2008 Resolutions - How did I do?

Just about a year ago today, I made my annual list of 5 New Years Resolutions. No point in making them if I don't go back and see whether or not I lived up to them. So, let's take a look...

1. Chew my food thoroughly - I remembered to do this only intermittently and didn't remember until now that it was a resolution I had made.


2. Walk my dog twice a week - If you go by a weekly average, then yes. There were 2 months in there where I walked him every day. During the cold weather though, he was lucky if he got even 1 each week. So I didn't really stick to this one either.


3. Plant a vegetable garden - Yes! I did do this! Of course, I planted it too late and now everything appears to be completely dead, probably from frost. But it still counts!


4. No more hitting refresh buttons on websites, email, and RSS readers - Oh my goodness, did I really say that? Yeah, didn't stick with that AT ALL. But I am better than I was a year ago. There are only a couple of things that I check compulsively now and I don't exactly do it all day long like I used to.


5. Travel to 2 new places this year - I don't know. Does Charlotte count? I don't think I can really say I did this. I've been too worried about money to take a real vacation anywhere. I went to New Hampshire last January, which counts, but that's only one new place.

So...wow, terrible. Usually I stick to at least 2. This year I can only say I really stuck to one, and the result of it is a giant outdoor litterbox for the cats (which may also explain why nothing is growing in my garden). I will say though, that with the exception of the 5th resolution, I made significant progress with regard to all of them.

I haven't come up with my resolutions for 2009 though. Maybe I need to aim lower, huh?

Pickin' the mandolin on my way back to bondage

If you're not a bluegrass fan, you may not relate to what I'm saying. I love bluegrass. Doesn't matter what kind of mood I'm in - if a good bluegrass tune starts playing, I feel like dancing. The music makes me so happy. Even the sad songs make me happy. So when John asked me the other day, after I'd spent weeks feeling like every day was a big waste of time, what I'd really enjoy doing, I said "I'd like to play in a bluegrass band. But that's not going to happen."

He seems to think I'd make a pretty good mandolin player. I took violin lessons for years but I never got to be that good, so playing is a frustrating experience for me. (Say what you want, Aunt Kathie, but I'm really not good at it.) But a mandolin has frets so it's easier to play. You don't have to worry about being in tune. That made a lot of sense to me and so I became pretty enthused about the idea of learning to play the mandolin. And I just so happen to have one lying around. It's the one my grandfather used to play when we'd visit for the holidays.

If I didn't think of something interesting to occupy my time, I was going to drive myself insane. I can only job hunt for so many hours a week and for some reason it's hard to do anything else when you're thinking about getting a job. I started playing mandolin yesterday and it's managed to hold my attention so far. I'd happily play it all day long if my finger tips didn't hurt so bad. Good fun.

The Holidays Are A Pain

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season because it is seriously interfering with my job search. Trying to look for a job between Thanksgiving and New Years Day is a complete waste of time. No one does anything the week of Thanksgiving. And then when they get back to work, everyone is just thinking about their Christmas vacation coming up in a couple of weeks. I don't know why anyone even bothers showing up to work the week between Christmas and New Years. If anyone is there at all, they are probably just playing video games the whole time.

I had a company call me a week ago Tuesday saying they wanted someone to start THAT WEEK, and asking if I could come in for an interview. I said "sure!" I hear nothing for a full week so I figured they hired someone else. Nope, as it turns out, they just didn't get around to dealing with the hiring because everyone is on vacation. At least most companies have the decency to tell you up front that they won't be getting back to anyone until January.

That's great for all of you, but I'm trying to find a job and this is a big inconvenience. Come on people, get back to work!!! I've got 3 hungry pets to feed and they don't care one bit about the holidays.

Job Hunting Again

It's been almost 2 years since I started this blog. 2 Years since I left my software job in Seattle and said, "never again!" Then I started building websites for clients and I said, "ok, again, but this is really kind of different so it doesn't count."

Now, 2 years later, I'm here to tell you, unequivocally, "Again!"

2 Things have changed since December of 2006. (1) I am running out of money and (2) I actually don't hate software development like I thought I did. (Good job Aunt Kathie - you called that one at the very beginning.)

The truth is, I have had a ton of fun building websites and various web applications over the last couple of years. In fact, it was only about 2 months after quitting that job in Seattle that I started getting the itch to build foodscout.org.

