First of all, I guess we should look back at my resolutions from last year:

1. Finish writing the two papers I've been working on and get them published in peer-review journals. I did work on this, but I am not as far as I wanted to be. I have gotten one article in for review (tornadoes and mobile homes) and I am going to send another in (Indiana and terrorism) the first week of the new semester. So, that's two articles which are not published but are on the road to that direction.

2. Begin living a more healthy lifestyle. Part of this resolution was to get my weight down to 359. Well, I did (in theory) begin living a more healthy lifestyle though it wasn't anything like I had expected. Despite my resolution, my weight stayed a steady 420 throughout the most of the year. When we became vegetarians (wannabe occasional vegans) in late September, my weight quickly dropped to 380-385 range, which is where is sits today, even after the holidays. It's not 359, but it's a good start.

3. Be stupid-debt free by the end of 2006. This did not happen. It could have happened had the mileage not run out on the Impala. However, because it did, we managed in 2006 to purchase a Volvo outright, which will enable the end of, not only the stupid debts (read: credit cards, etc.) in 2007, but also both car payments we've been stuck with. Because of our smart management and that particular investment in 2006, we'll be far better off at the end of 2007 than I anticipated. By the time all of these debts are paid, we will be saving a total of $675 a month.

4. Turn our basement into living space and make our house more hosting friendly. This also did not happen, because with the opening of the Super Wash on the corner, the water table of the neighborhood apparently rose and now our perfectly dry basement is soaked when it sprinkles. Must suck to be our landlord, who knows this is happening and was not terribly pleased about it.

5. Read one recreational book per month. This I certainly accomplished, in fact I more than doubled this goal. I read 29 recreational books during the year 2006. If you eliminate ones with absolutely no applicability to my research (present or future) but still recreational to me, you still get 18. Not bad! Here they are, as lifted from my myspace profile:

Discipline & Punish- Michel Foucault
High Fidelity (reread)- Nick Hornby
Killing Yourself to Live- Chuck Klosterman
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace- Gore Vidal
Fitzgerald- William Bunge
Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs- Chuck Klosterman
The People's History of the United States- Howard Zinn
Lies My Teacher Told Me- James W. Loewen
The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space- Don Mitchell
No God But God- Reza Aslan
Rules for Radicals- Saul Alinsky
Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life- Jon Lee Anderson
Talking Right- Geoffrey Nunberg
How Few Remain- Harry Turtledove
Team of Rivals- Doris Kearns Goodwin
Putting Children in Their Place- Stuart Aitken
1776- David McCullough
Hegemony or Survival- Noam Chomsky
On Bullshit- Harry G. Frankfurt
Orientalism- Edward Said
Deterring Democracy- Noam Chomsky
The New Imperialism- David Harvey
The Motorcycle Diaries- Che Guevara
The Business of War (advance copy)- James Tyner
In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
A Man Without A Country- Kurt Vonnegut
Player Piano- Kurt Vonnegut
The Girlfriend's Guide to Hockey- Teena Spencer
Fargo Rock City- Chuck Klosterman

6. Play music at least once a week. This did not happen AT ALL, and in fact may be the biggest failure of the year. Yes, I even bought a mandolin this year, but I did not play anything once a week. I pounded out some things on the piano here and there. I played that new mandolin maybe two dozen times. I played my viola (the most expensive thing in our possession) exactly twice, though in my defense I had been thinking of joining the Ashtabula or Stow symphonies until I found that my viola had a rattle that will require, in all likelihood, new strings and a new bridge and (at around $250) are out of our price range. [You know you've got an expensive instrument when $250 of repairs is nothing to really flinch at, regardless of ability to pay for it at the moment.] Strangely, I still want to by a drum kit and a mandola. Ooh, and a decent (or even uber-cheap with enough effects that I can get a good crunch and some good distortion without pedals) stack for my electric guitar. These will not happen in the foreseeable future, but this obsession will never end. I think the obsession of owning instruments is a lame way I cope with not being able to produce music. "Geez, if I just could get a stack and a drum kit, I could finally play punk rock right," etc.

Let's leave that one right there.

