…yay!

1) Spend less money: I have an ebay habit. Or rather, had. I decided that if I couldn’t trade for/ do surveys for/ sell for something I wanted, I couldn’t get it. This kept me from dipping into our bank account to buy anything; it was a good habit and I managed to fund my ipod app habit by doing extra work. It worked out well – I bought plenty of apps, but none of it cost us anything, as it was all earned from work in my leisure time.

2) Cut costs: we cut wherever we could. It was agonizing, and #1 tied into this.

3) Lose weight, but more importantly, make a permanent change: I didn’t lose as much weight as I wanted (I lost 10, goal was 15) but I picked up a great weight lifting habit. Lately it’s been hard to do as I’ve been so tired, but I’m quite happy with the result, so no stopping now.

4) Be a better parent: I have a ways to go to improve, but I’m working on unplugging every weekend and focusing more on the kids. As a technophile, it’s rather hard at times as I sometimes head to the computer or iDevice without even noticing.

5) Be a better employee: by leaps and bounds, I’ve improved my focus and dedication. It’s a family business, and I was rather lax in years prior. Last year I buckled down and focused, and I plan to do even better this year.

And the things I didn’t do well:

1) Learn: I bought all the materials to learn… something, anything, but I didn’t. I didn’t put the time into it. I didn’t learn a language, or an instrument, or improve my drawing or photography technique. I’m rather bitter over this. Resolved to fix it this year.

2) Be a better husband: you know, I started out being better, but as Lisa’s practice and extra-curricular activities started consuming her time and my workouts and gaming consumed mine, we didn’t spend as much time together as we should have. This is one of those things that excuses can be made, but I don’t want to make them. I need to work harder on this.

- -

That’s it for a year in review. Here’s hoping 2011 is awesome. For lots of reasons, it very well may be. And for lots of other reasons, it might not. Expect the best, prepare for the worst…

TV: We started and finished the Wire, what’s more to say? The Wire transcends tv. It didn’t win awards, but it told an amazing story through the eyes of many. It was hard to call the bad guys bad (except for Marlo, who was Satan incarnate) and the good guys good (they were all flawed, except maybe for Prezbo by the end).

I’m ready to re-watch the whole thing, from start to finish. It doesn’t help that Jason Whitlock quotes the Wire frequently and that I get daily Wire quotes on Facebook (courtesy of HBO).

Yes, I’m that smitten. I’d put this series only slightly higher than Firefly, but higher nonetheless. Speaking of which… whenever I see Nathan Fillion on Castle, my heart hurts. Why did that show have to die?

Books: The problem with the Kindle is that there’s a divorce from reality; I don’t remember the names of books, I just read the first few pages and decide whether I like it or not. The fact that I dropped writing brief reviews on these things isn’t making matters any better.

It is a troubling because it’s bled over reading ‘real books’, in that I whip through them so quickly I can’t quite remember what happened in which book (symptom of old age?). I read the three Mass Effect books (courtesy of Leesie for Christmas – thank you!!!), and while I remember the plots, I don’t remember what happened in which.

It also begs the question: if I’m reading for fun, does it matter? If I thoroughly enjoyed what I read, should there be any higher meaning achieved?

Music: Something like a mini-apocalypse must have occurred in our house because I’m listening to more Folk than usual and Lisa is listening to more pop than usual. Not sure how that happened or why, but it is what it is. I started my workout regimen by listening to angry rock / metal, but it has since switched to Big Band (or nothing at all). Thanks to NPR and Temple University, I’m now listening to a lot more classical.

2010′s music was better than most years, I’d like to think. Rap as an industry seems to be dead (it was dying for years, based on sales figures) – we’re getting the re-tread of Eminem, but outside of that, a lot more in the way of classic hip-hop seems to be coming back.

There’s a resurgence of classic rock which is due in part to the Beatles finally being released on itunes (and the masters being released to the public); a number of sound a-like bands have come along for the ride.

In essence, everything old is new again. Yay.

