.
4.) Determine whether I’m going to stay at Maxis, or look for another opportunity elsewhere, and then follow through with that decision wholeheartedly (by two weeks after performance review)
* Done.
5.) Understand that I am a game designer, and stop second-guessing myself.
* Done. I had a moment of euphoria a few months ago where it really hit me that not only am I comfortable as a game designer, I’m *awesome* at my job.
Mobius:
1.) Take Mobius out every weekend for an “event,” such as a trip to the beach, or the dog walk, Point Isabelle, Anza, or Temescal.
* Pretty much done. We’d get him out and about when we had free time, and we’ve really upped the length, and quality of his walks. Sadly, my mom, who used to spend a lot of time with him, is now too far away to do so, but he plays with the neighbors’ dog, which makes him pretty happy.
Wedding:
1.) Find an officiant by Jan. 20th.
* Not done on time, but done.
2.) Schedule a tasting by Jan. 20th.
* I think this was actually done on time.
Other:
1.) Use the photo printer to print out, and album-ize photos from the last four years, to prevent loss if hard drive explodes.
* Oops.
2.) Put this list of resolutions into Outlook, with alerts that provide enough time to complete the tasks (by Jan. 3)
* Done, but not necessarily followed. 😀
All in all, I think I did okay. There are a lot of failures on the list, but the big things, I think, went pretty well this year. The only thing I’m disappointed by is that I was succeeding pretty admirably getting back into shape in the middle of the year, and then completely failed in the last four months of the year. But, I know that it’s possible, and I know what I need to do to actually get back in shape, and I know I can achieve reasonably good results on a reasonably short time frame. What I think I need to do is link positive rewards wtih positive performance, which is something that worked astonishingly well for NaNoWriMo in ’05, but I haven’t done since.
That’s a different post, though.