So I asked my friends on various sites what I should resolve to do in 2009, some responses were funny, others offensive, some even offensively funny, but in the end it really meant I was being lazy and should have come up with the list myself.  I am a huge believer in small iterations in software and web development, so I think I am going to approach my resolutions the same way. Everything will be made up of smaller steps.  The other thing is by posting them here, I will hopefully have a public record of this and it will force me to do some of these things.

Resolution #1 – Lose weight (yeah yeah, cliche, I know)
So my goal for the end of the year is to lose 15lbs. So every season my goal should be to lose 5lbs. 52 weeks to accomplish this. Should be doable. This means 1/3lb a week. So by the end of the year, I should be close to what I weighed when I was a first year in college (aka freshman).  This goes hand in hand with just getting in better physical shape overall.

Resolution #2 – Make more money (screw you recession!)
How much more money? Well I think I’d like to peg my fiscal growth at a 10% per quarter bump. Thats my goal. Each quarter to generate 10% more than last quarter. So if I can continuously optimize all my revenue streams, and make my money work for me harder each quarter, I think this should be doable. So by the end of the year I’d like to have way more stashed in the bank, and be running a more efficient business.  This also means I am going to start doing sales (yup, never done any sales on my own till this point, all power of word of mouth), and tracking everything more quantitatively.

Resolution #3 – Monetize my ideas
If you know me well, you know I ALWAYS have thousands of ideas floating around which I bounce off of everyone I know. The thing is most of these ideas really just require a few weeks of dedication and investment, something I haven’t been affording myself due to client work. So this year I am putting my foot down and making things like Twitbin generate revenue, and monetizing my other side projects. My goal is to be generating 5 figures monthly by the third quarter from these passive investments.

Resolution #4 – Be a better friend
So sometimes I notice I have the ability to help friends and acquaintances and don’t always do it. Other times I have noticed I don’t always make that extra effort to show up on time to things my friends are organizing (parties, events, gatherings, etc.), and I feel bad about that. So this year I am going to make an effort to improve my friends and acquaintances lives in as many ways as I can. I also am going to make a better effort to befriend lots of you whom I know, but don’t know very well. So this year, I am inviting you all to a cup of coffee. Let me know if we don’t know each other very well and I will happily buy you a cup of joe.  This I hope would go under @rjsaylor’s suggestion of being awesome in 2009. thanks Rebecca   This also means building up more good karma.

Resolution #5 – Say yes more often
So this might seem ridiculous, but I saw the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey a few weeks ago, and really felt inspired. I tend to be a no-person way more often than I think I should be. So I internally tell myself negative things about potential situations and then avoid them. I need to try new things, and be open to more opportunities.  So this year I am going to learn to scuba (which I won last year and haven’t gone yet), maybe go do something else adventurous (sky diving?), or just be willing to try things I normally wouldn’t.  I would like to learn to fly a plane, so if anyone wants to teach me for free….

Resolution #6 – Create more
This means take more photos, videos, blog more, share more, and launch more websites.

So what are your resolutions?

So as I write this, my birthday is winding to a close, I figured I would take this time to reflect on the last 25 years, and post some thoughts on the next 25. Over the years I’ve learned a lot, seen a lot, been to a lot of places, but in the end the ultimate lesson I’ve learned is that it is all about the people in your life. Be they friends, family, business connections, or just random people you’ve encountered along the way. Building and maintaining these positive relationships in life is what its all about.

This is a lesson that can be transferred to anything you do in life.

So thanks to everyone who has been a positive influence in my life so far, I only hope I am able to return the favor, over the next 25. Also, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy bday via facebook, it is truly appreciated.

So I was walking Bear today and thinking about the lack of prefab housing designed for the Florida market. It all seems to be oriented to people living in seattle, california, or arizona. By prefab I mean something like the glidehouse not a double wide trailer.

So my question to you all is multipart: 1. is it possible to build a house which would meet or excede the florida building codes (toughest in the country), 2. be eco-friendly, and 3. look modern and attractive.

Prefab in my opinion (and I know very little about home construction) seems like the logical step towards lowering home costs and improving quality. If lots of the parts and pieces can be pre-made in factories where the cutting and assembly is laser precise and checked for quality, then you should be able to build homes faster and more effectively. right?

If any of you know of an architect tackling this problem, let me know, i’d like to pick their brain.

