Another year has come and gone. Last night I rang in the new year with a few friends at quiet dinner party Lori and I hosted at the house. With the help of my brother’s girlfriend, Kerry, I cooked some Chinese food. Eight hours of cooking… 30 minutes of eating, good thing the food was good.

With the end of the year, I, like most, like to look back at the last year and try to decide what I would change in the new year. Unfortunately, I set pretty specific goals in 2005 and no plan to achieve them. As such, I failed in all my resolutions: I did not lose the weight I wanted to, and I did not finish my thesis (I really didn’t get that far with it at all).

This year, I am setting goals instead of specific resolutions. These goals are as follows:

1) To be more organized.
2) To get in shape. This involves both losing weight and getting active (no specific amounts).
3) To complete my thesis (this one is specific, but needs to be done).
4) Continue to improve my cooking skills (it’s becoming a big hobby of mine).

Wow, I didn’t know a website could collect dust. Oh well, it’s been a while so here’s the reader digest version.

1. I got a job. Yup, wasn’t even unemployed long enough to get EI. I am now a Product Engineer at Stratos. I no longer program full time, instead getting a chance to pay with some network equipment and other fun toys.

2. I have made the switch to Linux. I installed it on my machine along side Windows a while ago thinking I would switch back and forth a bit, but I have found that I can do everything I want in Linux. Windows is still there, but I doubt it will be much longer.

3. With the move to Linux I installed the MythTv to play with the open source PVR. Since it runs on my desktop and is not connected to my TV, I stream the recorded shows to my XBox using XBMC Mythtv. It’s quite the slick setup.

4. THE KIDNEYS ARE GOING TO AUSTRALIA. My wife won tickets in an Air Canada contest, so we are planning go somewhere between February and April of next year.

5. I’m finally going to get to Scuba dive. With the impending trip, Lori and I are going to try to get certified for diving so that we can fully enjoy the Great Barrier Reef. With my asthma I will be limited in the depth at which I will be able to dive, but at least I will be able to cross of diving on my list of goals.

That’s a quick rundown of some of the last couple months. To be honest my new job has kept me busy, so I haven’t done a hell of a lot. Maybe next time I’ll talk about my wind surfing adventures. You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Wow, have the last few weeks been just a little too nuts. I couple of weeks ago, my quiet life of sitting around writing my thesis got thrown completely out of wack. I got an email about a job interview on a Friday afternoon, just before I was going out of town for a funeral. When I got back from two, I got an offer of a 7 week contact before I had a chance to got to the interview. I am currently working on that contract, still waiting to here about second interview for the other job. Really though, I am hoping that he contract work lead to full time work, but more on that another day.

I have also finally changed my desktop to Linux. I have been talking about this for a while, but now that my work no longer depends on Windows, I took the plunge. So far so good (with a lot of help form my friend Geoff Holden), with the exception of my TV Card. It’s a ATI AIW card, and they’re not well supported under Linux. In all, my experiences haven’t been too bad, though I am not sure I would try Linux with my parents yet.

Finally, I want to tell you about the best movie you have never seen (at least it would be a safe guess you haven’t), Shine. I was flipping through the channels on Sunday and I happened upon it on Bravo. The movie is the story of David Helfgott Autrailian pianist who was born in 1947. I details his life from a young boy playing in competitions, to an youth who suffers a breakdown while playing in London, to the current day life of David (well, up to 1996 when the movie was released). Not only is this movie filled with beautiful music, it also has an amazing acting performance by Geoffrey Rush. If you haven’t seen this movie, put it on your “to see” list.

I get about 50 pieces of spam a day. That may not be as much as some folks see, but it’s definitely enough for me. At one point in time though, I can remember when I didn’t get any spam at all. It was then that I signed up for a newsletter from a discount travel dealer called Travelzoo (they were featured in a cnn.com article).

See, back in 1998, during my first Engineering workterm, I actually signed up for spam. I know, it is not spam if you ask for it, but I was signing up for a weekly specials list for travel that was not available in my area, so I consider it spam. The reason I signed up for it was the company was offering shares for giving them your email address. This was before the dot-bust, so I figured what the hell, I might make something for it. Well, then the 2000-2001 rolled around, the company hadn’t gone public, and most dot-coms were dying, so I kinda forgot about the whole thing.

By that time though, I was getting lots of spam, and their mailing blended in, so I didn’t cancel it. Last summer, while checking my spam box to make sure I wasn’t deleting real mail, I saw one of their top 10 lists. I decide to check out the company, and found they had gone public and were trading for about $6/share. Nothing to get exited about since I only had 6 shares, but I figure I would add them to my messenger stock watch list. We’ll late last year, the stock started to climb, and I decide to sell. In the end, I was able to sell the stock for a few hundred dollars. Granted, this is not quite like winning the lotto, but from now on I’ll look at weirder marketing campaigns with a different light.

It’s time to say goodbye to 2004 and hello to 2005. This year was a really good one for me. Lori and I got our first pet, April, our loved and very spoiled beagle. I changed jobs, starting with Blue Line Innovations in April, which provided new and interesting challenges. In May, I presented my first peer reviewed paper at CCECE2004 in Niagara Falls. I got married in September, the biggest and best event of the year. We then celebrated our honeymoon in Barcelona in November, a much need and very relaxing vacation. And now we are just past Christmas, and waiting for the New Year.

It is tradition at this time of year to list a set of goals for the New Year, many of which are forgotten by January 2. To help me stay on task in 2005, I have decided to announce mine to the world via the Internet. This way, I can’t deny them later, if I happen to wander off track. So, in 2005, I resolve to:

1. Lose 40lbs. This may seem like I am setting my goals to high, but a couple of years ago I was able to lose 60lbs, I just didn’t keep it all off.
2. Limit greasy fast food to once a week. Hopefully the frequency will be less that once a week, but this goal is reasonable for now. I will be allowed healthy fast food such as Subway and Pita Pit.
3. Find a regular physical activity to participate in by the end of January. I need to be more active, I’m just not sure what I want to do, and so I am giving myself a month to figure out.
4. Finish my thesis in the first half of the year. It just has to be done; the whole process has gone on long enough.

There they are, my major goals for 2005. Check back throughout the year for updates as to how I am progressing.

-Brian