Nicholas Zakas' Personal Blog A deviation from my usual tech writing

Good riddance 2008, welcome 2009!

I don't know how everyone else feels about 2008, but in my opinion, it really sucked and I really couldn't wait for it to be over and done with. Obviously, the United States fell on some ridiculously woeful times, with the collapse of the housing market followed by a monumental dissolution of the financial system as we knew it. The effect hit me at work, where Yahoo! had two rounds of layoffs during the calendar year, and also personally as I tried to deal with my condo in Massachusetts. Needless to say, 2008 was a stinker of a year and now it's time to look forward.

I've never really been someone to set new year's resolutions, but I do have some plans for 2009. This will be the first year in the past five that I'm not going to be working on a whole book. Instead of spending weekends indoors, furiously pounding away on the keyboard to meet my next deadline, I'm going to go do some fun things. I've yet to explore my new area in Mountain View, so I'm very much looking forward to doing that. I may even take a few classes here and there.

I also want to recreate this web site. I posted about the redesign contest a little while ago (still time to enter, by the way!), but I also wants to reorganize the site and make it more of a place that represents me. I've also decided that I will post a new technical article every Tuesday throughout the year. My posts have always been kind of randomly timed, but this year I'm going to make a concerted effort to have a predictable schedule that people can count on. Of course, there will still be the randomness that you've come to know me for, but with a string of sanity on Tuesdays.

One big project I have for myself is to try to create more avenues of passive income. Book royalties are a great start, but I want to explore other avenues as well. I have a few ideas rumbling around in my head that I need to think through a bit more. I'm a huge believer in passive income as an important step in being financially independent, so I want to devote some serious time in this area.

I'm sure I'll come up with other goals throughout the year, but I figured I'd post these now in the hopes that I wouldn't forget about them later. Happy new year, everyone!