2010 New Year's Resolutions

I don't need to lose any weight, I've already quit smoking, and although I could probably stand to get back into my weight training, it looks like the pedestrian challenges are out of the way. The path has been cleared for me to tackle three big goals in 2010.

1) Get a damn Python job. It's time to leave the rock stars behind and move on to a job that will satisfy my soul. It's not that I don't love what I do - the clients are never dull, certainly. But I want more opportunities to put into practice the exciting things I'm learning every day. I want to be in a place where I'm not only free to, but moreover encouraged to, introduce new technologies. It's time to get back to learning and growing.

2) Get my MySQL certification(s). Who knows how much this will matter professionally, but it will mean a lot to me personally. I've been working as a defacto DBA for some time, but what I want to go for is the MySQL 5.0 Developer Certification. I'll do that first, anyway, and afterwards go for the DBA Certification. I don't expect to have any trouble getting through the first series, and the second one will give me an opportunity to fill in some gaps in my administrative knowledge. I just want to get this under my belt, even though in 2010 I'm planning on spending a lot more time learning about and working in non-relational and schema-less databases.

3) Travel to Europe. I spent most of the last year finally getting over my fear of flying, and although I've criss-crossed the country a few times, I've still never been outside the U.S. 2010 will be the year that I finally take my first Transatlantic flight - one way or another, I'm going to London.