End of Year and New Year

2008 was a good year. Looking back on my 2008 year resolutions, I accomplished two of them beyond my expectations (increasing my Aikido activity and quitting all Tobacco products). I did increase my activity but I haven't lost any weight. Finally, I haven't really increased my writing output; although I am publishing an article in Colorado Libraries on the eCataloger and my programming output was significant this year.

What are my resolutions for the New Year? These resolutions will be more specific in attempting to reach many of the same goals for this year.

• Improve my diet by reducing fatty food consumption, increasing the percentage of legumes, vegetables, and whole grains in my diet compared to animal products and high processed foods. To do this effectively, I need to log my food consumption but I am not posting the log to my blog. Also, I need to start bring a pack lunch to work as part of this plan.
  
• My Aikido goals for 2009 are about improving and promoting my teaching activity and attending as many diverse Aikido seminars and classes as possible. In about two and a half weeks, I am headed for San Diego for the Aikido Bridge Seminar. In February we will have the special Aikido class taught by a visiting Sensei. (I am treating this visit as training for running a weekend seminar I hope to offer next Winter)
• My third resolution is to again increase my activity level. I spend too many days without moving too much. In the summer, I rode my bicycle to work but once the sub-zero temperatures begin and the snow on the ground, I haven't rode in at least four months. The college's pool is open in the mornings, so my goal Spring term is to swim laps at least three times a week.
  
• My writing goal for 2009 is to do a complete revision of my Salt Lake novel. I will plan at least one trip to Salt Lake, maybe two. Another reason to visit to Salt Lake is to demonstrate the Quaker Cloud Catalog to the meeting there and get any feedback. It has been such an asset to have the data-set from when I was the Meeting's librarian and my first topic-map catalog. This data keeps migrating to different types of models I have been building on Google App Engine (GAE).
• Finally, I want to explore some limited consulting jobs outside the library. I know I can do some custom programming or better, project manage and design and then implement small projects using GAE. There are many locally managed Access databases and Excel Spreadsheets used by business that would be good candidates to move to a GAE application.