What do I want from this year?

I will weigh 130 pounds

I want to be at my goal weight of 130 pounds. I am closer this year than I have ever been. I weigh 154 pounds right now, so that’s only 24 pounds to go. With my goal so close in sight, being at goal is my number one New Year’s resolution this year.

We will pay at least $3500 a month to the IRS.

Last year, we paid over $2500 a month, so our goal is to pay $3500 a month. We are busting our butts to get this debt paid off right now. The IRS is not the kind of people that you want to be indebted to. Sometimes it feels like with everything we’re paying, we just get further in the hole with them, so we are just sending them everything we can every month.

I will stay self-employed.

It was a hard decision to become self-employed. Health insurance is a major concern, but we have that covered with COBRA for all of 2006. After that, we’ll have to access other options. I don’t want to be tempted back into the business world. I want to continue being a writer and enjoy it. I refuse to let my fear send me running back. I will do whatever I need to do to stay self-employed this year.

That’s it. Those are all the resolutions that I have this year. I always feel like there are ways for me to grow as an adult. I want to be the best person I can be. Wish me luck!

I took this photo last November when the sun was still willing to visit us sometimes. The words “No Dancing Zone” has been spray painted onto a dumpter behind the beauty supply shop. What does it mean?

I got a new laptop last week. It wasn’t a Christmas present. Mike got it so I would have my own computer when we went to CES to cover the show. It’s a tiny thing and only weighs about three pounds. I love it and I want to take it everywhere.

Right now, I’m at Barnes and Noble in Sugarhouse. They have lots of tables here and I feel right at home with the other computer people. They have wireless access here, but I would have to pay to use it. I don’t need it. I can write offline just as well as online. Heck, I can write by hand or on my Treo. I don’t NEED a laptop to write, but the right tools help make things easier. When I get back home, I’ll upload this to my weblog, but for now, I’m not connected to the Internet. I don’t really need to be. I don’t need the Internet for words to flow out of my fingers.

There is another wireless access point across the street coming from Sugarhouse Coffee. They only charge two bucks a day and the signal is pretty strong here. It’s the kind of coffee shop that’s filled with pierced youth. I don’t think I would feel comfortable bringing my shiny new laptop out of my backpack there, but I can get the signal from the safety of the book-megalith. Of course, there are pierced youth here, too; just less of them.

The phone above my head rings twice. There is a piece of paper taped to the handset that says, “NOT A PUBLIC PHONE,” in all capital letters. I didn’t even know the phone was there until it rang.

Why? Why am I more excited about writing at Barnes and Noble on my laptop than I am at home on my full-sized keyboard? What is the attraction? I’ve sat in this very store writing before on my Moleskine, but I haven’t done it since that day. Why did I have to wait until I got my laptop? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Mike and I went on a lovely trip to San Diego back in October. It was a life-changing trip because it made the both of us want to move to California. We have lots of friends that live in San Diego and we seriously considered moving there, including looking at apartments while we were there.

After months of consideration, however, we have decided to stay in Salt Lake City. The attraction of old friends and beautiful weather year ‘round just can’t compete against family and low housing costs. This is the second time that the two of us have seriously considered moving to California and have decided to stay.

In some respects, I feel so relieved that we have decided to stay. I love the mountains. I love my family. I even find a sick amusement at the lack of separation of church and state. I love it here despite the cold and the snow.

I also feel trapped. I feel a little bit like George Bailey. My friends have gone to make their fortunes in San Diego and I’m still here. I wasn’t even trapped here by horrible circumstances like George was. My father didn’t die. The Savings and Loan wasn’t going to go to the evil Mr. Potter unless I stayed. I stayed because I’m too cheap to pay $2K a month for an apartment that isn’t as good as my 873 square foot, mouse-infested, haunted house. Well, that and I don’t want to miss out on my family’s lives.

I guess I’m never going to move out of Salt Lake City. I’ll have to be happy with my hippie-infested area of Sugarhouse, because that’s the most liberal I’m going to find for three hundred miles. For the last few months, I have looked at every item I owned, trying to decide if it should follow me to San Diego. Instead, they are all staying here with me. I’m relieved and I’m disappointed. It’s such a strange ambiguity.

