And if you can't get what you want, well its all because of me.

Its nearly 10:00 on February first so this is about as close as I'm going to get to the 1/12th mark of the year and its time to give an update on my New Year's resolutions so far.  As I posted on facebook, this year's goals are to 'Work harder, play harder, travel more, read more, drink better beer.'  Let's take them one at a time.

1) Work harder.  So far, not much of a success.  My three main goals of this were to get in better shape, do extra work at AU so I could afford to travel more and to get back into some actual mathematical research.  The idea that I'm in better shape is laughable right now, but a good part of that has been the polar vertex making running an afterthought.  I did get our for a five mile run this morning though.  I've found something worse than running on snow though.  This morning's run was on snow and slush with an intermittent 35 degree drizzle and half the dogs in the neighborhood out running free.  Even better, my knee started screaming after about four and a half miles so an intended six mile run became a five miler.  The extra work idea has been achieved though.  My finite class at night isn't really convenient to some of the things I want to do, but I can be inconvenienced twice a week for three months for an extra couple grand.  The fact that I'm now teaching 14 credits does hurt my ability to do research as I have no free time so that's being put off until the summer.  I have talked to Andrew about extending SDC so hopefully I can make progress on that.

2) Play harder.  I'm giving myself a pass for now.  Once again, an actual winter has been a huge impediment to this goal.  This is definitely something that will come later in the year though with my current plans to hit San Juan, Las Vegas, Zion NP, Bryce Canyon, Red River Gorge, Mammoth Cave, Seattle and Portland followed by a week of relaxing out at Menninga Island.

3) Travel more. The furthest I've gone since January 2nd has been the 15 mile drive out to church.  I did buy my ticket for Puerto Rico though so I've committed to this though.

4) Read more.  Hooray! A goal I've actually worked on so far.  I finished A.J. Jacobs' Drop Dead Healthy, Chris Kyle's American Sniper, Belinda Bauer's Blacklands, Simon Singh's The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets, and most of Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  All told, I've probably gone through about 1350 pages in the month.

5) Drink better beer. Ha! Sigh.  Such incredible failure.  Things aren't going to be any better for February as I'm out of beer and I've sworn off buying booze until at least Spring Break in an effort to rectify point number one.