I was definitely unsatisfied with my life at that point. I felt like every day was a total waste of time and energy. I kept thinking "there has to be more to life than this." Turns out that it was unfair to blame those feelings on my job. The job added to it, sure, but once again, I found that I had to look inward to really solve the problem. Working with interesting people, doing interesting things doesn't actually sound too bad to me at all, now that life in general is so much dang fun.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Diana, that sounds like a bullshit justification for falling back into that thing you swore you were done with." And you may be quite right about that. If so, I refer you to reason number (1) above: I am running out of money. Anyone looking for a good Java developer who isn't burned out on high tech?

Gas Shortage in Asheville...Again

Last week we tried to get gas at the station down the street and found all the pumps labeled 'out of order.' Weird, but we just went to the next one, cursed at having to pay $45 for 10 gallons of gas, and went on our way.

It wasn't until I walked past a radio playing some local talk show that I discovered the 'Asheville gas shortage'. The talk show host was screaming at how disappointed he was in Asheville citizens for buying into some rumor about a gas shortage, thereby creating an unnecessary gas shortage.

Today, it happened again, except this time the 2nd gas station was also out of gas. There was one station opened and it had several cars waiting in line. Not really needing gas, we went on our way to the grocery store and let everyone else fend for themselves. Searching online, I found out that the gas shortage also effected Nashville, TN, Charlotte, NC, and somewhere in Louisiana.

Again, today I see every yahoo and his brother online talking about how idiots have caused a gas shortage. I suppose that everyone learned that story in high school about how Johnny Carson caused a toilet paper shortage simply by making a joke about a made-up toilet paper shortage, and now they think they are very smart and special for 'knowing' that everyone is out panicking over an invented gas shortage.

I wasn't out panicking over a gas shortage, I was just going to the gas station to get gas as though I live in a prosperous nation. I'm betting that most other people were doing the same. Only there wasn't any gas. But if we blame 'those idiots' who panic, then we don't have to face up to the possible reality that our economy is imploding and our government is fleecing the people through massive printing/devaluing of our dollar to support lousy banks, an endless war, and a dying American worldwide empire.

In short, I don't know if the gas shortage is real or just another psychological failure of the American people, kind of like our collective psychological delusion that supposedly drove up gas prices in the first place. More importantly, you don't know either. If you had that sort of insight, you'd probably be making lots of money off of stocks and commodities and derivatives and lots of other big financial words that I don't fully understand. So shut your pie hole.

Wordless Wednesday: A cicada isn't quite ready to let go of its old shell

Can you guess the name of this rock?

If you guessed, "Chimney Rock" then you would be right! This natural rock structure, through no human intervention whatsoever, looks exactly like a....uh....CHIMNEY! Amazing.

The town of Chimney Rock is a charming little touristy town nestled in a lush green valley here in Western North Carolina. It has a bit of a Disney World feel to it, but much smaller and less crowded. For some reason, it is a popular spot for bikers.








We also took a little ride 1/2 a mile down the road to Lake Lure. Looks like a nice place to go swimming - if you enjoy swimming in lakes - but otherwise wasn't terribly fascinating.

Happy Birthday Aunt Kathie!

I was sure that by this time, some brilliant inspiration would hit me. I might draw you a picture or write something profound. I even considered writing a haiku, something I have only done in high school English classes. But nothing came to me.

But no matter, it is still your birthday and I at least want you to know that I am sending you the happiest of happy birthday wishes.

For those of you who do not know my Aunt Kathie, you are really missing out. I suggest you go on up to her little town outside of Binghamton, NY and meet her. She probably won't mind, but you ought to let her know you're coming. You'll see that she is just about the most loving, generous, supportive, appreciative, open-hearted person in the world. She's also funny, talented, fascinating, intelligent, and wise. Really, you have no idea of what you are missing. That's a picture of her. Isn't she magnificent???

A few of my favorite features of Aunt Kathie include:

• She always encourages me to follow through on my ideas - she never gives me reasons why something isn't possible.


• She always tells me she loves me, even though I already know.


• If she says she is going to do something, she always does it - even if it takes her months or years to get around to it!


• She is my biggest fan.


• She takes fantastic pictures.


