BugFrog

Make a plan, follow through with your plan, evaluate your plan. Improve your plan for next time. Learn from it. Here’s how last year’s resolutions went:

(Here’s a link to the mid year evaluation if you are interested, too. HOP )

FINAL SCORE: Of a possible 13 points (full point for success, half point for progress) I have 6 points. While some would consider this a solid F, I consider it halfway there. You have to start somewhere, right?

A more detailed review is below if you care, but it really doesn’t matter either way. I’m on to the new year. 2009, watch out! Oh, and I’m probably moving doing related stuff over to the bgxlabs blog at bgxlabs.com/wp. See you there. The more ranty, personal crap might stay here. Not sure.

2008 Resolutions

1. Figure out how to sleep. This has been a problem for a long time. I need to fix it. Actually this one is the most important.

• Caffeine is doing the trick for me. I’m sticking with it.

2. Maya 3D king. That is what I will be known as by the end of the year. Modeling, texturing, and animation in Maya.

• FAIL

3. Exercise at least 3 times a week. Climbing, elliptical, kayaking, whatever.

• FAIL

4. Eat more salads. I like salads. This shouldn’t be to hard.

• Great here. Holidays have interrupted the plan a little, but still good.

5. Try to have a date night each month with Aimee.

• Depends. If you count hanging out with school parents or blog friends a date, then awesome. We are kicking ass.

6. Make home desk comfortable.

• Pretty good here. Got a used chair and am pretty set.

7. Grow a good garden that actually produces food.

• Did well with the zuks. Mildew never went away, but next time will be better.

8. Hike and camp several times this year. Take Declan out camping.

• FAIL

9. Have more fun with Jeff.

• Jeff has been taking classes just as I have been teaching them. FAIL.

10. Read more.

• Have a few cool magazines I’m reading regularly, but not too much more than that. And the Tao most nights.

11. Don’t waste time futzing on the internet (this blog doesn’t count as futzing.) This one alone should free up enough time to do all the others.

• Getting better. I recognize the futzing sooner and don’t call it “research” anymore.

12. Travel around in Colorado somewhere. We live in an amazing state. We should see it.

• Shit. FAIL.

13. Keep a good attitude and don’t get bogged down by all the crud that seems to crop up. None of it matters, get past it.

• A little better. Am trying to expand my life beyond just the things that bug me. Seems to help.

Coraline

New animation for February.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO3n67BQvh0

Sweet.

Amazon can review the reviews people give to things. Is anyone doing this for movie reviews? Can we aggregate reviewer opinions and somehow create a comparison to what we thought of a movie? That way we can say “Oh! This guy hated it, I’ll love it.”

No lie. You can’t make this up. This is a list of the headlines from 2pm on December 9, 2008 on cnn.com. On their own, not so bad. As a group, this is the important news of our time. Just read through the group, and see what you think. These are all real, but I’ve removed the story links because it just doesn’t matter.

• Simpson codefendants avoid prison
• Clinton, Rice break bread, talk diplomacy
• Gore not looking for White House job, aide says
• Ticker: Obama inaugural outfit revealed
• Sen. Craig’s sex-sting plea will stand
• Child missing after military jet hits house
• GM exec: Automakers likely will want more
• Suze Orman: Be smarter than auto CEOs
• Brown: No way to justify CEO bonus
• Army dad shocks girl on Santa’s lap
• Teen leaves work, heads home, vanishes
• Hidden dangers in the hunt for food
• Which dress should Mrs. Obama pick?
• Rapper Common: Obama will change hip-hop
• Santa freaks out screaming toddlers
• iReport.com: 365 days in 30 seconds
• Giant mutant potato weighs 22 lbs.

LOVE the news.

Je has already started thinking and working this out, but wouldn’t it be great if you had a ID manager that would allow you to customize your online identities? Not an online “identity manager” but an “online identity” manager (that could be online). Open ID with multiple IDs.

There are more and more social networks popping up for everything. Some you want to have more personal information about you, others not so much. Work related social networks use this group of information, kangaroo clown porn networks use this more anonymous information, for example.

If you could manage all your identities in one place, that would be helpful. It could be online, or a desktop AIR style app.

You’ve seen this before I’m sure, but this is just a note for me to pass on to Lil Froggy. I don’t know if the Dalai Lama really made these, but it doesn’t really matter to me.

Gives new meaning to “Keeping it on the DL”

The Dalai Lama’s 18 Rules For Living Your Life

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:

1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

And my own addition:

19. Let other people live their life by their rules, no matter how f*d up they seem.

Who cares if they were implanted in the breasts of the tatoo girl on your leg.

Check it. Not for the faint of heart.

As the economy slows, even the recycling business is feeling it. Below is from this article in NYT. Do you think that pretty soon local governments will start charging for or ditching recycling programs? I do.

_________

For much of this year, the company shipped about 25 containers a day, each filled with 23 tons of refuse to be recycled. But after the Olympics, demand slowed for recycled metal. In October, demand for everything else took a sharp downturn, and for the last two weeks the company has not shipped a single container.

“It just came to a complete stop. Absolutely a stop,” said Gilbert Dodson, the recycling company’s co-owner. “I’ve seen it slow over the last 25 years, but this is the worst,” he said of the current downturn.

Like his counterparts in the auto industry, Mr. Dodson is looking for extra space to accommodate the growing number of bales on his three-acre property. The recycled goods keep arriving in big trucks, even though he now pays only $21 a ton for refuse he paid $120 a ton for earlier this year, but there is nowhere for him to export.

“It keeps coming in,” he says. “But no one is buying.”

Today is Veteran’s Day. We can never say thank you enough to the ones who stepped forward to defend our country and the world around us. We should never take those sacrifices lightly.

Thank you.

Story of Anthony Acevedo

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