This being a Friday when once again I'm not working again (not good since I have a looming deadline), I thought I'd write about the New Year's resolutions for 2000. This year I had eight resolutions, of which I only really did two of them and maybe one or two partially. Not an impressive success rate, so it's something to work on next year should I decide to continue to pursue these goals.

First off I wanted to pay off my credit card debt, which I actually did a few months ago. And then turned around and charged $5000 for the PowerBook. So I count that as a partial victory. Next year I'll probably have this goal again. Number two was to maintain a $1000 reserve for emergencies. Technically it would be ok if I didn't have a reserve now if I had used the money for a real emergency. But I pretty much spent it all July and August with my brother's computer and going to Memphis. Even now I'll only have about a $500-1000 reserve at the end of this year (depending on whether Metricom is going to continue my Ricochet subscription; they haven't charged my credit card yet and since they're getting out of the ISP business maybe they're dropping all their subscribers, though they haven't told me anything).

Let's see, my third resolution of 2000 was to build up the $1000 reserve to $2000. Blew that one big time. One of my problems is I spend a lot of money, and I spend more when I have a lot of money in the bank. I have to control myself better, that's all there is to it. Resolution 4 was max out my paycheck contributions, which are the 401k and ESPP contributions. This one I did, and it takes out about 33% of my take-home pay. It at least forces me to save *some* amount of money, though I don't think I'll live long enough to see it. (I really need to see a doctor and get a checkup. I'm getting a lot of very minor chest pains regularly. Probably just getting old.)

Speaking of which, resolutions 5-8 are all health related. Resolution 5 was reduce my weight to 205 lb. Don't think I've done that. I think I weigh about 215 lb. Nowadays I eat way too much, partly because of resolution 8, which was to balance my eating by having lunch and reducing my dinner portions. Well, I eat lunch now, don't really eat less at dinner though which is really bad.

Resolution 6 was to exercise 20 minutes 3 times a week. I've actually done this more or less throughout the year. Usually just walk around for 20-30 minutes, sometimes more active exercises. I should get a bike machine or something since jumping around in my apartment can't be good for my legs. It helps that I have this set up in Palm Desktop so every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday I have this as a to-do item. Resolution 7 was to get a physical checkup. I haven't had one in such a long time. Like 10 years so I really need to get this done someday. Maybe I'll do this next year.

In conclusion, I accomplished two out of eight resolutions. A worse percentage than last year, when I only did three out of ten. Gosh, I'm pa-the-tic. Next year I probably won't do any better. But we must keep striving to achieve these lofty goals. Or I have to lower the bar. Finances and health are my two big goals, since I do so poorly on them. All those "be a better" person resolutions are wasted on me. I'm already a nice person. Ok, I'm not, but I'm not going to change that.