(in days of old, this would have been a ‘note’, let’s see what a multi kilobyte status update looks like!)
Not the one about me being fiscally irresponsible, or horribly overweight. Those chapters are still going. Those will likely end abruptly, and with tears. Hopefully no time soon.
FIN
- My wife graduates college (with honors). It took her a while… but she has a couple of great reasons.
- The Space Shuttle program ends.
- Took a nice vacation to Chicago, saw U2 in concert, a band that had more to do with my life at 20 than nearly 40. Seeing them was one of the things Michelle said she’d like to do sometime back when we were dating. So that’s another line item off the list.
- The death of Everett Duncan, my step-father for 33 years. My oldest friend. It’s been 7 months, and I still catch myself forgetting he’s gone. Speaking at his funeral was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Here’s what I said, ( http://digdoug.tumblr.com/post/6073643062/everett-memorial ). Everything else on this list is filler, so it doesn’t sound like I’m just making a ‘woe is me’ list. The pros call this “burying the lede.”
JOYFUL THINGS
- St Louis wins The World Series… including the wildest game in history.
- My dog still makes me smile. When he’s not farting.
- For our anniversary my wife got me the coolest laptop/book bag evar. It wasn’t what I had in mind for the leather anniversary, but it was a really awesome gift.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic is actually fun. And I don’t regret spending money on the game.
- I got a new Kindle (the cheapest current one, $80) for my birthday. I’ve read more books in the last 3 months than I did in the first 9. Paper AND electronic. Somehow it motivated me to turn real pages as well.
- The Muppets movie was well done. It felt like a long episode of the show. It was more entertaining than Cars 2.
- I finally watched The Wire. I’m a little behind the curve on that. It ended far better than most HBO series’ do.
Kickstarter ‘projects’ that really worked. ( http://www.kickstarter.com/ )
- PadPivot
- The Cosmonaut: A Wide-Grip Stylus for Touch Screens
- Blimpus, An Inflatable Character Canvas
- Trebuchette — the snap-together, desktop trebuchet So far I’ve been ‘unsatisfied’ only once in like 30 projects I’ve done on Kickstarter. A few have been slow, but only one really didn’t work for me.
I’m glad 2011 is over. I didn’t like it. It had it’s high points, but they’re dwarfed by the lows. This chapter needs to end, needs to get out of the way. I, for one, am glad to turn the page.
