From Margie Warrell at Forbes:

1. Know Your Why. For a resolution to stick, it has to be aligned with your core values. We all want to look better or get richer, but your resolutions have to go beyond superficial desires and connect with what truly matters most to you. …

2. Be Specific. Resolutions to ‘eat better, get fitter, be happier, relax more or have better life balance’ are doomed for failure because they lack specificity. The more specific you are, the more likely you will be able to succeed. Describe your goals and resolutions in ways that allow you to track your progress and measure your success. …

3. Don’t Just Think It, Ink it! A Stanford University study found that when people wrote down their goal, it increased the probability of them achieving it by over 70%. But don’t just write down the specific goal …

Thanks for contributing your goals and resolutions the other day. So much to like. Salutes for furrydoc’s desire to help someone else meet an important goal and Water Lily’s “wag more, bark less.” Good luck to Kent on perfecting time travel and even better luck to Nevermind with that chemo.

But the one line out of all the comments that really, really resonated was EN’s “take the road to where I want to go.”

Yeah. That.

If the funny cat video I posted has disappeared (as usual lately), try here.

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Thanks for continuing to put up with the “lite” posting. Posting will probably be on-and-off all this week but should be back to normal by next Monday.

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Mark/Greylocke, the guy who brought us the Knoppix Thumb Drive preparedness document project, is now putting together a YouTube channel for survival/preparedness info. He’s inviting your contributions.

If you have a knowledge or skill you want to share but don’t have the ability to edit your own video, he’ll even do that for you from your raw footage.

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I received my own KTD the other day via Scott’s ready-made drive business. Scott takes the tedious and technical work out of getting those 600+ preparedness documents into usable form. He’s currently selling KTDs for $35, which includes the price of the drive and shipping.

It’s a treasure trove of info. The only equivalent I can think of is Backwoods Home’s “Whole Sheebang” — which is probably better organized and more fun to read but also costs a bunch more.

The drive can be used as a bootable, complete with very simple Knoppix (Linux) operating system. Or the files can be accessed from whatever operating system you’re already using. The useful files are in two folders (KTD_extra_files and the original CD3WD_40). While some are academic papers or commercial advisories and a few aren’t wildly useful, there’s a ton of info on everything from water purification to raising rabbits.

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Though I pledged nothing but good (or at least productive) news for two weeks, I’m having trouble shaking the black mood engendered by the vultures over Newtown. I can’t even crack a smile observing the irony that the same people who long to do this to us, have no problem whatsoever with this.

I don’t want to live in a country that approves of (let alone does, or submits to) either. Some days I think the only thing keeping me in this Land of Dying Freedom is my passel of animals.

I’ll consider this to be at least productive, if not exactly good news. Something to think about: my ex-pat friends are happy.

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At least it’s good that more of the media is finally recognizing the perverse incentives of the snitching-for-profit racket.

Here’s Bruce Schneier on the subject. (Several people sent me that one.)

And here’s a handy interactive from USA Today, of all places. (With H/T to the Infamous Oregon Law Hobbit.)

Be sure to keep spreading the anti-snitch word.

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And although this is rather melancholy, it’s also a gentle meditation on Truth and Beauty. And on thinking rather than screaming meaningless political slogans at one another. “Chiaroscuro Musings and Rantings” by novelist S.J. Griffo.

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Although it appears as I write this that the U.S. probably won’t go off the “dairy cliff” after all, it’s insane such a possibility even exists. Oh my. The persistence of bad policy.

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To close on a more cheery subject: puppies. Puppies and hunky guys. Together for a good cause.

Sorry, heterosexual guy readers. I don’t have any equivalent for you today. Surely there must still be tool companies producing calendars for you, even now that it’s become politically incorrect.

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Sorry about the “lite” posting. I’m deadlining this week and next, so “lite” may continue for a while.

Tomorrow I’ll be going on an expedition with a friend as part of the research for the BHM hide-a-gun article. Packing up the rubber boots, shovels, and camera now.

