2010 Goals

Ok, so my 2009 goals were a bit lame despite my efforts. Here’s to a better set of goals for this year and therefor better results! Some of these stem from what I see as some personal failures in 2009, others are just brand new.

Join an activity group on a regular basis. this can be anywhere from Geocaching to Flickr meetups to the ADK club outings to toastmasters. The point is to do something on a regular basis in order to forge some new relationships. We’ve started with ADK but we didn’t keep up with the meetings.

Don’t hesitate when given an opportunity. If I want to do something, do it, if I don’t, likewise. This is something I really need to work on.  I tend to flip flop and wait until the last minute to make decisions on things like this.

Run a profitable Photography business. Given my goals of last year this one almost seems comical. However my first income will be coming in 2010, and my planned expenses are minimal, just some equipment rental for said income. This probably won’t be hard to do.

Do 2 weddings. Along the same lines as above. I’ve got one booked already and I have another possibility. I’d like to start booking some more but if I can manage 2 this year, maybe I can double that next year and then really get something going. If you know someone looking for a Photographer please let me/them know!

Finish the work in the basement. this isn’t a real finishing job, it just means some cleaning (a LOT), implementing some better storage solutions, doing some wiring work and fixing the lighting situation. Still though, some things I’ve been dragging my feet on and just need to get done.

Buy a new house. We pretty much need a miracle for this to happen without selling our current home(which we don’t want to do). We need to though, we’re outgrowing our current home. Not so much the floor plan, but the yard and the storage. That along with a new member of the family coming soon pretty much necessitates a new, bigger house. which brings me to my next goal:

Do everything in my power to ensure the well-being of our new child. This is pretty self explanatory but something not everyone might think about is:

Lead by example. We can’t hope to have a child with healthy habits if we don’t first develop them ourselves. This applies to everything from sleeping properly to exercising regularly to only watching extremely minute amounts of television. This might seem too broad to be a goal, but the idea here is to simply be aware of my decisions and their implications on my own life and for the little one.

Lose 20lbs by May. Lose Another 20 by the end of the year. The first 20 I’ve done several times and isn’t really that difficult for me. the second 20… that will put me back to my junior year of college weight, and will be far more difficult to do. I don’t think keeping it off will be an issue since I’ll have done it by (re)developing better habits, NOT a diet.

Some carry-overs from last year:

  • increase the size of our emergency fund (again!)
  • complete the first floor of the house
  • sell at least one photo
  • EXPERIENCE one sunsets or sunrises a month.  This means actually watching and enjoying it, not just noticing out a window.

2010 is going to be a really exciting year!

My First Flickr Meetup

Saturday I participated in my first Flickr meet up. It was a lot of fun. Myself and a group of 12 or so other photography hobbyists met up at Dinosaur BBQ in Downtown Rochester for a hearty lunch. Then we were off to explore the Abandoned Subway. If you don’t know anything about the subway I suggest checking out the RocWiki Page and reading up a bit. It’s actually quite interesting and may become a part of downtown Rochester again soon.

The slideshow below showcases all the photos the participants have shared. These are not only my photographs, they are the photographs taken by all participants of the event.
http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649
NOTE: If you cannot see the above slideshow please view the original post or view the slideshow directly.

The 2 Billionth Flickr Photo

It’s interesting to see the 1st or a significant nth item posted to any service. So often though they turn out like the first youtube video. A waste of space. It’s nice to see when a milestone is actually something worthwhile. That’s the case with the 2 billionth flickr photo. It was posted a while ago I just haven’t had the chance to post it yet. Here it is:

Originally uploaded by yukesmooks Just in case you were wondering how to find the Nth Flickr photo simply use the following:

http://flickr.com/photo.gne?id=XXXXXX

Simply replace the X’s with the photo number you want to take a look at.