Neal Tucker

Time for another year-end wrap-up along with my list of resolutions for the coming year.  If you don’t read this, I don’t blame you; there are a million of these written every few seconds, I’m sure.  But of course, this one is a decade-end wrap-up, which is obviously less frequent than the simple year-end ones.  Ignore this mundane first paragraph.

This decade was (and will remain) the Formative Decade for a generation (mine).  Some grew up in the 60′s, and they experimented with drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.  Others grew up in the 80′s and experimented with roller skates and hair metal.  We grew up in the 00′s and experimented with iPhones and Radiohead.  The coming 10′s will be the Formative Decade for another generation, but it remains to be seen what they will experiment with.

The 20th century was a transformative century for technology, and the first 10 years of the 21st century have continued the progress.  We don’t have flying cars, but we have cell phones that put the entire world at our (quite literal) fingertips.  2009 has been another year in the mass-market technological transformation of the global society.  We saw the unprecedented exploration of the social web, the explosion of Twitter, and the promise of a new mobile web (and an Apple Tablet, which I predicted a long time ago…if I do say so myself…and I do…say so myself…*ahem*).

Ten years ago I was at a friend’s house here in Birmingham, Alabama, awaiting the destruction of Y2K.  Of course, it never came.  The new millennium came, but Y2K didn’t.  Here we are ten years later, and Y2K10 is upon us (I don’t expect that to catch on, and not only because no one will read this far into this blog post – if you’re still with me, “You’re a trooper,” as my Mom says.)

What will the new year bring?  I don’t know for sure, of course, but I have my thoughts, my predictions, my resolutions.  What follows are those thoughts, predictions, and resolutions.

I think (like innumerable others) that the iTablet will revolutionize the tech-market, and TV will move to the web like Bill Gates predicted years ago, although not in the way he would have preferred.  I fear that the US will be involved in Iran (And Yemen? Or Israel? What about North Korea?) like we are in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US/UN will further seek destruction of  nuclear weapons on a global level.  I hope that we lift ourselves out of the global recession (depression?) in 2010, though that remains to be seen.

As for my New Year’s Resolutions, they are as follows, more or less….

1. Finish the C.S. Lewis corpus.  I’ve wanted to read all of a particular author for some time, and I’ve read more of his than anyone else.  David Mamet is a very close second.  Maybe I’ll make him my 2011 goal, unless the world ends a few years early.

2. I have a few exercise/diet goals that I won’t detail here, but that’s a staple of any resolutions list, so I know you aren’t surprised or too terribly upset that it’s on my list and not detailed, respectively.

3. A goal for 2009 was to journal every day for a few weeks.  I will make that a goal for 2010, as well, because it was a very rewarding experience, and I would like to journal more often.

4. And here is my most ambitious goal for 2010, I think.  I saw someone do this on Facebook, and I think it’s a great idea.  I would like to take a picture every day for a whole year.  I’ll post them on Flickr in a specific gallery, and at the end of the year, I will hopefully make a book or poster or something to celebrate the whole endeavor and look back on the year in pictorial fashion.

Those are my big ones.  I might come up with a few more, but those are the ones that I wanted to share.  If you read any of this, thanks for doing so.  I don’t know what to write in expectation of the next decade, though it will be the formative years for most of my 20′s.  I’m excited about it, though, and I’m looking forward to a fantastic New Year and another influential decade.

I hope your New Year is bright and full of opportunity.  Goodbye 2009 and the 00′s!  Happy New Year!  2010!

Auld Land Syne,*

Neal

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*Means “long long ago” or “days gone by” according to Wikipedia.

P.S. If you’re looking for a good to-do app for all your resolutions, check out http://teuxdeux.com/

I know I said I would decide yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to post, so here are my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions.. (that looks like a colon decided to lay down – : .. )

1. I will finish the play I am working on, or I will chuck it to start and finish a different one.
2. I will experience an average of a story each week.  What I mean is at least 52 stories this year, although there may be some weeks I don’t get to do this.  So if I say “an average” it will work out better for all involved.
3. I will eat a green vegetable an average of once a day.  That means I need at least 7 green veggies a week.  It doesn’t, however, mean that I will eat veggies every day.  I won’t even pretend to make that resolution.
4. I will keep a journal daily for 2-3 weeks, just to see what that’s like.  I’ve journaled in some capacity on a semi-regular basis, but I want to know what it’s like to journal on a daily basis if only for that short period of time.  I would say a month, but who knows if I would do that.
5. I will work out an average of once a week, for 52 times this year.  That would honestly be probably more than I worked out last year, so as pitiful as that is, it would be an improvement.  Ugh.  I frustrate me sometimes.  Anybody else?  Yeah?

I think that’s about it.  If I can keep up all of those, I’ll be a happy camper.

This is neither here nor there, but I am going to get my computer back from being in the shop probably tomorrow or Saturday, and I’m considering installing Mac OS X Leopard on it just for fun.  We’ll see.  It might be more trouble than it’s worth, but I might just dual boot it with Vista and Leopard.  Might be fun.  Who knows..  For those of you who would like to know how this might be done, check it out here.

I capitalized The.  Get over it.

This is my first post of 2009, the newest year thus far.  I am in Birmingham, enjoying the time with family and friends, the warmer weather, and just relaxing.  My computer, however, is in the Geek Squad shop, getting either 1) fixed or 2) thrown away.  If (2) happens, I get a new computer because of the bad-a warranty I got.  I just walk in and pick out a computer for the price of the original I bought.  Sawweeett.  If you have any suggestions on what I should get should this transpire, please let me know – I’m open to suggestions.

Now, I’ve had the rule for myself for the last few years that I could still work on what I wanted my New Year’s Resolutions to be until the end of January.  I think I am going to change that this year.  By the end of this week (Jan. 7th), I will have decided.  Here are some options:

1. Finish my play (I need an ending)
2. Write another play (…)
3. Write a screenplay (I need the opposite of writer’s block…perhaps this ?  Idk, feels like cheating…)
4. Keep a journal every day for a fortnight (every day is the hard part here)
5. Work out at least 1 day a week for the whole year (this one seems easy, but it’s deceptively difficult)
6. Watch or read at least one story a week (I mean, see/read a movie or play, or read a novel or short story each week, at least one, which is something I’ve been doing for a while now, so hopefully this can just be a continuation)
7. Do at least one day of community service (there are 363 1/4 days left, so I should be able to pull this one off – it’s absurd how I never ever do community service, at least not since high school)
8. Meet Ron Jeremy (kidding)
9. Meet David Mamet (at some point in my life…and I’m obviously not kidding)

So there you go.  Let me know what you think.