Starting the New Year off right

This is what I call a good start to the New Year.

The Bears are the NFC North Champions and the 2nd seed in the NFL playoffs.

The Buccaneers are the NFC South Champions and the 3rd seed in the NFL playoffs.


The Gators won the Outback Bowl by beating Iowa 31-24.

Spent New Year's Eve with all my friends at one of their houses. Had a very good time, but kind of took a laid-back attitude to it all. Plenty of food was eaten, but I didn't really drink much. Honestly didn't feel like it, and was driving that evening anyway. I never make any resolutions, but I do have some goals for this year.

1. Get in shape! I already have a membership to Bally Total Fitness which I use as much as I can, but sometimes I get lazy and don't drive out there to workout. Usually, this happens after I get home from work and I know I should workout but I end up staying home. Well, no more excuses. I joined a second gym, The Blitz, which opened up in the shopping center across the street from my neighborhood. It offers a complete workout in 20 minutes so I have no reason why I can't go there everyday. I just started with them, so I'll see how I look and feel in a couple of months.
2. Improve myself professionally! Lately I have not felt as though I have been accomplishing the goals that I have set for myself professionally. I honestly feel that I have let myself become complacent in terms of my job and skills, and as I look back I believe that I have wasted my talents in doing so. There is nothing wrong with my job, but I always set high expectations for myself and as I evaluate myself up to this point in my life I feel I haven't lived up to my standards. What I hope to do to change this is to get back in to programming, maybe learn a specific skill or get a certification (CCNA), or change my surroundings. It will also require me to make some changes to my lifestyle, mainly just set aside time to start educating myself but that is not a big deal and will only require some discipline.
3. Improve myself personally! Besides getting myself in to shape, I have also set aside some personal goals for myself. I would like to learn some foreign languages, as I have traveled quite a bit in my life and I would like to continue to do so (already planning on going back to Japan later this year). I would like to learn to play the guitar. And I would like to find myself a girlfriend.

Now, this all sounds like resolutions but I don't think so because I haven't set any kind of time frame on any of the goals I have listed. I know it will take time for me to achieve what I want, so I have no illusions about getting all this done this year. I will use this blog to make periodic updates on my progress on all these goals, and hopefully I will be able to look back at previous posts and see the differences.

Lastly, some of you may have noticed a new item up at the top-right of the blog. That would be my Xbox Live Gamertag. Yeah, if I wasn't enough of a gamer before now I have an Xbox 360. I never really intended to get one but circumstances brought one to me. I have to say it's a pretty neat little system. I only have two games for it, Dead or Alive 4 & Perfect Dark Zero, but that is good enough for now.

I hope everyone has gotten off to a good start here in 2006, and I wish you all well. Check back soon.