OK, I’m finally done – it’s ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ time.
In the spirit of social accountability, I’ve decided to go public this year, so feel free to harass me about my progress at any time in the coming year. Here goes…
In 2013, I plan to:
1) Run my first marathon.
2012 was supposed to be the year, but I was thwarted by injury a month before the marathon I signed up for.
February will be spent recovering from an operation, but sometime in March, I’ll be back out on the streets and trails, building miles and working on my pace.
By June, I’ll be ready to take part in the Freckleton Half Marathon again, with a full marathon entered for later in the year.
2) Really learn how to code.
By the end of the year I will be able to:
– write shell scripts and administer Linux using bash,
– confidently contribute to php/mysql/html5/js projects,
– write applications in python.
I also want to gain a better understanding of big data and cloud technologies (eg hadoop, openstack).
3) This year I’d like to help my wife make even more of a success of her online businesses. Seeing sales gradually creep up week on week over the past few months has been exciting, and has brought home to me how ecommerce success, although not instant, is rewarding the consistent hard work that my wife has put into these ventures (over years). It’s important to state that I do enjoy my day job and the challenges it offers, but I also enjoy working alongside my wife, and I’d like to do more of that.
4) Write an ebook.
I’m still undecided on the subject for this, but I rediscovered the pleasure of writing in 2012, and I’m going to capitalise on that this year. The book needn’t be especially long for me to achieve some sense of achievement, but I’d like to produce something that at least one reader will find useful.
5) Compose a four track EP.
I’ve been neglecting music for too long, and I still get ideas and snippets of tunes popping into my head regularly, so I’ll stop procrastinating and get some ideas down this year. Four tracks isn’t too onerous a target, so this won’t take much focus away from everything else I’m doing in 2013. I’ll also use it as an opportunity to learn/re-learn to play the guitar properly.
6) Take a holiday.
It’s been far too long (years!) – this year we are going to take a proper holiday as a family… and relax. It would be nice to take our boy to Disneyworld; he’s been saving his pocket money towards that for about two years. In any case, it must be somewhere warm, and the UK doesn’t count. I know that’s not politically correct in some quarters to say that, but I’m fed up of being cold!
7) Buy a car.
Time for an upgrade. We’ve been umming and ahhing about it for a good couple of years now, and it’s time to do something about it.
8) Get back my pilot licence.
Revalidate my lapsed PPL and start flying regularly again.
Well, that should keep me busy. All feedback, advice, support, encouragement or ribbing welcomed!