How Did 2025 New Year's Resolutions Go?

It is almost time to change the calendar to 2026. I thought about posting something about New Year's Resolutions but realize most of them are broken in the first 30 days of the new year. So I thought about how I did with mine this year. As I think about it, I did pretty good but there is always room for improvement.

One of the most easily broken resolutions relates to weight loss. I find that there are smart goals and there are stupid goals in this area of my life. A stupid goal is that I want to shed a certain number of pounds. It is stupid because it doesn't include how to achieve the goal. A smart goal is setting a number of days I want to ski. Skiing is exercise but it is something I love to do. The more days I ski means I exercise more. This year I set the goal to ski over 100 days for the 2024/25 ski season. I ended the season skiing 126 days. Goal achieved!

Unfortunately I can't ski all year long. So what is a smart summer exercise goal? The past couple of years I have not done as many bike rides as I would like and so I set a goal to ride over 1000 miles for the year. I have had some years where I achieved over 6000 so my goal is very doable and stretched what I accomplished the previous year. I have one more day to go but have over 1200 miles ridden so far this year. Goal achieved!

Now while we all have that stupid goal to lose a couple of pounds, did my smart goals help contribute to what I really wanted to do? I can say, "Yes." I am at my healthiest when I weigh less than 160 pounds. The skiing and biking goals helped get me down to 156 but you don't lose weight in the gym, you lose it in the kitchen. I set some smart goals related to eating well and that is what did it for me. If you are trying to lose weight without GLP-1 drugs, the way to do it is by leaving every meal hungry. So hungry you cry. If you can do that, you will drop weight easily. Well I guess it is not so easy as you cry 3 or 4 times a day.

I also had some mental and professional goals and did fairly well with them. This coming year I have set a technology goal that actually applies to computers and technology. My recent post about a single 4K monitor not being enough has me wanting to build a new computer with two 4K monitors. There is more to think about than just purchasing the hardware. I will have to redesign my office to make the space for both 43-inch monitors. I will also need space for my work computer and its second or perhaps third monitor. That is a lot of screens to look at and so I am going to have to build up . . . and maybe down. I will be sure to update readers with how the project is going.

One goal I had for this past year is doing more with artificial intelligence (AI). Fortunately I still have a few months left in my company's fiscal year so I'm not quite out of time. I did get a work environment set up for myself and all I need to do now is a bit of tweaking to tune it for my sample use case. Ultimately I want to be able to type natural language and have it generate the complex SQL to pull the data from a sample database where information is spread across multiple tables. So instead of typing code, I want to type, "What is the most popular movie over the past year and did it effect any video game sales?" The first question is a pretty simple query to a single table. The second is significantly more complicated. I'm close to being able to ask my question but have a little more Symantec modeling to do, which is really just accurately describing the data in natural language terms. I am close though.

As you start the new year, don't create New Year's resolutions without thinking about how you did last year. If you kept some of them but not others, think what you can do to set smart goals and not just boring number ones. Get creative and figure you what you can do to become excited to accomplish what you want. Right now, I'm thinking about going to various Disney parks 4 times in 2026. If you can avoid eating all the food, you really do a lot of walking and can surpass 25,000 steps in a single day. That ought to help with anyone's diet.

Video Calls Can Add to Holiday Events

Last Christmas my youngest son flew his family of 4 from Ohio to Utah to visit us during the Holidays. It really surprised my wife and I as we had just spent a week with them in Hawaii. We did not expect to see them again so soon. This year my wife and I surprised them by flying to Ohio the day before Christmas Eve and celebrating with them. My son didn't know we would arrive until 30 minutes before we drove up as we had planned the surprise with his wife.

Naturally we cleared the trip with all of our other children before booking flights back in August. That means everyone in the family had to keep a secret for 4 months. I had times I wanted to blab but kept the secret. A week before our trip, my son asked if we planned to come and surprise him. My response was, "We would have had to buy plane tickets back in August," which we did.

As we couldn't be with our other children we made sure to do video calls with everyone on Christmas. I remember 35 years ago thinking that would be a great technology as phone companies started sharing plans for the service. Now it is a reality that is as easy to do as making a call on your mobile phone. If you are not a fan of the iPhone and FaceTime, you can use What's App on Android and do the same thing. That means nobody has to be left out from seeing young kids open their magical gifts on that special day every year.

Ohio has a 2-hour time difference from Utah and so we had to make sure we didn't call my older son with his kids too early. Instead we waited for them to call us. Then we had a magical morning with cousins being able to talk to each other. As they both got trips to Orlando in February, we will all be together in just a few weeks. It will be a magical time for everyone. Fortunately we could all share in the excitement on Christmas morning, thanks to a video call. 

