Resolve to have simple resolutions.

It is the new year and, as is the custom for many of us who make their living retailing words, an opportunity to look back on the year that was, or with less assuredness, predict what may happen in the year to come.

For the brave there is a resolution or two.

After a year of SARS, Mad Cow disease, hurricanes, blackouts, wars, spam, political realignments, and all the rest I feel under qualified to make any predictions that would be half as interesting or dramatic as the real thing. I mean, who knows what George Bush or Conrad Black is going to do next? Who knows how to calibrate politics any more when the leader of the Tory Party is elected with a promise to reject amalgamation with the Alliance party and accomplishes the amalgamation before year's end. What can you say when Ontario has to elect Liberals to stem the tide of an out of control deficit authored by right wing Tories. These are strange times.

For myself, it has been a great year. We have celebrated our 30th year in the publishing business in Northern Ontario and we intend to go on celebrating in the new year until we are exhausted.

The older I get, the more I realize it is important to keep things simple.

I'm going to.

I have only one resolution this year.

Ski better.

This of course may appear a modest goal. It is not. For those of you who know skiing, there is only one issue--FEAR.

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I was thinking about this a few weeks ago as I was doing a 360 at about 30 miles an hour at a far away mountain in Utah. What is a 360? Well, in layman terms it means you go head over heals at least once, maybe twice completing an entire compass full of degrees at a fairly high rate of speed. It can hurt when you have sticks attached to your feet and poles in your hand.

In this case I had managed to plant my poles in front of me in such a way that I catapulted over them knocking the wind out of my lungs. As I lay on the ground gasping for air, only too aware of the gathering crowd, there was a part of me wondering why a 55-year-old man felt the need to actually behave in this manner.

The introspection soon passed and I determined I just had to try harder. I did. The next day when I did the same thing again I managed to bop my lip on the way by and draw a little blood. Mercifully I was on my own at the time with no witnesses. I sat there holding a little snow to my lip wondering if the cinnamon rum (a specialty of the house) which was to come later in the day, would sting and diminish the joy of drinking rum like it was hot chocolate.

It did, but it didn't.

By mid week, my helpful companions were considering the establishment of the Atkins Invitational Cup, which would reward the member of our group with the most points given for the most frequent and artful falls.

It was days before things turned up for me and others started falling a little more, and I a little less. One particularly heart warming moment came when our leader and best skier went ass over tea kettle at a high rate of speed and cut his lip even more than mine. It was annoying however when the judges didn't feel this warranted a higher score than my original wind sucking 360. Once you get a rep there is no justice.

Notwithstanding the bias of my fellow travelers (most of course northerners), the thing I like about skiing is you can't cheat.

You can't promise to lower taxes and then raise them, or quote a price for something and then nickel and dime on repairs, or sell a toy and then charge extra for the battery, or pay yourself non compete fees when you sell assets from your public company to yourself. You can't play winter rules when everyone else is playing summer rules (see golf) or take political contributions from private companies and then sell them government land at a lower price, or claim weapons of mass destruction when they aren't there and you know bloody well they aren't there.

The Hill is the Hill. You embrace it or fight it. You love it or fear it and then you just do it.

This year my resolution is to ski better, in life and on the hill.

P.S.If you wondered about my half finished column last month on media concentration the gremlins got it. It's on the Web at www.northernontariobusiness.com if you'd like to finish it.

Michael Atkins is president of Northern Ontario Business Ltd. ([e-mail])