So I’ve been terrible about updating this blog lately. There is good reason, I’ve been super busy. Need a better reason? tough.

So for those of you in silicon valley/bay area interested in meeting up before monday evening for drinks or food and some great conversation, let me know email me brianbreslin[at]gmail.com and I’ll get it on my blackberry. make sure you put who you are, and your phone # so i can call you back. In case you were wondering, I’ll be in Sunnyvale saturday for CommunityNext.

Also, I’ve got a new design for this blog cooked up, its just a matter of polishing it a bit. In the pipeline over the next couple weeks: redesigning web+, infinimedia redesign, secretproject#1 redesign, some hirings of more designers, and launching a few projects. So all in all my time is very limited.

so i decided to make a radical change in this site. the new design is going to come along with the revised design on web+. i have a theory on what a personal site should be, and i think this is the perfect venue in which to try it out. there will be alot more video, more connectivity, and a whole lot more fun. fun, fun, fun.

so why haven’t i been updating this site lately? well i’ve been busy as all hell. We launched Twitbin, which is a twitter tool for firefox; its been really well received, and popular as hell.

I’ve also begun my job as project manager over at Scrapblog. I’ll be managing development of a ton of stuff over there, as well as advising on strategy, ideas, and making things happen. Don’t worry I’ll still be running infinimedia, just sleeping less.

I’ve also been working on building up our staff, always a tough and critical thing to do. How do you hire the right people who will be the right fit?

so stay tuned over the next week or so, in my spare time I’ll be reworking this site, and shifting it a bit, think less stereotypical blog, more awesomeness. also trying to clean up my feeds so i can keep track of them better.

So one thing i noticed today, after getting a frantic email from a friend saying that google would now print her photos for free (cough gabbie cough), and then seeing countless other sites announcing they were closing down (lame), I have decided that geeks love april fools. not sure why, maybe i missed a memo.

No, not people to post to the blog, actual posters for hanging on a wall. I’ve got an idea for a creative project, and want to cover a wall of our offices here at infinimedia with vintage rock band posters. Or modern rock bands. Sort of a collage. if you know anyone who has spare posters, please have them email me.

So for those of you wondering where I’ve been the last 7 days, I was in Palo Alto for what amounted to 36 hours after getting stuck in Phoenix for 5 hours (thanks United! you rock…[insert sarcasm tag here]). then after spending a few seemingly profitable days in vegas (if you leave with what you came in with, and spent 3 days here, i consider that profit, I find out my flight is cancelled. no problem, I’ll just get on the next flight, hmmmm. seems like the next flight is cancelled too! so here I am a full 28 hours after my first flight home still in vegas. Hopefully by noon I’ll be sitting in first class (they had to upgrade me after the 2+ bumps) and on my way back home.

Anyway, community next rocked, vegas was great (except for the not being able to go home…), now back to work.

So I decided there was no reason for me to keep my 4 year old Dell that I have in my house, as it was on its last legs, and has probably gone through 3 hard drives, and a half dozen reformats over the last few years. So as I evaluated my choices, I realized that PCs always invariably look cheaper on the surface, but somehow I never end up getting one of those dirt cheap PCs. By the time I am done customizing my systems and building them, or buying them from Dell, the machine ends up costing close to 2 grand. So I thought, why not switch back to a mac after all these years of being 80% PC and 20% mac.

I used to be a mac fanatic and used them exclusively till around 2000.
Now I was looking at computers, and saw the iMac had all the things I need on a computer, including the ability to run Windows (still have to use it for a number of reasons). But with my new iMac (which seems to be running faster than I expected) I can just toggle between the two, and right there is an amazing selling point. I wish Apple would highlight this more.

I’m most excited about being able to organize everything in a future-oriented way.

Seeing as the new year is already upon us, I figured we should all make something clear that there is a distinction that should be made between resolutions and goals. Goals should be looked at as concrete objectives one wants to reach, and resolutions should be looked at as general ideas.

So on that note, my goals for the year are:

1. Speak at 1 conference this year
2. Buy a new home or apartment by year end.
3. Visit 2 new places.
4. Earn double what I made in 2006.
5. Learn Ruby on Rails

My resolutions for the year:

1. Eat healthier
2. Exercise more
3. meet as many people as i can
4. have more fun