Goodbye 2009, Project 365, FourforFourty

I have thought long and hard on whether or not to continue this blog and start with a clean slate on a new one, or retire it once and for all. I've decided to give it another year to make it an even 5 years old next December. That's not the only reason I'm keeping it around...

The year 2010 is a very special one for me personally:

I will leave my 30's behind, and will turn 40 years old on March 5, 2010. There, I said it.

To me it's just another number.

I feel great, I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm surrounded by wonderful people and friends, and I feel blessed to have lived the life I have. I am happy.

So to celebrate the coming year, I will be documenting it here in the blog by participating in Project 365. I will be posting a photo a day, every day for a year- a little snapshot of my life so that a year from now, I can look back and remember. After all, they say memory is the first to go, right? They will come from my cell phone or a fancier quick shot camera, and I'm leaving the subject matter up in the air for now.

The photos will all be collected in a set on my Flickr page, a link of which I will provide in a later post. I've committed myself to doing this, and I certainly hope I follow through. I won't doubt that I'll miss a day or two, but I'll do my best.

Now for a loftier 2010 goal: God willing, I hope to run four marathons in 2010 to welcome the number "4" in my age! "FourforFourty" - get it?

Perhaps if my legs are still with me at the end, I will cap it off with an Ultra-marathon of 50K or more. I'll lay out my plan in a future post.

It's a big commitment, but I say to myself that someday I won't be able to do it at all. As I write this, my body, mind, and heart says go for it, and I will.

So there it is. These are quite lofty goals, but I've made up my mind and hope you'll follow me on my journey.

Happy New Year and God bless.

Three miles of snowflakes on the tongue

Three miles of snowflakes on the tongue
Originally uploaded by automatic_man2

A perfect winter evening for my last run of 2009.

I'd forgotten what run in sub-freezing temperatures does to cleanse the soul and feel anew again.

Just what I needed.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!!

Happy Birthday, Blog

I've been neglecting my lowly blog so much lately that I nearly forgot that I started it exactly four years ago this past December 15th!

I had to go back to read the babble of my first post to really get what I was talking about. Kinda funny. The blog was originally dedicated to writing about my Treo smartphone and gadgets in general at the time, but it's kind of spun away from that just a bit. Writing about tech is somewhat of a hobby, and I hope to continue that.

I've toyed with starting anew with a completely new blog, but haven't quite made up my mind just yet. I guess I'm quite attached to this one after so many years. I'll give it a couple of weeks to sink in, I guess.

As to what else is going on? Well, I'm hunkering down for the winter, of course. Although I like the whole scenery part of the season, I'm very much a summer person, and prefer a good triple digit day over sub-zero any time. I'm going to sit back and enjoy the holidays with a little time off of work. It's been one heck of a year for sure.

I've been running and working out, sort of. I don't have any races planned for the next few weeks leading into January, but would like to escape somewhere warm this winter. My mileage has been more on the low side as of late, not putting in more than 15 to 20 miles per week, so it's mostly just maintenance to keep me healthy. I'll mostly be concentrating on strength and core training through the winter months, putting in some rigorous workouts that have me sore, sore, sore!

It's December 21 as I write this, and I wanted to wish you all a very happy holiday and a wonderful New Year. I'll still continue to write- hopefully more often than once a month now! Thanks so much for sticking with me.