The New Year Brings New Opportunities

By Mark W. Danielson

Happy New Year! What’s not to like? Optimists put 2010 behind them and look forward to new opportunities. Pessimists grumble about politics and taxes. Call me an optimist; I always look forward to new beginnings, and 2011 looks promising. Two of my older books should be out on Kindle. With any luck, I’ll have a new book published. Attending the San Francisco Writer’s Conference will be a new experience. And transferring two books from my head into computer documents is my goal. Still, I won’t fret if none of these things happen because we also plan to move back to Texas. The move means new opportunities and more people to meet. All we need to do is sell our Colorado property.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my share of grumbling, and 2010 provided plenty of opportunities for that. Forget the politics, my personal computer issues led to buying a new one, and along with it came an operating system that wasn’t compatible with my existing printer. Then the new printer had its own quirks. And while I’ve preached about backing up documents, I still don’t always do it. Recently, the new Word program sent a final document to the planet Beakabah instead of my hard drive. That’s right – lost in space. Too bad I didn’t save it to my flash drive before closing it out. Once my ranting was over, I found an earlier version of the document and made the changes as best I could recall. I can’t say the final version is better than the one I lost, but it certainly wasn’t any worse. Needless to say, I saved the replacement document in several forms. Lesson learned – until the next time.

It’s still too early to worry about taxes and I can’t seem to have any impact on ending the war in the Middle East, but I do remain optimistic. Each year flies by and puts me closer to my mandatory retirement from airline flying, but retirement also means I can concentrate on my writing, painting, and other fun things. And along the way, I’ll find more inspiration for writing books and magazine articles. So, welcome January – you’ve given me a new year to celebrate, and along with it, the motivation to create. A positive attitude allows me to better enjoy the wintry months ahead. Before I know it, leaves will spread and flowers will blossom. Birds will chirp outside my window, and if I’m lucky, my new computer/printer combo will work like they’re supposed to.

Happy Musings everyone.