New Years Resolutions

January 6th, 2008

Last year, as many of you know, wasn’t the best for me. After graduation my relationship with the CEO gradually degenerated, and though my job hunt was incredibly successful on many different levels, the subsequent crappy situation when the mortgage market evaporated and took my new job with it left me in a precarious situation. Even so, life continued to be good and the lessons I learned from independence were invaluable, and eventually I managed to settle in a phenomenal job that I would have never considered under more secure conditions. Hindsight? Everything happens for a reason, and right now I am in a really good place professionally. The name of 2007 shall therefore be the “Year of unexpected awesomeness”, because every single moment of suck has turned into such an excellent thing for me that I can’t attribute it to my own general sense of optimism. Yet even though I am surrounded by opportunity- I still have to grab it.

I am now in a new city, with (as mentioned) fantastic opportunities, and though in the long run I’m not certain I’ll stay here in Columbus, I am nevertheless going to make sure I take full advantage of everything it has to offer. Thus my resolutions this year will be all about that, what I want to accomplish for myself, and the bright and shiny future that I am building for myself. Except… well, last years’ resolutions I completed in less than 6 months, so this year I’m going to put a slightly different twist on it, one garnered from the ranking systems that make console gaming so much fun. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this year my resolutions will have Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels of accomplishment.

Compete as a runner. You remember this from my running plan last month, but now I’m taking it to the next level.

Bronze: Complete a 10K
Silver: Complete a half-marathon
Gold: Complete a marathon
I keep struggling with my weight, so I’m actually going to make a conscious effort this year (in tandem with my running) to lose the last few pounds I want to get rid of.

Bronze: Drop below 200 pounds
Silver: Drop below 190 pounds
Gold: Drop below 185 pounds
Adobe Users Group. Perhaps the greatest professional opportunity is the foundering Columbus Adobe Users Group that I’ve recently started breathing life into. This will be a challenge for me because it will require that I establish and manage an organization, shed my control-freak nature and learn to delegate, and discover new and interesting ways of motivating a largely volunteer base of contributors.

Bronze: Get the group accredited and active.
Silver: Build the groups’ event attendance to 50 members+ on a monthly basis
Gold: Attract speakers from Adobe.
Maintain my diverse blogs. I have two blogs now, my personal one and my professional one. These will both need love and care, and to advance myself as an expert developer I will have to maintain the post frequency for each.

Bronze: 1 post per month
Silver: 1 post every other week
Gold: 1 post per week
Dance my heart out, because nothing would be complete without dance. This one’s going to be hard to define, because I don’t really know what goals I could possibly set other than frequency. Also, I’m not entirely certain I like the idea of turning something I enjoy so much into an obligation, so I’m going to leave this one without specific levels and look back at the end of the year to see whether I’ve reached the goal.
Retire the “Krotscheck” nickname. This might not mean much to any of you, but it’s pretty important to me.
Vacation, because so far it’s not something I’ve done very often, largely because up until this shiny new job I’ve only gotten a total of 10 days off a year. Plus, I need to relax on a more regular basis. The trick here is that a vacation is time I take for myself, with no work or obligations: DPBCon for instance counts only if I do nothing work related the entire week.

Bronze: Take 1 weeks worth of vacation.
Silver: Take 2 weeks worth of vacation.
Gold: Take 3 weeks worth of vacation, and leave the country.