I kind of thought my Press Pass would be like a magic card that can get me into any place. We came a couple of days early to CES so that we could attend the Press Conferences that were available. The first one that we wanted to attend was the Panasonic Press Conference at 3pm yesterday. It was being held at the Panasonic booth on the exhibition floor.

We were excited about what Panasonic has to show us, so we arrived a little early. That was probably our mistake. We tried to go on the exhibition floor, but we were stopped by the guard. He was firm. “Exhibitors Only. No Press.” We tried to explain that there was a press conference on the exhibition floor. I showed him my list. He just repeated the same story, “No Press. Exhibitors Only.”

We tried the Information Desk. He called someone on the phone who told him that press could only go onto the exhibition floor when escorted by an exhibitor. He suggested that we could call the exhibitor. I began to realize that the employees of the Las Vegas Convention Center were completely clueless. He said that we might be able to get a yellow wristband from the exhibitor. We tried to explain it to him again,

“You see, the Press Conference is in booth 9405.”

“Press isn’t allowed.”

“But it’s a PRESS Conference.”

“Yeah, they don’t allow Press in there.”

We tried the information booth at the front of the building, but that was just as useless. The big kahuna in the blue shirt there said that we could get one of the mysterious yellow wristbands from the Press Room. We had gotten our badges at the Press Room, but there had been no mention of any yellow wristbands.

We walked back over to the Press Room and asked the woman in the blue shirt about the yellow wristbands. She said, “Yeah, we’re not doing that anymore. There should be someone there to escort you in.” We took her word for it and walked all the way back to the door by the Panasonic booth. By then, they were letting in anyone with a blue badge as if there were no problems with allowing Press into the Press Conference.

It made me feel as if I had imagined the whole problem…

After fighting with the convention center employees about whether Press were allowed in the Press Conferences, we were tired and less willing to jump through hoops just to attend. There was a huge line for the Sony Press Conference. We started waiting in it, but then we found out that the line we were waiting in was for registered people only. We would have to wait in a different line to register. At that point, we had been so frustrated by the whole process that we just sat down and waited for them to get so busy that they would let us in.

Five minutes before it started, they stopped worrying about registration and just let in anyone with a blue badge as long as we handed them a business card. I guess the ease of getting into the Sony Press Conference makes up for the problems with the convention center employees.

Every morning, Maggie spends some time in the window sill. Sometimes I wonder if she is getting her “light therapy.”

I saw this entry on PostSecret last Sunday and it screamed to me. I have the exact same problem. Rothko? Nope, I can do a fake Rothko. I got one hanging in my living room right now. Picasso? Yep, I can’t even try to do that double face stuff. I don’t like how it looks, but I consider it art. Pollock? Nope, I can dribble paint all over huge canvases. The only thing that stops me is the fear of making a mess.

Ironically, I enjoy the work of the “non-artists” far more than the “real artists.” If I can figure out a way to do it, then I want to observe it more.

On another note, has anyone noticed the Modigliani imitations that are all over the place lately? At Prints Plus, Bed Bath & Beyond and even at my local art shop, there are Modigliani rip-offs all over the place. That’s another form of art that I don’t really care for, but since I can’t recreate it, it must be art. When I pointed out the many places with the Modigliani-inspired pieces, Mike just shrugged. Does noone care about this? It kind of bugs me that a bunch of fake art ripping off someone’s very distinctive style is floating around.

It’s like the Thomas Kinkade rip-offs that are everywhere. I worked in a place that had a three Thomas Kinkade rip-offs hanging on the wall in front of my face. The were hung in an uneven row (the middle one was slightly higher than the other two). I did my best not to look at them, but sometimes I was so bored that it was either stare at them or the person at the desk across from me. I hated those three paintings, just for being crappy rip-offs of a bland artist. Sure, I can’t do it, so he MUST be an artist, but that doesn’t make me like his work any better.

PostSecret’s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

I am sitting in the Kodak booth’s Press Area. There is Wi-Fi here, so I can connect online. I’ve had trouble with connecting to the Internet with the Bluetooth on my cell phone. Mike blames it on my notebook computer. I don’t know what the problem is. I guess I haven’t made the appropriate sacrifices to the Electronic Gods lately.

