Happy New Year, and here’s to the Twenty-Tens! (This reminds me: I have to post a transcript of an argument over whether this year constitutes the start of a new decade.) Time to renew some old resolutions, new some new ones, and old some old ones. Let’s see how my Aught-Nine resolutions went:

1. I shall drink more water and milk, and less soda, pop, and sweet tea. Kept. Chocolate milk is still milk, right?

2. At the end of this year, I will weigh less than 192 pounds. Nope. Not even close. There was even some movement in the opposite direction in 2009. However, I think I’ve found a way to trick myself into making this one a reality in 2010.

3. I shall put all the books I’ve bought but not yet read on a particular shelf, and I shall either read, sell or give away more than half of them. Nope. I’ve barely kept the first part of this resolution: right now, the books I’ve bought but not yet read are not on a shelf, but are in a plastic box next to my reading chair.

4. I shall cook something I’ve never cooked before, and cook it at least three times to fine-tune the recipe. Kept. I’m very happy with the result, too: sweet-and-sour chicken far better than the takeout version, and with slightly fewer health code violations. The fine-tuning was leaving out the ketchup. It made the dish taste too ketchupy.

5. I shall write at least one journal entry each week. I will not go seven days without posting an entry. Kept, but that self-imposed deadline made me feel like I was back in school.

6. I shall archive my 2008 journal entries in the same manner as the 2005-07 entries, and write “On Dilbert, Part Two,” and write “How to make everything perfect forever, Part Two.” Kept, though you’ll note that the Dilbert entry came in the waning hours of 2009.

7. If a task or chore will take less than one minute to accomplish, I shall do it immediately. Kept as much as possible. Once again, less clutter, less procrastination, and less… I forget the other one.

8. On weekends and days off, I shall awaken and get out of bed before 9:30 AM. Mostly kept. I know I broke this one on the day I returned from my trip out west, but I was jetlagged, and aside from that I broke it four or five other times. This made my weekends seem a lot longer, more productive and more fun. I’ll renew it.

9. I shall fly on an airplane for the first time in my conscious memory, in order to attend Captain Patton’s wedding. Kept.

10. I shall visit Chicagoland, and feast on real hot dogs, and real pizza, and real beef sammiches. And see friends and family along the way. Nope. Too much other stuff going on last summer, what with the seminar, the break-in, and moving. That trimmed my itinerary by a week.

11. I shall put my U.S. history powerpoint presentations back online, in hopes that doing so will make a difference. Nope. Broke this one on purpose. It occurred to me that putting my powerpoints online would interfere with a partcular assignment I wanted to give.

12. I shall make a real twelfth resolution before May 30th, 2009, and shall keep at least nine of these resolutions (inclusive). My final resolution was “I shall replace my cell phone.” That part was kept, but I count four “Nopes” and one “Mostly” up there, so that makes this one a fifth Nope.

Net result: Six kept, one mostly kept, five not kept. That’s a drop-off from the last two years (eight of twelve kept in ’07, nine of twelve kept in ’08). I’ll need to do better this year.

Here’s my batch for 2010:

1. I shall drink more water and milk, and less soda, pop, and sweet tea.

2. I shall ride the exerbike for thirty minutes (or engage in the substantial equivalent of other exercise) at least three times per week. (I like this one because it’s more concrete and habit-specific than “I will weigh less than 192 at the end of this year.”)

3. I shall put all the books I’ve bought but not yet read on a particular shelf, and I shall either read, sell or give away more than half of them.

4. I shall cook something I’ve never cooked before, and cook it at least three times to fine-tune the recipe.

5. I shall write at least one journal entry each week. I will not go seven days without posting an entry.

6. I shall load my archived entries from July 7, 2009 and earlier into the normal blog archives.

7. If a task or chore will take less than one minute to accomplish and I have a minute to spare, I shall do it immediately.

8. On weekends and days off, I shall awaken and get out of bed before 9:30 AM.

9. I shall visit Chicagoland, and feast on real hot dogs, and real pizza, and real beef sammiches. And see friends and family along the way.

I’m going to focus on these nine for now, but I’ll list my deadlines for numbers 10, 11, and 12.

10. I shall make a 10th resolution before February 28th, 2010.

11. I shall make an 11th resolution before April 30th, 2010.

12. I shall make a 12th resolution before June 30th, 2010.

I’ll take suggestions. Here goes.