So I thought I’d leave you with something worth pondering for a few days:

What are the five major things you’d like to accomplish in 2013?

Realistic things, I mean. (“I’d like to personally restore the Bill of Rights” doesn’t count.)

I’m a bit stumped on this myself. I’ve come up with three, two of which aren’t things I’d care to tell the world. The other (3. Cut by half the time I spend on the computer) isn’t so much an accomplishment but a laying of groundwork for accomplishment.

So here you go. Hope this helps inspire you toward your own goals in the new year. Maybe you can give me some ideas, too.

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One more round of thank yous for the wonderful holiday gifts that have arrived in the last couple of weeks.

• To H&K for the beautiful, big pressure canner. I’ve never had one before and this will greatly expand my canning range.
• To JM for The Solid Gold Cadillac; I watched that great old Judy Holliday film the other day and it’s as delightful as ever.
• To JB for the “chutney-colored” alpaca yarn, which quickly became a pair of chutney-colored fingerless gloves.
• To K for wine with an afterglow of … apricots!
• To SR for seeing that all the dogs got their flossies.
• To Wizard & J for fabulous cookies and funny dog towels.
• To B&F for the big box o’ treats from their store — including some that are as healthy as they are tasty.
• To RL for the giant basket o’ treats, which may have nothing healthy, but which I will surely enjoy.
• And last but never, ever, ever least — my admiration and gratitude to the Amazing A. Family, who still manage generous “tithes” to benefit their fellow freedomistas despite all they’ve personally endured in the last few years.

If I’ve missed anyone, please kick my backside in the comment section. I assure you it’s not intentional; it’s merely being overwhelmed.

I put the question mark in the title because two wish list items still remain among the missing — and all Amazon will tell me is that those two (the Bainbridge stove and the Energizer auto-emergency thing-a-ma-jig) were shipped to someone or someones other than me. Amazon says this is usually done because someone wants to wrap or personally deliver a gift.

So either I’ll be getting a giant New Year’s surprise when those gifts arrive or … somebody liked my wish list items so much they bought them for themselves. In that case … well, enjoy.

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Today, I’ll step aside and let Joel speak:

The first rule of living on the edge is this: You’re in charge. You’re responsible. If something goes wrong, nobody’s going to come and fix it for you. There’s no point grumbling and waiting for the guy with the wrench, because the guy with the wrench is you.

That brings things to a very basic and vital level. I used to be consumed with worry over things like who was undermining me at the office, or how badly a customer was going to screw me on draft revisions, or how to deal with the next-door neighbor who played his piano at 3 AM and drove my wife crazy. Seriously, I used to brood over things like that. Now I wonder if the chickens will lay enough eggs tomorrow. I worry about the state of my stovepipe. Will the water freeze? Will coyotes take my kitten? Will I have enough firewood?

There are two major differences between the old worries and the new ones. First, the new set of worries are worth worrying about. Those are things that can actually do harm to me and mine. Second, they’re all things I can do something about. I can get more chickens, or kill or separate the one that’s upsetting the others. I can clean the damn stovepipe more often, insulate the pipes more heavily, go out and cut more firewood. Zoe’s pretty much on her own – though she’s napping happily right next to me as I write this.

Those old quotidian worries used to make me very unhappy, because I was always dependent on other people for their solution and I felt helpless against them. Now I’ve got worries about things that can actually hurt me, but they don’t make my unhappy because I can get off my ass and do something about them any time I need to.

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… or maybe the problem was that funny-tasting egg nog.

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From tiny superdog Uggie, who became famous for starring in The Artist after making this humble greeting card:

Unfortunately, most of our dogs are more like this:

But we love ‘em anyhow. And sometimes even some pretty unlucky dogs become lucky ones.

Merry Christmas — to all the two-legs and all the four-legs in your life (even the C-A-T-S).

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And examines the worldwide defiance of anti-gun laws.

The spirit of resistance is alive and well at this spirited time.

(Don’t worry; Tooch also eventually moved away from the dumb-law state.)

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