Not Quite A New Decade - But Happy New Year

A new year is coming - and some say a new decade. Much as I love "new beginnings," especially when the old things have been truly depressing, the new decade is still a year away. We had this discussion back in 1999 - when does the new decade (or in that case century) really begin? Most people like to assume that as soon as the last digit in the year is zero, the decade has begun - but in reality we have to wait another year - because there was never a "year zero" - AD began with year 1. So 2011 will be the beginning of the new decade and 2010 is the last year of this one.

Be that as it may, we've gone through quite a bit in the past 9 years - from 911 and the "dot bomb" financial era, through a period of intense investment and real estate boom that was "interesting," to the current period of "retrenchment".

Along the way the technology of the internet has kept coming up with things that affect our daily lives and that continue to wreak havoc on traditional business practices. I've written about some of the changes in things like copyright and digital rights, and I've pointed out some of the other changes in marketing and general business practices like work-at-home and other small business concerns.

Today is a day for formulating New Year's resolutions - and tomorrow is the day we vow to keep them.

Over the past few months I've been doing quite a bit of soul searching on what I want to do "when I grow up," but I'm never going to grow up, so the problem really has not raised its head yet.

Yesterday I came within a year of being 60 - and spent some time thinking about what I'd been doing since I turned 30, the last "big milestone" I really celebrated in my life. 

All of this is coming together - a decade change, a life event, the internet changing business, and I'm in the middle of it. I love it!

The first thing I'm going to do is vow to get more exercise, no matter whether it is raining or snowing or too hot. I've spent the past 13 years as a type 2, diet controlled diabetic. In the first several years I took the bull by the horns, lost 40 pounds (in about 6 months) and kept it off. Over the next 10 years I lost a further 10 lbs and have now reached the target weight my doctor gave me - 195 lbs. The problem is that the weight is starting to disappear from my muscles and reappear on my stomach - so I guess I'd better do more exercise. To that end I've made my next vow.

I vow to keep the area around my weight machine clear of clutter so I can get to it and use it. One of the insights into diabetes that my internist gave me is that muscle is a good thing to have - just having it burns up calories, even if you are not actively using it at the time - it heats up and the heat is the result of burning calories. It is not necessary to be able to use the muscles for long periods of time (i.e. have good endurance) but merely to have them - so weight training is a "good thing." On the other hand, good cardio-vascular exercise is necessary for the heart and other major organs, so the bicycling I do when the weather is good enough is also necessary - and brisk walking is a good second place. So... my next vow.

I vow to walk or bicycle for at least 15 minutes every day, and failing that, I vow to do 1/2 hour of work around the house. I have a couple of standard walks and standard bike routes around Pitt Meadows and try to get out to walk no matter where I find myself. The problem is that there are some days when going outside is just plain not an option. It doesn't rain or snow that much around here, and most times it does it is actually fairly pleasant - not too hard and not too cold. But sometimes the weather is just plain miserable - those days I have painting and other projects around the house that I can do, many of which we've put off since we moved in on the premise that having the kids around would only make things worse, so we'd put them off until the kids are gone - well, now they're gone and I have no excuse.

I vow to take a real vacation this year. The last real vacation my wife and I had was in 1996, when we went to New Zealand and Fiji for two weeks. Since then we've had a few days here and there, and "I take my vacation an hour or two at a time on the Goldwing motorcycle" - which has been my sop to a vacation ever since. But the middle of December I found myself (not for the first time, but certainly for the most intense time) going around in circles and sitting idle because I could not decide what needed doing next. I was classic "burned out." At that time I took some time and sat and read for a while - and continue to read my "escape" literature, science fiction, every day - otherwise I would be in a rubber room I'm sure. One of my good friends, Vern, has a place in Jamaica that I've looked after his web site for for many years now - and he's offered me a chance to come down there in May. Don't expect me to be around for at least a couple of weeks that month, fair warning :)

But on to things to do with my work and business. What are the things that will make our lives better and that will give me more pleasure in my work and outside activities?

I vow to publish something every day. I enjoy writing and I enjoy the feedback I get from people about the articles and newsletters I write. The problem is that I have such a diverse set of interests and activities that I sometimes just don't get back to one of the web sites or mail lists I maintain for some time - and lose touch with the people. That is going to change because...

I vow to consolidate the things I do and concentrate on a much smaller number of subjects. If you look at the list of topics on this Digital Rag web site you'll see a little bit of what I'm talking about.

• Copyright
• Digital Rights
• Motorcycling
• Computers in Use
• Government
• Digital Cameras
• Life
• Systems Administration
• Video on the Internet
• Content Managed Systems

And that's just this web site. I also contribute and/or edit/moderate:

• CENTA.COM - income tax and cross-border considerations such as visas and immigration
• david-ingram.com - weekly video web-zine 
• hancockwildlife.org - research, conservation, education - specializing in wildlife cameras
• p-zip marketing - small business marketing for real-world businesses in the internet world
• bogon.com - spam, phishing, bogus financial deals, etc.
• pacdat.net - systems administration, technical webmastering, etc.
• You Tube and Blogger sites for some of the above
• Facebook and Twitter identities for some of the above
• pacdat-news mail list
• Brunix mail list
• and a number of my other customers' sites where I create content and craft marketing programs

So what does it mean to consolidate all these things? Well, you'll see a lot more here in the Digital Rag - and maybe some reprints in other webs, but for the most part I'll be writing here. Those on the mail lists will be sent pointers to the articles here.

So, having consolidated all my writings and musings to the Digital Rag, what can you expect here?

You can expect me to continue to give you my insight into the world as I see it through my experiences and from my perspective as a technologist and marketer. One of the reasons I'll be writing is so I don't either "go postal" or give in to "road rage" - or shout at politicians and/or other government officials. Writing is my release - and hopefully you, my readers, will take some of what I write about to heart and help fix some of the ills of the world that I might write about. 

You can also expect me to find something to brighten your day from time to time. We all need a good laugh and I understand that really laughing hard is good for the body. I'm going to try to find things to laugh about - a lot!

I vow to "get out more" and at least try to restart the gatherings I and my peers in the technology community had in our Brunix monthly gatherings. The brunix mail list has languished and the monthly meetings have stopped. I had hoped someone else would pick up the gavel in organizing these and contributing to them, but that didn't happen. It may be that now that many of us are married, we've lost the incentive we had as a bunch of geeks to somehow find some social points to work on and gather about. Maybe brunix served its purpose for most of us in that we became socialized enough to have a reasonably social life, I don't know - what I do know is that I miss them.

OK - so what are you going to do this new year? Whatever it is - have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

richard

Tag: 911 diabetes exercise brunix burnout resolutions vacation new year