Last year, I:

• lost 15 pounds by tracking my consumption and exercising, and I kept it off all year, until I gained three back in December;
• joined Toastmasters and have delivered one speech every month, except December;
• climbed a mountain;
• gave a wedding toast;
• built several WordPress websites;
• and generally had an eventful year.

This year, I am going to set only one goal: to be happy. I’m going to keep discovering what I love to do, and maybe I’ll write more about it. Being a big fan of WordPress, I’m tempted to resolve to follow the advice of other bloggers to get back into it with “postaday” and “postaweek,” but I’m not sure I can commit.

Instead, I’ll try to live my best life, and I hope that means sharing it.

The objectives are:

• Choose words and grammar which communicate clearly.
• Choose words and grammar which appeal to the senses.
• Eliminate jargon.

Below is the prepared speech:

Sometimes I want to quit.
Sometimes I want to give up.
Sometimes I put myself in situations where I KNOW I will fail.
Have you ever done that?

I had one of those days earlier this summer. I had been backpacking for three days with 30 pounds on my back. My favorite thing about backpacking is the [INHALE] fresh air of the mountains. But this trail is so busy it smells more like an outhouse than wilderness, I literally had to carry a bag of my own human waste. I can hardly sleep, I don’t want to eat, and the air is so thin and dry, I wake up with a nose bleed in the morning.

Why would I do this to myself?

Four weeks earlier, my partner and I decidedto hike half dome. I’m terribly afraid of heights, and it is an infamously exhausting 17-mile march uphill that most people do in one day.  I came up with a plan to get fit in time for this hike. I was to use the stairmaster at my gym three days a week for an hour. So the first day, I do 30 minutes. Next week, I manage 10. The final week before the trip, I walk down to the gym and instead of walking inside, I decide to have a cheeseburger.

Why would I do this to myself?

After this rigorous preparation, we discover we can get permits for Mount Whitney instead. Half Dome is 8,800 feet elevation. The parking lot of Whitney is 8,800 feet. Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the continental U.S. — 14, 497 feet. halfway up to where an airplane flies. So we wake up early and drive from sea level, arriving at the trailhead just in time to pick up the bear canister that will hold our food for the next several days and the wag bags that will hold our … you know. The ranger warns us that bears have been very active in the area around dusk — ripping off a backpack from a man earlier that week. It’s already 6 p.m. before we head into the wilderness.

Why would I do this to myself?

The first couple of days we try to acclimate. We hike only a few miles in, rest, try to eat, try to get used to the elevation. By the third day, we arrive at the last camp before the summit. At 12,000 feet, I’ve never seen the sky so close. We’re past the trees, past the lakes, and all you see is white rock. All you taste are the power bars and powdered gatorade that passes your lips every few hours. Not because you’re hungry but because a 60-year-old man you passed on the trail tells you altitude sickness will get you if you don’t eat every time you stop. We try to sleep, but the wind howls across the granite moonscape rocking the tent.

Why would I do this to myself?

After the sun rises, it’s time to begin the ascent. When you hike up mountains, you go in a zigzag because it’s so steep. After 99 switchbacks, we arrive at “Cloud’s Rest,” which has a beautiful view. But I was done. I wanted to quit, but then I looked down at how far I’ve come, and I look up and see the top of the world, and I decide to keep going.

I don’t look up or down anymore, I just take it one step at a time.

There comes a point where it is easier to keep going than to stop. In physics they call it inertia and momentum.

Other people call it the 80/20 rule — everything is 80% mental and only 20% physical.

I call it life.

I do it because challenge is what makes life worth living. Growth only happens when we get out of our comfort zones. When we challenge ourselves. When we do things we never thought possible.

I did something I never believed I could do. I climbed my mountain — and I know you can climb yours.

Just take it one step at a time.

Two years ago a group of brothers left Acojtapachtlan, a village of about a dozen cement houses in the hills of southern Mexico. They came to San Joaquin County without education, without money, certainly without permission. Really, they brought little more than their ambition and their audacity. One of them carried along his dream to save money, buy instruments and lead a band.

The brothers Fermin were like millions of other Mexicans who have crossed the border already and like thousands who, even today, will attempt it. But the ties of home and family are strong. On Oct. 17, the village of Acojtapachtlan was to honor its patron San Lucas with a festival. Two years of work in San Joaquin County had earned the brothers enough money for televisions, clothing, tools, accordions, guitars, speakers — and a truck to haul it back. One of them would stay behind. Three were headed home. Record reporter Jennifer Torres and photographer Victor Blue followed. This series is running in The Record’s Perspectives section and online every Sunday in December.

Kirk designed the landing page: http://recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=A_SPECIAL92 He made an interactive map tracing their journey and brought all of the elements together nicely.

I was moved by the video, done by the reporter and photographer with help from our multimedia reporter, who also designed the Flash presentation: http://online.recordnet.com/projects/fermin

I haven’t laughed this hard from a YouTube clip in a while. And I laugh at a lot of YouTube clips, so that definitely says something.

I think while we may not go to the extreme of dating our Macbooks with someone’s profile a constant fixture, Facebook and other social-networking sites allow us to find out sometimes an unreasonable amount of information about people we may just meet in passing.

Shouldn’t people tell you their hobbies, where they work, where they went to school, who they take photos with and all the rest rather than reading what amount to a biography on their social-networking profiles? I can’t judge cyberstalkers, as I am definitely guilty, but I am curious how all of this impacts relationships with new people and people who only communicate via fingertips.

The News Feed feature on Facebook is more invasive than MySpace, where you actually have to click on someone’s profile to learn their details. I recently had a friend change his status from “single” to “in a relationship,” and sent out a bulletin to announce the change, which reminded me of Facebook’s controversial News Feed. For a moment, I thought I might need to explain the News Feed, but with Facebook being so ubiquitous, I don’t think it’s necessary, I’ll just send you to Facebook’s 2006 blog post from when the feature began.

Another friend was joking with his wife and changed his status to “it’s complicated,” while she threw a sheep at him using the now popular SuperPoke application. I brought up the change the next time I talked to him, and he assured me they were not fighting, they were simply bored and wanted to play on Facebook.

When did all of this become normal?

Aside from new words, the true glory of this discovery comes from the many dictionary definitions linked to each word. I’m sure I’m the last person on the Internet to find Ninjawords.com, so if there is already a fan club, I’d like to join. Just in case I’m not last and you’ve never experienced the power of the ninja, I recommend bookmarking this as the only dictionary you need while surfing or studying. So ninjas are smart, accurate and really fast, and this ad-free site boasts its dictionary follows suit. What I like best is that it stacks your searches, and you can search for multiple words just by typing them in the URL separated by commas (no spaces).

Example: http://www.ninjawords.com/ninja,dictionary,rocks

Click it. You know you want to. Then tag it. Bookmark it. Love it.

Ahh.. Nerd nation.