At the risk of sounding smug (no – me?), life is pretty freakin’ good right now. Work is going great. Deciding to start my own company is one of the best things I’ve ever done. Family life is awesome. My weight is back to an acceptable range. I’m really thankful for all of this and as a result I’m not making any of the usual NY resolutions this year.

That said, there are a few things that I would like to prioritize in 2011:

1. Write music more consistently – I’ve set a goal to write at least 2 songs a month. While this might not sound like a lot, I tend to go through songwriting dry spells that last months or years. I am going to try and work through these dry spells by committing to writing one song every other week, even if I don’t feel like it. I will be posting at least one of those songs here.

2. Give more – I’m not sure if my giving will be of time or $$$ but I think 2011 is the year I start giving back to the Las Vegas community. Things have been great for my family these last few years. Time to start contributing to the community.

3. Slow down – I’ve been working at a frenzied pace for the last 5 years or so. In 2011 I want to re-teach myself how to slow down a bit. Walk a dog. Meditate. Read a book.

My reflections on 2010:

Best Purchase: Gibson SG American. I bought this very early in 2010 to round out my guitar collection. Sounds great, plays very fast, and my hands have always been favorable to the fretboard gauging of Gibson over the longer Fender gauge. It’s also much lighter than any of my other guitars, making it really easy to play for very long periods of time without shoulder fatigue.

Worst: Every book ever written by Robert Dilts. Although he’s considered by many to be one of the creators of NLP, I find his writing very dry and difficult to get through. I do a lot of reading but I haven’t managed to get through any of his books yet.

Best Band I discovered: Although they didn’t debut in 2010, I only became aware of them about 4 months ago. I’m talking about the Zac Brown Band. These guys are infreakingcredible. Awesome musicians, great songwriters, and they seem to be pretty down to earth dudes. They’re more flannel shirt country than cowboy hat country, which totally appeals to me. (Close second is Micky and the Motorcars, who I was just turned on to a month ago by my buddy John at 9Seeds.)

Worst: Anything with the last name Beiber.

Best Movie: Although I was pretty well appalled by the heavy politics, Avatar was a beautiful movie to watch. I saw it in XD 7 times or so, stunned the amazing FX. Wow. Breathless.

Worst: Tron. Save your $.

Best Road Trip: This is tough, as I took quite a few trips this year, but I have to say the best was my 48 hour jaunt to Utah to go hog hunting. It was my first hunt and the group we put together was awesome…oh, and it doesn’t hurt that I have 100+ pounds of hog meat in my freezer to remember it by. (Christmas in Kern Valley was a close 2nd.)

Worst: Flying to Cedar Rapids, IA for the memorial service of one of my college professors.

Best Mac App purchased: Dragon Dictate. This mofo allows you to dictate into your computer. It does a phenomenal job. I type pretty fast (70-80 WPM) but with Dragon I can get upwards of 150WPM. Outstanding productivity tool. (Second place: Curio. Great for brainstorming, mind mapping, and light project management. Also good for information sharing. Well worth the $$$.)

Worst: Comic Life. Although it seems to be a great program for cartoon illustrators, I have very little use for it. It was an impulse buy because I thought it would be funny to make a cartoon of one of my friends calling himself a douchebag. 15 seconds of chuckles: $24.95.

Other cool happenings from 2010:

1. I lost 60 pounds on a medical weight loss program. I am currently in the process of launching a non-prescription program to help folks lose weight who can’t afford to spend the $100′s of dollars a month I did.

2. Ozzy (Osbourne Cox) came in to our lives. We rescued him after the passing of our beloved Sonny. Ozzy has been a great addition to our family.

3. My wife got to know my family better. We had a very fun trip out to Indiana in July, and the whole family came to Vegas for Turkey Day. Prior to 2010 she hadn’t spent a whole ton of time with any of them. I’m really happy that we’re all bonding.

4. I started my final tattoo. Right leg. Pics forthcoming.

Next Up: Resolutions!

Many of you know that I have been visiting a doctor about my weight for the last few months. Well, I’m pleased to announce that today was “after” photo day. All in all it was a phenomenal program. I probably could’ve done it a bit faster but given the work situation, holidays and that sort of thing I’m really happy. Here are the stats and pics.

Before: Nearly 260. 30%+ body fat. These photos are from the day I started at Medi Weight Loss Clinics. I was around 240 at that time. Those pants are 40/32s. XL to XXL shirts. Ugh.

After: 202. 19% body fat. 32″ waist. Large tshirt.

Medi Weight Loss has absolutely changed my life. It was really hard to walk into that office and tell Dr. Miller that I was failing at this weight loss thing. Totally worth it though. I’ve referred quite a number of friends (would be more if they had an affiliate program…ahem ahem) and they are all having similar results. I would recommend it to anyone. It’s a bit pricey but well worth it – plus you more than offset it with savings on food. (You will eat considerably less and cook for yourself more, which is cheaper than junk food and/or dining out.)