Januarying

 January 2023 is in the books, more proof that the calendar plays for keeps.  My wife thinks that this January would never end and was glad to see the back of it (Sorry, she had Downton Abbey on , and I couldn't help myself.). For me, January ended too quickly, I hadn't finished all my Januarying. 

I've always been  a little bit uncertain when it comes to  what I think about New Year's resolutions.  On one hand, I think that they are a colossal waste of time because we should always be trying to improve ourselves and we  don't need December 31st telling us what to do.  On the other hand, there are definitely things I like to try to accomplish every year and January 1st seems like a good time to start accomplishing those things.

Some of these goals (I do like goals better than resolutions) vary from year to year and many of them don't get accomplished.  I do spend quite a bit of time each January planning to accomplish them, which is why I call making a game plan for the goals, Januarying. 

One goal I have every year is to average 10,000 steps a day for the year.  2022 is the only year so far I have met that goal.  I had come close in 2021 averaging around 9,200 steps a day.  It really was a tale of two halves where I averaged just 7,000 steps from January to June and then averaged close to 11,500 to close out the year.  I made my goal for 2022 to be averaging at least 10,000 steps for the entire year (In 2005 White Sox parlance we call that going wire to wire). To that end I walked 26,122 steps on Jauary 1st.  We had a small party at out house on New Years Eve  and after our guests left, I walked our neighborhood for a little while.  Most of the steps came later that day when I got the job of patrolling the movie theatre where I work which means walking up and down 12 theatres every 20 or 30 minutes to make sure  the equipment and audience members are behaving appropriately.  

This year I decided to approach repeating my accomplishment differently. I made a calendar in my mind and decided in advance how many steps I wanted to get on the given month.  At the end of the year, If I make all my goals I will have again averaged  over 10,000 steps for the year.  In January, I set my goal for far lower than 10,000 but still beat the average I set for myself by more than 1,000 steps a day.  

Some of my other Januarying goals have to do with or are chronicled on my blog.  I will be posting more soon about my goals of watching 12 new movies (to me) and reviewing them here, and my reading goal for the year.  So. Ill just table such discussion for now, except to say that I have spent quite a bit of Januarying plotting out some of the books and films I want to consume this year and going about consuming them.  Each December and January I spend time redesigning my blog. I have especially enjoyed  linking some new blogs to mine in a space called Blog Try Outs. One such blog is called Laws of Gravity The caretaker of Laws of Gravity is a substitute teacher like myself.

At my advanced age of 58 years, 4 months, 1 week, 4 days and 12 hours (It's actually 11 hours, but I still have to edit this post.) , I am beginning to hear more and more about finishing well.  I feel like I might be a tad young for that, but Januarying has been instrumental in helping me start well.  

January Stats

 In January of 2023 I posted 8 times.  This was five posts more than I had in November and December 2022 combined.  I  really limped tot he finish line of 2022 blog wise. 2022 wasn't a wholly unsuccessful year in that regards.  I had 102 posts in 2022 just 15 less than I had in 2021.  The problem was that 86 of those posts were from January to June and only 21 were in the 2nd half of the year.  I consider that a missed opportunity.

The 8 posts this past January put me on  pace to have 96 by years end.  Hopefully this will not be a February flop but will be even more successful than how the year began.  

Thanks to my lovely editor/proofreader/wife who keeps me on track bloggingwise and in so many areas of my life.  

Love,

Dave

Random Videos

Over the years I have taken so many videos for my blogs.  Here are some random ones I'd like to share today.

This "kid" just got engaged.  11 years ago He was in robotics with my son.

LJ Smooth FKA Wolflina FKA Puppy

Her first HI

Bob Bennett playing at my church after taping an album locally.

 

Dave Out Loud loses and finds his Wallet @roldaver

Top 100 Films: A Preparation

 

Five years, or so ago, I decided that I needed to make a listing of my 100 favorite movies. I was working in an office at a time and even had 2 of my coworkers make their own lists.  I worked on it painstakingly for several months and when I completed it, I promptly lost the list.  #ADHDLIFE.  

Sometime during Co-vid, my wife found a small notebook of mine that had 100 favorite movies scratched on it.  It unfortunately did not have the completed list , but it did have the names of over 150 movies and some rankings and notations.  I always intended to revisit the list every 5 years or so, but this feels more like starting over than revisiting.  

For the past few weeks, I have been laying out a groundwork for determining my top 100.  This process will include watching many of them again to see if they still resonate with me,  sorting movies into different groups, and ranking them by group while continuing to develop a philosophy for establishing the final ranking.

An important decision I'll have to navigate  is how exactly  I'll be  evaluating the movies.  Am I basing their  rank on their current importance, their historical importance, or simply  the quality of the film, or some hybrid form? I know this isn't going to be a  best film list, but I do  tend to base a film's quality with how much I enjoy watching it. 

Fortunately, I already have the top 15 worked out and can easily carve out the top 25 without much difficulty.  The tricky part, I expect, will be ranking from 26 to100 and  thus deciding what films don't make the cut. 

I decided  that it might help out thing considerably to pick what I think the 100th movie will be early in the process.  This way I can have a yard stick of sorts as if to to say "okay, I like this film better than 100 so it must be in the top 100." or "This film is not as good as 100, so it must not be in the top 100." Of course this is just a starting point and the film I pick as the place holder, may end up being ranked significantly higher or lower.

I think at this time that the film I would rate as 100th would be the 1996 film, The Spitfire Grill. The Spitfire grill did not make my top 100 movie list, the last time around.  The more I think about it, the more I think it should have.

Spitfire was release by Castle Rock and has a very Castle Rock feel to it.  In some ways it is an odd film, and does not always go where I want it to.  There are even certain parts of the movie, I don't like to watch on repeat viewing. These may be among the reasons why Spitfire did not make the cut on my original list.

Here are some reasons I have thought about revising my assessment.

The Cast: Marcia Gay Harden and Will Patton while secondary to the plot, anchor an excellent cast. Ellyn Burstyn does an excellent job as the irascible owner of the grill, and every time I watch this film, I am surprised that Allison Elliott did not become a Hollywood legend because she is a force to be reckoned with here.

The Cinematography: This like A River Runs Through It, Brave Heart, and Secret of Roan Inish, is a spectacle for the eyes.  The Atlantic North East is majestically shown in this film.

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The Story:  The plot in many ways is predictable but that does not diminish how rewarding it is to watch. Like I said earlier, the movie does not always do what I want it to do; but, what it does, it does skillfully and memorably. While the movie doesn't have the redemption arc I want for it, it portrays redemption in a broader more wholistic way.

In short, it is  a flawed film with a high rewatchability level.  It will be interesting to see where it lands on the eventual list.

I expect the process of making a new list to take me at least a year.  I hope to use this blog as a way of talking about some of these films and then eventually presenting the list here in one way or another,

Love,

Dave