New Year's Vague Intentions

[tiger_spot]

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, mostly because I don't typically experience time in a way that chunks neatly into years. But this year, we've been in the house a little over a year and we've had the dog almost exactly a year, so there are some natural boundaries to 2010 encouraging me to think of it as a more coherent whole than usual.

There are a few things I want to do a bit differently this year:

1. Take more photos. I wrote Christmas cards for my grandparents, and thought it would be nice to print out a few photos of interesting things we've done this year to include. But when I looked, I didn't have any photos of interesting things we've done this year -- I had a few good shots of the chickens, and the coop-building process, and a few one-person stills here and there, but not really any adventures.

2. Use my vacation time for more three-day weekends. They're very relaxing, and having them spread regularly through the year helps keep me from burning out quite so badly as I sometimes do.

3. Go camping. We didn't go camping at all this year! Must fix that for 2011. (Must introduce dog to tent first.)

And some fuzzier, less time-bounded intentions:

4. Get back into the piano habit. I have been playing the piano a bit in the second half of this year, but after the Evil Hand Fungus kept me from playing at all for six months, it never really got back into being a habit the way it had been.

5. Relatedly, work through that how-to-compose book. Possibly learn the recorder to go with (it recommends doing the simple exercises for a woodwind, and while I do not have any proper woodwinds, I do have this plasticwind I used to play in elementary school...).

6. Travel more, locally. Particularly, I'd like to do more hiking, visit the Wave Organ, head out to the coast a few times, and have brooksmoses show me around Carmel like he keeps meaning to.

7. As usual, I would like to spend more one-on-one or small-group time with friends, so if you want to plan a trip to one of those above-mentioned interesting places, or do something on a semi-random three-day weekend, let me know!

Comments

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I want to go tidepooling, and take people to Half Moon Bay to enjoy it. I also want to kayak more. And there are a number of parks that I'd like to go to in the general area that I've never been to.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Those all sound like excellent fun. Tell you what -- if I get around to making actual plans first, I will let you know about it, and if you get around to making actual plans first, you let me know about it, and then we can go step on some nature, hey?

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

yes also to tidepooling, hiking/exploring local natural beauty in general... also want to go camping again. Maybe a large merry poly-band to have a Cute Camping Collective?

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

Noticing the above note - I've never been tidepooling, and it sounds like fun!
Also, how bike-fit do you feel? I want to bike to the coast sometime in the next month, which is a ~60-mile ride with hills. Want to join me? (Fair warning: I am SLOW. Esp on hills. The elevation change is 1200ft.) It would be an adventure for which you could bring a camera.
If this turns out to be a ridiculous goal, well, I'm sure we could convert it to a nifty ride on this side of the mountain.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I am not anything like bike-fit right now, I don't think. I haven't even gone as far as Palo Alto any time recently, and that's about the farthest I've ever gone. But we could plan a shorter ride and see how I do -- your long rides do sound like fun.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

Look at what you can see!.

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

*delighted* Hey, sign me up for whenever you guys decide to go! :)

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I've taken a look at the low tide chart, and put a few in my calendar (for March and May) so will follow up when it gets closer to then.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Please do not take up the plastic descant recorder. There is a reason those things are usually confined to primary schools! Wooden descant recorders can be made to sound good, but the plastic ones never sound good no matter what, and they are painful to most adult ears even when played correctly.

You could pick up a tenor recorder? Same fingering as a descant, sounds a LOT better. Almost guaranteed not to cause housemates to try to insert it into parts of your anatomy that should not contain recorders!

Apart from that, sounds like a great list of resolutions :)

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

When my parents were visiting last year, my dad fooled around with the plastic recorder a bit. It's... not a pleasant-sounding instrument, no.

Crummy sounding recorders

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe it was the musician? You can get recorders in many, many, sizes ranging from Soprano to Bass in both wood and plastic. They are pretty cheap, as instruments go. Check them out on the internet. There is a store in San Francisco that specializes in unusual wind instruments (I can't remember the name) that should have a good selection.

Or you could get a saxophone and step up to the big leagues.

Re: Crummy sounding recorders

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

And here I was about to defend your recorder-playing honor from this upstart anonymous commenter. Not the musician; definitely the instrument. :)

[brooksmoses]

Somewhere, in my boxes of stuff from my childhood, is a wooden recorder. You could have it if I could find it, but that may not be too likely.