A few thoughts on tonight’s New Hampshire primary…

Glad to see a strong race on the Democratic side of the house.

Happy that McCain’s campaign has some legs. He is the only reasonable Republican candidate in my opinion outside of Ron Paul (who has no realistic shot at winning the nomination).

Obama’s concession speech was masterful. Passionate. Inspiring. Moving. He may be one of the best speakers of our generation.

Will there be much talk about the Bradley Effect in response to the large margin of error between exit polls and final results?

Hillary’s victory speech was abysmal but lucky for her all the mockery will be directed at McCain for his melancholic, umm, victory speech. What the hell was up with that?

I’m very excited, having never been the type to build something this ambitious based on my own vision. I’ve been content to work on (and critique) applications dreamed up by people even crazier than me, but this is my first “baby”…so it’s very exciting.

I’m a little worried, what with this being the first idea that will be put out there for public scrutiny, that I’ll be seen as a hack. We all have to start somewhere I guess.

The best part will be working with the guys again… there’s something awe inspiring about the collective genius when they all get together under one roof.

My most important goal this year is to reignight my passion for application development. Specifically, I’m going to tap into the brain trust of the “fearsome foursome” (Jon, Josh, Jay, and Nils) and bootstrap a new project. Some ideas have been floated, which already has me brimming with excitement.

Another big goal is to get back to writing regularly. No less than 5 hours per week writing. I need to find a good way to track my progress on this front. Dont Break The Chain is a likely contender.

Of course, now that I’m getting older (I’m now mid-thirties, oh noes!) I need to pay more attention to my health, so my goal on this front are three pronged, like a fork…a fork shoved into a steamy pile of chili-cheese fries…mmm!

First up, reduce my restaurant trips from 9+ meals per week to under 6. This is probably a bit aggressive but I’m going to give it a shot. This should be easy to track via Mint.com so long as I never pay cash for meals (no cheating!).

Obviously if I’m eating out less, I need to learn to cook a wider variety of foods. A man can only eat so many peanut butter sandwiches! Prong the second is to learn to cook at least 2 new meals each month. I’m not sure how to measure this. Cooking for Engineers might help me succeed. I’m not sure how to measure success here, maybe blog about my culinary experiences?

Then there is the exercise. Obviously the most popular resolution as measured by the massive influx of new people at my gym every January. The goal is to run a minimum of 10 miles a week (measuring from Sunday to Saturday), increasing by 1 mile per month, so that I’m running 11 miles per week in February, 12 per week in March, etc. This is a pretty modest goal which should help make it achievable. I’ll be tracking this using Map My Run (until I find something better).

Lastly, to help me maintain some diversity in my pursuits my final goal is to read (to completion) at least 1 non-technical book per month!

So that is pretty much it. Bring on 2008!