Ten days in to the new year.

It's already January 10th. I still can not believe how quick 2009 went by and now 2010 is going the same way... at a lightening speed.  Last post was about New Year's Resolutions.  I thought I would give everyone an update on how things are going.  

My first one was staying sober, well, I am still sober!  I have less than a month from my four year mark and that is a big goal for me to reach.  I am still not going to meetings like I should, but I am still living by the 12 steps and keeping myself spiritually grounded.  

Getting myself into shape is going slow but good.  I have been changing the way I eat and forming new habits.  I want permanent changes not quick fixes with this one. So that's why I am working on habits and not just taking off the weight.  For example I have been drinking around 96 fluid oz of water a day, and I have been eating breakfast every morning.  Two things I didn't do before.  

Musically I haven't done much this year.  RP played NYE and that's been my only show so far.  Tonight is FLOABN's first show at ZaZoo's.  I hope it goes well.  I started shielding my 5 string jazz bass and I did some more sanding on it, I sanded under the bridge so it will resonate better.  My noiseless pickups that are in it are actually pretty noisy, ironic I know, so hopefully within the next few months I will buy a set of Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders for it.    

As for getting organized, my sister, Liane, came over and helped me clean my apartment and get rid of a bunch on unnecessary items.  My apartment looks the best it has probably ever looked.  My place still needs a bit of work.  I am hosting a Super Bowl party with my friend Courtney, so I have to get the place looking extra snazzy before that.  Now I just need to attack my shop at work.  

I haven't really started working on paying down my debt yet...  I gotta start making more money first.  But I am trying to get a plan together to help get it paid off quickly.  I plan on attacking the cards with small balances and paying them off then working on the bigger balances.  I would love to get my credit back in the good to great range of things as soon as possible. 

And the last one going out more is the only one I have really failed at.  I have been hibernating as of late.  A lot of that is due to the cold weather though.  I think once it warms us and the snow leaves the ground I will go out and do more things, I am not a cold weather person.  

New iPhone please....

Ok, for those who know me, I am a pretty geeky guy.  I love Apple products.  They are just better thought out than windows based devices.  I have an iPhone, and I am a believer.  To me, there is not a better phone on the market.  But lately a few phones have popped up that are giving Apple a run for their money, like the Google Nexus One and Verizon's Droid.  

Apple needs to go to at least 5 megapixels and add a flash.  They also need to up the processing power by a lot and should probably go to a dual core processor.  AT&T's biggest thing lately is how you can surf the web and talk on the phone at the same time, which you can, but the phone tends to lag a bit when you do this.  If you had a duel core processor it will handle this task a lot better.  Apple also needs to add real GPS instead of assisted GPS and add true turn by turn directions.  I am sure they will upgrade both the processing memory and the storage memory as prices for those keep getting lower, but as always the more the better for this kind of stuff.  I would also love to see Apple switch back the the aluminum back instead of the plastic.  If they went aluminum again they could make the phones in different colors like the do the iPod Nanos.  I think that would be a great selling point.  Any improvement upon the screen would be nice too.  I am honestly happy with the screen, but if Apple could up color and contrast that would be great.  

I am sure whatever Apple puts out I will be pretty happy with, and as soon as my current contract is up on my iPhone I will get whatever the current model is out there.  Hopefully I will be able to wait till summer when they release the newest phone.  Last time I couldn't wait and I got the iPhone 3G where if I just would have waited a few months I could have gotten the 3GS.  Lesson learned.  

I hope everyone is having a great new year! 

New Years Eve and New Year's Resolutions

First of all, I hope everyone had a safe, but fun filled, New Year's Eve.  I had a blast.  The cover band I play in, ROCKTIMUS PRIME, played at Gerstle's, and we packed the place.  I think we played well.  We made the night special by dressing up a little more than normal.  I was rocking slacks, a tie, and a nice button-up dress shirt.  A good friend of ours from the band Bolt Action Thrill, Dustin, came out and partied with us.  He got up and sang three songs and played guitar on another.

I don't know if I am a fan of playing NYE or not.  I saw some crazy stuff.  Like a dumb drunk bumblebee looking bitch falling onto the stage, and then just sitting there thinking it was funny.  The winner for most amazing drunken act was the really obliterated guy that was outside Gerstle's pissing his pants.  Like full on, pants up, pee running down the legs, pissing himself.  I was probably one of maybe four sober people in the bar so I think me and Justin were the only ones that noticed it... and that was even with me yelling "Hey! Look at that guy pissing himself... what a douche-bag!!" at the top of my lungs.

SO, yeah, it's that time of year again.  Time to make some resolutions to bring about some changes to Chadville.  I usually type them up and put them on the fridge, within a few months the paper gets old and is either lost or thrown  away.  So this year I am going to post them here in my blog which I can't throw away and I can keep tabs on how good or awful I am doing.   Here we go... my list-o-resolutions for TwentyTen.

1. Stay Sober This is always my first, and most important resolution every year since I got clean.  Even going on four years sober I still have good and bad days.  Mainly good days.  I have slacked off lately at going to meetings.  I need to get better about that in the year of the robot uprising.

2. Get my fat ass into shape And by in shape I don't mean round.  I need to lose about 20 to 30 pounds of fat.  I wouldn't remind replacing it with muscle.  That will come with time.  I know I can't wake up tomorrow and be in shape and fit.  I am going to start by first changing my diet.  I eat out WAY too much.  So I am going to start cooking more at home and eating more often, i tend to only eat one maybe two meals a day and I eat way too much at those meals.  So yeah, hopefully a heather me by the end of 2010

3. Keep playing as much music as possible I am very lucky to play with all the different groups that I jam with.  I play bass in ROCKTIMUS PRIME, I sit in a lot playing bass with Judge Angus, and I am a house band called For Lack Of A Better Name.  My main focus right now of the bands is RP, but I will play with the other bands whenever I am needed.  With ROCKTIMUS I really want to step things up to a new level.  We won Best Cover Band In Louisville from the Leo last year.  I really want to step up our stage show and learn more tunes too.  I am going to be upgrading my gear this year too, I want to make some changed to my main 5 string bass, like changing out the pickups and changing the bridge to a nicer one.

4. Get more organized  I really need to get better about this.  In all aspect of my life.  Work and home.  My shop gets messy and I have a hard time finding stuff, which slows me down, when I am working slower I am making less money, always a bad thing.   I tend to not clean my apartment as much as it should be cleaned.  I am also a packrat and I have mounds of junk that just needs to be tossed.  I have already started working on cleaning up my apartment and next I will start cleaning up work.  I am going to find a way to keep track of my billing paperwork better and my bills at home better too.

5. Pay down my debt I kind of got screwed over in 09 by my ex girlfriend Kelly.  I bought her a laptop, which cost a pretty penny, and she got sick for a few months.  While she was sick and not working I was paying more than my fair share of everything.   We were living off my salary at work and credit cards.  Well she bounced and I am stuck with the debt.  This year I plan on tackling a bunch of that debt and hopefully pay a lot of it off.

6. Have more fun! Ever since Kelly and I broke up I feel like I have become a hermit.  I hardly ever go out unless I am playing.  I need to start going out more and checking out friends bands. Hell, even just going to the movies with friends or hitting up a bar to meet up with people would be nice.  I tend to stay home.  This is going to change.

So there you go... the things I plan on working on for 2010.