• She is great at Clue, my favorite board game.


• She loves to honor others for their greatness.

So, happy birthday Aunt Kathie! Have the best day ever - you deserve it!

Google Adsense Payday

Cha-ching! After about 10 months of having google ads on various sites, including this one, VeganGirl, and FoodScout, I finally got my first Google Adsense check. Woo hoo! Like many Adsense paycheck recipients before me, for instance this guy, I am following the tradition of posting an obscured picture of myself holding my new riches. My check is a tad bit smaller than his.


Click on the picture to see the check up close and to get a glimpse of how awesome my hair looks.

Now, how to spend my new found fortune?

Wordless Wednesday: Sweeter than he is smart

Birds in my fireplace

Early this morning I was awoken (much too early) by the words, "Sweetie!!! There's cat vomit on the floor and birds in the fireplace!" Whuh? Sure enough, that was the situation. 2 little birds had managed to come down through the chimney and into our fireplace. Lucky for them, the screen trapped them safely away from the cats.

We locked the dog and the cats outside the back door and propped the front door open. Our house is very small so we figured that once we let the birds out of the fireplace, they would fly around for a minute and find the way out.

Unfortunately, they seemed convinced that the little windows above the fireplace were their escape path. They flew straight into it. Once they were convinced that there was no getting through it, they just perched on window sills. It was at this point that John asked if I was just going to leave the cat vomit on the floor. "I am so not concerned about the cat vomit right now."

Finally, one of them flew to a window that actually is able to open. Amazingly, the bird sat on that window sill while John opened the screen and the bird flew out. With a little encouragement from us, the other bird followed.

The floor is cleaned up now as well.

Let there be light! (and a cool breeze)

9 Months ago, after much obsessing over styles, sizes, and functionality, we bought a lovely ceiling fan to replace the hideous and enormous royal blue ceiling fan that came with our kitchen. The new fan has lived in a box in our dining room (also known as the storage closet) this entire time. We removed and sold the blue fan as soon as the new one arrived, thinking that we'd install it right away.


Getting around in the kitchen at night has been an interesting challenge. Oh well, there's always the little lights over the stove and sink. I am so very happy to report that our beautiful ceiling fan is now installed and working. All I have to do is flip a little switch and *poof!* the light goes on. You know, like normal people do.



Getting that one box out of the dining room also inspired us to organize all the rest of the junk that was being stored in there. Maybe in another 9 months we'll actually have some furniture. "Dining room" - before and after:

Wordless Wednesday: Giant Asheville Insect

It's durian season!

It had been nearly a year since I was last able to buy a whole durian. Sure, you can always get those little plastic boxes with the saran-wrapped durian. But it's just not the same. In Seattle, you can get a whole durian just about any time of year from any number of different Asian markets.

Up here in the mountains of Asheville, we are not so lucky. There is one Korean market in town that carries whole durians. They get them by driving down to Atlanta (about 4 hours away) every Sunday and bringing half a dozen back with them. If the durians don't look good that Sunday, they don't get any. During the winter months, they don't bother bringing any back. In spring, they get them if they look good. Once May arrives, they apparently get them every week.

But even so, if you don't act quick, you still miss out. We've gone down there every week for the past 4 weeks to pick up a durian but with no luck. "Oh, we had some, but some guy came in and bought the last 2 about an hour ago." "Sorry, a women bought the entire case as soon as we brought them in." Why they don't buy a full dozen I will never know.

But this week, we called down there just as the store opened on Sunday to ask if there were any whole durians. Hooray! There were! 10 minutes later we arrived at the store and bought the most delicious durian this side of the Pacific Ocean.

Xondie becomes a real company

Many weeks ago, I mentioned that we were starting our own web site business. Now it's actually a real business. Not only is it officially registered, but we actually have a *real* website up now! http://www.xondie.com. We've even been paid now and again for website work.

Our old "temporary" web page was rather embarrassing. It's one thing to have a crappy 1-page site for a business. But this is a WEB DESIGN business. Kinda gives the wrong impression when our own website blows.

Next step: business cards! Getting there....

Olde Time Things

The nice thing about last week's outing, on the Ghost Trolley, is that the tickets were good for free admission to the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, which includes an exhibit, short movie, and a tour of the boarding house that his mother ran, where Tom spent much of his childhood.

