August 2 2009

The year is more than half over so I am going to give myself a mid year evaluation of my New Year's resoultions with the hope that I might keep track of them and change things if I am very far off course in the way I have been managing my life in pursuit of those goals.

Dan's mid year review of New Year's resolutions

Goal	Rating	Descripton
Complete training programs for and race in a 5K race and a 10K race.	good	My training program for the 5K race started and stopped a few times and I got so sick the week before the race I wasn't sure I was going to do it. In the end the race was one of the most fun I have ever run. Something funny about the race was the organizers made a mistake and didn't clearly mark the turn around point so the race wound up being more of a 7 or 8K race. I felt great that I was able to run the whole thing even with the extra distance and feel like a 10K will be a very managable distance confining myself to the goal of simply running the whole thing as opposed to acheiving a particular time.
Establish a monthly income above $2700 while working about 30 hours per week remotely.	poor	Yuck, I am holding out hope that I can get game sales to ramp quickly, but I don't really think it is practical to expect them to ramp that quickly. Income is becoming a larger and larger source of stress to me, however at this point it is not enough of a stress to me to prompt me to change course. I would rather be poor following my own dreams than to be rich as a slave to another person's dreams. With that said I am open to the idea of working for someone else again, just not enthused by the idea. There are companies that make some very nice educational software that seems to line up reasonably with my idea of how educational software should work.
Make one visit to Mexico in 2010.	N/A	I think I meant 2009 here, it turned out that there was a travel advisory against going to Mexico because of the drug war. We did get the family into Korea town in LA, which fulfilled a lot of my desire for the trip to Mexico.
Learn to locate the Andromeda galaxy on a clear night.	poor	I haven't been studying astronomy lately.
Learn to identify 10 constellations which I currently can not.	poor	I haven't been studying astronomy lately.
Learn how to find the planets which are viable without a telescope or binoculars.	poor	I haven't been studying astronomy lately.
Finish the Spelling Castle game and get it visible in the market with sales in excess of 1000 copies. (The game isn't financially viable at this point but it will mean that I have at least sold it to someone not directly related to me).	fair	The Spelling Castle game is very close to being ready for market. I don't know if 1000 copies sold before Christmas will happen, but it definately could. I have already sold 2 copies so that only leaves 999 more to sell in order to exceed 1000 could. People who see the game seem to like it. If tomorrow goes well I'll have a pretty cool little flash description of it up on http://www.mindjumpsoftware.com.
Get the kids to at least one major museum or educational site such as the Monterey Aquarium or the Lebrea Tar Pits.	done	We were able to get to both the Lebrea Tar Pits and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We also were able to make it to several fantastic National Parks.
Direct 2% of my income toward combating world hunger. (I really hope this does become a significant amount of money).	poor	I had forgotten all about this good intention. I will turn course and get something done about it. So far 2% of my income this year isn't very much, but it really is important to me to make sure that the money I do get is used properly.
Have one month in this year preferably an early one in which I do 30 sit ups and 30 push ups every day.	poor	The chance to do this early in the year is over. This is also a goal I had forgotten about. I won't be able to get the goal in August because I already missed yesterday, so I guess I will use August to get ready for September. If I make it to my birthday with 30 sit ups and 30 push ups every day that will take some of the sting off the awareness of wearing yet one more year off the non existant warrenty on my life that comes with a birthday.
Maintain or improve my current body composition. (This will be tough to measure because I don't know my current weight or body fat percentage, but if my church pants don't fit next January I put this one in the toilet)	good	I'm a guy so I naturally exagerate how good I look by a factor of about 1000. Just this morning I was looking in the mirror thinking that I am looking more trim than I used to. With that said after ending my fast today I loaded up on carmel shortbread squares and now I feel like the Pilsbury Dough Boy.
Do an outing with each of my four oldest children at least once a month.	good	I haven't been keeping track of the outings, but I have been getting some great time in with the kids. Something nice about camp host work is the kids understand and are capable of most of the work. We have been giving them turns to do rounds with us, which give good opportunities for talking.
Write updates in the blog at least once a month, with at least 20 updates through out the year.	fair	This one I'll have to count to see if I am on track. Counting Lexie's entries I think I am. The last couple of months have been a challenge with respect to uploading the blog. With a great burst of luck and inspiration, I'll have it up tomorrow.
Give an accounting of the goals in early January of 2010.	good	Getting in this mid year accounting gives me a great start on an account in early January.