Five Good Years: One Year Later

Tomorrow is my birthday, my 26th birthday to be exact.

It’s a little daunting to be entering final year of my mid-twenties and nearing that shaky, pre-midlife crisis-worthy zone known as “the late-twenties.”

The late-twenties are when most people I know hit that whole “what the hell am I doing with my life” stage and start to contemplate major changes like babies, moving across the country, new jobs, and/or simply flipping out and going on a state-wide killing spree.

Luckily, I’ve got another year left before I have to worry about any of that crap, so instead I’m going to take a look back at the blog entry I wrote this same time last year, laying out a game plan for 25 and beyond.

I figure at one year in, it’d be a good time to take a look back and see how I’m doing on my checklist.

PHYSICAL STUFF

Drink more water and less soda and energy drinks.

-Well, this one has had ups and downs throughout the year. At two or three points, I’ve given up on energy drinks altogether (as I’ve done dozens of times in the past) only to find myself pulled into the sweet, intoxicating grip of a Red Bull on some sleepy-eyed Friday morning.

Reinstate my gym membership…and use it.

-I think I’ll give myself partial(ish) credit for this one.

I reinstated my membership in February and hit the gym hard and heavy for months in preparation of softball season. Along the way I even found some events to be blog-worthy and unleashed them upon the world.

After July, however, I hit a speed bump and quit going regularly, and instead switched to a workout at home plan, despite still paying the money for the gym.

I’ve been working to get myself back in a regular gym cycle and hopefully, I can get it going again at a regular pace really soon.

Maybe dial back the intensity a little bit when playing sports…maybe?!

-Much like the previous two, this one sorta worked and sorta didn’t work. I still got pretty banged up this year in softball, but I didn’t dive or slide on the turf at all (or at least not that I can recall). I did, however, slide and dive all over the grass and dirt and sand and at certain fall ball fields, all over manhole covers and into pipes.

By season’s end, I was in pretty rough shape and ready for some time off, hopefully next year I can find a way to avoid the collateral damage altogether.

Ice my knees when they hurt!!

-Nope. I’m just not a good icer.

Cut my McDonalds intake by (at bare minimum) 50%

-This one I can safely I say I accomplished with flying colors. For those who don’t recall, I established a McDonald’s Embargo back in February and haven’t been back since. Although logically, I should have caved on the embargo in May.

It was really the only dining option available to any of the groomsmen at my buddy Jay’s wedding and while everyone else ate the delicious, fatty mess that is Mickey-Ds, I sat there like an idiot and just watched.

I was starving all through the wedding and pretty much was hammered after one post-ceremony beer.

Boooooooooo.

Start running again—or at least jogging—whatever the knees can handle.

-During the early stages of my return to the gym I was doing a lot of running and jogging, although—as anticipated—it pretty much decimated my knees so it only lasted for a little over a month.

Get rid of the gut. I’m the skinny-fat guy. Not a situation I’d ever envisioned for myself.

-Mission accomplished. Suh-weet!!

Find a way to sleep more and sleep better.

-Results on this one vary. There are a number of examples of me having issues with sleep in the past year.

Some examples are bad and some are quite wonderful.

All-in-all, I’ve done a decent job of sleeping better, but I still go through long stretches where I can’t really get any decent shut-eye.

Light beer only. I made that switch once for like a year and it was highly effective.

-Yeah, not so much. In the home, I’m all about the light beer and at most bars, I’m all about the light beer, but when I get to the Muddy…it’s all about the Budweiser.

Although, by comparison, Bud could be considered “light beer,” despite not being designated as such.

Help lead the Bibs to another softball championship.

-The Bibliotechs made a solid run, but as I detailed back in August, we fell just short of a championship.

The season was not without its fair share of—um—interesting moments and lots of big wins, but ultimately we were forced to settle for second-place.

PERSONAL STUFF

Write more and try to get published somewhere…

-Well I’ve certainly had the writing more thing taken care of, but getting published hasn’t exactly happened in the first year. I’ve been featured on a number of sports websites, but I also haven’t really made any attempts to get published anywhere with anything else I write.

Early in the year I received an awesome offer to become a Featured Columnist for BleacherReport.com.

My blogging here at Blank Stares and Blank Pages took a hit as a result and in the late summer, early fall I fell into a pretty big rut thanks to a good ole fashioned bout of writer’s block, but I’m back in the saddle now and feeling good.

Call my friends and family more. I’ve gotten really bad about calling.

-I think I improved on this one. I know I spent a lot more time on the phone in 2009 than I did in 2008.

Spend more time just hanging out with Mlady.

-Grace and I did a great job of spending more time together last year.

Notably in the past few months we’ve become addicted to “Scrubs” and are doing our best to plow through all of that and we recently made our first IKEA run so that we could turn our spare bedroom into a writing room.

Take more pictures.

-I failed horribly at this one. I always think of pictures I’d like to take, but usually I don’t have my camera or I’m too busy doing whatever it is I want the picture of to take one.

Apply for more jobs in baseball.

-I applied to be the General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres, and Washington Nationals. I also applied to a number of other writing and front-office jobs in baseball at all levels.

Needless to say, I’ve yet to hear back.

Keep rockin’ out to whatever crappy music I’m listening to at the time.

-Done and done.

Read more, a lot more.

-I’ve been plowing through books at a much better pace than in recent years, but still not overly impressive when compared to everyone else I know…perhaps I should hold myself accountable with some sort of goal for 2010, hmmmmmmmmm?!?!

Be a little nicer and more helpful whenever I can.

-I think I pulled this one off pretty well.

Win my f’n Fantasy Baseball league!!

-As is customary, I won the regular season and lost in the playoffs. Such is life.

I did, however, win $1000 in the NFBC league that I play in with my buddy Mike. It was AWESOME.

Keep on rockin’ the “Walter Mitty Syndrome.” Nothing wrong with a little imagination.

-Definitely accomplished this one in 2009. I went so far as to share a little nugget of my WMS with my Faithful Readers.

Get Jennifer Aniston to retract the restraining order.

-Not quite yet, but I’m sure she’s breaking down. After all she is 40 now, perhaps she’s willing to forgive and forget?!

Work harder, better and smarter. I feel like I’ve done a lot of work the past two years, but don’t feel like I’ve taken any steps forward, quite frustrating.

-Well, it turned out to be a year of less opportunity and more anxiety than anything else. Needless to say I didn’t do a whole lot to climb up the ladder at work.

I have, however, reached a point where I’m pretty much at peace with the entire “you could be fired at any time” cloud that’s hanging over everyone’s head. I figure if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen and there ain’t much I can do about it.

It’s made things drastically less stressful and I’m quite happy I was able to kick the whole “I’m constantly worried about getting axed” mentality.

Be an awesome uncle.

-I think I’ve pretty much rocked the world in my capacity as an uncle, albeit in very short exposure to my tiny lil niece. To be honest, I think I’ve only seen her like three or four times total.

All I know is that every time I see her she is like twice as big as she was before and is doing a gajillion new things that she couldn’t do such as crawl, walk, run, and (sorta) talk.

Laugh more.

-Done and done, large props go out to the now (technically) defunct Friday Morning Sausage Party for this one.

…’twas a good year for tons of laughter.

All-in-all, I’d say I got a pretty good start on my “Five Good Years” game plan.

I hope to accomplish a whole bunch more of these goals in the coming year, but for now I’m less worried about the goals and more worried about my birthday party, after all it is the last mid-twenties birthday I’ll ever have.