Typically, I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions, but the beginning of the new year does always bring to mind a list of things that need to be done, as well as provide a point of focus for setting goals for myself.
Looking back at 2008, there were quite a number of things that happened, and things that I did both well and not quite so well. I did manage to get this blog up and going, but that's a mixed point to me. I made about 15 posts. That's all. Fifteen. It's not like I feel that I'm slacking by doing that, it just doesn't fulfill the goals of setting this blog up in the first place, which were primarily twofold: Create an online prescene, and hone my writing skills somewhat.
The first point sort of happened in a round about sort of way. After a mistake I made concerning my web site, I restructured it, pretty much from scratch. On the whole, that turned out to be positive. I dumped DotNetNuke. I don't have any problem with the product, it's just far too heavy for me to be carrying for what I need my most basic site to do--sans database. The second point really didn't happen. Fifteen posts aren't quite enough to improve one's writing skill--unless, perhaps they come pretty frequently. Mine didn't, as they started in May or so, and just randomly showed up.
What else happened? I lost a little over 30 pounds. My son spent a week in the hospital with Kawasaki's Disease. I improved my home office, so I now have walls, heat, and air condintioning, making it a bit easier to work. I started studying software architecture and patterns in earnest. I started coding personal projects, including MiVo (my TiVO access application in .Net) and attempting to do some of my own solutions to the Project Euler problems. I made it to the Atlanta Code Camp.
I even made it back to Oshkosh!
So, on to 2009. Do I have goals? Definitely. Will I call them resolutions? Probably not. But I do hope to be more prolific in my writing--and to change my format from these rambling thoughts to something more useful and technical.