Looking Ahead... 2009

My retrospective on 2008 naturally led me to pondering what goals I hope to achieve in the coming year.

Professional goals:

• Setting up my own continuous integration box specifically for my PEAR development is an open item I've had for myself for a good long time. One thing that's complicated this dream of mine is that since I want it specifically for my PhpDocumentor development work, I want to have testbeds for many different PHP versions available, potentially even additional operating systems. New variables appear in this idea each time I dig into thinking about it. Keith Casey's Advent post was the kick in the shins that I needed to remind myself that I don't have to "do nothing until I have enough time to do it all", which has been the key mental deterrent for me.
  
• Earn the Zend Certification for PHP5. I've already attended Paul Reinheimer's ZCE course online from php|architect, and I have the ZCE prep book (by Davey Shafik and Ben Ramsey). I just need to test my current skills against some practice tests, brush up on any areas I don't do well in, and take the plunge.
  
• I have many bug reports to tackle for PhpDocumentor. I'd like to get these squared away, getting PhpDocumentor into a maintenance mode, before moving on to...
  
• Build a new PHP 5.3 level PhpDocumentor for PEAR2. I fear this task is beyond me, but I still intend to attempt it.
  
• Attend php|appalachia and php|works again this year, if they are repeated.
  
• Submit an article to php|architect. I've not actually approached anyone there about this idea, but since I had entertained the idea of submitting a talk for php|tek but didn't manage to do so, I'm thinking an article submission might be the next best thing.
  

Personal goals:

• Drop 20 lbs in preparation for tennis season.
• Participate in a USTA tournament somewhere in southeast.
• Transfer my inherited horde of VHS home movies to DVD. The earliest footage I have dates back to around my senior year in high school, so there's a fair amount of family history there, with footage of several family members who have passed away since then.
  
• Finally finish Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. I still haven't read the final book in the series, as I wanted time to reread the previous six in succession as a refresher leading right into book seven. As soon as I finish my current repeat pass through the Harry Potter series, I'll be starting the Dark Tower set from its beginning.
  

Extra points:

• Go to php|tek ;-)