Project Miner

What’s the point of making resolutions if you don’t follow-up on them and evaluate your progress?

1. Read more. 

   I said I wanted to read one book per month.  I’m almost finished with “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”, though there are almost two months down.  I started “Summerland”, but for some reason just wasn’t into it (I got about 70 or so pages in when the library said Wind-Up Bird was available so I switched gears).  I’ve also skimmed a nerd book on PHP and one on EJB3 as well as actually read one on Spring 2. 

   It’s been hard to find the time to read having a day job, a couple of side gigs, a baby and a wife battling a cold for a few weeks.  My reading times are on the bus and the rare times I crawl into bed with enough energy to do anything.

   I’d say I’m doing an ok job reading so far.
    

2. Finish software projects. 

   I am full-fledged into a project with two friends, so if that counts, then I’m doing OK.  Outside of that project, I’ve gotten very little done in the way of side projects.  I’ve done some work for another friend, but it’s only been a tiny amount of work so far.  The good thing about that is this guy will do some work for me as well, so I can get the hater site going.  If I do that, then I’d say I’m on track, but otherwise, I think “five projects in a year” is in jeopardy (overly ambitious, maybe, but I wanted it that way).
    

3. Play baseball or softball in a league. 

   Well, it’s still winter and there are no such leagues out there.  I’ve talked about it with several people – Tom E, Tom B, Troy, etc.  But, I haven’t searched out the league to play in, which is what I really need to get on top of.  Just added that to my Remember the Milk list (if you haven’t tried that app yet, do so, it’s awesome times 10 and integrates into GMail wonderfully).

Almost two full months in, I’m doing ok with one, not so well with another and the final one hasn’t really been able to happen yet.  I’m not disappointed with that, nor am I particularly happy – I’d give myself a grade ‘C’ (haha, poor kids when I’m a teacher someday).  I do see the value of making resolutions, as it’s reminded me to focus on reading and such, and I seem to need goals to drive myself.  I’ll do another update in a month or two.

A few updates relating to my blog world.

1. I added a Twitter area on the right side bar (over there —>). Twitter is the first “social networking” application that I actually like. I’ve got an account on MySpace and Facebook, but just can’t really get into it. Twitter is kind of “a one line blog”, but is used more as a “here’s what I’m doing right now” kind of thing. You can update it via text message from a phone, IM chat, or directly through the web page. I love the idea of getting quick one-liners about what my peeps are up to. I can see things like “just saw X movie, it was cool” or “at Braves game, 3-1 in the third inning, Chipper hit a HR”, and the like. mmmm. Oh, if you get on Twitter and want to find me, my handle is “muntzen“.
2. I’ve ditched BlogJet for Windows Live Writer as my blog editing tool (thanks for the tip Jol). Writer is free and has nearly identical functionality with some things missing, but some things added. mmm, free.
3. Katy has started blogging! Woot! Check out our family blog (http://www.stoutmuntz.com – yeah, that is an ugly template, I need to change that).

Our friend Veronica loves good food and cooking, and in November we got to see where part of that love must have originated.  Veronica had a birthday (don’t worry, V, I won’t out your age here) and her parents came down from NY to help celebrate.  Katy and I were lucky enough to get an invite to the gathering, where her parents cooked some traditional Chinese birthday dishes.  I won’t make myself look stupid by trying to name them, but everything that I ate was fantastic (which was everything other than the seafood, because I’m picky like a four year old and hate seafood).  The deliciousness (is that a word?) of the food was aided along by a spicy sauce-like addition Veronica’s Dad brought along with him.  It can only be described as looking like black oily flecks of sludge, and only described as tasting like spicy heaven.  Seriously, it was amazing.  It was seriously difficult to stop myself from just eating a spoon full of it, which I’m sure I would still be feeling.  The taste is hard to describe, but it’s, well, spicy (in a garlicky kind of way, but also a red chili pepper kind of way) and kind of smokey and oily and did I mention delightful?

Well, Veronica’s Dad’s Daughter is pretty awesome also…  A few weeks ago (errr, months ago?  I still have no concept of time) Veronica and Josh came over to drop off some extra fried rice, and as a side, she says "oh, and I brought you some of my Dad’s spicy sauce".  NAAARF.  (Side note: friends who make great food and bring you the extras, friggin’ ROCK)  That night, they ended up staying to play some Rock Band and we all ate most of the fried rice, but thankfully there was still plenty of sauce to keep around. 

Tonight, we ordered take out from our favorite Chinese place nearby – Hong Kong Harbor.  We ordered pork fried rice (not as good as Veronica’s, but good) and chicken lomain (lo-main?  lo main?  something).  Both are good, but become fantastic with Veronica’s Dad’s sauce of the Gods on top.

Here are some pics of the sauce, maybe you can "see" how it tastes?  I don’t think that makes sense, but whatever, here’s how it looks…

I’ve decided to stop saving every book I read. My bookshelf is overflowing and it doesn’t make any sense to me. Well, ok, it does make sense, I love the idea of looking over the books I’ve read and having fond memories of them. Also, it’s kind of cool to stack them all up and say “wow, that’s a lot of reading”. However, it’s just not necessary for me (I say for me, because for others it totally is and that’s totally ok – I am picturing Jim curling into a ball and pulling his hair out… poor Jim). The reason I know it’s not necessary is the absence of one of my favorite books. I lent “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” to Jol a while ago and never got it back. At first, I wanted to cry, but now that it’s not there, I totally don’t care. If I don’t care about a book that I’d put in my top 5, why do I have all these others on the shelf? So, they are going to the library this week, hopefully to make other people happy, happy.

I did decide to keep all gifts and ones that I just have to keep because I’ll either read them again, or I super super loved them and just need to save them. The books that made the cut are:

• A Confederacy of Dunces (an old version I bought used in Portland that has been ‘round the block more than a few times)
• A Prayer for Owen Meany (twas a gift from Kelly Johnson in college)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (my fave and was a gift from Momma Donna)
• Lord of the Rings (the trilogy in one book, gift from Josh and I’m a nerdy)
• In Cold Blood (sooo good)
• The Harry Potter series (for Ona some day)

There are 35 others that didn’t make the cut (a few of them technical geek books) and of those, the library probably won’t take 6 of them due to their condition (I wrote in them… Jim just died). I have lucky 13 on my “to read” part of the bookshelf, but now there is tons of room left on the shelf for stuff sitting on the floor now. Crazy.

(This is also my first blog using BlogJet, and so far, it’s the good stuff)