Daddy and Julia in Mar Vista/Venice area of Los Angeles on December 31, 2008.

New Year's Resolutions for 2009

THE COUNTDOWN:
A new year and a new start!

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

“"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man."
Benjamin Franklin

• SAME AS LAST YEAR: TENNIS AND THE WEIGHTS

Same as last year's failed resolution.

STATUS: In large part because of the (almost) free child care, I joined a gym and visited it assiduously. I didn't have time for the greatest, most in depth workouts, but it was a big lifestyle improvement. Success!

• CONTINUE BEING THE BEST FATHER AND HUSBAND I CAN BE

Takes just about all my post-work time and energy...

STATUS: Not bad at all. As always: family first (as much as possible).

• CONVERT TO BLU RAY

Sony BDP-S350 unit for blu-Ray so as to continue the Bravia Theater Sync.

STATUS: Total success!

• LEARN FROM YOUR BETTER HALF

Social isolation and physical inactivity is not what your wife has done: learn from her positive example

STATUS: Not horrible, not great. Too busy to worry so much about this one for the present....

• DR. WHITE

Get HMO situation under control

STATUS: Success! Continue building doctor-patient relationship with Dr. White.

• POTTY TRAIN JULIA

My God, will this be a blessed thing!

STATUS: Total success! Just in time to return to diaper-land with new baby.

• PLAY MUSIC LOUDLY!

You have an uber-expensive sound system downstairs, but never make the time to use it (or find the time when wife and daughter are not around).

STATUS: I would have to live with the few successes hear and there that I could achieve when cooking in the kitchen with wife not at home.

• GET BRENT AND BARICH ONTO FACEBOOK

Fight the lonliness of weakened scattered nature of the contemporary American life in way you can.

STATUS: Total success! Brent and John not so active on Facebook, but I was amazed and pleased to see so many of my own generation gravitating to Facebook. I was able, even briefly, to re-connect and touch bases with old high school and college fraternity buddies! So healing, so nice.

• MOVE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE TO ITS OWN DOMAIN

  Important task in long-term but much short-term tedious grunt work. Get it done.

  STATUS: Done! Expensive and tedious, but it should be the basis for the next decade.

• LONG AND LAZY AFTERNOONS AT THE GETTY VILLA

Lounge about for hours among the artifacts of antiquity in Malibu and read deeply of the ancients during summer break.

STATUS: Total success!

• RSS FEEDS TO NON-MARQUEE CLASSES

The last five yards after so much earlier hard work. Get it done in 2009-2010.

STATUS: On the way to being done....

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

  Here is the lineup at this time:

First Rung:

• "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848" by Daniel Walker Howe
  • (DID READ)
• "A Most Wanted Man" by John le Carré
  • (DID READ)
• "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" by James McPherson
  • (DID READ)
• "Up in the Air" by Walter Girn
  • (DID READ)
• "Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work" by Julie Morgenstern
  • (DID READ)
• "NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children" by Ashley Merryman and Po Bronson
  • (DID READ)
• "Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!" by Sandra Tsing Loh
  • (DID READ)
• "The Water is Wide: A Memoir" by Pat Conroy
  • (DID READ)
• The No-Cry Discipline Solution: Gentle Ways to Encourage Good Behavior Without Whining, Tantrums, and Tears" by Elizabeth Pantley
  • (DID READ)
• The Manipulative Child: How to Regain Control and Raise Resilient, Resourceful, and Independent Kids" by Ernest W. Swihart Jr. and Patrick Cotter
  • (DID READ)
• Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56" by Rafe Esquity
  • (DID READ)
• "Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World" by Rafe Esquity
  • (DID READ)
• "The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith" by Studs Terkel
  • (DID READ)
• "Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times" by Studs Terkel
  • (DID READ)
• "Facing Unpleasant Facts and All Art is Propaganda" by George Orwell, complied by George Packer
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!" by Sandra Tsing Loh
  • (DID READ)
• "Of Plymouth Plantation" by William Bradford
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System" by Roberto Saviano
  • (DID READ)
• "Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America" by Jay Parini
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Strongest Tribe" by Bing West
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Time of My Life" by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi
  • (DID READ)
• "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" by Jeffrey Sachs
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink
  • (DID READ)
• "The Abstinence Teacher" by Tom Perrotta
  • (DID READ)
• "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" by Barack Obama
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Tess of the Durbervilles" by Thomas Hardy
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861" by David M. Potter
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877" by Eric Foner (read in December 2009)
  • (DID READ)
• "The Conquest of Gaul" by Julius Caesar
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Anabasis: The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon
  • (DID NOT READ)
• "Mystic River" by Dennis Lehane
  • (DID READ)
• "Gone Baby Gone" by Dennis Lehane
  • (DID READ)
• "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power" by Robert Dallek
  • (DID READ)
• "Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America" by Rick Perlstein
  • (DID READ)
• "The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat" by Bob Woodland
  • (DID READ)
• "Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work" by Julie Morgenstern
  • (DID READ)
• "Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion" by Edward J. Larson
  • (DID READ)
• Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction" by David Sheff
  • (DID READ)
• "Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines" by Nic Sheff
  • (DID READ)
• "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen
  • (DID READ)
• "The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America" by John Putnam Demos
  • (DID READ)
    