Thomas Wolfe, the famous playwright and author, lived from 1900 to 1938 and his father moved to Asheville maybe 20 years before - I can't remember exactly. Like so many people did (and continue to do) his father moved here because his wife at the time was suffering from lung ailments and the mountain air in Asheville was thought to have special restorative properties.

Anyway, the neat thing is that all of the stuff in the house was genuine olde time things that the Wolfe family actually owned, right down to the dishes and the kitchen tools. They even have an old working phonograph that they still turn on for special occasions.

The most interesting part of the tour was learning about how his novel, "Look Homeward, Angel," was autobiographical to such detail that the people of Asheville were pissed when it came out because the characters so obviously portrayed real people in Asheville, and not always in a very flattering light. Makes me want to read the book.

I'm afraid the pictures aren't the greatest because it was hard to get a shot with the tour moving so fast and people constantly being in the way of the shot.

Wordless Wednesday

Xondie - We build websites

It's official. We registered our business with Buncombe County (that's where we live) and opened a bank account for it. We've got more of a website up, although it's still pretty darn incomplete. I guess it's a good sign that we've been too busy to finish our own website.

You'll notice we took the 'bad word' out of our tagline, but now it's not much of a tagline at all. We'll have to keep working on that.

Asheville Ghost Trolley

This week's adventure took us on the Asheville Ghost Trolley. Not quite as exciting as I would have hoped, especially for $20 per person, but it was a fun excuse to get out of the house and learn a little more about Asheville.

The tour guide was a guy who works with some organization in Asheville that actually studies paranormal activity, so he was quite knowledgeable about all of the grisly murders and related reports of apparitions.


But it was dark and gloomy outside and we stayed on the trolley the whole time so it was hard to see some of the buildings he was talking about. There's a walking ghost tour of downtown Asheville that I think we will take one of these days.

Getting out of the "office" - Lake Louise

I suppose it's a little sad that we had to actually put "do something fun" on our to-do list for us to actually leave the house. But, whatever works, right?

Yesterday, we went to Lake Louise, a little lake about 15 minutes out of Asheville. It was quite nice to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and a lovely scenic walk. We've committed to leaving the house at least once each week to do something fun and new.

Last minute Wordzzle

My Aunt Kathie has this great writing game that she's been posting on her blog on a weekly basis called Wordzzles. She gives out 10 random words and you have to write them into a paragraph. It's "due" every Saturday, so I'm getting mine in just under the wire this week! Here are this week's words:

horse shoe, antique chest, marigold, lunatic, science fiction, Oregon, previously, 10 billion, google, tree hugger

And here is my paragraph which is NOT a true story, of course....

10 Billion people in the world and I can't seem to avoid that lunatic tree-hugger from Oregon for a single day. Don't get me wrong, I want to save the environment too, but all I can do is my best. Working at Google has it's benefits. Last week, my whole team got to take a 3 hour lunch break to play horseshoes. And you get to work with the smartest people the planet has to offer. Interesting and fascinating people. The type of people who know the difference between great science fiction and Star Trek Deep Space 9. People who can look through an antique chest full of newspapers and have enough knowledge AND UNDERSTANDING of history to know the significance of what is printed on them. But the problem with geniuses is that they tend to be a little crazy. Like my friend from Oregon. I thought I'd enjoy a little sunshine on the lawn today and was lectured for 10 minutes about the marigold I stepped on. I won't even go into the lectures I've received previously.

I work all the time

I guess I have decided to build websites for a living. At least for now. With all of my complaining about working with computers and in the high tech industry, you might think that this is torture for me. But actually, I am having so much fun that I work ALL the time! In fact, I get annoyed when I have to stop working to run errands, eat, watch a movie, or sleep.

My partner in life and work, John, was fortunate enough to lose his crappy job and now we stay home and build websites together. Since I enjoy nothing more than working on projects (of all kinds) with him, life is pretty exciting now that we work together on stuff we choose to work on. The vegangirl makeover was the first site we worked on together. Then we built foodscout, which we still marvel over.

Right now we are building a musician website for a friend of John's. And they are actually paying us money to do it! Not much, but still. We're getting great experience and we'll be able to feature it on our company website (whenever we put up a company website). We've actually got 4 other possible opportunities in the pipeline and we didn't even try.