My blue badge allows me to sit on the chairs and use their Internet access. I’m grateful just to sit right now. That’s how tired I am. We have been walking for six hours a day for the last three days. I am just grateful for a place to sit and write.

I feel a little bit like royalty because I have access to a little area that no one else does. No one except the hundreds of other press people here. In the CES press room, every computer is manned, every ethernet cable is connected, and every chair is full. There is no place to sit in the press room, much less than get any work done. I have been doing most of my writing while sitting on the convention room floor and in the hotel room.

There is so much to see that I will be able to write daily entries for The Gadgets Page for weeks. I feel bad for not being the one to “break” all these great stories. There’s just no way for Mike and I to compete with the fifteen guys here from Engadget. The truth of the matter is, I’m not here to compete with them. I’m here just to find the interesting things and report on them. Engadget gets it “all”, I get it interesting.

For now, I’m just happy to have quiet place to sit and access the Internet.

Salt Lake City is the home of Franklin Covey. They are the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” people. The entire Franklin Covey philosophy has somehow become so intertwined with the LDS church here that sometimes I think that Franklin Planners are the LDS approved day planner. Their advertising campaign right now is “Resolutions Begin With The End In Mind.”

Somehow, even though the Mormon population loves Franklin Covey, I love them too. They appeal to my sense of organization. I can organize with my Treo software, but it’s just hard to say goodbye to the secure feeling of a paper organizer. I haven’t had a Franklin refill for several years, but this year, I decided to use Franklin for my personal journal.

I write in a personal journal every morning before I even touch the computer. Starting this year, I have been writing in the notes section of the Franklin Planner pages. I chose the 8 1/2″ X 11″ size (Monarch), hoping that there would be enough room for me to write every day. So far, it has been alright. I’m not using the Appointment Schedule to plan my day. I still use my Treo for that. My To-Do list consists of “Write blog entries” so I don’t really have a lot of tasks to check off lists. I am keeping track of how many blog entries I write every day in it. I’m also writing the exacts of my exercise because the program I use on the Treo to keep track of my food journal doesn’t allow me to write the details.

It’s amazing to me how excited I have been about this. I was eagerly awaiting the first of the year so I could start writing in my new journal. It doesn’t really make sense to me. Last year, I wrote on pages that I had created for myself after years of trying out different journals. For the last four years, I have written on 5 1/2″ X 8 1/2″ paper. Now, I’m using the 8 1/2″ X 11″ form factor. I don’t know why this excites me, but it does.

I could keep my journal entries on the computer or even on my Treo. I could write my blog totals on a piece of paper hung on my desk. I could write my exercise in the notes section on my exercise program. I have so many options, so I have no idea why this is appealing to me. I guess I’ll try it for a year and see how I like it. If it works out, I’ll keep it.

CES ended last night at 4pm. I know for a fact that I didn’t get to see everything. I’m shocked that CNN’s entry about the five things that they saw at CES has absolutely zero correlation with the things I found the most interesting at CES. That’s the beauty of being able to read multiple reviews of an event like this. Each person sees the world through different eyes. The best part of the Internet is that you get to see the world through the eyes of so many different people.

Mike and I are spending a couple more days in Las Vegas to cool down from the show. This trip has been six days of work from the moment we’ve woken up to the moment we went to sleep. Sometimes we were up late into the night writing entries and talking excitedly about what we had seen. The word invigorating usually accompanies the word tiring.

So, the next couple of days, I’m going to chill out. I’ll still write every day, but I won’t be filling my mind with new data for six hours a day and exhausting my body with as much walking. I hope the city is calm and abandoned this week so I can just wander and enjoy quietly.

Yesterday was our first day without CES at Las Vegas. When we planned this trip, we decided to take an extra day in Vegas to relax. If you asked me, I would tell you that I relaxed, but my relaxing looks an awful lot like work. We went to Pottery World, where I took a series of gorgeous pictures that will show up on Starling Travel on Wednesday. You get to see them here first because you’re my favorite readers.

