20 resolutions for 2015
This column doesn’t dovetail with what I usually do professionally, but starting in three days, I resolve to . . .
1. Take care of business on the business beat. The transition from sports hasn’t been seamless, but it’s been fun, challenging, invigorating and educational, and has occurred in the energy heartbeat of America.
2. Get to know Washington and Greene counties even better. So much is happening in this corner of the state, much of it really good. Vibrant businesses, great people and a lot of fabulous places to visit or eat.
3. Get back to Bert’s Hot Dog Shop. The dogs are among the best in Washington County, and the venue is indiscribably different. If you weigh 230 or up, you won’t fit inside.
4. Keep the weight off, as difficult as that may be. I’m feeling great, but chocolate and a footlong with mustard and relish are divine.
5. Watch the national championship game, but no other bowls. (There was a time when all bowls were meaningful – and when a few major-college players actually attended class.)
6. Watch the road, even though glimpsing development along Route 19 and at Southpointe can be overwhelming. (Southpointe someday may wrest the “City of Lights” moniker from Paris.)
7. Make friends with winter. On second thought, no.
8. Find out why gasoline is $2.62 a gallon on Murtland Avenue and 15 to 18 cents more in Meadow Lands, four miles up the interstate. Aw, forget it. As gratifying as lower prices may be, there is no explanation for the wild fluctuations in a region.
9. Continue to watch “Downton Abbey” without admitting it to he-man friends.
10. Embrace what I learned in CCD too many decades ago and forgive those who trespass against me – especially on Route 19.
11. Root even more shamelessly for the Pirates. Twenty years of ineptitude still sting.
12. Forgive Russell Martin, and thank him for two marvelous seasons. What a warrior. Best catcher in team history, as brief as his stay may have been.
13. Root shamelessly for the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIX, and for Pitt basketball and the Penguins to finally experience a spring thaw.
14. Continue to overflow with pride over my youngest, who wasn’t supposed to be a top student with nearly perfect attendance and a distance runner. A lot of early childhood development people were wrong.
15. Continue to overflow with pride over my older two, who are everything I’d hoped they would be.
16. Continue to overflow with pride over my wife, my compass and the best person I’ve known. The wisest, too.
17. See every episode of “Chopped” in 2015 – and not get grossed out by anything in the basket.
18. Patiently await the Feb. 27 return of “House of Cards.”
19. Adhere to my annual goal of staying healthy and being the best spouse, parent and employee I can be.
20. Limit notes columns like this.
Business writer Rick Shrum can be reached at rshrum@observer-reporter.com