All Ahead Full

Now that I've got the 2009 recap out of the way, it's time to look at some things I want (or should try) to do during the course of 2010.

1. Lose some weight, fast! When I went through college, I was in pretty good shape from my sophomore year on. I worked out regularly and played hockey, so I stayed at about 185 pounds for my second through fourth years.

I shouldn't mention that the 185 number came after adding 20 pounds the first year, but at least that mostly became muscle.

When I got married a couple years later, in 2001, I went on a diet and get back down to 200 pounds from the 210-215 I'd flirted with since leaving college. Damn day job.

I was at about 220 when I started graduate school in 2006. Then the stresses of second baby (hugs), getting laid off, going back to graduate school full-time, job chances that kept eluding me for eight months, and then finally having both a job and a full-time student load meant I put being healthy way at the back of the line.

For the past six months, my weight has fluctuated between 265 and 270 pounds.

WOW.

So, I'm setting a goal of losing a pound and a half a week. This will require some changes to my diet, but none too major aside from what is described below. More importantly, I need to start exercising again, as any activity will help me start peeling off the pounds.

I've decided on a pound and a half a week, as that would mean taking off between 75 and 80 pounds over the course of this year, and would put me back down to 190 pounds.

I'm thankful that I have been lucky enough to make it to this point without any major internal health problems, but I'm starting to creep up in age, and need to start taking slightly better care of myself. That has to start with getting off my fat ass once in a while.

2) Drink less soda. The food I eat is generally healthy - I've been eating less fast food lately, and more fresh meals for lunch and dinner. I still need to work on snacks here and there, but the biggest culprit by far for my is the soda addiction I have.

I tried last year to give up coffee, to see if it would reduce my weight. I gave it up cold for six weeks, as I was drinking 4-6 cups a day. I had none for six weeks, and I lost a grand total of...ZERO pounds.

Reducing the amount of soda I drink should help a little bit. I'm drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day, but I'd been having 4-5 servings of soda to supplement it. Since the beginning of the year, I've been trying to cap myself at 2 servings a day, eventually dropping to 1 a day and then maybe 1 every other day. Reducing the sugar intake and replacing it with water or even coffee would be a step up from my current dietary consumption.

3. Get some fricking sleep. I am NOTORIOUS for staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning, sometimes for no reason at all aside from just surfing around, chatting, or catching up on recorded shows. If I want to feel healthy and more alert during the rest of the day, I need to really start making the effort to at least get to 6 hours of sleep a night. Continuing to work on 3-4 hours of sleep, especially when I don't have to, just fuels other poor behaviors I have, and it should be quite rare now that I need to be up past midnight.

Unless I'm in Vegas. Then I can go for 48 hours straight. Just watch me.

4. Clean up our debt. 2009 forced us to use up almost all of our savings, and we are still trying to hop from one foot to the next to manage our debt. We have to clean it up in 2010 so that we can rebuild our savings, as well as begin saving for (shudder) college. I'd rather not be still be paying my grad school loans when Alex goes off to his freshman dorm.

5. Be more of a chauffeur. Both kids are now at the point where they want to begin doing more activities. The days of soccer practices, T-ball and baseball practice, ballet practice, and so on are not far away. Good thing I finished the degree last year so I can be there to enjoy those moments with them.

6. Try to actually use that really, really expensive diploma. 2009 saw my company go through a round of downsizing in January, another round of downsizing in March, a restructuring in May, and the firing of our division president in October. With all that, I sure didn't take many chances job hunting. I chased a few leads, but didn't try too hard in the searching realm. Furthermore, I also wanted to see how my role at my current job might change. It is still up in the air how it might change in my current job, and frankly, I'd rather stay here and use it, and be rewarded for using it, instead of starting anew at another company. One way or another, though, I need to make this a goal for 2010.

7. Move the site. I've been mulling it over for a very long time now, and I need to change the site up in 2010 and move it away from Blogger. I've been talking about it long enough by now, and I think not moving it has really helped in avoiding coming here to write at all.

8. More local, political, and charitable involvement. While I donated as much as possible financially in 2009, I didn't really give much of my time until the end of the year. I'd like to work on giving more of my actual time in 2010.

Locally, that could mean at the kids' schools and church.

Politically, that could mean finally taking a more active role in Cobb county political events and campaigns.

Charitably, that could mean more work with Knights of Columbus or more work in helping Kim plan a National Convention for my volunteer organization - which will just happen to be in Atlanta next December. It might also mean being involved with walks for the Avon 3-Day or with the Atlanta Food Bank, as I used to do regularly.

Whatever the means, it would be good to get out and do some more of that local work that I used to do endlessly.

9. Have more fun traveling. We know there are already several trips that one or both of us will take this year that lurk on the horizon - Kansas City, Melbourne (FL), Macon, Washington, Las Vegas, and Austin - and there will be more that get added (Los Angeles, New York, Iowa, Phoenix, Biloxi, New Orleans?) as the year goes on. For any trips, though, we all need to make sure we are enjoying ourselves, as there's no fun in going on a trip if we're stressed all the time (as happened quite often last year).

There will even be instances where I'm the one who needs to cool off a bit and not stress so much. I'm sure this is absolutely SHOCKING.

Hmmm, 9 goals and not one is poker-related. Well, #10 can do the trick there.

10. Cash in a live, major tourney. It could be the WSOP, a circuit event, the Venetian Deep-Stack, the Grand Series at Binions, the Bellagio 5-Diamond, or the Southern Championship in Biloxi, but I want to cash in a large-sized (200+) tourney this year. I cam so close last year to a big run at Binions, only to bubble out, and I flamed out at the Venetian Deep-Stack Extravaganza. I want to improve on those in 2010.

I've played online donkaments and run deep or won those, sometimes with as many as 3,800 players, but I want to notch a deep run in a decent-sized live field this year. A dollar donkament against 4000 people doesn't make a difference, but final-tabling a $340 buyin with several hundred people would be extremely significant to me.

It will need to be at a point where I am comfortable buying in, because if I don't feel like I can afford to lose, then I will almost certainly lose. Almost certainly, it will come after some of the other goals above (debt cleanup, etc.) have been met.

As for more details on when such a trip and tourney might occur, that is probably best left for another time.