2008 Intentions (One Month Left)

Long-time readers will remember that on January 1st of this year, I posted a list of New Year's Intentions. Events blew most of them off-course.

  • Start a savings and/or investment account and make regular deposits.

I have a moderately-high-interest savings account, currently with exactly 43 cents in it. After realizing how much money it could make while sleeping, I understood the power of such an account, but could not get into a rhythm of saving regularly. K has shown me the way with regards to tracking spending and earnings. Although my situation is much worse than I imagined, I now know enough to make goals with numeric values involved.

  • Fix Urban Vancouver.

Not done.

  • Go on a real vacation where I don't check work email.

Done, though the best vacation was a staycation. It enabled me to attend a friend's father's funeral and to attend my girlfriend's graduation ceremony and recharge without the stress of travel. Definitely doing at least one week-long staycation per year for the foreseeable future. I did not go to Portland, Oregon.

  • Continue bookshelf sustainability.

So far so good. As the result of a move, I identified a few books to donate, and last night I looked at my bookshelf and set myself a goal of donating about half (let's go with a third for now) of them by the end of 2009.

  • Bike to and from work each weekday for a month.

Failed. Living closer to work means it takes an hour to walk, and instead of biking to work taking double the time it does to bus, it takes about the same amount (including walking and the daily morning and evening nightmare that is Cambie St. near Broadway).

  • Take a full weekend and get rid of stuff in my closets.

Spring cleaning succeeded, and moving led to getting rid of even more stuff. It's time to spend 2009 removing everything but the most important things, including scanning and discarding photos and documents and buying a multi-tool.

  • Write Christmas cards to my friends.

In progress.

  • Rediscover my sense of wonder.

The month of August 2008 will go down in history as the month I rediscovered my sense of wonder, in a way I couldn't have possibly imagined.

  • More GlobalSat GPS logger tomfoolery.

I bought an iPhone instead, so the GlobalSat sits on a shelf. Want it?

  • Dance again.
  • Learn to sing.
  • "Accidentally" break the kit lens on my camera and replace it with something decent.

No time for dancing, singing or photography lessons this year.

Comments

What is the GPS logger? I'm looking for one to participate in OpenStreetMap, and if you've got a unit that logs reliably, I'd just buy it from you or borrow it, rather than buy new/build my own.

The GPS logger is the GlobalSat DG-100. Robin, you can borrow mine if you like! It's missing a battery cover and it could be the batteries I have need replacing. It doubles as a battery-recharger since they're normal AA batteries recharged via USB. See http://justagwailo.com/tag/globalsat for my experiments with it.

Richard: SOLD! I'll give you a ring to pick it up sometime soon. Here's why OpenStreetMap needs Vancouver data: Vancouver: http://openstreetmap.org/?lat=49.235&lon=-123.0752&zoom=14&layers=B000FTF Baghdad: http://openstreetmap.org/?lat=33.3378&lon=44.3902&zoom=13&layers=B000FTF If you have lots of your tracks still, I could probably import them into OpenStreetMap as well.