Whereas I usually wait until April to make my New Year’s Resolutions, I’m only spit-balling here when I cough up seven fresh promises I know I’ll never keep…

I vow to slow my roll the very next time I’m running late for a press conference. After all, nothing of value is ever said over a podium, anyway and if it is, those camera-hungry jackals will happily repeat it when I arrive.

I resolve to stop answering “unicorn porn” whenever strangers ask me why I’m waiting outside a courthouse with a camera on my shoulder. Too many people are whipping out their smart phones and blocking my shot.

I pledge to learn my station’s latest live truck innovation NOW, instead of waiting until I’m perched on some frozen overpass with producers counting backwards in one ear and a photog buddy questioning my manhood in the other.

I promise not to collapse into three day crying jags, launch into an off the cuff rock opera or even kick-start a one man bar fight the next time some innocent passerby happens to mention how exciting my job must be.

I vow to cut back on the profanity. Hey, just because I frequent drive-by shootings, butterfly farms and the occasional evidence locker doesn’t mean I have to sound like some Seventies Has-been in a Tarantino flick. Dammit.

I resolve to stop driving around on fumes. I got a company car! So why do I look down once a week from the middle of nowhere only to discover I’ve been on ‘Zero to Empty’ for 16 miles. Eventually, I’m gonna have a coronary. Or worse yet, run out of gas.

I pledge to work on my Lenslinger’s Zen, to go about my day knowing no matter how many ribbon-cuttings I gotta slice, no matter how many vapors I gotta chase, no matter how many hostile rent-a-cops I gotta dodge, this silly gig still beats a real job.  

Wish me luck on that last one.