What do you think of this tagline for our web company?

"We build websites that kick ass"

Dilbert-esque Video

This video is kind of funny. It reminds me of Dilbert. OK, it isn't hysterical, but if you watch the whole thing, I make a nickel. And if I get enough nickels, they will eventually send me a check and then I can stop posting these stupid videos. But I get paid nothing until I earn $50 and I'm already half way there.

Video Removed

I just can't torture anymore people with this terrible crap any longer. In fact, I am not even going to worry about making enough money to get to the $50 minimum required to get a check. Unless they offer one that is genuinely entertaining, I will not post anymore of these terrible terrible videos on my blog. Well, unless it is one of those where I get $10 just for posting it. Those are awesome. But otherwise, no more lame videos.

2 Dogs are sometimes better than 1

I'm a cat person. I can't help that. Maybe it was my upbringing. Maybe it's my laziness (possibly also a result of my upbringing). Dogs are just a lot of work. They need a lot of attention.

I'm currently dog sitting a little hyper 1-year-old chihuahua mix named Jackson. Jackson is used to getting 3 or 4 walks EVERY DAY! My dog, Emmet, is lucky if he gets a walk once a week.

I thought that this would be a huge undertaking for me. In some ways, it is - Jackson has chewed apart a cat bed, muddied the floor, and pooped in the house a couple of times. He's also annoying the cats and barked maniacally all weekend long.

But there is a silver lining. He and Emmet are entertaining each other, so I don't have to. Perhaps Jackson has gotten used to all the noises of the neighborhood because he has barely barked at all today. The dogs have been so busy with each other and so quiet that I've had to check on them a couple of times to make sure they didn't escape the yard. Nope, still here.


I should give Jackson some credit for being a very well-behaved little dog. He always sits and stays when he is told to and he is pretty good at following the house rules. The picture above is Emmet and Jackson waiting very patiently for the cats to finish their dinner before diving into the kitchen to lick their bowls.

Jackson is also making me appreciate what a quiet, mellow, easy-going dog I have in Emmet.

Frozen tundra

I actually took these weeks ago but when my iBook died (no I still haven't had it fixed) I lost track of all things digital. But here are photos of the couple of weeks of winter we recently had here in Asheville. Luckily, there are always some nice 60s and 70s days thrown into the mix to break things up. The last few days have been light sweater weather. That feng shui fountain (pictured above) never stopped flowing, even in it's most frozen state.

Valentine's Day Snail

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

6 Unimportant Things

Aunt Kathie just tagged me for one of these blog list "tell us about yourself" things. It's just as well because I didn't have anything interesting to write about so now I have an excuse to post.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

6 non-important things/habits/quirks about me:

All of my habits and quirks seem vitally important and fascinating to me, so I had to think hard to come up with some unimportant ones.

1. Any time I see my cat, Simon, in the litter box, I stand very close so I can hear how much urine he is passing.
2. My dog bit my neighbor's ankle last weekend, right after I assured her he wouldn't.
3. I look forward to pulling the chain on my clock every Sunday.
4. I use coconut oil as deodorant.
5. I learned how to play "Tom Dooley" on the mandolin, but I've forgotten it now.
6. I made 1 penny today with google adsense.

I can only think of one person off-hand who has a blog who hasn't already done this exercise, and I "tagged" him for the last one. So I won't do that again. But if anyone reading this would like to do their own 6 Unimportant Things list, please feel free and let me know.

foodscout is finally done!

The last several months I have been doing little else besides working on this health food website. I didn't mind, because I've been very excited about it. But I am glad it's done. Or at least done enough to launch it. I still have a list of half a million enhancements and additions I'm thinking of making.

http://www.foodscout.org

I don't have much more to say about it, except that I LOVE FOODSCOUT and I hope that you do too!

iBook dead....again

My long-time readers may remember that about a year ago this time, my iBook's hard drive failed. From that I learned the lesson, always always back up your data.

Oh wait, no I didn't. Because my iBook just died two nights ago, and still won't restart, and I didn't ever back up anything.

The difference this time is that I no longer have an Apple Store anywhere nearby where I can make a free appointment at the Genius Bar. The other difference this time is that I have no money.