“Podcasts and Talk Radio”

Thanks to the ipod touch, I’ve gotten into the habit of listening to podcasts and by extension, talk radio. My favorite podcasts are: “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” and “Stuff You Missed in History Class”

As for talk radio: 97.5 the fanatic, which is ESPN FM Radio. Mike and Mike in the morning, Missanelli at night and whoever in between.

On the technology front, there was only one major addition that I can think of, and that was the ipod touch. It was a big addition, though.

I bought it on a whim (originally planning to buy a netbook). After the first few weeks, I loathed it. The apps supplied by Apple were woefully inadequate. Then I found appshopper and touch arcade and I found myself loving it. Now it handles all sorts of interesting things: my to do list (toodledo), my google voice account (google voice app), twitter/facebook, feed reader (GoReader), amazon and ebay (especially helpful when I’m trying to sell stuff for the latter), flickr/youtube (“Daddy, what’s a catapult?” “Let me find a video to show you!”), NPR/97.5 the fanatic (love my sports talk radio), al jazeera english live streaming (crystal clear, too), kindle/stanza/google books, two dozen apps for Nora + her videos (buying us precious time in the morning and in the car) and of course, games.

Lisa has her word games (Words with Friends, Moxie, That Word) and I rotate between the cheap / free finds thanks to appshopper.

The app store is cutthroat in a way no other software forum is. There’s millions of users, so the best and fastest way to get on the ‘what’s hot’ charts is to drastically reduce prices or release a title for free. I’m not talking about small indie developers: heavy hitters like EA, 2K games and gameloft release several AAA titles for free several times a year. And when they aren’t free, they’re 99c.

Imagine this: Need for Speed: Shift, with PSP (dare I say PS2) level graphics selling for 99c, while the PSP version sells for 20x that? It’s a pretty easy decision.

I’m glad I bought it. I’m thinking of getting a second one, too, and giving my current one to Lisa. She’s a paper planner type person and I doubt she’d use it with the same frequency as I do, but I’m sure Nora would appreciate it.

—

No new TV, game systems, laptops or anything else, interestingly enough. But there is one other neat thing that happened in 2010: Samknows and the FCC teamed up to testing broadband around the U.S., and we’re one of the participants.

Samknows sent a customized broadband router (Netgear WNR3500L) that periodically checks the line speed and reports back its findings. It’s a very nice router (802.11n, gigabit lan and a USB port) and I’m hoping they let us keep it. It’d be a shame to have something that nice (and nice looking) back.

—

Didn’t get a chance to improve the car in 2010 – here’s hoping the spring is a bit easier on schedules!

The problem with owning a home is that everything starts breaking or is in the process of breaking and it’s a never ending struggle to fix things. For the most part, I haven’t had the satisfaction of sitting back and looking at a job well done when another job immediately pops up.

Houses aren’t natural; the razing is an inexorable process of Nature reclaiming its land by destroying the house. Overtly with the wind, rain and snow and covertly with rust and earth tremors. It’s a tough thing to do a ton of patch work only to have that patch work crack within a few months because the house ‘settled’ some more. It’s a doubly tough thing to undo what a previous generation thought was the best kind of material/type/design.

On the plus side, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned how to make repairs, of course but I’ve also learned how to put in flooring, replace a sink, and telltale signs of impending doom and what to do about them. Those things are valuable.

Every generation wants to give their kids something they didn’t have. For me, it was giving Nora and Isaac a consistent place to call home. You’ve read my story in NBPM, so I won’t rehash it here, but I’ve never had the bond with a place like Nora has with this house. And that’s wonderful! Nora has never known a different place to call home in her life, and in Isaac’s young life, neither has he. She feels safe in her own home – it’s a beacon for her in a way I have never known. Isaac too has a routine that’s very home centered – when he gets tired, it’s obvious where he wants to be.

I’m glad we could give that to them.

And for that reason, lately I’ve been burning the midnight oil doing work from home and (apparently) sprouting a few gray hairs in the process. But! I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was a good year for gaming. At the time of writing this, for the year I’ve finished 37 games, which is somewhere north of 220 total hours. The total cost of of that entertainment ends up being around $30, on account of buying when on sale, trading and use of roms. It spans eight different consoles and covers all manner of game type. This was definitely the year of the RPG – more than half of that time was dedicated to only half a dozen games.

