Fate's 2009 Resolutions Wrap Up

2009 has been an extremely eventful year. If you told me at the start of last year, everything that would happen - I probably woulda thought you were joking. One of the things that I drive Fin crazy on, is that I tend to view plans more as guidelines, than actual plans. So, it isn't really surprising how this years events are going to turn up in terms of 'accomplished' and 'not'.

First, the accomplished:
Financial: Knock out one of my college debt accounts
Slight Win. I managed to pay off a couple credit cards, transfer some debt, and start making a dent in my loads of stupid.

Bucket List: Create new bucket list and accomplish at least 2 entries this year
Epic Win! Fireworks, BBQ, getting married, going camping, ... I hit lots of entries on the new list and I'm looking forward to making a new list and doing more stuff.

Relationships: Do better than in '08
EPIC WIN! I wake up every morning happy that I'm with a wonderful person, even if she is a bit of a nerd.

And now, the not:

Life: Figure out what I really want to be doing in 10 years.
Fail, but happy about it. This is a sorta weird one. I'm saying I didn't figure it out, but I'm also thinking that's a good thing. The best things in my life so far have been things I didn't expect or know or have a clue about. It's the things I overplanned that tended to blow up.

Personal Appearance: Move from "I buy clothes" to having a style
Fail, and not really caring anymore. I've decided that most all of men's clothing = "I buy clothes".

Personal Fitness: Run a 7 minute mile, continue advancement in martial arts.
Hobbies: Have Something to show for a writing project at the end of '09
Hobbies: Release Self Hosting Microkernel
Fail, but I'm going to try again. The whole process of getting married and helping make a home killed the amount of free time required to do my hobby stuff.

Blog: Post more often
Fail. Funny, I just haven't had as much to say, but that's starting to change now.

General: Finish unpacking
EPIC FAIL! Dear God, it never ends.... And now, I'm convinced, I've accumulated EVEN MORE CRAP, not counting anything from Fin. How?!?! I don't know...

So, to summarize, it looks like I'm 3 out of 10 on actually meeting my resolutions. I wonder how that compares to people in general.

There are reasons I'm a vegetarian

I like to think I'm not the preachy kind of vegetarian. You can eat a burger in front of me and I usually don't say anything unless I'm offered a bite and then my only response will generally be "No thank you, I'm a vegetarian." Those preachy, rabid, "meat is murder" vegetarians really kinda piss me off actually. After all, you win more flies with honey then you do vinegar, now don't you?

Fate has his reason's he's vegetarian, I have mine. They are different, but have some similarities. He can post about his sometime....but here's mine:

Safeway Beef Recall In Arizona And New Mexico

You say: "What? That happens all the time! Its no big deal, its just a recall and the FDA is keeping us safe"

Um, yeah. Lets do the math:

Meat recalled: 22,723-lbs

Average yield from a dressed beef carcass: 569lbs

Assuming they turned all that meat into hamburger.....

Average number of cows that had to die to produce recalled beef:


22,723 lbs of beef / 569 avg cow weight =

39.9349736

40 cows died.

Okay, so what happens to beef that is recalled? It gets destroyed.

Thrown away.

Wasted.

And this is one of the smaller recalls...

What about pork (that'd be pigs ya know)....

or chicken...

These are living things that had to die in order to produce meat for human consumption. I don't have a problem with that, at all, its the circle of life. I DO have a real problem with life being wasted. This is life wasted, and gross negligence on humanity's part in being care takers of this worlds life.

I am vegetarian as a form of silent protest against the waste of life that is going on in the meat industry. There is waste everywhere in the world, in every part of things, however, this is the only part I can think of where living beings have to die for no reason at all.

--Fin