Happy New Year! Redux!

I won't gush out a bunch of excuses about why I haven't posted since February. Let's just say I've been preoccupied in many good and bad ways this 2011 and thus have been absent from the blog. I am sorry, not for you, dear readers (all 3 of you), but for me because I really want this blog to find its way, and I feel bad for not doing my part.

Anyway... let's revisit those new year's resolutions, shall we?

• Make beer: soon, soon.
• Catch up on my New Yorkers: accomplished in March! However, the damn things just keep arriving every week, so I'm 4 issues behind again (Do I really have to finish the Franzen article about the history of the novel/Robinson Crusoe/David Foster Wallace? Really?)
• Hang 2 pieces of remaining artwork in living room: unaccomplished. pathetic.
• Run a mile in less than 11 minutes: Yeah! I can even keep up 10 min/mile for 2 miles as evidenced by our recent fun run in Eureka (official time 19:58!).
• Watch the video tutorials about Blogger: meh.
• Go through the dauntingly giant box of family photos: partially accomplished. Sadly, the death of my father gave this project a kick in the pants. My sister and I weeded out all the bad/repeated/uninteresting photos and did a primary sort, but still need to get them into boxes. 

• Run 3 times/week: on average, yes.
• Get to work on time: on average, no.
• Keep up the flossing: keeping up.
• Take more photos and try to add one/day to the Project 365 app: You know, that app turned out to suck. After 1 year's worth of photos it imploded, so I'm crossing this one off. 
• More blogging, fewer words: see above; will try again.

So, that gives a little sketch of what I've been up to. Also, the cooking continues, sometimes improving on recipes (better spaghetti and meatballs occurred in March, for example), sometimes just sticking with standbys. My sourdough pizza reached a new level of crispy deliciousness a couple of weeks ago when, inspired by Serious Pie in Seattle, I sprinkled the crust with a smidge of Utah basin (huh?) salt. We're doing pizza again either tonight or tomorrow night, so I'll try to document (unless my bragging has cursed it).

The explorative drinking of course continues, too. Although, in an attempt to even things out a bit, Liz and I have vowed to teetotal for a week prior to any races we enter. Believe it or not, we're averaging 1 race/month so far, so we've effectively cut our drinking down by about 25%. My yoga teacher used to say, "everything's better in moderation, including moderation itself," so to balance out the dry spells, I got spectacularly drunk on my 39th birthday on Fernet of all things. There is a photo (thanks to Shannon), but it's not pretty. I'll keep that to myself.

OK, enough with the updating. I close with a recommendation and a gift:

Josh recommends: Daydream Disaster with Andy on KZSU, 90.1 FM, Thursdays, 9–noon PST. This show wows me every week with its perfect blend of alt country, indie, and 80s–90s goodness. I am sadly out of touch with new music, so I listen to KZSU pretty much all day at work to broaden my horizons. Tune in on the webz or check out Andy's Tumblr to listen to archived shows. 

Free gift(?): Those of you on a Mac can download an icon set of the characters on this blog!