2005 in Review

Started thinking last night about the big changes in and around my life over this last year. So here’s my personal retrospective Top Nine (because I couldn’t think of Ten), in no particular order.

1. DVR – In January, we got a Comcast DVR, the cheap version of TiVo offered by our cable company. I cannot now think of TV life without it. It records what I want, reliably, and lets me watch shows I’d ordinarily never have gotten around to seeing. Plus Margie now gets her fill (so to speak) of Iron Chef. And we can select what shows Katherine watches, too. It is, frankly, as transforming a technology as the VCR was.
2. CoH – It was probably only a matter of time before I got swept up into the MMORPG craze, no matter how much I worried about getting addicted, and Doyce’s leaping into it first — and Margie’s willingness to leap into it with me — wildly transformed our entertainment options starting February or so. Our TV viewing went way down. Our time actually doing stuff together actually increased. My weekend yardwork time and our average amount of sleep went way down. And we met a whole bunch of additional acquaintances along the way.

   Fun stuff. No regrets. It’s been a huge time sink, yes, but also a good one, and I don’t feel like I’ve let anything significant lapse or slide or not get done sooner or later that I would have gotten done before the game came into my life. The fact that Margie and I spend about 90% of our game time duoing has helped that be possible.

3. K2K – Katherine started Kindergarten this year, which changed our schedules as well — suddenly, everything was oriented around bus arrival/departure time, M-F. It also opened up a new world of activity, opportunities, and challenges for her, thus for us.

4. HHOA – In the spring, I got functionally promoted to a new title and a new group, overseeing development and support of “HR and Home Office Applications” — meaning everything from Quality to Safety to HR to Payroll/Timekeeping applications. It’s meant a lot more travel to Pasadena, a lot more staff to manage, international transfers, a crash course in HR and Payroll and Health & Safety, and some massive projects … with concomitant stress.

   (Not to mention numerous phone calls whilst ostensibly off on vacation.)

5. Rector Hunt! – The hunt for a new rector for our parish — the hunting committee for which I was a member — concluded in May with the arrival of Fr. Craig from Portland. So far, so good. It took a lot of time and effort out of my life, but I felt very good having been a part of making it happen.

6. Weighing In – I didn’t hit my weight loss goal for the year, but I still managed to drop 15 additional pounds and make it to about 200 or so — and a size 34 waist. Which doesn’t suck, even if I continue to keep fighting the good fight (with occasional retrenchment and trenchermanship during the holiday season).

   People looking me and saying, still, “Wow, you’ve lost weight!” doesn’t hurt with the incentive to keep the weight off, either.

7. CPG – We put on a production of the Cotton Patch Gospel down at the church in September, with me as Matthew/the Narrator. Who had more lines than Jesus (both figuratively and literally), along with songs to sing. Tremendous fun, all told, but a hella lotta work.

8. Story time – Aside from all the time I put into CoH RP, the key creative output was the Land’s End Story Cycle in November. A great deal of fun, and a good gang of great writers. In some ways, the most worthwhile use of my creative energies all year.

9. MLK – Kudos to Margie for dealing with difficult times in her department by taking care of herself and going out and finding another position within her company. It was a tough several months, but in December she formally made the change, and she’s already smiling a lot more. Didn’t blog much about it (at all) since some of her co-workers have been known to swing by here at DDtB, but it’s worth noting as something that impacted me (and us) this year.

So that was my year — how was yours?