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.

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.
6. Retire the “Krotscheck” nickname. This might not mean much to any of you, but it’s pretty important to me.
7. 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.

That about sums it up. Lets make this year kick ass, shall we?

In many ways, 2007 is going to be an interesting year for me. I’m fairly confident in saying that this year will probably contain my final major life transition for the foreseeable future. Yes, I know, I’ve been moving back and forth and moving faster than a caffeinated squirrel for a few years now, and if that trend continues I won’t be capable of staying in one place for any appreciable amount of time, however I’d like to eliminate a certain amount of uncertainty from my life so that any short term or long-term whims can be anchored in. Above and beyond that I would like to take a significant step on a career path, ensure my long term fiscal liquidity, and in general continue to live as awesome a life as I have been so far.

Thus, without further ado, my resolutions for this next year:

1. Zero Net Worth
   As we in the business world say, I am currently very highly leveraged. So highly, in fact, that if I was a business no bank in its right mind would let me borrow money. This is largely my student loans, offset by my investments and property, and given that automatic payments will reduce the prinicipal on those loans this really isn’t as difficult as you might think. Nevertheless, it’s a five digit commitment to either reduce the principal on my loans or increase my net invested assets.
2. Make Use of My Degree
   This resolution could take many forms: Either via consulting, new employment, non profits, volunteer work or whatever else comes down the line. One of my major gripes in the past has been that I have a Batchelor’s Degree that I don’t use (BArch). Well, I intend to use this one, and not only because I enjoy the potential.
3. Leave the Camarilla
   I’m sorry, I’m leaving. In fact, I forgot to renew my membership, and I’m hard-pressed to renew it just to wrap things up. This isn’t because I’m bitter, this isn’t because I hate anyone; Hell, if I was any judge the things that other people find incredibly morally objectionable I merely consider a curious expression of other people’s view of the world. Nevertheless, I’m hard pressed to find a real reason in my mind, save “It just doesn’t feel right anymore”. That spark of excitement that I felt when confronting other characters is just gone, the desire to tell a story other than my own has faded. Politics don’t intrigue me anymore, and while I love to attend the occasional convention to drink and party with everyone, the kind of social connection I really want right now isn’t really being satisfied with a few hugs in the hallway between watering holes. Given that I don’t really have a local chapter with whom I am socially involved to keep me interested, and the online games just don’t do the trick, I am simply not… motivated anymore. This hurts, because I feel like I’m leaving a whole lot of people behind while spitting in their faces and saying “I’m sorry, you’re not enough to keep me around”, but that’s really not my intent here. There are some whom I love, more whom I consider to be awesome friends, yet more whom I’d love to get to know better. Just cutting that out hurts, and believe you me I won’t be simply cutting people out completely. Just… well, assume that unless we have a lot in common that doesn’t involve current events in the Cam, we’ll have very little to talk about.
4. Stop being lonely
   This will likely be the hardest, because it’s the hardest to define. Lets face it, I live a solitary life. Even while dating Megan the long distance made it such that the shell of independence was maintained. The last time I was genuinely attracted to someone was ICC, and it turned out she was both taken and lived on the wrong side of the country. Continued attempts at flirting, dancing, online dating and whatnot have lead to one rejection after another, and all this has done is encourage a world view where I don’t need anyone else. That’s why this one’s so hard to define, because it may be cracking through my shell, or it may be just making myself more receptive, or it could be lowering my standards a bit, or it could be reconnecting with my local friends in a more-than-email way, or a myriad of other things.
5. Simplify My Life
   Looking through my apartment I see a lot of items that I really don’t need, nor use, nor want anymore. Things I do that simply add to the complexity, demand attention, take up space or whatnot. This needs to change, and I’m starting to take the first steps along that path with the removal of most of the detritus of my college years. Soon enough my entire posessions will hopefully consist solely of items I use regularly (if not frequently).

The Big One, however, is to cease living with obligations, but that’s something psychological that I doubt I’ll be able to figure out in a year. Basically it means that I want to find the spark of desire again. I don’t want to do things because I have to, or people expect me to: I want to do things because I want to. It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve done that, and I’m at something of a loss on where to start- the things I want these days are… calm, almost domestic, and lack the spark of fire I’m used to from a few years back.

