Another year has come and gone, and that means it’s time for everyone to make New Year’s resolutions that they will invariably not stick to.

My one and only resolution: to have goals, not resolutions.

My reasoning?  Calling it a “resolution” seems, to me, to be a more obligatory state of affairs.  Calling it a “goal” feels much less serious and allows a little freedom to be over-aggressive.  Such as, “my goal is to run a marathon”.  What are the chances of me actually doing that?  Slim, of course.  If it’s a “resolution”, I feel like I have to do it.  If it’s a “goal”, and I progress towards it but ultimately fail, I’m fine with it because it at least inspired me to try.

That’s just me.  I’m weird.  But you knew that.

So without further ado, my New Year’s Goals for 2011:

• Blog more. Both here, and at my totally awesome Sabres blog, Roll the Highlight Film. Facebook and Twitter has replaced most blogging for me, and that’s unfortunate because sometimes I want to express something in more than a sentence or two.  Or seventy.

Blog posts made on this site in 2010: zero.  And just like that, goal #1 is achieved.  See how easy that is?  Boom.  I’ll move on:

• Be the best dad I can possibly be to my kids, Sarah (3) and Tyler (2.5 months).  If you know a thing about me at all, you know I love my kids dearly.  We are blessed and lucky to have them.  I don’t ever want a day to go by where they don’t know that.

At this point, my blogging was interrupted so I could start up Sarah’s MobiGo and show her how to play her Shrek game.  2 for 2.  Go me.  Moving right along:

• Be nicer to my wife.  (She made me put this one here.)
• Officially, I lost 24 pounds (212.5 – 188.5) for the year.  I was as low as 182.5 at one point.  I would like to get down to 170.  First step towards this goal is tossing out all the leftover Christmas cookies sitting around the kitchen.  (To everyone who made us Christmas cookies, they were really tasty and we thank you, but you have to start somewhere, right?)
• I’d like to control my emotions a bit better, specifically my temper.  Getting mad about stuff that’s out of my control doesn’t fix anything.
• Declutter, especially in the basement storage area.  My house is overrun by junk.
• After 16 years I finally got myself out of credit card debt last year, and I’d like it to stay that way.
• Save at least $4K towards a new car while I double up the payment on the van to get it paid off two years early.  The objective here is to avoid ever having two car payments at one time – a situation I affectionately refer to as “budget suicide”.
• Finally finish (and start, for that matter) the media server project I’ve been putting off forever.  Essentially, the idea is to have a low-noise, low-power box that can store ripped DVDs and the like and stream them all over the house, to any TV or any device.  Why do I want to do this?  Because DVDs (and really, physical media of any kind) annoy me.  They get lost and scratched up, especially with a toddler in the house.
• Find a way to be less concerned about what I’m not doing at any given time.  I find that constantly thinking about what I should be doing cripples my ability to focus on what I’m actually doing at that moment.
• Be as apathetic about politics as humanly possible, unless they affect me directly.  I can’t think of a bigger waste of energy than political BS.
• I want to watch the Buffalo Sabres win the Stanley Cup. Sadly, this goal depends on a certain blue and gold-clad hockey team pulling their heads out of their rear ends.
• GS to 60K.  If you don’t know what that means then don’t worry about it.
• I have one more goal that I unfortunately can’t mention or else it won’t be successful.  I’m only writing this down as a reminder to myself about said goal, and not to be some sort of jerk who says “Nyah nyah I have a secret and I’m not telling you”.

Happy New Year to all.  If your 2010 wasn’t the greatest, I hope 2011 is an improvement for you.  If your 2010 was awesome, may 2011 be even more awesome.