I am not getting any younger like any of you who may read this. My health is okay, but I definitely have some issues in that department. I’m overweight, I’ve got high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, high triglycerides and I have a slight case of gout in both of my big toes. Over the years, my body has gone through six back surgeries, with both anterior & posterior fusion between L4, L5 & S1 vertebra. I’ve also had an infection inside of my left hip socket that had to be surgically cleaned three different times, and with that I was supposed to have a hip replacement within 10 years of which I’m 14 years overdue.
I haven’t always been smart with my money or my ability to have a good relationship with women. This said, here are my goals for the year stated in a sort of abstract way.
I would like to simply say that I want to lose weight as my goal, but that’s not realistic without a plan. Typically I eat fairly fattening foods and I do this late at night on most days because I work a lot of evenings. My plan is to switch a lot of the bad fat from my diet, replace it with good fat and eat earlier in the day. Breakfast is meal I skip on most days, and there aren’t many fresh fruits & vegetables in my diet either. I work at a college so my mind set as a calendar is usually thought of in a semester, and last semester I worked a lot & didn’t exercise a lot. I have set my schedule to be able to exercise every morning before I come to work.
Personal Goal 1: Eat Better, Exercise More to hopefully lose weight
I have had the habit over the years of living beyond my means on a fairly constant basis. My credit card balances are through the roof. Between my wife and I we make pretty good money, but are always strapped at the end of the month because of the debt load we have. I plan on using this knowledge of over-indulgence to pay down some of this debt and save a bit more.
Financial Goal: Live Below Our Means, Pay Down Debt, Save More
Like I said earlier, I haven’t had the best luck with women over the years. I have been through multiple marriages and until now none have lasted longer than seven years. Jennifer, however, has changed this as we have been married for more than a decade now. I suppose one could say she’s a keeper. With the others, I didn’t have an education. Jennifer’s support has helped me in my educational goals and I now have two associates’, a bachelor’s, & a master’s degree. I say this because I am one of the most stubborn people I know. Without an education, I was right no matter how wrong I was. Now that I do have an education, I know that I am not always right. However, I do have to force myself to keep “Stubborn-Uneducated Mike” locked away in that little compartment in my brain.
Relationship Goal: Try Even Harder to Treat Jennifer with the Respect She Deserves
I would like to think I am a pretty good photographer. I would like to think I am really good with Photoshop. I know I’m not good with computer gaming at all. Rick Sammon says that a good photographer should be able to know what setting she/he needs and just do it similar to the way Eric Clapton knows what is next when he is playing his guitar. Each and every year I get closer to this analogy of Rick’s, but I am not there yet. Composing photos is another area of photography that I am improving, but I still need to work on making photographs instead of snapshots. One thing about Photoshop is that it is such a complex program that one could work in it every day for years and still learn new ways of doing things and new things to do with it. Since I teach Photoshop at Oklahoma City Community College, I need to continue to immerse myself in the program to learn as much as possible. I am also going to teach Introduction to Game Design in the Spring 2012 semester. All I know about game design is what I have learned by going through the first few chapters of the text book at the end of the last semester. I have really spent a lot of time going through this book to figure out the ins and outs of the Gamemaker program. There is some computer programming involved in this as well. Programming is one thing that I am not at all good at but I have vowed to figure this out when the time comes. I mean, how can I see if the students are doing it right if I don’t know how to do it?
Professional Goal 2: Work on Getting Better at Photography, Continue to Learn New Things in Photoshop, and Educate Myself on Gamemaker to Better Help Students
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