2010 Resolutions: How It Went

Meh

Some of my resolutions I knocked out of the park and others I took a huge O-fer.

• Read 10 Books – Well I probably started at least 10 books, I just didn’t finish many.  I used to read dozens of books a year.  Now I’m not sure I read that many in a decade.  Books I did read, In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks: . . . And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy , The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine and The Sommelier Prep Course: An Introduction to the Wines, Beers, and Spirits of the World
• Attend 10 Shows – I’m pretty sure I achieved this one, or at least came close with the highlights including Roger Waters and Avenue Q.
• 10 Movies – I’m proud to say I have not seen one movie in a theater in 2010.  I think that makes it official, I don’t like movies.  The time commitment is to large and they seldom deliver anything close to entertainment.
• 10 New Restaurants – I probably did this in the Pac Northwest alone.  Notable new restaurants include Elliot’s Oyster House in Seattle, Oceaniare  and 560 in Dallas and Pok Pok and Farm Café in Portland.
• 10 New Dishes – this one was easy.  Not only did I make at least 10 new dishes from recipes, I also started making things up I thought should work and also started smoking large hunks of meats thus requiring a 2011 purchase of a Big Green Egg.
• 10 Days Outside the US – nope.  Didn’t make it to Vancouver or Montrael.  I didn’t even make it to Paris Las Vegas.  Fail!
• 10 Things Outside my Comfort Zone – semifail.  I’m pretty sure I did a couple of things outside my comfort zone.  Just nothing worth blogging about. 
• 10 lbs per Quarter – probably a bit of an overreach.  Probably lost 10 lbs for the year.  So not a complete fail.

I think this is a good set of resolutions.  So let’s try it again.  But this year they go to 11.  Except for movies.  I’m going to try to go the entire decade without seeing a movie.

Top 10 of 2010: The Resolutions

I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions.  I didn’t resolve last year to go to Europe.  I didn’t resolve last year to bike over 2000 miles.  Those things just happened.  I prefer to let the game come to me.

But I do like finding ways to bring content to the blog and teach myself a new programming skill.  And in honor of 2010, all of these resolutions will have 10 as their goal.

Therefore I will resolving to do the following in 2010:

• Read Ten Books – In my decade end review noticeably absent was a Top 10 Books list.  I used to be a voracious reader.  But these days I do much of my reading on the interwebs.  I’m not entirely sure I read ten books in the Oughts.  I started dozens.  Finished but a handful.
• Attend Ten Shows – Another regret from my list was the low number of shows I saw.  This should resolve that problem, at least for the first year.
• See Ten Movies in a Theatre – I’m not a huge moviegoer.  But I do love writing scathing movie reviews.
• Go to Ten New Restaurants – This may be harder than it sounds since I do so love the restaurants I love.  And the “new” Green Room isn’t technically new.
• Cook Ten New Dishes – This is probably the easiest of the list.  Between Alton Brown, Mark Bittman and my journey through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I have more than enough material.
• Spend Ten Days Outside the US – This may be more difficult this year with my limited number of vacation days at my new job.  So I may have to supplement it with a few days in Canada or Mexico.
• Do Ten Things Outside My Comfort Zone – The most subjective item on my list.  This will force me to try new things and relate them back to you, my loyal and extremely good looking readers.  Have I mentioned the Bloggie Awards are coming up?  TheSummerOfSteve has been nominated for Least Read Blog by a Narcissistic  Snarkmeister.  It’s touch competition since it includes virtually every blog out there.
• Lose Ten Pounds every Quarter – also a huge challenge.  But one of my leaders, Alton Brown, has recently dropped a huge amount of weight.  So why not me?  And 10lbs/quarter seems attainable.  Of course, if I’m short at the end of a quarter, I can always do a detox and shed a quick 15.

The other part of the resolution, the programming skill to learn, will be added to the blog soon.  I’ll be writing a little Silverlight widget for the right side of the blog keeping track of all my goals.  If you don’t know what any of that means, I’ll explain some of it when I deploy the widget in the next few weeks – hopefully sooner.