We then went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden, where Mike took lots of pictures that will show up on Starling Travel this morning. Then we looked around the new factory stores in the heart of Las Vegas. It was a day just as full of activity, picture taking and writing as the last week did, but somehow, I felt it was relaxing.

Maybe I relax best when I’m working…

I found this picture on New Year’s Day outside of Tres Hombres restaurant on Highland and 33rd. My first instinct was to pick it up and keep it. Mike didn’t think that was a good idea.

“Don’t take that. Whoever dropped it might come back looking for it.”

I looked at my find, turning it over in my hand. I suddenly felt guilty.

“Fine, I’ll put it back, but if it’s still there when we get out of the restaurant, I’m taking it.”

Mike imitated my voice,

“They better find it or it’s going on the Internet!”

I nodded. It sure is.

This picture is strange to me because it’s obviously a home party. They are drinking out of two different kinds of disposable cups. There are chips in a bowl. There is an ashtray in the forefront, so it can’t be a restaurant in Utah. Smoking’s not allowed.

Yet, the decoration of the area makes me think it’s a restaurant. There are tiki torches, bamboo all along the back wall and a parrot hanging upside down from a perch. Where are these guys?

Is this a Halloween Party? The “first hombre” on the left is wearing a head scarf, a big gold earring and a cape. He seems to be the only one dressed up, but a Halloween Party might explain the decor. Plus, some of the disposable cups are black. It’s really hard to find black cups unless it’s Halloween or you go to extra trouble of going to a party store.

Most importantly, there are no women in this picture. When I was in high school, this is the kind of party I would find myself at, pretending to drink, so they wouldn’t spike my Diet Coke. A party with all guys sitting around a table talking too loudly. I was at so many of those parties during my teen years that I couldn’t even count them.

When I look at the full size picture, I can see many more details: I just realized that it’s not potato chips in the bowl. They’re lemon wedges. I see one lemon peel sitting on the table; the meat has been eaten out of the wedge. There is a case of Coca-Cola on the far left of the picture.

It’s definitely a Halloween Party. One of the smaller disposable cups has pumpkins on it. Man, I feel sorry for the pirate on the left. He’s the only dude that dressed up. I hope there was a prize. Nope, I’m wrong. He’s not the only one dressed up. The arm in the forefront snubbing out a cigarette is dressed up as a prisoner with a striped shirt.

Based on the condition of the photo, it has been sitting outside for a while. It’s not like someone dropped it on the way out of the restaurant just before we came along. The picture is faded, warped and dirty. How strange that I would find a Halloween picture. All things Halloween are drawn to me. I take them under my wing and give them a place to breathe.

Working from home isn’t as difficult this time around. My writing hits in spurts and I can get a lot done in a short amount of time. When I was a real estate agent, working from home was a nightmare. I would do anything to avoid having to cold call. I guess it’s easier when I actually like what I do for a living. I always felt some guilt when I was cold calling. I didn’t want to receive the kind of calls that I was dishing out, and I felt icky about it.

When I’m not writing, I browse the Internet, crochet and exercise. I have to be careful. I know that I can work hard enough to suck all the creativity out of myself for months. I need to work as much as I can when the words are flowing, but I also need to remember to leave things alone when they’re not. Treating myself gently is the only way to keep the writing flowing easily.

Of course, having so many different subjects to write about helps, also. I have Starling Fitness, The Quotations Weblog, and The Gadgets Page to prompt my writing. We also just launched Starling Travel, so I can write about my past travels and any restaurants I visit during the week. The specialized weblogs are actually much easier to write for than Pick Me! Since I can write about anything here, it’s actually harder to think about what to write. Logic says it would be easier to write, but it’s not. I guess human life doesn’t conform to my Vulcan Philosophy.

Mike keeps asking me when I’m going to go crazy and start moving around the furniture. I don’t think it will happen this time. Sure, furniture may be moved, but I don’t think I’ll lose it like I did last time I was self employed. For months, I was working full time AND writing full time. Now that my only responsibility is the writing, I feel relaxed and happy. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.

I don’t know the politics behind the Foundation for Global Community, but I like the Wombat…

• Foundation for Global Community - The Wombat

This is your home. It’s the only one you’re gonna get.

These guys, they’re your neighbors. You have to get along with them. They’re not going away.

