As with most people that frequent fitness establishments, I am going to have to endure a month of no parking and crowded workout facilities thanks to the 100's of already doomed New Year's Resolutions that are being made throughout the night and into today. OK, I'm being pessimistic. I'm not an incredibly healthy person, but I do visit the local YMCA a few times a week. As the year goes by you start to see the same people there week after week and eventually you give each other a friendly nod or even start some conversations with each other. Then the new year begins. Those old faces are still there, but you have to fight for position with all of the newcomers. It only lasts about a month though. Then the old faces are back and things run as before... until summer.

This New Year celebration was officially my most pathetic thus far. My wife and I put our kids to bed and right before popping in a movie in anticipation of making it to midnight, our 1-year-old Nicholas woke up. My wife put him back in his crib and announced that she wanted to wait and make sure he was asleep before we started the movie. 2 minutes later, my wife was fast asleep; 9:00pm. Hell if I was going to stay awake by myself so I went to sleep too and only realized it was a new year this morning at around 5:30.

I decided to head to Dunkin Donuts before anyone woke up and while I was driving I started to think about all the hangovers I had on January 1st's of yesteryear. It's just another day isn't it? My wife and I had no intention of keeping our kids up until midnight and they woke up this morning having no idea what went on last night. It amazes me what we do to ourselves simply because of a calendar day. Our attitudes change. We feel like turning over a new leaf. We say we're going to "start the year off right". Why don't we do this every day instead of waiting for a special day, month or year?

This is taking over at work too. I can understand that financially, it makes sense to make milestones out of certain parts of the year, but how come we let things go all year until January and then have meetings about what we're going to do this year? I wonder if really successful people look at it with such finality. Because I've never been real successful with New Year's Resolutions I am going to vow this year not to make one. Instead I'm going to write down what I believe and see if I still believe it this time next year so here we go:

What I believe about 2004:

• I believe the Philadelphia Eagles will win the Superbowl
  
• I believe Tom Peters is mostly right
  
• I believe a Republican will be the new president
  
• I believe Blogging is important and needs to take the next step
  
• I believe the Philadelphia Flyers will win the Stanley Cup
  
• I believe more technical jobs will come back to the states after people realize that you get what you pay for when you send support work to India
  
• I believe the technical certification debacle will implode
  
• I believe the Philadelphia Phillies will make the playoffs
  
• I believe more technical people will find management jobs and more managers will find technical jobs
  
• I believe I'll finish a book and get at least one other person to read it
  
• I believe my wife will meet and beat Susan Dell in a triathlon
  
• I believe the Philadelphia 76ers will trade Allen Iverson
  

We'll see if any of this comes true, but if I had my choice... LET'S GO FLYERS!!!