End of the Year Review and Ideas for Next Year

Classic Cheescake@Secret Recipe Originally uploaded by Jasemaine.

Well Christmas is over, we had a great family dinner made most of our items from scratch (as opposed to prepackaged). We made an absolutely sin-full new-york style cheesecake. We had Fillet Minion instead of 'Traditional Turkey' and it appeared to be very much enjoyed by everyone.

Santa gave us the 5-6 player expansions for Settlers of Catan and Cities and Nights of Catan so we played a game of that after dinner. Now, this is in contrast to what my family did when we were growing up - apparently at some time in the past 50 years mom had a bad experience with board games so had sworn off of them forever so she didn't play and dad thought the whole thing looked very complex. This is one of those 'family differences' S's family frequently would have dinner at 2 or 3 in the afternoon followed by an afternoon of games then a light supper at 7-8 before everyone left. My family would have 'Formal English Turkey-Carved-At-The-Table-by-Dad, Veggies-Served-by-Mom-at-the-Other-End' dinner. Needless to say there has been some 'style friction over the years'

Didn't Work
Outside / Yard Construction

This continues to take us 'FOREVER' just can't get the cycles together to get what is now just a little work to be done NEED to GET THIS FINISHED!

Garage / Craft Room Organization

We have way too much junk, and desperately need to dump stuff and paper, right now our garage is full of crap that isn't in the basement (because we were working on that) and the craft room is full of the junk that we couldn't move outside.

Personal Organization / Tasks

While I'm not missing meetings, I'm not getting to them prepared, i.e. having read the minutes from the previous meeting just as the new meeting starts (if at all) and catching the 'To Do's' that I might have for the meeting by the skin of my teeth. I use Gmail for email but I think I'm in desperate need of an organizer system.

Did Work
Basement

Surprisingly, the basement came together quite quickly once we hired a friend to help us out with the drywalling, we were able to get the ceiling up fairly easily and we're just about done the 'finish electrical'

Work - Programming

My skills at programming are slowly improving, I'm able to not only 'get the work done' but to do it a little faster and it's not so much a struggle, I made good progress learning ASP.net 2.0

Kiddo

Being a dad has been more fun than I had ever hoped it would be - I actually was not looking forward to the first couple of years (what I had previously though of as the 'the poop factory phase i.e. food in poop out not much else going on), K. is terrific fun to be around, he's a happy kid, busy learning and exploring his world and taking me with him on his journey - great fun

To Do
Improve Personal Organization

I've read in Lifehacker about the Getting Things Done system and may check that out next year

Personal Studies

I need to 'pick a topic' with a goal and devote some time to it - another certification from Microsoft or a Programming field of interest or something.

Finish Basement

Need to bring this to a conclusion so that we can begin working on sorting through the crap

That's about it, now if I can only get rid of the cold / flu that I've had since the end of Boxing day that would be great

Have a great new year!

Evan