7. Save $1000 through the year. This also did not happen. Right now, we have approximately 84 cents in a piggy bank, which is the extent of our savings. Now, I will say that we made some nice money decisions throughout the year, and that we would have saved $1000 had we not taken adventures to Niagara Falls, Toronto, Salt Fork State Park. Also, we would have saved a lot more had our various parents actually come to visit us instead of idly (and lazily) sitting in Indiana and waiting for us to show up. I figured up that going home costs us, on average, about $300 a trip because of Amy's lost wages, gas, food and petsitter. The longer the trip, obviously the more expensive it is. In 2006 we took six trips to Indiana, varying in length from four to nine days. At an average of $300 per trip, that's $1800 that we spent to go home. Save these things, and we would have been far, far ahead. But then, what good is savings if the life is not worth living?

So, depending on how you count it, that's around two-and-a-half out of five that I got right. You could be generous and add another two-halves (for getting in better shape and for spending the savings on travel). It wasn't a terrible year, in terms of some limited personal growths.

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Resolutions for this year? Well, I've got a pile.

1. Read TWO recreational books per month. This should not be a hard goal to meet, but if I don't make the goal, I can't drive towards it. Also, it may be harder to classify readings as "recreational" this year since I will be working so much on my dissertation.

2. Have two finished publications, two more new ones in review and a dissertation that is getting pretty damn close to being finished. By this time next year, my time at Kent will almost be finished. I will have to get some things done to present myself for job searches. Speaking of which...

3. Before New Years 2008, get a haircut and buy some professional clothing. My hair was not cut in 2006 at all. It may not be cut for much of 2007. However, in early 2008, I will be having (hopefully) some job interviews in which I'll need to look a little less like a hippie and a little more like a professor. I will need to cut my head-hair (the beard is acceptable, if trimmed) and purchase turtlenecks and a jacket with (vegan-friendly) elbow patches. And maybe some Cosby sweaters. Also, a nice pair of pants or two. Once I get tenure, I can look as scary (or "eccentric" when you're in a borguoise field like academics) as I want.

4. Conquer New York City. I have never been there. I would like to go there. I am generally terrified of a city that large. I will conquer that fear, and I will conquer that city. It's only like seven hours away, which is just a little longer than Toronto. I mean, we may never live in this half of the country again, you know? By New Years of 2009, I will (hopefully) have a job, and it may be in Arizona.

5. Have a substance-free year. I don't think there's been a calendar year go by without beer, drugs, or cigarettes/cigars for me since I was approximately 15 years old. Since I haven't done drugs in a long time and lost my taste for beer after Tim's run-in with mortality and the law, and since I haven't smoked cigarettes regularly since July of 2004, that only means I need to avoid cigars, which I only very occasionally smoke. I will not be swearing off Tylenol, cold syrup (for proper uses), prescriptions or happy pills (should I get them in the fall pending insurance coverage).

5a. Have a meat-free year. That's pretty self-explanatory.

6. Exercise at least once weekly. That's always been the hardest part of my personal fitness agendas. I can generally control what I eat and how much. I can't convince myself to actually go and work out. This is something I hope to change. Today (last I had heard) Amy and I are planning to go play some basketball. I think this will be good, if she's still interested. At one point, we had also discussed a weight bench and a treadmill for the basement, which already has a couple bikes.

7. Adopt no more pets of any kind, except maybe adding some fish to the aquarium. Again, something that's been hard to do in the past, but maybe this year?

8. Be stupid debt free by 2008. I know, I said this last year, but this year it's actually possible. We've worked things around and changed our lifestyle in ways that taking care of these debts should present very little problem for us. If we do this, like I said, by eliminating my credit cards, my laptop loan and both car payments, we will save $650 a month, which will almost be like Amy getting a second job. Suhweet.

9. Come closer to figuring out my religious thing. See, I've had a pretty bad year in terms of religion. I'm back to having extreme amounts of dread when it comes to attending church. This is because I can't find a church that works for me. Why go to a worship service if all I can concentrate on are the flaws (in my mind) of the church's teaching? It kind of takes away from my ability to worship. Luckily, I jump into 2007 with some interesting prospects (specifically Quakerism, in which my interest has been renewed). I hope to work one of these out, and if not, to actively seek something that does.

I think that's all for now. If I can accomplish (and tweak) these minor things, that would be great. Hell, even if I only accomplish half of them like last year, that's an improvement.

I guess we'll see what happens...