Happy New Year

I hope that everyone had a fun and safe holiday season. With the exception of large amounts of snow, everything was quiet here. Since Rachel and I knew what we bought each other, I was not too surprised when we opened gifts. I did receive a new wooden puzzle though. I spent at least a half hour on it but have been unable to solve it so far. I took a quick peek at the animated solution and found that it takes 100 moves for the solution. That should keep me busy for a while.

Like most people, I like to create resolutions or goals at the beginning of each year. However, let us look at last year’s resolutions: My first resolution was to complete my associate’s degree. I am happy to say that completed it in July. My second resolution was drop down to my high school weight. I was doing well for the first half of the year, but I did poorly during the latter half of the year (especially during the holidays). My third and last resolution was to get a better handle on my debt. Well, my finances are a bit more organized, but my income is not what I would like it to be.

This year, I am going to make four resolutions: The first resolution is to read at least one new book a month. As it normally only takes me a few days to go through a book (that I like), this should not be a problem.

My second resolution is to drop down to my high school weight. It is funny; I am usually so obsessive compulsive about following procedures. However, I have been unable to follow an exercise schedule and a diet plan that I know works for me.

My third resolution is to work on my debt and income problems. We have sufficient income to pay our bills. However, I do not want to be paying the same debts for the next couple of decades. I have been trying to find an additional source of income. If anyone out there is aware of a computer-related job that I could do from my home office, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.

My fourth and final resolution is to work on projects aside from my job. Our house could use a bit of work. In addition, I have some programming projects that I would like to work on, but I just have not set aside time for them.

I started my Math class (Algebra and Functions) yesterday. It was a bit weird at first, but a lot of the information is starting to come back to me. It is day two and I am already done with the first week of homework. Of course, I expect the work to get harder as the class progresses.

Speaking of school, I have decided to minor in Human Resource Administration. I only had to add on a handful of classes. As long as my financial aid holds out, I am still expecting to get my bachelor’s degree by 2008.

A couple days ago, we started having some electrical problems; one of our circuit breakers tripped a couple of times. I had thought that maybe some water was getting into one of our external lights. However, after disconnecting them, the breaker kept tripping. My next thought was that maybe the breaker was going bad. When I went to change out the breaker, I found water in our main electrical panel. That was not a good sign. As it turns out, the two issues were unrelated. I had an electrician come over to seal the panel. He found that one of the lines going between the house and the garage was shorting out (probably due to the copious amounts of rain and snow). Anyway, he was able to use a different line to get us back to normal for the time being. We will probably have to dig up the old line and have a new one put it. But, I think that can wait for the summer.

Tagline for today: “Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity. If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick.” - Steven Wright