I hate the idea of New Years resolutions.  They seem to me to basically be a general waste of time, just kind of desperate grabs at hitting the reset button on your life to do the things that you know you really ought to have been doing all along.  That said, I don’t have any New Years resolutions but I do have plans for the year, some of which have been made in the last month and I figure I’ll outline them here.

Last year I did NaNoWriMo and the RPM Challenge, meaning I wrote a draft of a novel and recorded an album.  I intend to do both of these again this year although I plan to do them differently.  I am working on putting together a new web radio station that will broadcast Creative Commons music and anything else I think is interesting including live performances by myself and bands that I know or am involved in.  The debut live performance will be recorded and released as my RPM Challenge album this year, or at least that’s my plan.  We’ll see what happens with NaNoWriMo but I’m thinking about maybe rewriting the novel I wrote this year that month unless I do that before November.

The next big thing I have going on is The Universal Thump, the new album by Trumpet Marine.  We’ve got a few songs recorded for it already and a lot more of them written.  So, there is much work to do…  I’m hoping that the album might be ready to go by fall.

On the personal front, I’ve decided to attempt a Buddhist mindfulness practice each month starting with this month in which I cut out all intoxicants for the month (no alcohol, no tobacco, etc).  Feels good and has given me a lot to contemplate.

I am working out again which is not so much a resolution as a necessity because I have had a ton of back problems over the last few years and they are related to posture which is related to my lack of fitness.  I got up at 5 in the morning today and went to the gym.  This, this is madness, but I need to do it so I am doing it.

In totally unrelated news, I just got back from Mazatlan Mexico where Es and I had a much-deserved overdue honeymoon.  It was warm, the Pacific Ocean was oceaney, and I wish I was back there instead of here in good ol’ Minnesota.  Coming back wasn’t all bad, I suppose, because it allowed us to have our belated family Christmas.  Syd got me some cool Vikings hats, Es got me a Chinese brush painting kit, a cordless drill and a book of Gil Elvgren pinups (ain’t she swell?) and we had a fabulous time.

Well, looks like lunch break is about up.  I hope you and yours, dear reader, are well and happy in this fantastic new year of 2008…

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