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CNN talked about cable prices going up. Up. You read that right, up. As in “We’re losing subscribers because people have so many other ways to get access to content, we need to find ways to react to what consumers want… lets raise those prices.” Crazy.

The music industry was forced to adopt new pricing, but it’s worked for them (forced upon them first by Steve Jobs, then by all the other digital distributors). And now, people buy only the songs they want. It puts the onus on the musician to release an album his or her fans will want to buy every song on.

The problem is very similar with TV. How many channels of your cable package do you actually want? I can count 18 if I really stretch. Now, knock out the ones that can be totally replaced by the internet, and we’re down to approx. 12.

What HAS to happen is the cable providers have to figure out how to let me buy what I want without the other stuff. If they won’t, then the online streaming options will… if Netflix gets a little better, combined with Hulu, TV.com, and a few others, it’ll just make no sense at all to pay the cable company for a bunch of things I don’t want.

But no, burying their heads in the sand and raising prices… that’s a good call too.

Watching my little boy learn how to react to winter weather has been an interesting process. It turns out that some of the silly things we do are pretty instinctive (or he’s watching me so closely that he’s mirroring what I’m doing… probably the more likely option).

Things like rubbing my arms or shivering to indicate cold, he’s figured out… “Cold.”

He’s also figured out “fun.” I remember how tired my dad used to seem when he took us out sledding. I always thought that was because he was old. It wasn’t. He seemed so tired because we made him do all the work. But it’s so much fun… so worth it.

I think my favorite event so far has been Luke observing Rebecca making a snow angel. He watched what she did with no appreciation for the final result. Instead, his appreciation was kept for the act… he proceeded to throw himself on his back in the snow over and over again, laughing hysterically all the way.

Which probably proves the point about nature versus nurture. We’ve just got some more nurturing to do so he understands the angel part of the snow angel. Either way, it’s an awful lot of fun watching someone who hasn’t experienced snow before learn.

There will be 52 total Mondays in the year 2010. This is the first of those 52. 52 chances to start a work week the way we intend to… or not. 52 opportunities to hit the ground running, to accomplish things, to be effective. 52 opportunities to be unprepared, too. What do you want to accomplish with your 52?

I’m writing this the morning of January 1, 2010 — I usually write ahead of time around here, but I thought for this one, I’d just do it the morning of.

Happy new year! It’s 2010. Wow. In the year 2000, I guess I would’ve been 16. As I recall, we spent the end of 1999 at the school my parents were missionaries at. Worried. “What’s going to happen with Y2k?” was the thought on everyone’s mind. I won’t recall for you that, at that young age, I had figured out that pretty much nothing was going to happen. I think this was because, at the time, I was a mac user, and Macs didn’t have the Y2k bug. My data was incomplete, but my conclusion was correct.

I digress: it’s now ten years later. This is really the first decade that I can remember all of in detail. College… Marriage… Jobs… Immigrating… a first child. It’s been a busy ten years. It’s been a great ten years.

In our household, there’s a little bit of a practice we’ve been doing since our first new years as a married couple. On New Years eve, we try to write a little bit about the year that has passed — big events, little events, happy events, sad events. It’s just a little “where we are as a family” that helps us to remember what the Lord has been doing with us. It’s fun to look back over those things, to get a reminder of happy things and a challenge from themes that arise again and again.

This year, we had a little extra help concocting it: Michael Hyatt published a blog post that included 7 questions to help review the year that has gone by. I’ll reprint the basic list, but he has more detail to help over at his blog.

If the last year were a movie of your life, what would the genre be?

What were the two or three major themes that kept recurring?

What did you accomplish this past year that you are the most proud of?

What do you feel you should have been acknowledged for but weren’t?

What disappointments or regrets did you experience this past year?

What was missing from last year as you look back?

What were the major life-lessons you learned this past year?

Helpful questions, and questions that will be fun to come back to. May your new year be blessed, may your love for the Father grow deeper, and may he be gracious to you.