Upon further review, this demonstrates a couple of things: 1) Lisa is a saint and 2) life didn’t change too terribly much with the birth of Isaac.

That was kind of the point, really. With Nora, I stopped playing completely for six months and it drove me batty. Now that we’re well adjusted to sleep deprivation and life with children, I felt that I had to prove to myself that I could be a dad and have my hobbies. And I definitely did prove it.

That being said, as this year draws to a close, I know with absolute certainty that it was a complete waste of time.

I could’ve accomplished a lot more using that time for different things, like working out, learning a new language or instrument and most importantly spending time with Lisa. Early on, the gaming happened after Lisa went to bed but towards the end of the year when I saw that I could break 30 I went on something of a bender and played while she was awake. She was most definitely a gaming widow. And, there’s no enjoyment in beating that many games. It became a job.

So, while 220 hours only ends up being about 4 hours a week, going into next year I’m going to cut back on how many hours I spend on this particular hobby. Lord knows I want to learn the piano, and if I dedicate even a third of that time spent on gaming, I’ll be able to play a couple of tunes.

- – -

D&D died last year never to return. It’s a shame, really, but on the plus side it forced me to look outside the usual group of friends. Hopefully next year we will return to it, but I doubt it.

On that subject, I joined a couple of groups and spent some time in the company of strangers playing board games. Just like college! Going into next year, I’m looking to expand upon these sorts of outings.

- – -

Lisa and I have tried to play a few board games on our own, but she’s very much a Trivial Pursuit person and I’m not, mostly because of how often we’ve played it in the past. I was convinced that we’d enjoy Smart Ass, but even though it’s a two player game, it definitely requires more than three (preferably four or more) to be fun. We will continue to look for a good two player game… maybe it’s time to give Monopoly a try again.

- – -

Finally, I got my yearly The Settlers of Catan fix when my sister came. SoC is a German board game designed so that no one player can gain a major advantage over the other and the winner wins by a small margin. This is a minimum of three players game – fun, but not easy.

I really should figure out a way to play SoC more often.

‘Who knew what we’d be expecting with two kids,’, that’s how the year started. Every few days, I’d ask Lisa ‘what the hell are we doing? we barely parents of one, let alone two!’

That isn’t true, obviously. Nora is a great girl. But I was terrified. I know I’ve said this before, but I wondered if we could handle one parent to one child. And then he came. Late, as to be expected, but he came with a full head of steam (and hair!).

It ended up being fine. Two kids isn’t a cinch, but I psyched myself up for an apocalypse that never happened. In fact, it’s been tremendously fun. Outside of Lisa, they’re my most favorite people. I love them not just dutifully, but I love them for being who they are.

With Nora, I was tired to dealing with her tantrums so I opted to use two strategies: completely ignoring her tantrums or telling her that if she can convince me what she’s right, she can do what she wants.

The latter is an interesting game for her, and it generally gets her to stop whining/tantruming and puts her thinking cap on. For example, she wanted to watch more shows that her allotment. She thought for a good 30 minutes and provided some reasons why she should be allowed to watch tv. Ultimately, none were compelling, but no screaming was involved.

On the other side of the coin, Nora was chucking her animals onto the couch, and I asked her to stop. Instead, she logically informed me that ‘sometimes I toss Denby, and she was doing the same thing’. I did the open / close mouth thing, and had to concede her point and let her carry on.

Now, when she’s not overtired, she’ll use logic first before whining. It’s excellent.

As a side note, Denby likes being tossed onto the couch or the bed. I don’t remember how this game started, but way way back, back in Claymont, he used to run back to me after tossing him. He also liked attacking my fist behind a sheet, but he’s since stopped playing that game.

Every time I look at that boy, I have to wonder how that lump turned out to be my little man. I don’t know, maybe I’m romanticizing it, but it seems like Nora was a much more alert baby than Isaac was. Isaac’s interest was making as much noise as possible and moving as soon and as quickly as possible.

Nothing has changed, but he’s so cute about it. He’s cuddly, sweet and mischievous. Nora has never been into the hugs and snuggles (at least not with me) but this one! he willingly lays his head on our shoulders. He loves sharing (even if it’s something he’s half chewed).

