I started 2007 by blogging some New Year's Resolutions.

I end 2007 by looking at those resolutions... did I accomplish anything I set out to do?

Well, it isn't a good sign when you start your resolutions by instantly breaking the first "pre" resolution!

1. Be better at household chores:

This must have been the lamest NYR. Why? Why be better at chores?

2. Do more road trips

Well, we took my parents to Wray for the Prairie Chicken Mating festival thingie, and we went to Badlands, and finally we ended up with a glorious time over Thanksgiving. I hope that this counts for "more" road trips. There can never be enough road trips!

3. Try and have a better storm chasing season this year. (The last couple of seasons have been pathetic!)

On this one I score a "F" grade. I can't remember even trying to storm chase this year. Pathetic. Does this mean I won't go to the Annual Storm Chaser Convention (usually held in February)? Maybe. I don't deserve to go to the Convention.

4. Maintain Diet and exercise more.

ARGGGGH!!. Maintain Diet? What diet? I ended up not maintaining my diet, not exercising (I now get out of breath just thinking about exercise) and I put on all that weight I had taken off at the end of 2006. And by the way I have great excuses. I am just so annoyed at myself. It is very easy to put it on, but boy oh boy is it difficult to take it off. ARGGGH!!

5. Try something new in 2007.

I think I may be able to squeak by on this one. I doodled all over my one kitchen door that I had made poor Kevin take down about 6 months ago so that I could paint it white, just to see what it looked like. The door has had one very bad coat of base paint on it (I am a terrible painter) and I decided to doodle on it using some nifty paint markers I found at Walmart.

So now the moment has arrived. Drumroll please...

2008 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Lose 15 - 20 pounds (refer to # 4 of 2007 NYR's where tonnage was added during 2007.)
2. Train Maddie the Cat to do one household chore - Its time for Maddie to be a working cat!
3. Read more and read better material. I find that I just don't read as much as I would like, and when I do read I read trash. No I mean really trash, blush- to -admit -that -you -actually -read -this -kind -of -thing trash.
4. Go on at least one storm chase. And chasing a dust devil does not count.
5. Learn to play a song on a guitar.
6. Try something new in 2008.

So Happy New Year!

ABBA says it best.

Check out Christopher Hitchens' latest in Slate.

Amazing Grace Techno - Computer Controlled Christmas Lights from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

Hanson in his latest here states:

But what is missing from the national debate over the "worst" war in our history is any appreciation of past American military errors — political, strategic, technological, intelligence, tactical — that nearly cost us victory in far more important conflicts. Nor do we accept the savage irony of war that only through errors, tragic though they may be, do successful armies adjust in time to discover winning strategies, tactics, and generals.

Preoccupied with the daily news from Baghdad, we seem to think our generation is unique in experiencing the heartbreak of an error-plagued war. We forget that victory in every war goes to the side that commits fewer mistakes — and learns more from them in less time — not to the side that makes no mistakes. A perfect military in a flawless war never existed — though after Grenada and the air war over the Balkans we apparently thought otherwise. Rather than sink into unending recrimination over Iraq, we should reflect about comparable blunders in America's past wars and how they were corrected. Without such historical knowledge we are condemned to remain shrill captives of the present.

Reminding ourselves of prior errors, miscalculations somehow doesn't give me much solace. It just reinforces to me how stupid humanity is, and at what cost.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!
Hoping for a healthy and peaceful 2008

Both the Republican and Democratic Iowan debates were dead boring. Thank goodness for TiVo and the fast forward button.

Go to Hillary Clinton's blog and then Barak Obama's blog. See the difference?

I think Hillary's campaign is in serious trouble. It's stuffy and tired and desperate. Compare the Obama website and blog.

Obama wins the Battle of the Blogs.

I love the Mac vs PC ads on TV. To see all of them go here, and enjoy.

Who would have thought that paper - colored paper could be a media for art?

Check out Jen Stark's amazing paper eruptions.