New Year's Resolutions for 2008

NEW YORK TIMES SQUARE:
Three young ladies with specialized eyeglasses await the onslaught of the New Year!

Rich Geib's 2008 New Year's Resolutions!

What should I do? Where to go? How to live?

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”
Edith Lovejoy Pierce

• SAME AS LAST YEAR: TENNIS AND THE WEIGHTS

Same as last year's failed resolution.

• SAME AS LAST YEAR: LUNCH

  Same as last year's failed resolution.

• SOLVANG CENTURY BIKE RIDE!
  

  My sister has challenged me and I have accepted. 100 miles is more tedious to ride than exhausting, although it is that; my butt, however, is already sore thinking about that athletic feat. But it will be fun to do with Katie, as we make a weekend out of it, and it is an excuse to work out harder.

• SUMMER WWII BURNS SERIES

  This summer sit down and watch it from beginning to end and absorb it.

• HELP OUT MARIA MORE OFTEN

Clean up more around the house and ease the crushing burden that rests on us working parents.

• CSS AND FLASH

Take all you have leared in the past month about CSS and modify existing web addresses accordingly. Not a small job for summer of 2008.

• FLAT SCREEN HDTV

Over the course complete HDTV purchase by building home theater with digitial reciever and 7.1 sound system.

• START A 457 AND 529 SAVINGS PLAN

Same as last year, except I have an appointment with the money guy in early January of 2008.

• MEMORIZE POEMS

For Julia I will memorize poems and recite them to her as a game as she grows and learns to talk. My wife can read those farcical children's books with her, as I cannot. You already know quite a few poems by heart, but add these (at least) to the list: "Verse of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien, "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "Holy Sonnet X" by John Donne, "Poema Quince" by Pablo Neruda, "Tears, Idle Tears" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, Shelley's "Political Greatness" and "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keat's "Ode to Melancholy" by John Keats.

• CTEL MESS

Pass that damn test and put a final end to the miserable waste of time played out over no less than 16 years which has been my teacher certification program.

• MAKE SOME KIND OF DENT IN THE "TO READ" BOOK PILE --

Surprising for the circumstances, I gained good reading momentum from last year which I hope to keep up:

First Rung:

• "Anabasis: The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon
• "The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s" by H.W. Brands
  • (DID READ - much denser than I thought it would be)
• "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life" by Robert Reich
  • (DID READ)
• "Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness" by Edward Abbey
• "Under God: Religion and American Politics" by Gary Wills
• "Truman" by David McCullough
• "The Conquest of Gaul" by Julius Caesar
• "The Man in the High Castle" and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Phillip Dick
  • (DID READ SHEEP - WEIRD!)
• "Tested" by Linda Perlstein
• "The Great Expectations School" by Dan Brown
• "Personal Memoirs" by Ulysses S. Grant
• "Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union" by Robert Remini
• "Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion" by Edward J. Larson
• "The Age of Reform" by Richard Hofstadter
• "Into the Wild" by Krakauer
  • (DID READ - interesting character study!)
• "The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861" by David Potter
• "The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste" by Tom Hodgkinson
• "Beaufort" by Ron Leshem and Evan Fallenberg
• "Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds" by Joanne Jacobs
  • (DID READ)
• "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser
• "Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland" by Bill Holm
• "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
  • (DID READ - sheriff's musing most interesting!!)
• "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by Barack Obama
• "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" by Barack Obama
  

Second Rung: On the radar screen but longer-term goals:

• "Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay
• "Native Son" by Richard Wright
• "McTeague" by Frank Norris
  
  
• MAKE SOME KIND OF DENT ON THE NETFLIX QUEUE WITH THE NEW FLATSCREEN LCD TELEVISION--

• "Harlan County"
• "Into the Wild"
• "This is England"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Philadelphia" There is much to mine here! Watch this film again carefully.
• "3:10 to Yuma"
  • (VIEWED, better than expected)
• "28 Weeks LAter"
  • (VIEWED- like predecessor, scaring the bejesus out of me)
• "The Fog of War"
  • (VIEWED - self-serving and a bit of a let-down, but worth viewing, in a minor way)
• "Amazing Grace"
  • (VIEWED)
• "My Son the Fanatic"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Lions for Lambs"
• "In the Valley of Elah"
• "Why We Fight"
• "Things We Lost in the Fire"
  • (VIEWED)
• Seven Up" series
• "No Country for Old Men"
  • (VIEWED, not bad but book made it much better)
• "Bella"
• "American Gangster"
• "We Own the Night"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Into the Wild" (and read Krackauer book, too!)
• "The Assassination of Jesse James"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Paradise Now"
• "The Last King of Scotland"
  • (VIEWED)
• Michael Clayton
  • (VIEWED)
• "Atonement" (and read McEwan book, too!)
  • (VIEWED; READ)
• "Rome" HBO series
  • (VIEWED)
• "Lake of Fire"
• "Bladerunner," Director's Cut
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Devil Came on Horseback"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Beowulf," Director's Cut
  • (VIEWED)
• American Gangster
  • (VIEWED)
• "Rendition"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Saints and Soldiers"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Across the Universe"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Assassination of Jesse JAmes by the Coward Robert Ford
  • (VIEWED