When the song of the katydids begins to slow down, late summer is upon us. No time is a bad time to reexamine long-term goals and establish the foundations for long-term bonds within our communities. The cooler breezes blowing in off of the big lake remind us, however, that there is no time like the present.
The Cores o’ Chris.
I. Family and Home:
a.) Unquestionably love and support my wife. (Easy one.)
i. Be an effective sounding board and critique partner as
she finishes off her dissertation.
ii. Play Devil’s Advocate, but avoid being an ass.
iii. Ask her to review and brutally comment on my own
research.
iv. Make her dinner at least three nights a week.
v. Dance her around our living room for no good reason.
b.) Keep a careful eye on our household finances, and manage
them appropriately so that we have everything we need, most
of what we want, and savings for the future.
i. Run the damn air conditioner less. Open the windows
for a change, let the light and fresh air in.
ii. Take the train as often as possible. Limit driving to
less than 100 miles per month.
iii. Make grocery lists instead of our spontaneous shopping
sprees.
c.) Repair and maintain our 137 year-old home in the most aesthetically
pleasing, cost-effective, and environmentally-conscious manner possible.
II. Work: It is. Survive. (For escape plan, see 3b.)
III. History/Languages:
a.) Take a minimum of one class a semester/writing one
publishable piece per semester until I finish this
Ph.D, whenever that actually is.
b.) Get our Historical Consulting Business off of the
ground.
i. Include photography in product set. (Develop skills
more.)
ii. Include podcasting/digital media in product set.
(Develop skill set more.)
c.) Volunteer at least two days a month in the archives at the
Historical Society. Network, while I’m at it.
d.) Continue acquisition of Pahlavi. Work toward fluency in
Greek, Latin and Arabic. Don’t lose ground in German
and, ostensibly, English. Stop learning languages for
awhile and put the tools to work.
IV. Avocations
a.) Budget five hours a week to develop and catalog my 78 RPM
Record Collection.
i. Continue with the acquisition of Enrico Caruso, Billie
Holiday, Paul Whiteman, and Edith Piaf examples.
ii. Commit to getting rid of the crap I have duplicates
of/never really liked to begin with.
iii.Use free tools like Google docs to publish my
collection so I can network with other collectors.
iv. Digitize the content, and make it freely available on
the internet with the digital archive project.
b.) Budget a full day per week toward sustainable urban
agriculture.
i. Work as many hours as possible at the Chicago Honey
Co-operative. Share my knowledge and learn from
others. Work to integrate podcasting/free public
education about urban agriculture into my duties.
ii. Work the balance of my time at the Garfield Park
Conservatory. Teach beekeeping and urban gardening.
Learn from my colleagues.
iii. Maintain our flower and herb garden at home, and
instead of just accepting compliments all of the time,
chat up the people in the neighborhood who show
interest. Encourage them. Give away plant starts.
I’ll break these out into separate goals with greater details. Yes, I should have done this sooner, but it took me awhile to get my feet back underneath me after leaving Michigan to come home to Chicago. Off we go!