Making the Most of Spare Time

This afternoon I find myself with a spare hour and am not quite sure what to do with it. I want to be productive and active (sitting and writing my blog is not active). My neighbors keep bringing over treats and I can't help but sample them. Sure I could plop down on the couch and watch a movie or show while I gorge myself on candy, cookies, and other various Christmas goodies, but that is not a good way to prepare for all the food I will eat in the next week or so.

I could go tune another pair of skis. That at least keeps me active as it is a lot of work walking back and forth the length of the skis. I might not get a lot of miles traveled but I do get a fair share of steps. Unfortunately tuning skis makes a mess and I have already cleaned myself up for the day. I guess I'll pass on that.

I could go through my Christmas list and make sure everyone is shopped for and gifts are wrapped. Well, I actually did that yesterday and did not see anything forgotten. Everything is wrapped nicely and ready to go under the Christmas tree. My son even sent me the clue I am supposed to give my grandkids letting them know they will be going to Orlando in February. We should have a great time. 

I could go for a walk but that is what I will be doing in an hour anyways. No need to double up on that. Besides, I spent the morning skiing at Alta with all of the skiers that decided to go to my ski area instead of staying at Park City as there is no snow there. There is enough to keep one run open but with the hoards of people trying to ski the same run, it is probably chaotic.

I have checked in with my parents and offered condolences as they had to put their dog down yesterday after a good 19-year run with the pet. Needless to say they are besides themselves with grief. I understand as I thought it to be a particularly bad day when my wife had to put our dog down. That is why I checked in on them.

I supposed I could go clean the bathrooms in the house but my wife did that earlier today while she needed to kill some time. We also worked together to take out the garbage as the garbage men will arrive tomorrow and we want to make room for all of the Christmas wrapping paper. 

Writing in my blog is not that active but it did take 10 whole minutes to put this together. Now I only have to fill 50 minutes. What to do? What to do? 

I Thought a 4K Monitor Would be Enough

True to my word I am trying to stay busy during my Holiday break. This morning I got up early and skied for an hour at Alta before it started getting crowded given how many runs are open. I did do a bit of exploring so that when we get a lot more snow, I know what other parts of the mountain look like. I also managed to see an old family friend, Junior Bonous who turned 100 in August and he is still making it up to Alta for some turns.

I came home and got some food before heading to the ski tuning room to scrape and brush a pair of skis for Christmas eve. Then I headed to my office and put together a ski video describing the early-season conditions at Snowbird. It is a bit different than my usual videos.

One comment I have received is that I sound so monotone as I narrate my ski videos. Today I opted to create the video first and then add the narration afterwards without a script. I'm not sure I will do that again as I think it took a lot longer to create the soundtrack than normal. I also wanted to say a lot more and ended up leaving many of my comments out of the video.

Creating the narration track at the same time as the video required me to have both Garage Band and iMovie running at the same time. My Mac has a 4K monitor and so one would think I have more than enough space to do everything. That is not the case. I like to use iMovie so it takes up most of the screen. I do the same with Garage Band. A second 4K monitor would really be useful but I don't have one readily available.

I remember when I first started using the 4K monitor. It is the same resolution as 4 HD monitors running at 1080p. I thought it would be easy to divide up the screen into 4 sections and have them act as 4 independent screens. Nope. Once you have a high-resolution monitor, you use it all. I like being able to have my web browser take up more than a quarter of the screen. I also reserve extra space for my e-mail window. It just goes to show that no matter how high a resolution monitor you have, you will use it all. 

The Start of Christmas Break

Yesterday I worked the last day of the year for my company and now I am on Christmas break up through January 4th. I always appreciate the 2 weeks my company provides to relax at the end of the year and spend time with family. This year I plan to maximize my time off and get a bunch of personal projects completed.

Last night my wife and I checked into the local Marriott so we could use the pool and hot tub. I had hoped my grandkids could join us but they are fighting the flu and courteously stayed away. Instead my wife and I had an enjoyable evening before checking out and coming home. We only needed the stay to meet my requirement for 25 nights to remain a gold member of the Marriott loyalty club.

This morning I woke up and headed skiing alone to Alta. I wasn't totally alone as I met my daughter who is an instructor up there before she started teaching a large group of kids. I skied Alta yesterday before work and thought they could use a lot more snow. They got 3 inches of snow overnight but probably need a good 3 feet. I skied around the mountain today looking at the general condition of things and then decided to come home when the runs started getting crowded.

