tobia, eo nomine

At the wonderful suggestion of KellyLux, I have decided to work on my #2010Plan. If you aren’t familiar with the #2010Plan, I suggest you follow @dave_carpenter for more information on how you can prepare for and ensure you have a successful 2010!

The first step in the #2010Plan is to select the right planning buddy. For the purposes of my planning, I selected @tracytilly who is also working on her 2010 plan. It was a pretty logical selection and it is important to have someone who is also dedicated to making their 2010 a successful year.

The second step in preparing your #2010Plan is to select a Board of Advisors. Much akin to finding a Board of Directors for a major corporation, this group will be three or four individuals who will take some time later this month to help review your plan for success and ensure that you are on the right path. My Board of Advisors, though they may not all know it yet, will be my father, my mother, my sister, and my good friend Rob.

The third step in your #2010Plan is to write down your Top Five Accomplishments for 2009. As Will Smith’s character says in Hitch:

“You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.”

At the start of 2009, I put together a list of my resolutions for the year. It was important to write them down and ensure that I had a plan and a bit of motivation for the year. Looking back at my five resolutions from last year I actually did accomplish, or come close to accomplishing many of them. So without further ado, and in no particular order, My Top Five 2009 Accomplishments:

1. Started making my own wine.
2. Designed, and, with the assistance of some very amazing programmers, implemented our company intranet and have improved the business analytics options available to our associates
3. Became involved with 40Below and am working for the betterment of Syracuse.
4. Was the best man at one of my best friends‘ weddings.
5. Traveled to Italy and took a day to travel by myself to Milan.

There were many other accomplishments that I was prone to writing down, but I think that these five are very important to remember for the coming year.

The fourth step in preparing your #2010Plan is to Reaffirm your personal strengths. For this, I have sent an email to six very close friends whose opinions I greatly respect. I have asked them to take some time over the weekend to assess my strengths so that I can use them to my advantage.

And with that, I am well on my way to preparing my #2010Plan. I hope that you are as well so that you can achieve great personal success in 2010!

In all the years that I have been visiting our nation’s capitol, whether it was for business or pleasure, there is surprisingly one thing that I had not done… visit the National Archives and view our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. This revelation, made earlier today as I was roaming the halls of this historical institution, was something of a shock to me. As it were, I am quite the afficionado of American History and in particular, the American Revolution and Federalist Era.

With that being said, I was quite fortunate with my trip to Washington, DC today in that I had plenty of time to visit whatever museums or galleries that I had in mind. I had considered taking another tour of the Capitol building as one of my life dreams is to live in an apartment or own a house with a roof deck that overlooks the Capitol. Such a view, in the warm summer months would make me quite the happy man. However, as I went to book a tour of the Capitol last night I recalled that while that tour is quite enjoyable and informative, it must pale in comparrison to a visit of the National Archives and an examination of the founding documents of our great nation.

As I arrived at Reagan National this morning around 7:30, I eagerly awaited the opening of the Archives at 10. Fortunately I was able to camp myself at a Starbucks just kitty-corner to it and wait for the opening. Fortunatey the wait was well worth it. While I was anxious to rush to the rotunda of the Archives to view those documents, I decided to ease my way into it and view the majority of the exhibit. If you are a fan of American History, you should absolutely take the time to go through the halls. From a map of the Gettysburg battlefield, to a copy of the Articles of Confederation, to video exhibits of WWII military advertisements to one of Shaq’s shoes, the halls are filled with some amazing pieces of American History.

By the time I had finished with most of the exhibit, I was so anxious to see our founding documents that I missed the copy of the Magna Carta that is on permanent loan to the Archives. I slowly walked the Rotunda, being sure to read all of the exhibits and spending extra time on both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I was barely able to make out the line that was so popularized by the movie National Treasure

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Following my successful hunt for this poweful line, I had to take great pause at the Constitution to see New York’s lone signature and one of my personal heroes, Alexander Hamilton. Witnessing his signature in the flesh was a moving moment, and one that I won’t soon forget.

Chris Good of The Atlantic writes,

Meeting with the presidents of Mexico and Canada in Guadalajara, President Obama said Monday that he’ll start pursuing comprehensive immigration reform later this year. Is this too ambitious? After all, energy and health care are still up in the air.

I say yes.

My bff, and eventual roommate, Jen, moved her blog from blogger to tumblr. So if you use tumblr, follow her. If not, at least check it out. She is good people.

After 20 years playing in the NHL, Jeremy Roenick has retired. Roenick had a great career, but was immortalized in the 1996 film Swingers.

As Patrick Hruby from ESPN’s NHL Blog wrote,

I’ll miss Roenick marauding through “NHL ‘94″ like an Abrams battle tank.

Hugo Lindgren via Derek Thompson of The Atlantic:

The hotter the waitresses, the weaker the economy. In flush times, there is a robust market for hotness. Selling everything from condos to premium vodka is enhanced by proximity to pretty young people (of both sexes) who get paid for providing this service. That leaves more-punishing work, like waiting tables, to those with less striking genetic gifts. But not anymore.

open hydrant rolled down windows
this car might make a good old boat
and float down grand street in daylight
and float down grand street in daylight

A goal for the coming week is to actually finish reading One Hundred Years of Solitude so that I can start The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor: Who Drifted on a Liferaft for Ten Days Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, Made Rich Through Publicity, and Then Spurned by the Government and Forgotten for All Time.

I really need to stick to my New Years Resolutions…

How is it that I just found out about the Blackberry App World? The only problem with actually going through the steps of installing items from it is that more than likely our office is going to iPhones in the next year at which time I would have to get myself the Blackberry Storm for my personal phone. I’m pretty sure at that point I would need to seek help for my connectivity disorder.

Today I received the quarterly statement for my 401k from April  1 to June 30 and was pleased to see that my portfolio was up 21.35% for that period. This is in stark contrast to the prior year where the value of my portfolio decreased over 41%. With the current year being up 13.65%, my hopes are high that we could see a turn around. I don’t think this means anything for the general economy as a whole. We still have major issues across all sectors and major unemployment problems. But as long as my 401k keeps going up, I’ll feel good.