What Are Your Long-Term Projects This Year?
5 Comments Published by Joel January 1st, 2007 in DIY. Share ThisThese are the big ones, the sort of projects that will take you several months of persistent effort, the ones that are almost certainly doomed to failure—but also the ones that have the potential for the most reward. This list doesn’t include goals related to my current job at Wired.
I have the following projects:
• Make Dethroner awesome. (Plans detailed previously.) This includes putting the LLC together, hiring full-time writers, and working towards an eventual goal of making the company be able to pay my bills, should I choose to work on it full time myself.
• Compile my grandma’s recipes into a nice PDF for printing and distributing for next Christmas. This will mean not just going over the recipes for typos and inconsistencies, but learning a layout tool like InDesign, testing the recipes, and taking pictures.
• Put together the plans and find an interested network (online or otherwise) to pitch my video show about indigenous drug and chemical use. (I’m actually meeting with some people about this project this week for a possible online outlet a la podcasting.)
• Finish my short story about zombies. (This may be as simple as writing “The End.”)
• Now that I’ve lost the weight I wanted, I want to get fit. (Of course, back from vacation, I’ve gained back at least 5 pounds.)
• Learn Spanish.
That should keep me busy for most of the year. There are plenty of other projects that I hope to tackle, but those are the big, overarching ones that will probably define the bulk of my free time.
Anything big you hope to tackle this year?
Write my PhD dissertation. Although I’d like to think of that as something that is certainly NOT “doomed to failure”.
Get buff again like I used to be a couple of years ago.
Either find a new job I actually want to do, or go back to school.
Practice this sewing thing until I can make us clothing we’re not afraid to leave the house wearing.
More houseplants.
Learn Arabic.
Be happier. That would be nice.
I have set five goals to grow in my pastime as a photographer:
Push the boundaries of my creativity by photographing new genres, subjects and themes.
Be more productive by taking pictures regularly.
Improve my current skills and develop new ones through practice, new avenues for my photography and learning from others.
Meet like minded people who are also seeking to develop their creative and photography skills.
Share my work and seek critique.
Mike
1. Learn how to make really good dreadlocks on whitey. I did manage to do a good job of it on the playa this year on three separate folks, but I’m sure there are better methods than just using beeswax and shea butter and the rubbing the strands between the palms thing. I also want to master doing extention work, both with loose human hair, synthetic hair, and other materials.
2. Spend a lot more time being artsy/craftsy. While making Xmas presents for family and friends this year, I found that the more time I spent being creative offline, the more I enjoyed it, and the better the results, of course. I don’t know if I’ll ever make things to sell, but I’d like to become artful enough that my work could sell if it found its way in a shop.
3. Build up my forearms; I love the idea of having massive Popeye-like pipes swinging below my elbows. Imagine the jars I could open for the Mrs. with meathooks like that!
4. Buy an apartment in Sunnyside, Queens. This long term project actually began about 3/4s of a year ago, but we’ve made excellent progress, seen lots of places, and even made a couple of offers already. I expect that we’ll be closing on something liveable and swell within a couple of months.
5. Dust off my 335 semi hollowbody, get my chops back and then some.
6. Conduct a lot more interviews with a diverse array of lumineries both known and unknown. Share them here.
7. I live in one of the most culture-saturated cities in the world – it’s the reason I chose to live here. Yet, week after week, the extent of my exposure to it is reading Time Out New York. Other than that it’s movies and the internet. Okay, well, I do have season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera, and I do see bands from time to time. Actually, about a half a year ago I decided that I had to see live music at least once a week to merit living here, and I was doing very well that way for a while. It’s fallen off in recent times, but I’m back on that saddle soon. However, the last play I saw was in June. The last time I went out to independent cinema was in May. The last time I went to an art gallery was in July. The last time I went to a museum was September. This city is clogged with museums! So. Less Hollywood, less internet. More museums, more theater, more music, more art.
That’s all, in my woozy, still a little hung over condition, I can think of. Well, except for the obvious perennial – more sex.
1. Put the back wheels on the cottin’ pickin’ CJ8 and move it to the side.
2. Develop better poolish technique and make better bread in general.
3. Launch hotbreak.
4. Climb 5.10[ish]