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Top Comments: New Year's goals edition

My approach to goals in 2021, after-the-jump …..

But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.

Many years ago, I worked for a company where we were required to give an advance tentative vacation request schedule each January (for coverage issues, especially during the peak summer months). That need is no longer applicable, yet I still do advance planning: not only for vacations, but other tasks in the new year.

So in addition to travel plans, I include other items. I just refer to them as “goals” or “to do”— if you call them “resolutions”….. then everyone just jokes about them. Specificity is the key, as per this item from the daily NY Times newsletter:

Make it specific and realistic. “Resolutions tend to be too big without any thought about whether they are practical or even possible,” says our colleague Tara Parker-Pope. Resolving to “exercise more” is vague, but resolving to add five or 10 minutes to each workout is measurable. If you find yourself recycling a goal from years past, consider why it didn’t stick. “The resolution ‘I’m going to lose weight’ doesn’t address the underlying issue of why your diet isn’t as healthful as you want it to be,” Tara says. “Maybe the resolution should be: ‘I’m going to stop buying packaged snack foods and snack on fruits and vegetables instead.’”

I have listed my goals on a spreadsheet for many years, and look at them on New Year’s Eve to see how well I did. Yet I have only saved them since 2014 — still, that’s enough for a fun look back down memory lane. Here are a few.

2014  — I listed “Get a new car” (as the fourteen year-old one was wearing out), to watch the film “Citizen Koch” and read the drummer Ginger Baker’s autobiography “Hellraiser”. All three were accomplished.

2015— I was working at a temp job for much of the year, so my goals were more limited. The most important tasks were: book Thanksgiving/Yuletide travel, and finally clear-out my garage shed …. had put-it-off for too long. I also did get to see the prequel Man from U.N.C.L.E. film — my favorite 1960’s television show.

2016— The goals of “see more concerts and films”  …. not being specific, was subjective (and failed). Yet I did get to attend the St. Louis Netroots Nation, and finally sorted my old photograph collection (after years of deferment). Lastly, we held our second extended family reunion (the first was five years earlier) — and here is the group photo from the Greenwich Village church where my great-grandparents Nicholas Healy & Ann Farrell married in 1879.

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                            St. Joseph’s Church — 371 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York

   

2017— Netroots Nation in Atlanta was attended, then buying a new computer for home (I never got around to it), new tires (which I did accomplish) and our normal family reunion (my father had four sisters) w/our cousins, held every-other-year.

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                      Held at the historic Fraunces Tavern/Museum in lower Manhattan in September

2018— I decided against going to New Orleans for Netroots Nation, as I’d been to NOLA three times (and didn’t want the fourth time to take place in … August). As an alternative, I went to the Drinking Liberally group leaders conference in Savannah, Georgia (my second trip, and in late September with comfortable weather). I finally did replace my old computer this year.

2019—   Able to visit Netroots Nation in Philadelphia by train …. and the annual Cheers & Jeers meet-up dinner showed how much we were coming-up in the world. Rather than at a pub as in years past, this was at the …. Ritz-Carlton bar.

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    Waiters bringing glasses of wine ……….. goodness, we must rate!

In 2020, I put attending Netroots Nation in Denver on the list ….. and finally putting on the list (always forgetting to do so) attending the Paul Winter Consort’s annual Winter Solstice Concert at the Church of St. John the Divine in NYC.

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 Usually several are held (circa December 20th) each year in this magnificent cathedral … usually …...

Oh, well.

And so, my 2021 goals are …. well, rather loose. Cleaning-up closets, straightening up and replacing spare parts are more like it. Looking forward to the New Normal.

Let’s close with ……… this song from Jack Bruce’s 1974 album “Out of the Storm” … which I think we have now left, I think you’ll agree.

Now, on to Top Comments:

From Youffraita:

In the diary by CameronProfasking what do people cook when it is only for themselves— okay, there is no way I could NOT nominate MattC46 for a Top Comment. Call it zen and the art of dining alone.

And from the same diary: I would also like to nominate this lovely story from mycomputermachine.

From indyada:

In the front-page story on Biden addressing the pandemic and all the science and stuff that will be used: comes Mogolori’s gem of "oh my", it's so good.

From commaist:

In the diary by Merlin196357 about the Trumpster not having a legal team for his upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate — please add this comment by Lex Lurker to Top Comments. It made milk squirt out my nose.

Highlighted by Crashing Vor:

In the diary by Joe Pac about the financial straits the ex-First Family is now in — this comment made by Draker.

And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........

In the diary by SemDem on the QAnon watch parties who were bitterly disappointed about yesterday’s inauguration — poalcat51 offers both a deeply personal story as well as a reference to a famous troubled mathematician.   

And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:

5)  [image] by stone clearing +231
16) [image] by SottoVoce +146
29) [image] by MarcKyle64 +124


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