Resolutions for 2009

• Compete in tournaments and/or races

• Refinance the house

• Go to yet another country

• Get more people hired at NASA (anyone interested?)

• Master Django, CSS, JQuery, and get better at zc.buildout

• Stay with NASA another year

• Test for my 3rd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do

• Not break any bones

• Fix up more rooms in the basement

• Take down that one tree in the backyard

• Enjoy my family more

• Go to PyCon, Plone Conference 2009, and DjangoCon

• Become much more active in the open source community
  

2008 Resolutions Summary

Items that are crossed out are completed.

• Start teaching kali on a regular basis.

• Start doing parkour

• Compete in a tournament or race

• More work on debts!

• Go to yet another country

• Get more people hired at NASA (anyone interested?)

• Keep my waist at 32 inches

• Change my tummy from flat to cut

• Master Zope 3, PIL, and Django

• Stay with NASA another year

Recap of 2008

• I went to Chicago for the first time. The architecture was beautiful. The local food was quite good, nearly as good as the Neapolitan fare I had in 2007.

• Cycled through New York City and reconnected with old family relations.
  

• Kept up with the martial arts. Competed twice.
  

• Almost up to 5 years without a broken bone!!!
  

• Worked another year with Python and Plone. Started to work professionally with Django.

• Stayed with NASA. Managed to see my team evolve into a group that doesn't make me want to pull out my non-existent hair.

• Launched our big project at work (http://nasascience.nasa.gov)
  

• Got my son into physical fitness again.
  

• Shaved my head.

• Got our finances more in order.

• Helped shepherd my students forward for the most part. I'm so proud of them.
  

• Didn't lose anyone close to me.

Update:

• Worked with Alex Clark to launch Take Back the Tap.

• Helped support Food and Water Watch.

• Lasted another year (4 years) at NASA.

• Had a painful kidney ailment in the spring that was a combination of bruising and dehydration.
  

I wish we were having a holiday party at the gym

It feels wrong not having one this Friday.

:(

2009 Saturday class schedule is formally confirmed!

My proposed class schedule for Saturday morning classes has been approved. It will go onto the web site shortly. I first blogged about it at the start of this month. The specifics class structure will be:

10:00 AM to 11:00 AM Core Fundamentals (open to all students)
This will be the practice of TKD forms and the individual elements which make up movements in the forms. So we'll go over not just the pattern of the form, but also practice proper stances, how to do the hand techniques correctly, as well as interpretation of what the movements of the forms mean.

10:45 AM to Noon Intermediate Class (open to all students)
This will be about striking and footwork. The first fifteen minutes will be a warm-up led by a black belt student for which the participants of the previous class will be exempt. The majority of the class will involve work against heavy bags, kicking shields, and punching targets with footwork and general strength training mixed in.

Training notes

• Fixed my diet. No more junk food or snacks!
  
• Next week I start my weight lifting regimen in earnest.
• Side kicks looking sharper.
• Round kicks at face level with power.
• Really working to launch all kicks from the balls of my feet.
• Need to get light gloves for bag work. Can't afford sore hands during my day job.
• Six months from about right now!
  

My saturday class plans for 2009

After running the same sort of Saturday class for several years I've decided to stir things up. Much as I like the current way of doing things, I have new goals in 2009 for myself and students. New planned schedule:

10:00 AM to 11:00 AM Forms class (open to all students)
This will be the practice of TKD forms and the individual elements which make up movements in the forms. So we'll go over not just the pattern of the form, but also practice proper stances, how to do the hand techniques correctly, as well as interpretation of what the movements of the forms mean.

10:45 AM to Noon Striking class (open to all students)
This will be about heavy contact striking. The first fifteen minutes will be a warm-up led by a teen/adult black belt student for which forms class participants will be exempt. The majority of the class will involve work against heavy bags, kicking shields, and punching targets with footwork and general strength training mixed in.