A New Year...A New...You?

Oh screw that. Why do the new plans always want to start on January 1st? I mean I'm totally a sucker for it, but why not like October 12th or something? And why does it have to be a *new* you. How about A New Year....and a more improved you.

Anyways, that being said. Happy New Year to everyone out there! Jason and I had a pretty good 2008 with only about 6 rough weeks. But seriously our little family unit is 180 from where we were last year so that's always good.

A more improved JasonLeahRun is starting with a new membership at the YMCA. We heart the Lakeview YMCA and all it's quirkyness. Our plan is to cardio + pilates (leah)/weight lifting (jason) on Monday, Run home from work on Tuesdays, racquetball + weight lifting on Wednesdays, run home from work on Thursdays, relax + lazy on Fridays, racquetball + pilates/weight lifting on Saturdays and run longer on Sundays. That's the idea anyways.

Also LeahC is doing a lot more photoshop work this year. It's a beast of a program but I am learning a ton from Scott Kelby's 7-Point system book. He takes 21 photos from out of the camera, and takes them through the steps he would use to make them a final product. You can download the photos used in the book from his website and follow along. The theory behind the book is that all photos out of a camera are a little dull, could use a little sharpening, etc. He found that most photos used similar steps, all deriving from these 7 basic steps outlined in the book. Not all photos need all of them, but the idea is that at the end of the book you'll be able to look at your photos and be able to get to the output using different varieties of the 7 steps. Anyways, I highly recommend that book (and any of Scott Kelby's books for that matter). Eventually I am going to buy Lightroom2 so I can take advantage of the photo workflow that it provides.

LeahC is also going to be working with a senior developer over lunch on various programming tasks.....still working out what that actually is...but looking forward to it.

LeahC and JasonR (although we might need to get a 2nd copy if we want to include the JMan) and ScottSails are all going to read I'm a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. This reading will probably be slow with the photoshopping/work reading + working we need to do (We are going to have a study group at work and JasonR is starting at class at his company tomorrow).

LeahC and JasonR will also find themselves in Zurich in about 5 weeks visiting old friends and a city we have yet to see.

So 2009 is starting off with a bang and sore core muscles and thus it's time to enjoy the rest of the evening.