There have been ups and downs- I remember that January through April were pleasant if… directionless, May through August sucked royally due to a shitty job, September and October were spent in recovery, and November and on absolutely ruled. Good stories were told, and good times were had, and I feel like I’ve undergone so many personality transformations, from relaxed to arrogant to zen & accepting to ambitious to AWESOME and back again that I’m not entirely certain who I am at the moment. That’s not to say I don’t have a personality- it’s just that even with all my navelgazing I couldn’t describe who I am when prompted. No worries, then, eh? Well, lets take a look at last years resolutions:

1. Finish reading this book. Succeeded
2. Get a Washboard. FAILED (Apparently I’m not genetically disposed towards them. Or I’ve caused too much damage while fat)
3. Buy a Harp. Succeeded
4. Ace a Semester. Succeeded (I did NOT deserve those two A’s I just got)
5. Pay off my car. Succeeded
6. Rebuild my website. Succeeded
7. Get professional dance lessons. Succeeded

Overall, I’d think that they were fairly simply goals that I’ve managed to meet, but none of them really go to define the year for me, and like any good little white boy I try to put labels on everything (2004 was the Year of the Makeover, for instance). The only common theme I can point at is a continued picking away at the scabs of years and decades, tearing away useless insecurities and debunking so called ‘facts’ of my life. In many cases, I pursued aspects of my personality to a destructive degree in an effort to see where they lead (Starvation, work-till-I-drop), and in others the slightest encouragement of a small aspect lead to a revelation so profound that I will carry the memory with me forever (Maine). Thus, I think 2005 shall be known as the “Year of the Discovery”, because it also allowed me to include all the new friends I’ve discovered (Wave out to Louisiana, Kansas City, and England). It also sounds better than the Year of Identity Crisis .

Incidentally, the following paragraph’s been copied verbatim from last years post. It nevertheless still applies. So there .

Looking forward to the new year, I’m always rather amused that people use this particular event to shape their future in… forseeable chunks. “Well, *this* year…” is a strange thing to think about, because the realist will point out that if you can’t make life changes all the time, any resolutions you make aren’t likely to stick even now. So what’s so special about the new year that makes one want to do it all *now*? “I’m going to change my life this year!”… well, why do you need a new year as an excuse, right? Nevertheless, I like doing it- Fact is, I know I can make changes to my life, I can improve myself, and I know I don’t need the new year to act as a catalyst for change. To me it’s more like a “Here’s where I’d like to be in 12 months” kind of thing.

1. Pay one years tuition out of pocket. This is a 1300/month commitment.
2. Ace Two Semesters. With my own money riding on it, rather than some vague loans I need to pay off in the future, I think I’ll have a lot more committment here.
3. Read at least one non-fiction book from my reading list. I devour fiction on a regular basis. I really want to read something educational that isn’t assigned for a change.
4. Become comfortable at my current weight. I like where I am, and how I feel. I know I could stand to lose a few more, and I might try to get rid of them, but first I have to feel comfortable being me- reset my personal image, as it were.
5. Commit to creating one piece of content for my website every other week. That’s a total of 26. It took me 4 months to put out the 10-ish I have so far, so I’m not certain I will succeed. Nevertheless, I really do love to write, so this might actually be something I stick to.
6. Stay on top of email. Right now I’ve got 30 messages in my to-answer queue. I would like to get below 8 and keep it there.
7. Remain an optimist. I’m going to need help for this from all of you. Not in the “Keep me happy” way, but in the “keep yourselves happy” way. Quite a bit of my own joy comes from realizing how awesome and cool my friends and their lives are. Yes, this means I’m going to be actively attempting to improve your lives. Probably by telling you how awesome you are.
8. Make my LJ match my Website. Simple. Straightforward.
9. Decide on whether I want a PhD. I could. I even know what I’d do it in. I’m not certain I want one though.
10. Invest 3000. I honestly don’t know where I will get this money. I’m already on a really tight budget, given tuition. Still, it gives me a place to put money when I have it left over at the end of the month.

Life. Is. Good.