All this stuff is all connected. Everything is connected. They all depend on one another. If you ignore that you’re doomed.

I wrote on The Gadgets Page about this website.

• The Gadgets Page » Old Film, Old Cameras

Gene McSweeney will find old cameras, develop whatever film is in them and post them. He also is a photographer and posts his own photography. He has recently added a “What’s New” page so that you can easily see his most recent exploits.

• What’s New

This new additions page makes keeping up on his website much easier. Give yourself a few hours and enjoy the beauty of his photography and found film.

For the last few days I’ve been sick. It felt like a head cold, but my energy level was so low that all I did was sleep for three days in a row. Last night at about 9 pm, it all faded away and my energy level finally felt normal. I am up and moving around today. I don’t have enough pep to actually exercise today, but I think I’ll be able to master a shower and maybe even a trip to the grocery store.

I had a busy day yesterday. I got caught up on a lot of things. Mike and I were feeling well enough to clean the kitchen and get some things put away from our trip. I hate to be behind, but I’m constantly falling behind with my weblogs. My goal is to have a two week backlog, but I have yet to be able to achieve it. I don’t know if it’s too much work for me or if I have some sort of block that keeps me from wanting to get too far ahead.

I find that my entries feel really dated to me when they get more than a week ahead. It’s not like the stuff that I’m writing is time sensitive. If I ramble about what it feels like to work at home, it doesn’t matter if you see it the day I write it or a week later, but to me, it feels dated. The truth of the matter is it doesn’t matter what it feels like to me. I’m not the audience.

You are the audience.

To this day, I am amazed that anyone even wants to read my writing every day. Sometimes I’m able to write something that I feel proud of, but most of the time, my entries have a “mind dump” feel to them. I feel like I’m just putting all my thoughts haphazardly on the screen.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for coming here every day to read what I have to say. I know that it’s hit and miss, but I’m grateful to every one of you that religiously hit my site. I swear that I’ll live up to your loyalty someday.

When we touched down on the island of Kauai, I was shocked by the red mountains. “It feels like home,” I said to Mike. Mike took a deep breath of the watery air and replied, “Except more humidity.”

I used to think that I could live on Kauai with those red mountains that are so much like mine at home, but now I know I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to see the shock of white snow on those red mountains and it would feel like home, stranded in an everlasting spring.

Right after I took this picture, I turned around and got back into the Beetle. I turned the heat on full, blasting my face with the dry warmth. Winter may be unpleasant, but it can be so beautiful.

Photo Note: This picture was taken on the way up Parley’s Canyon. We were taking a drive to Park City, but the contrast of the red rock and white snow made me pull the car over at the side of I-80 and take a few pictures.

It looked like a huge snowstorm yesterday. The snowflakes were flying and for a few minutes, we had a whiteout. I could barely see across the street. By the time 5pm rolled around, you could barely tell anything had happened. There wasn’t even anything to shovel off the walk. It had all melted by the evening.

That’s how this winter has been. There has been a lot of hype, but not a lot of snow. I’m grateful for it, really. If this had been one of those “buried in snow” winters, we might have decided to move to San Diego after all. It’s like my city knows when it’s on thin ice.

Maggie is on my lap. She is purring loudly and my arms are wrapped around her to reach the keyboard. Somehow, this has become a normal routine. She purrs on my lap and I type despite her. It’s symbiotic in a way because her purring calms me down and my lap is a warm pillow. Anyone who could see me here typing would think that it’s an uncomfortable situation, but we both seem to enjoy it.

I remember my mom’s cat, Patches, used to sit by her typewriter when my mom was heavy into studying for school. I always thought that Patches was attention-starved, but now, I don’t think that was true. She just wanted to be where my mom was just like Maggie is with me. I’ve never had a cat like this before and it makes me happy to enjoy her company.

Photo Note: It took 50 snaps to make this one good picture. I didn’t know how hard it is to take a picture of myself until today.

When the new neighbors moved in over the summer, they brought their two dogs with them. Sid, our dog, had finally gotten used to Rick’s three dogs, but suddenly they were gone and two completely new dogs were in their place. As you probably know, Sid’s barking problem returned.

