Resolving Resolutions
Certainly the most common promise to ourselves we break are New Year’s resolutions. I resolve to have the resolve to resolve the resolution of my resolutions. Uhh…I think.
7. Finishing + +
One of these days, I’ll stop procrastinating. But just not right now.
Of course I have to do something. And quick. For quite a while I’ve put off taking the 2 tests, and receiving the 2 certifications, I need to begin making more money with haste. A burgeoning financial dilema approaches, and I will — hopefully before things become desperate — be eligible for either an internal or external promotion.
The CompTIA A+ and the Network+ will, planned by the end of April, improve my marketability.
I’ll let you know, as this is one of my self-regulating systems, not wanting publicly to tell people I have failed.
Even by a little.
6. Be more organized
My office, right now, is a friggin’ mess. I have a few small piles of papers, magazines, books, files and receipts on the floor. I haven’t sat in my reading chair in maybe 8 months. Since Wifey had her health problems, I have allowed my own problems, with business, organizational issues, and my own health — including my own heart — to build up. My resolution is to spend a few more days until the end of January, working on the minutia of incunabula, making for an honorable, respectable office I do not have to apologize for when visitors arrive.
5. Spread the euangelion of the WordPress plugin Classic Editor
I don’t mind change. Change is essential to progress. Since Project Gutenberg took over the WP editing interface, the default GUI uses kindergarten-style “blocks” editor which not only is a reversion for people who know how to edit in WP, but makes the interface junky, removes features and creates confusion while distracting from the smooth process flow inherent in the back end features we have come to know and love.
I loathe the new setup, in fact, that my hatred is equal to the thought of the orange manbaby sitting for another moment behind the Resolute Desk (yes, that was meant to be both a political poke and a high-level pun).
Thankfully, so many people have complained about it, this handy plugin reverts the interface back to the tried-and-true look and feel we know, while maintaining security and giving us back control — which we had lost — over the name of a new webpage. Don’t work on your WP site without it.
4. “Weight, Weight, Don’t Tell Me“
As of today, 1901.02, 8am in the morn, I weigh 208.1#. Though a relative had noticed I had actual lost a few pounds approaching the holidays, I put a few back on during and after those holidays.
Loosing just 1# a week is my goal. So at the end of the month, 204.1#. By my 54th, 199.1#, etc. I don’t need to loose a full 52#, but simply 26# by the time the 6th month of this post comes by should do me about 2/3 of the way to my desired less substantial end. Loosing at least 2 chins and having a better sense of myself and confidence when in public with my lovely wife in my arms are the endgame.
3. I Can’t Be Write All The Time
But I can write more. Since I have publicly expressed that I will, with a mea culpa mentality, update in exactly 6 months my progress on these resolutions, this is actually the one I will be most embarrassed to have missed. I have 5 partially-fleshed-out manuscripts, tons of notes, probably over 600 referenced factoids, and c. 140 floating thoughts I am belaboring to place in the proper order on their attendant tomes. I have figured out which project I will concentrate on, however part of the problem is that I update a paragraph, or add an updated reference or corrected information for a portion of one ms. and suddenly my main work — which I can finish earliest — gets pushed aside.
That is not good. But I must work at improving that, and becoming better organized should help. As it is, I find having continuous, mindful and uninterrupted time to work on these projects fleetingly few, without having another item added to the household honey-do list.
My resolve, however, is high.
2. Finishing the Top 10
– During the upcoming Spring and Summer seasons, to have at least the top 10 items on my honey-do list completed by October.
– Preparation for Halloween (I have 2 things to buy, and it will be slightly elaborate, but I feel my inner mad scientist coming out in my evil plans ….. Mwaahaaha haaa!)
– Painted media room, dyed couches, replaced top light
– Be at least 80% finished with the upstairs attic started last year (soon I should be able to start storing more items in there, and maybe next year improve the access so anyone who is not a wiggle worm can fit through the access — thus improving our overall home value)
– Brew at least 4 batches of beer
– Build 2 small backyard cement patios for the barbecue, wifey’s gardening tables and supplies, and maybe even a storage shed
– Finish the backyard lighting fixture placements, including the improved motion-detector security light
– Power wash the back porch extension and create a colored coating for the entire porch, with sealant, and fix or replace the current table
– Remember what the other 2 items are . . . . .
1. Animal Husbandry
To be an incredible husband. Easiest item on this list.
Great essay. Having had a plethora of heart attacks and spending many weeks in the hospitals (Mary Greeley in Ames is the BEST, and University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City the worst) I finally had no choice but to take care of myself, and as Professor Paul Pearson pontificated passionately pursue a different course and “get back to writing), I had 90% of my prostate removed and took Furosemide (Lasix) to shed tons of “water” drowning my too-big of a body and lost weight, re-energized my will and now write too much (my blog comes first with scathing attacks on religion (especially white Christian evangelicals who, in the early twentieth century Germany made up the bulk of Hitler’s “very fine people” (Lutheran NAZIs, calling themselves “storm troopers of Jesus Christ.”: Landeskirchen, led by Ludwig Mueller; Doris L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 4.) giving the nod to Trumpelthinskin’s supporters (Poor Boys, American NAZIs, KKK, and other fringe groups wanting the Orange Menace to be Dictator for Life) but with joy continue to do so. Cf. https://classroom.synonym.com/the-lutheran-church-during-wwii-12086103.html; https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-5/protestant-churches-and-nazi-state; and, https://www.oocities.org/heartland/7547/hitler.html among other essays.
Von den Jüden und iren Lügen; in modern spelling Von den Juden und ihren Lügen (“On the Jews and Their Lies”) a 65,000 word hate message by Martin Luther was the bible for NAZIs and modern days Jew-hating Trump supporters and assassins (e.g. Robert D. Bowers; https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=americans+who+killed+jews+today&fr=yset_widemail_chr_win&type=default) while claiming without evidence that Jews “want their land and job” (a common theme in “Stormfront” (e.g. https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t514183/ and other Fake News proliferating on the internet and repeated on Fox News). Unfortunately this does not stop as hate is a growing fungus among us. It takes serious scholars to refute this nonsense, along with such absurdities as the Flat Earth Society and “biblical” experts claiming the planet and universe is only 6000 years old and must be ruled over by white males. Fortunately, there is Aron Ra of American Atheists and his sterling arguments on YouTube (ref. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC, etc.).