It’s a tradition as old as time itself. At least, I think it is. At the start of each new year, it is incumbent on a human being to review their existence and all the things wrong with their life and to set goals for the new year. Usually this involves things like wasting money on exercise equipment or gym memberships that get used for a week or two and then ignored for the rest of its existence. I’m not doing that. I’m going to set some actual, realistic goals that I can actually accomplish. Here we go.

Consistent Content

I write content, but I’ve been inconsistent. So I’m setting a fixed goal for 2026: One video per week, one written post per week, one creative post per month. I like creating content, but I get distracted during times I’ve set aside for writing and creating and I don’t get it done. Time to renew that commitment, especially for more creative content. I like writing fiction. I get lots of ideas. But most of those ideas never get as far as getting transcribed into written content. I want to do that more. I also want to get back into photography. I did a bunch of it for a while before my health and weight got really bad. Now that I’m getting back towards the right direction, I want to pick that back up again.

Model Train Time

I’ve got a plan in place. At least, enough of one to get started. So it’s time to get back to building. I’ve got plenty of materials to start with. I just need to get myself doing it. My commitment to start is 2 hours, twice a week in the basement or garage building. We’ll see how far that gets me. If you’re interested, here’s the plan:

My Train Plan

Exercise

Yea, I know. Everyone says this. But I’m down more than 80 lbs over the last 14 months or so and I intend to keep going. I’ve been eating better, and less (most of the time), and it’s past time I put in more physical effort than I have been.

Better Organized Office

My office has piles of things everywhere. You don’t see that in my videos due to very careful placement of my desk and camera. But it’s time I rework and de-junk a bunch of stuff. For instance, I have about 15 old computers (like 6 desktops and maybe 8 or 9 laptops, plus 1 old HP Chromebook) I need to get rid of, along with a bunch of miscellaneous components and boxes and boxes of cables. Does anyone in central Ohio know a good place to donate old computers or want to take any of them off my hands? Most of them are still usable, though have old versions of Windows (8/10), but would make good Linux machines if someone wants to make the effort. I know there’s places to take them for recycling, like Staples, but if someone knows a place that would put them to actual use I would prefer that. I’m sure Goodwill would take them, but then they’d turn around and try and charge $200 a pop or some ridiculous thing like that. What the hell happened to them by the way?

I’ve also got a bunch of RPG stuff I need to get rid of. Books, minis, Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles and so forth. I really need a better inventory of that stuff, but I haven’t used any of it for years, so it’s time for it all to go. Might go EBay for that stuff. We’ll see as I get it pulled out and figure out what I’ve got and if I want to keep any of it.

My motivation? Aside from wanting a neater and cleaner space, I’ve run out of shelf room for my Lego collection and need to make room for more shelves. What? You asked. Well, you didn’t. But someone might have… at some point…

Better Organized File System

I’ve got drives and drives and drives of things I’ve collected over the years: Pictures, documents, app installers, all kinds of crap. And it’s scattered across soooo many hard drives, flash drives, and CD/DVD/Blu-ray backup disks. It’s time to get it all organized, deduped, and in one place. So I just bought an Asustor NAS that I’m working on getting set up. And things will begin migrating there soon so I can de-junk the 3 computers I do still use.

Ship Something

I’ve got like a dozen side projects in various states. I’ve never put any of them out into the world for people to see or use. I’m gonna change that this year. By year’s end, I’m going to publish something into the world and let people actually see it. Not sure which one yet, but it’s gonna happen. Just you wait.

2026

So there you go. I’m sure you didn’t actually care, but I wanted to document my goals so that I might be a little more motivated to follow through. I’m great at setting goals. Not as great with the follow through. Time to change that too.