We started giving him treats when he was quiet. Every time he went out and didn’t bark, we gave him a treat. He learned quickly. Once the barking problem went away, we eased up on the treats. He had started thinking that every time he went outside he would get a treat. This amounted to Sid begging to go outside every hour.

I started giving him a treat only when the other dogs barked but he didn’t. That has worked for the last three weeks or so. Sid has been very quiet despite the constant barking of the neighbor dogs. Then, I found out the truth…

Every time Sid goes outside now, he silently taunts the dogs next door by jumping on the fence. Sid doesn’t bark, he just keeps taunting until they do. Man, I thought I was training the dog not to bark. I didn’t know he was training me to give him treats.

No more treats for Sid…

My neighbors’ driveway is right next to my bedroom window. This morning they left their house at 6:30 am instead of 8:30 am. I don’t know what’s different over at their house, but hearing them drive away at the earlier hour made me think I had slept in. I’m starting to tell time like the animals: by the regular noises of the neighborhood.

She wants to sit on my lap and be pet. I roll the chair into the sunlight and take her picture instead.

“Do you have your camera?”

“My little one, yeah…”

“Let’s stop and take pictures of the sunset. It’s crazy orange.”

“Here?”

“Yes, here. Get into the right lane.”

Margaret Cho decided to get a tatoo. She didn’t decide to get a tiny little flower on her ankle or even an elaborate Celtic Knot on the small of her back. She went for full-on body art.

• Margaret Cho Blog - Tattoo Photos Part Four

Just looking at her tatoos makes me cringe. Not me. I couldn’t do it. I can’t make a commitment that big. What if I hate that flower tomorrow? I can’t wash it off. I have to go with scarring and lasers to get that thing off me. I think I’ll stay un-inked because I could never commit to anything like a single visual image for the rest of my life.

• Malfunction Junction - I Thought I Knew What Regret Was

I was running on the treadmill last week and glanced over the room. “I really should pick up that clutter and either throw it away or put it in the basement,” I thought to myself. That’s where the cats like to sleep and when they are being adorable, I would really like to take a picture of them without clutter in the background.

A couple of days ago, it got so bad that Linda slept ON the clutter. All the cats want their light therapy and if the sunbeam is on the clutter, they will just sleep on the clutter. That’ll teach me to clean up after myself…

When you go to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory, they let you design your own box of chocolates. If you want to make a box of nothing but lemon cremes, they will make it for you. You can choose whatever you want to go in the box. It’s like someone listened to all those kids who used to pick at the bottom of the chocolates with a fork and say to themselves, “Lemon Creme?! Why do they put those things in there?”

If you choose the flat and round mint chocolates, the lady who fills your box pauses with the mints in her plastic-gloved hand. “Are you going to eat these right away?” You will look at your partner trying to fathom whether it’s okay to tell the stranger behind the counter that the two of you are planning to break into the box in the parking lot, despite the free handouts. The woman will clarify, “If you are going to keep this box for a week or so, these mints will make the entire box taste minty.” The two of you sigh with relief. The chocolates will be long gone before a week rolls around.

What the woman behind the counter didn’t warn us about was the Wild Cherry Dessert Mousse. I don’t care for cherry, so almost all of them are left in the box. After three weeks in our house, they have made the entire box taste like cherry. The scent of wild cherry blasts me when I open the box. We were quick to eat the mints because we were warned, but who knew that the wild cherry was the second most toxic?

On another note, can you believe that the box has lasted us three weeks?

I just spent an enjoyable half hour looking at all of these films. They remind me of the early days of MTV when I never really quite understood what those EuroPop stars were trying to tell me.

• Pleix films

My favorites are:

Netlag: This one is genius. If you only watch one video, this is the one. Set to music, you see the world through the eyes of the net cameras. What a strange world we live in where we constantly monitor the roads. Why are they so important?

Simone: This one should have been called Simon Vs. Simone. As always, Simon wins.

Beauty Kit: We girls can do anything. How long until the Beauty Kit is on the market? It already is? Oh yeah…

The words flow out of my fingers. Conscious thought is rarely involved. Writing is strictly a physical exercise like running or playing tennis.