Once home, I talked with my wife a bit and then headed to the ski-tuning room so I could wax some skis. The waxing process is somewhat lengthy if you run through the whole thing. First you have to run a file over the edges to make sure they are sharp so you can carve a turn on ice. Then you need to put a coat of wax on and hot scrape them to pull any iron filings out of the base. After using a steel brush to make sure no shavings remain, you get to wax them again. They need to sit overnight before scraping and brushing them. I don't know if it is fortunately or unfortunately, but I have about 7 pairs of skis and so if I stay on top of ski maintenance there is always a pair ready to ski on.

Like usual work weeks, I plan to ski every morning and then do something productive. I have a number of YouTube videos I want to create and so I will be spending some time in front of the computer putting those together. My wife and I are getting ready for all the vacations we plan to take next year and so that will require a bit of research on the Internet. Right now we have 3 trips planned to Disney World. If you haven't noticed, that is where our grandkids want to go. It might explain why we have annual passes and own a condo there.

I think the most important trick with the Christmas break is to not sit around watching really bad low-budget Christmas movies. Trust me, there are a lot of them out there. If you must, spend some time in front of the computer but then get outside and do something healthy for yourself. I like skiing as it is great exercise and I otherwise hate to exercise. 

You Can't Unsend a Text Message

This morning I awoke to my mobile phone announcing I had received a text message. I immediately rolled over and went back to sleep without reading it. Later when I got up and got ready to go skiing before work, I read through the message from son in Ohio. He made a comment about how he can take his whole family skiing on Christmas Eve out there for the price of a single lift ticket at Alta. That includes lift tickets and ski rentals for his 2 girls. I immediately thought about sending a response letting him know that people get on airplanes to come ski Alta and nobody would do that to ski Ohio. I mentioned my response to my wife and she responded that I probably shouldn't send that. I kept my comment to myself and headed up skiing.

Early in my career at Oracle doing technical support work, I responded to a fellow coworker with an angry sounding e-mail about how he wasn't doing his job and shouldn't expect me to do it for him. That didn't sit well with him and he replied being sure to copy my boss. I realized that I probably should have waited a bit before responding to his original e-mail and sent something much more professional. I responded to him with an apology stating that I sent an e-mail without taking the time to properly articulate my thoughts and that I did not mean to offend him. That smoothed things over but probably wasn't ever forgotten.

While skiing this morning I continued thinking about my son's text message and realized that my son is probably missing family close by and would appreciate a positive response instead of me making fun of Ohio skiing. I got home and responded that it is great that the whole family will be skiing on Christmas Eve even if we won't be at the same ski area. He liked my response.

This experience reminded me that you can't unsend a text message. While you may want to quickly respond in the heat of the moment, sometimes it is best to sit back and think about the best response. Your quick joke may not be received with the same jovial spirit with which you sent it. When anger needs to be diffused, you may be adding fuel to the fire. In my case, my son is missing our Christmas traditions in Utah and needed reassurance that it is fine for him to have Christmas at home with his own family. 

Latest Ski Season Start in a Long Time

Friday night I returned home from Japan and fell asleep right at 8:30pm. I slept all the way until 6:30am, meaning I got a solid 10 hours of sleep. I must have been tired due to having a 36-hour day because of flights and crossing the International Date Line. Fortunately I have not really had any jet lag to deal with.

On Saturday morning I woke up and got ready to go skiing at Alta with my wife. All of the resorts in Utah are hurting for snow as this is something like the worst start to ski season in 30 years. Alta has 4 lifts running and I am glad to got to make some turns. I did feel a bit rusty but quickly started carving and quickly felt comfortable.

I headed off to Japan the day before skiing started at Snowbird and Alta. While in Japan, I had a free day and looked at trying to ski somewhere there. They are set up for business travelers so that when you walk into the rental shop they will rent every last piece of equipment you could possibly need including base layers, goggles, helmets, and gloves. I checked the resorts a quick train ride from Tokyo but they won't open until this weekend. I also looked at the resorts in Hokkaido, Japan's North island. Unfortunately they had something like a 7.6 magnitude earthquake and that closed down all the resorts up there. Ultimately I didn't end up finding a place open for skiing other than an indoor area that I have already been to. Yes I could have gotten an extra day by going there but opted to do something else.

Having my first ski day on December 13th means this is the latest I have skied for the first time in the season for many years. Last season I skied 126 days. With such a late start, I will have to work to get 100. It is a noble goal and I hope to make it.