I Resolve To…

It’s that time of year for New Year’s resolutions so I thought I’d share mine with the world.  I didn’t have any resolutions last year and it bothered me – while I got a lot done last year, there wasn’t the same satisfaction that comes from achieving your goals (if I ever have a therapist, I suspect we’ll be discussing this one day).  Here are this year’s resolutions, grouped around a couple of themes:

Food

  • I’m going to learn how to cook Thai food.  If this works out, then each year from now on I’ll try to master one new type of cuisine
  • Cook 2x/week.  Less eating out and more eating in.  This isn’t due to the economy, rather I need to become a better chef
  • Do a weekly cook-off with Richard.  Each week one of us has to cook for the other; we’ll rope in Wendy and Jill at some point.  We did this for a while last summer and it was a blast; now we need to institutionalize it
  • Take coffee lessons at Joe.  Every morning I make two lattes (one for each of Wen and I).  It’s about time I learned how to make them much better.  Attention Richard: you’re getting roped into this
  • Fitness

  • Do 25 push-ups and 30 sit-ups every day
  • Some combination of run/swim/bike/climb 3x per week
  • Run the NYC marathon
  • Substitute my daily Diet Coke/Dr Pepper and M&M’s at work for water
  • Tech

  • Blog every day (or at least 365 times this year)
  • Work on personal coding projects for at least 10 hours a week-and push at least one of them to live by the end of this year
  • Port this site to Django and add some more interesting little applications (e.g., my app keeping track of random New York moments, etc). Note that if this resolution means nothing to you, don’t worry. It’s written in nerd-speak
  • Learn Processing and try to use it to teach kids how to use computers
  • Personal

  • Most important resolution this year: get married to the woman I love
  • Take DJ lessons
  • Read more of the books I’ve got lying around. I’m going to try and not buy a book until I’ve read all the ones I already have
  • Write in my notebook every day
  • Other

  • Subscribe to a few of the following magazines:
  • The Believer
  • De:Bug
  • Granta
  • Maisonneuve
  • Open City
  • The Paris Review
  • Tin House
  • Zoetrope
  • Become a better value investor (and put my money where my mouth is)
  • Make a list of things I would like to eventually have when I own a house (e.g., fern garden, etc.).  This isn’t some narcissistic fantasy, rather, in a few years time each of these ideas will become a future resolution