What didn’t go well: 2012 resolutions

I like to revisit my resolutions each year to see how I did. Normally, I do this privately, but since I actually accomplished my resolution of relaunching this site, I’m doing it publicly. This first post is only on the parts that didn’t go well.

My usual fitness resolution was somewhat all over the place. My weight fluctuated by about 15 pounds this year, but I’m ending on the heavier side. I’m eating healthier than I ever have, but portion control is a problem, as is the lack of sufficient exercise.

My usual Japanese learning one didn’t go well either. I’m still learning more kanji, but at a glacial pace. I catch occasional words and phrases in Japanese media, but I don’t understand much.

I had a few goals that I really thought would be no problem. I wanted to watch more movies in the theaters with the wife, but didn’t make it out to many this year. There were quite a few good movies out, and I did make it out to Muppets, Avengers, and Dark Knight Rises, but I expected to see many more. Perhaps we spent too much time in front of the TV.

I also thought I would have no problem with cooking more. I love cooking. And I’m good at it too (or people I cook for are crafty liars and only I like my food). But alas, I didn’t do much cooking and didn’t try many new recipes (in my many cookbooks).

Last year, I really got back into reading and completed about a book a month. Heavy readers will think this isn’t much, but I’ve found almost everybody I know hardly reads any more. My goal was increased from a book a month to 30 books for this year. But I actually read less. Despite enjoying them, I spent more than half the year getting through Games of Thrones and its sequel. Some day I’ll get to writing about those and other books I’ve been reading. But unless I finish a book in the next couple days, I only can say I read seven for this year. I also only finished eight video games, but I’ll get more into that in a future update.

A couple other resolutions eluded me as well, but there is good news! I did well on several. I’ll have another entry covering what I did well on. So look forward to that soon. If all goes well, I might even include charts!

First day at new job

Today is my first day at Precision Design Studios. I don’t have a lot to say just yet. I’m excited and anxious, pretty much the way I am about any positive change in my life. I’m looking forward to meeting the folks at Precision and learning the ropes.

During my little vacation I gave myself between jobs I saw a lot of friends and family. Thanks for the good time before I get back to the grind!

And as said grind gets back on track, expect to see more on this blog. I just unearthed some of the in-progress blog posts from before the blog disappeared, so I even already have content.

New job ho!

Tomorrow is my last day at my current job. I’ve been at Schneider-Electric (formerly APC) for 7 years and a few months. But it’s time for a change. So I began looking for a job earlier this year and eventually settled on a small web company based in Smithfield (for now).

I’ll get more into my new job in a future post, but for now I just want to publicly thank my friends at Schneider and formerly at Schneider for years of good times. There is a part of me that will miss those times, but I’m looking forward to new horizons.

It’s a very weird experience. Despite that this is a choice I’m making, my animal brain is still making me feel nervous and anxious about the change. I’m definitely looking forward to the break I set up between jobs to do a major reset and recharge.

And I’m back

It’s been a while since I’ve done any blogging, or any kind of web publishing really. I don’t count twitter, etc. It’s hard to believe that at one point I was writing content on multiple sites, writing my blog, and doing multiple jobs. But a while ago I decided to dedicate more of my free time to me.

I dedicated so much time to me that I just let my sites slide away into nonexistence. I’ll bring my other sites back up soon, simply as archives, but what I really want is to bring my blog back.

I’ve got books, games, and other assorted goodies I just need to write about. I hope I can attract my audience of billions of readers, but I’m not worried if not. I just want to write quality content, largely for my own sake. If it makes a few of you folks happy too, all the better.

For now, I’m going to leave my old blog content in the ether. As you may be able to tell, I’m using WordPress now. I haven’t done a lot to customize it, but I will. I never gave the blogging software I wrote the attention it deserved so it pales in comparison to WordPress and similar tools. When I first started blogging, it was easy to outdo the available software. Now, I can’t imagine trying to build something that does what WordPress, Drupal, and other tools are capable of.

So that’s that. I’m back. Expect to see plenty of awesome coming from this space. I have some major news (for me) that I haven’t talked about publicly yet. Expect to hear about that soon.