Heading Into 2016

So it’s the end of another year. I didn’t write a post last year, but after seeing this post, I figured I should make a record of things that I want to try and accomplish in the new year. This isn’t a list of resolutions, just some stuff I want to try and get done.

Make Art Stuff #

A few months ago my girlfriend got The Hand-Lettering Ledger, and I recently started doing some of the excersizes. So far I’ve been haivng a lot of fun playing around. I want to try and do some practice every day, so that one day I can make some awesome stuff like this or this.

I also want to do some other stuff: make some stuff with clay ( that I can maybe mold and make castings of ), maybe get into sketching, and find some models to paint. I’ve just spent so long creating purely digital things. I don’t have the space to make the bigger projects I’d like to work on, and places like VCL don’t really work for me. So until I’ve got my own area to work on larger projects, I’ll work on some smaller stuff.

I’ve also got 642 Things To Write About, and I want to spend some time every week doing some writing. That’s related to me trying to blog more often; I’ve got some bits of story ideas that I’d like to try turn into some short stories or something. I need to practic writing though, because I feel like I’m a bit out of shape.

Get A Jeep #

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now. It’s the first step in getting ready for the big road trip I want to do in the next five years or so. This one is fairly simple – I’ve just got to save up $10,000. It might not actually take that much; I’ve seen some good looking Jeeps on Craigslist for as little as $4000. That’s actually about how much I sold mine for when I moved downtown forever ago, so I’m not surprised that there are other people selling theirs for the same amount.

Completely Pay Off Credit Card #

I bought my laptop ( as well as few other things, mostly from Massdrop) on my credit card. I’d like to get my card completely paid off before the end of the year. It shouldn’t take too long, I’ve just got to be disiplined about how I use my credit card this year.

Get Healthier #

Over the last year I got a bit chubby, but I’ve also done some good stuff for me. I quit smoking, and I’ve been trying to walk instead of taking the elevator in my building. Over the next year, I’d like to start counting the calories in what I eat. It’s worked for me in the past, and I lost quite a bit of chub doing it. I’m also going to try and make the effort to be more active – maybe go to the gym or go biking more.

My girlfriend and I also want to go for more hikes and camping trips this year.

Consolodate Tools #

A bit of a problem that I’m having with my digital stuff is that I feel like I’ve got too many tools and things. Between Evernote, Pocket, Google Inbox, Feedly, Slack, IFTTT, and a few other things, I feel like I’ve got too many bits all over the place.

A few years ago I had Emacs set up to do most of my stuff, and I’d like to give that another go. I’ve heard some good things about M4ue, which I’m hoping can stand in for Google Inbox. I also want to try and find a way to use a combination of Org-mode and other Emacs things to maybe replace Evernote. The other stuff ( RSS feeds, etc ) I’d like to bring into Emacs as well.

Hopful New Year #

Plenty of things that I want to try and do in the coming months. It may take a while to do some of them, but I think with a solid plan everything on this list is totally do-able.

Anyways. Hope you all have a great new year.

Happy 2016, folks.