If I could invest in an idea, it would be that happiness and joy are the most powerful forces on Earth.

Smile, life is what we make of it.

I’m trying my best to make this not sound like a new year resolution’s post. I think however that the battle is futile.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller – Ferris Beuller’s Day Off

This quote starts streaming through my consciousness whenever I feel myself getting wrapped up in work or other priorities that I start to lose a bit of perspective. Living life is the theme of this year. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact the world might end on my 30th birthday either… okay so maybe a little. My list of things I wanted accomplish last year was rather hefty. I knew that going in to it and the point was to set a high bar. I knew if I hit at least half I’d be doing good. Now, enough of that. It was so very last year. We are a week in to 2012, let’s talk about that.

Now since my theme is to live life I have a couple things I’d like to achieve, they all play off each other in a bit.

1. Be Active – You might think, “isn’t this just exercising?” and if you are thinking that you are wrong. Exercise is planned times of doing something for the explicit reason to work out. I don’t like going to the gym, or dieting or whatever else. I do love being outdoors and staying active. Some of the things I want to do more of: hiking, riding my bike to work, running, and even just taking walks with Abbey. Keep it simple, keep it fun.

2. Be Healthy – As I stated in the last item, I hate dieting. I think it’s dumb and unsustainable. I do like being healthy though. My goal is in general to pick the healthier items when going out, replacing some red meat with fish, and getting vegetables or a salad for the side in place of the less healthy choices.

3. Save Money – I am notoriously bad about putting money away when I should. Luckily with some technology I will be able to do this one without much work at all. Watch out coffers I’m about to get you stuffed.

4. Finish Projects – My inability to appropriately save is almost matched by my notoriety for not finishing projects. I have a laundry list of things I want to finish. It’s not realistic to finish them all but there are a couple big ticket items. One of them is to redesign this blog, it’s stale and in my opinion doesn’t reflect me. Another is a home brewing project. That involves some pretty fun tech and challenging problems to overcome.

5. Keep it Open – This one isn’t really a goal at all and more of just to stay open for anything that might come my way this year. Things can change pretty quick so why not be receptive and prepped for what might be in store?

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” - Dr. Seuss

Words can’t describe how I feel at this moment. Why though? Is it because I’m at a good place in my life? Maybe it’s because I have everything I need. Or perhaps it’s because in this moment things are simple. Right now in this moment all I have to do is take a deep breath and take it all in.

I’ve felt this way before in many different places at different times and with different circumstances. They all share a common thread, a simpleness. There’s no drive to over complicate things or to over think. Feeling like I do now makes me want to strive to maintain this as an essence of every day of my life. Now, how to do that.

I think step one will be to simplify my life. To do that I am going to start with a notebook and a pen. I’ll have a few general categories and put a tick next to the category every time there is something that takes me down. “Takes me down” is a bit vague but what I’m thinking is that if I encounter something that makes my life more complicated, more stressful or in general makes me not as happy as I was then it gets a mark. I don’t have unrealistic expectations, life will always have it’s up’s and down’s.  This exercise is more to illustrate the portions of my life that are the worst offenders. I want to know where in my day to day life the things are they keep me from being in the state I am in now.

The Japanese have a term that I learned while doing some research for work. It’s called kaizen. Kaizen means “improvement” or “change for the better.” It’s partially behind what is driving this feeling to find the areas in my life that bring me down. More or less it has been the way I’ve lived most of my life whether I’ve known it or not. When I read about it I had this “ah-ha!” moment. Kaizen to me means constantly improving myself, my life, my surroundings. I’m not saying I need to go and change the world every day but small simple things because over time they add up. Think of it this way, if you started this right now and you did one small thing every day to make your life a bit better where would you be in a month? 6 months? a year? I bet you’d be noticeably happier without even having to do that much.

Just remember change isn’t instant, it’s a gradual process. Also remember that change is flexible there’s nothing that says what decision you make today has to be the same thing a month from now, or in a week or even in a day. It’s up to you to decide what makes you a little better, what makes things a little bit happier.

2010 was a big year and will be a hard one to top. Last year held a large promotion at work, a few fantastic trips, coaching a softball team and a lot of newfound friends. Twenty-ten saw me turn 28 and run my first marathon. I went on my second annual baseball trip and achieved some great things at work. I really couldn’t have had a better 2010. Looking forward to a bigger and better 2011, I am making a list of things I want to accomplish. Below are those very goals.

1. Go skydiving.
2. Learn to play piano.
3. Brew my first beer.
4. Build a piece of furniture.
5. Go on a trip with friends.
6. Go snowboarding.
7. Design and code my new beer blog.
8. Do something selfless.
9. Write an iPhone/iPad app.
10. Organize my office.
11. Get in shape.

So that’s it. Not a small list by any means but definitely feasible. Here’s to you and yours on this fantastic eve of the new year. I wish you all a wonderfully happy and fantastic new year.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I spent my whole childhood wanting to be a grown up. I wanted it so badly, I wanted to be in control, to have the infinite freedoms being a grown up held. If only I could talk to the me then, I could tell myself to enjoy it as long as I can. It all goes by so fast and being a kid is as easy as life gets. The older we get the faster time moves and the fewer carefree days we get. So here’s to getting your “kid” days when you can and making the most of them with what you have. I know I will.

I am embarking on a set of projects. One I can give you information on, the other only a name and a brief description.

TransparentJS.com

The first project is a technical blog. I intend to present ideas on good JavaScript development and standards. It will be a work in progress at first to find the best fit for style and presentation. Please stay tuned when I announce here when it will be launching.

Klip’r

This is the second project. Klip’r is a much larger project that is in it’s infancy right now. A high level of the idea without giving too much away is it will be a social based application that will allow you to share ideas, images, and news at a much finer grain with your friends. My intent is to get a working prototype of my idea and share it with a few people to test my concept.

This year I’ll be traveling to San Diego for Halloween. I’m really excited as I’ll be there for An Event Apart. I will be there with a group of fellow coworkers and we’ve decided to do a group costume, The Fellowship of the Ring. I will be going as Aragorn which will be a bit of an undertaking.

My first step will be to attempt making the bracers he wore. Which are featured at the bottom of this post. Today I will be researching what I need for the costume and breaking it down to into the specific materials and details. Stay tuned as I’ll be doing write-ups on the progress of the costume and some brief how-to’s on some of the items.

Hoodlums was on my list of stops this past Sunday. I went in to feed my new hobby, collecting LP’s. Here’s a quick list of what I picked up.

• Yeasayer – O.N.E (single)
• The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt
• Spoon – Girls Can Tell
• Dark Was The Night – Various artists

Vinyl to me is really a lot more than just the music. It’s the whole process, going to the record store and spending an hour or two flipping through the bins to find that gem. Then taking it home and carefully removing the pressed vinyl from it’s protective sheath and sliding it onto the player. Hearing the pops and snaps from dust and scratches adds an authenticity to the experience. I feel more part of the music than had I just purchased a digital version. To sum it up I think my mom said it best, “it has guts.” Goodnight folks, enjoy your music more.