Luckily, my non-attachment runs deep enough at this point that I am not worrying too much about all my emails, photos, documents, receipts, and other data that I may never see again. But hopefully, like last time, a cheap data recovery service will save some of that stuff for me.

Whatever will be, will be.

I'm tired of the internet

I'm not sure what happened. All of a sudden, I find myself completely uninterested in the websites I used to enjoy obsessing over. Rasmussen Reports, stock tickers, email, google analytics, Ron Paul fund raising numbers, they all seem like a total waste of time.

This is great. Not sitting on my computer is going to free up hours and hours of my day. But what will I do instead? Hm...I do have some books I've been meaning to read. I'm behind on my Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazines that Aunt Kathie kindly subscribed me to last spring. I have been meaning to take my dog out for walks more often. There are some drawings I've had in mind. And of course there is always plenty I can do to help out the Grand Old Party. I actually decided to write this blog post only because I needed something to do.

I wonder if this boredom with the computer is a permanent shift or just a phase that will pass.

7 Weird things about me

I was "tagged" by my sister to tell 7 weird things about myself. I could pretend to be one of those people who hates these personal surveys and does them only begrudgingly, but the truth is that I actually love them. It feeds my self-indulgent side.

1 - I live in near constant fear that I smell bad - either B.O. or bad breath.

2 - I used to sometimes eat vegan dog biscuits as a snack, until I decided to cut back on processed food.

3 - I don't like for anyone to look at my toes. When I was a kid, I would keep them covered at all times, even in front of family.

4 - I enjoy paying bills.

5 - During the 8 years I worked in corporate high-tech, I saved money like crazy because I was always sure that I'd get fired for incompetence.

6 - I stopped believing in God when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I have no idea why I thought to question it. I still enjoyed going to church and singing the hymns for years afterwards.

7 - I bought myself a symbol that will grant me passage on the Biaviian mothership.

OK, so now I have to tag someone else. David (DSK), I'm tagging you. Join in the fun if you wish.

My surreal life as a "good Republican"

I decided a while back to try to become a Republican delegate for Ron Paul. After all, it isn't the general public that ultimately nominates the party candidates, it is delegates at a national convention. In order to become a delegate, I need to get involved with the local Republican party so that people get to know me, and see that I am a "good Republican," and then vote for me. Don't ask me the specifics on how this all really works. I still don't know.

Tonight, I decided to attend a meeting of the Republican Women's Club to start getting to know people. I think it may be one of the weirdest things I've ever done. First, I should say that these ladies were all very nice and welcoming and were very happy I was there.

I walked into the meeting room and saw a large table of about 20 older ladies, dressed in blazers and decorative scarves. I thought to myself "Wow, I really don't fit in here." They looked at me as if they thought I must be lost. But I told them I was looking for the Republican Women's Club and they were thrilled to have me.

Many items were on the agenda, which began with a prayer for the troops and the Pledge of Allegiance. Most notable were the Lynn Cheney book signing and the Lincoln-Reagan Republican fund raising dinner. I signed up to help stuff envelopes for the dinner.

In related news, independent of this particular meeting, I have also volunteered to help with a Republican Congressional debate, and am now a "Precinct Chairman." I'm not entirely sure what that entails, but I know I get to attend some big monthly meeting.

In case anyone out there ever placed a bet that I would never be an active member of the Republican party - it's time to pay up.

2008 New Year's resolutions

It's a new year and my favorite holiday. The day when I like to reassess what is most important to me in the year ahead, and commit it to paper. Or, in this case, to a blog post. So here it goes – my New Year's resolutions for 2008:

1. Chew my food thoroughly. I eat way too fast. Chewing is the first phase of digestion, and is just as important as the rest.


2. Walk my dog twice a week. I have finally managed to walk him weekly, and he has a big yard and a dog door, but he really needs and deserves more excitement in his life.


3. Plant a vegetable garden. There is nothing as delicious as food you grow yourself. And it should save some money too since produce in the mountains seem rather pricey.


4. No more hitting refresh buttons on websites, email, and RSS readers. It's one thing to check in on my favorite sites. It's quite another to lose hours a day hitting refresh over and over just in case something changed.


5. Travel to two new places this year. I make this resolution every year. I'm already off to a good start since I flew into New Hampshire late last night.

Have a joyful and prosperous 2008!