He understands the word no, this much is clear. He just opts not to follow it. If he’s reaching for an electrical outlet (covered, of course) and we say “no!”, he’ll look at us, smile and bang his hand on the outlet while grinning impishly. He’s going to be an even bigger handful than he already is when he learns how to run.

The two of them together is a wonderful thing. Nora was cool to Isaac until he figured out how to smile, laugh and sit. Ever since then she’s been treating him like a playmate. Now that he walks and plays simple games, we can put them down in the same room and they’ll play together. It’s fantastic.

And really, two kids and one parent isn’t bad. Being vigilant constantly is paramount – like when Isaac decided to go head first off of Ray and Diane’s couch – but it becomes second nature.

I love them both so very, very much. I could go on and on about both, and fill pages upon pages but Lisa’s mommy blog has that covered and it’s a lot more interesting than anything I could write. I hadn’t expected it to be as awesome as it has been. I have to say, Bill Simmons was completely wrong about having two children.

You thought I’d start with gaming or media, right? Right? Wrong!

While I don’t look it, I’m in the best shape of my life, and I’m only getting stronger. Several months ago (October 13th, to be exact) I started the StrongLifts 5×5 program. What is SL5x5?

You do five reps and five sets, with a minute break between each set. I’ve done some experimenting, and my days break down like this: 3 days lifting, four days off, with two days in between after the three. So it’d be like MWF or TThSat, or while DWTS is on, WFSun (can’t miss DWTS!).

Since starting this, I’ve lost an inch on my waist but more importantly put an inch of muscle on my arms, 1.5″ on my neck, and I haven’t religiously been tracking my legs but they now have some serious definition.

It’s been awesome.

I can’t really bring myself to diet, which is a shame because I don’t want to be one of those heavy set weightlifters; the problem is that it’s hard to determine what I’m losing and what I’m gaining. Calipers are a pain.

All that being said, I do not miss lifting days if I can help it. I’ve missed three days total, all of which due to being completely exhausted. Lifting is dangerous – the one time I did try to lift while tired I nearly dropped the weights on my head and hurt my hamstring trying to recover the weight.

I lifted last night at 11.00pm, that’s the kind of dedication I’m talking about.

I’ve found that it not only helps me with strength, but running has become a breeze too. I decided a few weeks ago that I’d run to see where I was with my cardio. Not only did I manage a mile with ease, I wasn’t winded and felt like I could do another two miles.

And of course, the kids love daddy’s new found ability to toss and spin them in the air. Sometimes it’s the only thing that will call Isaac down when he’s screaming bloody murder.

I tried to get Lisa into it – she’s not interested (well interested enough to do it once a week, but that’s not how the program works and she’d see zero benefit). Oh well.

The goal of the new year is to lose the remaining weight I want to lose, which is another 10-12 pounds or so.

This is a lifelong thing, and I’m loving it.

—

Edit
Workout Day A: Squats, Pendlay rows, Bench Press
Workout Day B: Squats, overhead press, deadlift

Current weight: ~66
Current deadlift weight: ~114

The bar and two plates are non-standard. I assume the bar is 6lbs, but it could be more. Two plates are 8.8lbs. I could theoretically up the weight but I like to keep the number the same across all workouts and anchored to what I can do in the overhead press.

Also, I don’t have a stand, so I have power clean these weights up to shoulder level, which is going to be a major limitation. If I keep up with this program until my birthday, I’ve promised myself a power rack.

NBPM brought in a lot of traffic, but more importantly it gave me something interesting to do with this blog that I hadn’t done in many, many years. After the new year, what’s next? After so many years of writing, I’ve nearly run out of things to say (or complain about).

On that note, I’ve completed seven years of running this site. I remember sitting in the student lounge area of Widener Law setting up Moveable Type – back then, I had a theme I wrote by hand (and was very proud of). Now it’s simply a five minute wordpress install and hunting for an appealing theme. Instead of painstakingly updating the blog software by unzipping and manually uploading 12K+ files, now I can hit one button and all my plugins, themes and engines are up to date. My, how things change in such a short amount of time.