Goals for 2008

I'm sure I'll get a chuckle out of this blog post in a future, yes this is one of the cheesball "Goals for 2008" posts. This past year has been an interesting one for me, perhaps I should recap for historical reasons:

• At the end of 2006 I left a well paying and beyond easy webmaster job because I no longer needed the money and was unhappy there (to say the least). I began 2007 with a fresh outlook and scary amounts of free time, freedom you might even say.
• After a few small successes online I went for a bigger piece of the pie. I partnered with the wrong guys which helped to guarantee a massive failure, my 1st such failure. I lost track of how much time and money was wasted here but it was substantial.
• In March I was first contacted by Que Publishing to write books on social media, a dream come true. I spent the next few months sleeping in every day, writing, and immersing myself in Myspace and Second Life. I rarely went to sleep before 4am, in fact I saw the sun rise most days.
• In September we attempted to relocate to New York but it fell through, devastated we regrouped and moved to Los Angeles. At the time not our ideal choice however it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
• During this time I was doing some freelance work for Mahalo.com, the first startup to come along in awhile that actually intrigued me. I wanted to be a bigger part of the company and with the NY move off the table I began harassing them for a full time position. On November 5th (remember, remember the 5th of November) I started, for the first time in my "career" I felt I was at the right place and at the right time. I *love* (yes I said love) what we are building and can't wait to see what 2008 has in store for us

Now as we are only 1 day away from 2008 its time to set some lofty goals for myself:

1. Smoking: Yes I smoke, and boy do I smoke. For some reason I'm unable to be a casual or even social smoker, instead a constant chain smoker. Health and financial reasons aside I'm just sick of it, its been fun but its time to put this habit away. So excuse me while I be uber cliche and quit smoking as one of my New Years resolutions.
2. Lease Breaking: Our apartment blows and I want a Porsche. :) We made a rush decision on the apartment because we didn't have much choice, I'm not even going to start listing all issues with this place but at last count it was around a dozen or so. So for the first time in my life I'm going to break an apartment lease. I have about 1.5 years left on my Audi lease, if possible I'm going to break this as well and get into a Porsche Cayman S. The wife isn't crazy about this choice but I figure I better fit on in before it is too late. I always hated that only old guys get sweet rides so over the years I've made sure to get a few overpriced rides and have loved every mile so far.
3. More Books: First I should say writing a book or writing anything is one hell of challenge. I have no formal training or education (as I'm sure is clear by some of my typo laden posts) so this is especially hard for me. I know I'll look back on these first 2 books and laugh. While I'm proud of what I've done I know I can create something 10 times better in the future. In 2008 I want to do 1 more book for Que (already in the works) and then self publish another.
4. Pitter Patter of Little Feet: Yes, you know those drooling, expensive and stressful little bundles of joy? I want one! We are planning to "make" our first one in December of 2008, mostly because we want another Virgo in the family. I can't even begin to express how excited (and of course scared) I am of this.
5. Job: As with every job I've had I want more, I'm still trying to figure out what this "more" entails but either way I want it.
6. Travel, Life, Love, Happiness: I spend far too much time online and while I owe almost everything in my life to this wonderful invention it distracts from so many things. I'm lucky to have such an understanding wife who puts up with this. In 2008 I want to spend less nights at the keyboard and more time with her. More time traveling, enjoying life and well ...being more analog.

Happy New Year!