New Year
I might be forgetting something, because my memory can be surprisingly lax at times. But other than starting the process of buying a house, acquiring a couple of nice bicycles, losing a bunch of weight, and going on that crazy ride in August, 2008 has been a pretty un-eventful year on a personal scale.
Susan and I are doing very well, better all the time actually. So although there isn't much new there, that's not really a bad thing. It's just good. Nothing wrong with that.
But boy howdy has it been interesting for some of my friends and for the world at large. Obama. Financial crisis. The passing of quite a few influential and awesome celebrity types (on a personally related level Judah Folkman and Sheldon Brown.)
I didn't get to do as many fun things as I would have liked in 2008, this year (especially the summer) was full of a lot of helping out and familial obligations involving carpentry and property management. Which while productive and sometimes fun doesn't make for memorable adventures. But if that's all I have to gripe about, I'm doing damn good.
2008 was a much happier year for me all in all than 2007 which I wasted too much of on Warcrack. It feels very, very good to be as active as I've been this year and I hope to continue the trend and maybe even add some activity. More and greater variety of biking (mountain and touring vs commuting), hiking, camping, rock climbing, trail building, continued CrossFit crazy, and maybe I'll actually pick up a sword for real this year and go to more than one SCA event. I've been encouraged recently to try out some motorcycling... I am tempted despite some of my reservations (mainly due to my father's drug induced bike handling/repairing shortcomings which caused him to break a leg and have a few other accidents which he was lucky to have walked away from.) But I am not my father, and I shouldn't let his shortcomings stop me from trying something new and exciting.
I've always thought of myself as an outdoorsy type but I lost touch with it once I graduated. When I was in school I had the obligation to go spend some time outside because that was where I was doing a lot of my shooting for school. Being outdoors was a priority. I have an unfortunate tendency to do things because I feel obligated, or because it's important to something beyond just the experience I'm having at the time. Sometimes the experience itself is enough. Sometimes building memories is more important than doing something more tangibly productive.
I'm hoping that our new house makes it a little easier to get out and do all those things that I want to do. I'm hoping that I'm not so busy making my home what I want it to be that I don't get out to do the things that I love (or that I want to try.) I think my goal for 2009 is to have a bit more fun, and worry a bit less. All in all I've had an upward trend for 2008 and I hope it continues in that direction.
2008 was a bad year for a lot of those dear to me. I can only hope that 2009 treats them all better.
Susan and I are doing very well, better all the time actually. So although there isn't much new there, that's not really a bad thing. It's just good. Nothing wrong with that.
But boy howdy has it been interesting for some of my friends and for the world at large. Obama. Financial crisis. The passing of quite a few influential and awesome celebrity types (on a personally related level Judah Folkman and Sheldon Brown.)
I didn't get to do as many fun things as I would have liked in 2008, this year (especially the summer) was full of a lot of helping out and familial obligations involving carpentry and property management. Which while productive and sometimes fun doesn't make for memorable adventures. But if that's all I have to gripe about, I'm doing damn good.
2008 was a much happier year for me all in all than 2007 which I wasted too much of on Warcrack. It feels very, very good to be as active as I've been this year and I hope to continue the trend and maybe even add some activity. More and greater variety of biking (mountain and touring vs commuting), hiking, camping, rock climbing, trail building, continued CrossFit crazy, and maybe I'll actually pick up a sword for real this year and go to more than one SCA event. I've been encouraged recently to try out some motorcycling... I am tempted despite some of my reservations (mainly due to my father's drug induced bike handling/repairing shortcomings which caused him to break a leg and have a few other accidents which he was lucky to have walked away from.) But I am not my father, and I shouldn't let his shortcomings stop me from trying something new and exciting.
I've always thought of myself as an outdoorsy type but I lost touch with it once I graduated. When I was in school I had the obligation to go spend some time outside because that was where I was doing a lot of my shooting for school. Being outdoors was a priority. I have an unfortunate tendency to do things because I feel obligated, or because it's important to something beyond just the experience I'm having at the time. Sometimes the experience itself is enough. Sometimes building memories is more important than doing something more tangibly productive.
I'm hoping that our new house makes it a little easier to get out and do all those things that I want to do. I'm hoping that I'm not so busy making my home what I want it to be that I don't get out to do the things that I love (or that I want to try.) I think my goal for 2009 is to have a bit more fun, and worry a bit less. All in all I've had an upward trend for 2008 and I hope it continues in that direction.
2008 was a bad year for a lot of those dear to me. I can only hope that 2009 treats them all better.