Wow, I’m really getting a late start on this post. I’d meant to come up with some goals for the year back at the start of the month, and here it is nearly February and I’m just now getting to it. So before the kids start screaming or some other emergency distracts me, here’s some quick things I’d like to achieve (personally, not business) by the end of 2009:

• Get In Shape (obligatory)– I’m hovering just past 200 pounds at the moment. I’d like to be no more than 190 by 1/1/10. As a sub-goal, I’d like to be 1 pound lighter on the 1st of each month than I was the month prior.
• • Biking– Last year as a family we only managed to go biking about 2 or 3 times. This year I’d like to bike 100 miles as a very attainable minimum. (It’s good to have some relatively easy goals…) This one builds on the first one.
  • Hiking– Akron (Summit County) has a wide variety of hiking trails and does a Fall Hiking Spree. Completing a variety of trails during the Fall yields a small shield to affix to one’s hiking stick. It’s been a year or two since the Smiths completed the spree, so I’d like to make that a goal for 2009.
• Speak Locally– Last year I didn’t make it to (much less speak at) many events in the Ohio-Michigan-Kentucky-Indiana-Pennsylvania area. This year I want to make more of an effort to speak at local events and user groups. Let’s say 6 for the year (already got 1 with CodeMash).
• Take a Real Vacation– I think the last time Michelle and I took more than 2 days off for a vacation that didn’t involve me speaking or other business activities was in 2004. We’ve canceled several, including one that was to have been this month. One of the tenets of XPEnergized Work. Taking some time to recharge once in a while is a good thing, and we’re way overdue.
• Blogging– I’d like to once again shoot for 200 posts for the year, without sacrificing quality, and hopefully get up to 2000 subscribers to my RSS feed (so tell your friends 😉 ). I’ve been slacking so far this year and need to make blogging a more regular activity if there’s any hope of me attaining this goal.

I also have a huge backlog of pictures that need uploaded to my Flickr account. I hope to be 100% caught up by the 1st of next year. That’s sort of a goal, too, but doesn’t really have the same status as the others. Beyond that, I want to keep up with karate, though I don’t think I’ll advance to my brown belt this year, and maybe take some guitar lessons. On the business side, I need to give ASPAlliance a major upgrade, move our office to its new location in Hudson, remodel said new location, add to our new consulting business, and start a software development best practices user group for Akron. It should be a busy year!