Happy New Year!
As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to commit (publicly, no less!) to some resolutions.
- Double my consulting income over last year.
Ordinarily I do not like money-based resolutions, but as a self-employed fellow, I have to have SOME metric by which to measure my progress. - Earn an MCSD certification by year's end.
I have been fighting this since 1997. I believed - and continue to believe - that certification is a slippery slope that leads ultimately to an artificial limitation on billing rates for both the certified and un-certified (more on that another time). However, I cannot argue that the market has embraced certification to a significant enough degree that I cannot ignore the marketing value of the cert. Like it or not, a certification - like a degree - is seen as a proxy for knowledge and/or capabilities. Sure, I could learn all the same material and not get certified, but if I'm going to end up learning it anyway I may as well have a marketing tool to show for it, no? - Spend an extra hour each day playing with my son.
We play a lot. And when we play, we play goofy. It is a lot of fun. And I intend to serve up a double-helping of playtime this year. Being a father is the single greatest role I have ever played - programmer, husband, boxer, provider, employer, employee - everything else pales in comparison to the quiet sense of satisfaction I get from my son. I intend to make the most of being a father. - Compete in one amateur boxing match by year's end.
"Boxing!?!" you say. "But Christopher...you're a geek. People are supposed to beat you up, not the other way around!" Well, it's been a long time since I was that skinny kid getting picked last for kickball during P.E. class. I boxed a bit in high school, dropped it, then picked it up again about 2 years ago to get in shape. I still have the competitive bug, and at age 31, if I don't satisfy it soon while I still have decent skills and a reasonable ability to heal, I likely never will. Some people kick a ball for fun, I get hit in the head for fun. That probably explains a lot of my code.
That's it. I prefer to keep my resolution lists short, since we all know how likely we are to actually keep them. ;) There's less bitter disappointment to deal with that way.