• Second Rung: On the radar screen but longer-term goals:
  • "Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay
    • (DID NOT READ)
  • "The School on Heart's Content Road" by Carolyn Chute
    • (DID NOT READ)
      
      
• MAKE SOME KIND OF DENT ON THE NETFLIX QUEUE --

• "Darwin's Nightmare"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Downfall"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "The People vs. Larry Flynt"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Beaufort"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Lawrence of Arabia"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "American Experience: The Rockefellers"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "The Wobblies"
  • (VIEWED)
• "I've Loved You So Long"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Seventh Seal"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "This Film is not Yet Rated"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Friends of God: A Road Trip with Alexandra Pelosi"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "The Edward R. Murrow Collection"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Dying Young"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Lorenzo's Oil"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Deliver Us From Evil"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Harlan County, U.S.A.
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Public Enemies"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Bra Boys"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Mongol"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Body of Lies"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Enter Les Murs"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Quantum of Solace"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Battlestar Galactica: Season 4"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Phillip K. Dick: The Penultimate Truth"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Chicago 10"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Commune"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Waltz With Bashir"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Wrestler"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Valkyrie"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "The Reader"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Revolutionary Road"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "The Road"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Reader"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Quantum of Solace"
  • (VIEWED)
• "JCVD"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Gran Torino"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Gomorra"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Frost/Nixon"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Entre Les Murs"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Defiance"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Slumdog Millionaire"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Changeling"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Body of Lies"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Austraila"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Shield": entire series
  • (VIEWED)
• "George Wallace"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Stevie"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Frozen River"
  • (VIEWED)
• "What Doesn't Kill You"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Resolved"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Frost Nixon: Watergate Interviews"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Doctors' Diaries"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Rescue Dawn"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Clarence Darrow"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Frontline: Sick Around America"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Brain"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Taken"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Righteous Kill"
  • (NOT VIEWED)
• "Medea"
  • (VIEWED)
• "King Corn"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Food, Inc."
  • (VIEWED)
• "Eric Clapton: Sessions for Robert Johnson "
  • (VIEWED)
• "Appaloosa"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Religulous"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Black Belt"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Sergeant York"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Wobblies"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Mountain Patrol: Kekexili"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Laramie Project"
  • (VIEWED)
• "American Teen"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The U.S. Mexican War"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Spartacus"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Bucket List"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Andrew Carnegie and the Age of Steel"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Buenavista Social Club"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Baader Meinhof Complex"
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Terri Schiavo Story
  • (VIEWED)
• "The Dark Ages
  • (VIEWED)
• "Billy the Kid"
  • (VIEWED)
• "George Balanchine's The Nutcracker"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Frontline: Bad Voodoo's War"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Guitarra!: A Musical Journey Through Spain"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Sin Nombre"
  • (VIEWED)
• "Stress: Portrait of a Killer"
  • (VIEWED)