What are your New Year’s resolutions? Or do you even make them?
Losing weight and eating better, getting more fit and being a better person were among my resolutions made heading into 2007.
After working hard to lose 30 pounds by last April, I managed to keep 10 off. That means I’ve entered this year 10 pounds lighter.  I guess that’s progress.
A combination of working longer hours starting in late spring and early summer — along with the ensuing heat — served as excuses for not getting more fit. So no real progress on the fitness front last year.
And as for being a better person? I don’t know. That’s hard to measure, especially since I didn’t map out any guideposts to gauge progress. It’s also hard to measure because, really, being a better person is pretty much a judgment call. So I’ll abstain from deciding how I did with that third resolution.
How did you do with your resolutions for 2007?
If they included losing weight, I hope you’re lighter today than a year ago.
If they included becoming more fit, I hope you can walk farther and faster today than a year ago.
If they included spending more time with your family, I hope you can say you did.
If they included being more involved in the community, I hope you have been.
If they included being a better son or daughter, mom or dad, brother or sister, I hope that you — and your families — are the richer for it.
Those are among my New Year’s resolutions going into 2008.
Yes, I again want to lose weight and become more fit.
Yes, I again want to be a better person, by being a better a friend and renewing an old friendship with a high school buddy. I want to be a better person by being a better little brother, uncle, dad and husband.
And I want to spend more time with my family and become more involved with our community.
Best wishes for a wonderful 2008, and good luck with your resolutions, whatever they are this year.

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I visited today with my niece’s husband, Chris Blackburn.

He was in Seymour, and will be again Thursday, with the Indiana Blood Center folks taking donations at Seymour High School’s annual blood drive.

 Does Chris being married to my niece make him my nephew? I don’t know. But he calls me Uncle Danny, which I like, so he certainly seems like my nephew. We always called our uncles Uncle Carl, Uncle Clyde, Uncle Bill and so on. Aunts, too, except they were’nt named Carl, Clyde or Bill.

It was odd seeing Chris on the job. Since the first time I met him at my brother’s house in Greenwood when he and Katie started dating in high school (or was it college?), my greatest image of him is of his hulking frame stretched out on the floor of some abandoned room or of his limbs dangling outside the comfy confines of a recliner. This guy’s big, and he likes to nap. Especially after eating. And before eating.

 But at Seymour High School today, he was on it. He was actaully standing. He was mixing it up with young people stopping to give blood. They, not Chris, got to recline. Some even got to stretch out on gym mats. He was joking with those giving blood, asking how their day was going and thanking them for showing up and donating such a precious resource.

He didn’t seem anything like the big bruiser that was trying to muscle in on the affections of my little Katie all those years ago. But while their relationship developed into a marriage, Katie’s affections for her favorite uncle — hey, I have to be, don’t I? — haven’t dwindled. Chris has grown on me, too, and that’s pretty nice.

Although our visit was brief — I didn’t want to get in the way of his work – I’m glad I stopped by. It was interesting seeing him in a setting other than the occasional family get-together.

If you’re interested in helping the Seymour High School blood drive, Chris and his co-workers with Indiana Blood Center will be outside the gym again today, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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We Hoosiers are getting fatter. Or so a report from the Trust for America’s Health said last week.

According to stories from The Associated Press earlier this week and a story that Zach Spicer of The Tribune’s staff will publish on Saturday, 26.8 percent of Indiana adults were obese in 2006, up from 25.5 percent in 2005.

That wasn’t the only bad news for Hoosiers last week. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that more Hoosiers — about 37,500 — sank below the federal poverty level in 2006, for a total of about 777,700.  As a percent, that’s 12.7 percent of all Hoosiers v ersus 12.2 percent in 1995, according to The AP.

And that wasn’t all the bad news, either. The Indiana Department of Education and a story from January Wetzel of The Tribune’s staff reported that overall Indiana’s SAT scores were down. There was some good local news in those scores, though, with Seymour High School and Medora High School students reporting overall gains. And Seymour’s average score remains above the state average.

Is there a correlation?

I’d think you could argue that the lesss educated you are, the less income you colud generally expect to earn. And perhaps the less education and income you have, you coulc generally expect to make less wise nutrition decisions or be able to afford better nutrition decisions.

I’m not an expert on education, poverty or obesity (although I’ve known poverty and am quite familiar with obesity), it seems there probably is a strong link between the three.

All three numbers  that were released last week — a less-healthy, less-wealthy and less-wise populace — should be a reminder (I’d hope most of realize we have these problems) for our community that we must address those issues.

Could we come together for a let’s-get-fit drive in the community? I think that’d be great. Maybe Schneck Medical Center and private health and fitneses firms could be involved. We could mirror it on the state fitness program aimed at improving the health of Hoosiers.

Could we continue — and more productively — promote the importance of a good education? We are, and Ivy Tech Community College and Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus classes being offered in Jackson County are an example of that commitment. The newspaper is partnering with Ivy Tech, IUPUC, area schools and a committee of the Greater Seymour Chamber of Commerce to better tell the story of education in our community.

It seems like improving those areas of our lives — our health and our education — could result in helping to lift our neighbors out of poverty.

You have any ideas? Want to launch a campaign? Let me know.