Year in Review

I just took a ton of pictures off my camera. It's going to take a few days to sort them all, so knowing me I probably won't have the picture version of this entry up until March or April at the earliest. Last year saw a handful of postings, and I'm not sure this year is going to get any better. I'm pretty sure this is a good thing, since it means I'm actually doing things instead of wasting time in front of the computer (more or less).

January was a slow month—so slow, in fact, that I got out to Marsh Creek and took some pictures of the frozen lake. This is something of a surprise considering how few days I actually have to myself lately.

February was fairly eventful. I got in a minor car accident in a white out in Lancaster. The lady I hit actually put me up for the night. My car wasn't drivable, and if there hadn't been so much snow I'm sure that there's no way I would've made it into town. I drove straight by inverting the steering wheel. The cosmetic damage to my car was over a thousand dollars (which is why I'm driving an ugly car right now), but the mechanical repairs were under $500. She escape with only cosmetic damage, which I paid out of pocket as well. It was the most expensive hotel visit I've ever had, but it was neat that she and her husband were so accommodating. Her husband worked at a tool and die factory, I think, and he had done some work for the JPL on some of the finer points of one of their projects. That was a pretty interesting conversation.

March brought thawing and extreme busyness. We held our home tournament, our introduction to competition after nearly a year of training. It was well rewarded. I won a couple trophies, including an unexpected one in fighting. But home field advantage is not to be underestimated, and I doubt that I can claim any real fighting prowess on that basis.

Dad's birthday was also in March; we chipped in to get him a telescope. We've used it a fair amount this year, picking out some of Jupiter's moons and a binary star system when weather and temperatures have been favorable. It's an exciting thing for me—Dad really enjoys astronomy and has taken to the telescope whenever he has time. It's a rare occasion when I get a gift right (and at least this time it was my idea). And honestly, Jupiter is pretty cool looking. He used some of his Christmas gifts this year to purchase some books about astronomy.

The week following was Nerdfest redux in the Burgh. N&J hosted, and we had a pretty good time playing video games (including my record-breaking round of Duck Hunt; of course, I was prompted dispossessed of my awesome score). I was introduced to their daughter and re-introduced to a couple of the folks at R's bachelor party of so long ago. We played a lot of Magic and other games.

My return from the Burgh was followed by my long overdue baptism. D was instrumental in convincing me to do this, and I am glad I did. It is strange to integrate it with the rest of the year and realize that this was also a part of repealing my past and looking forward to the future. No special music or lights from heaven when it happened, neither a sudden lifting of burdens—but the appropriate response to God's goodness.

I also turned my car over 100,000 miles in March.

April was considerably more sedate.

In May my cousin was married—her husband was her boyfriend for about the space of four hours before they were engaged. It's a sweet story, actually; they met in college and evidently joined a mutual admiration society without the knowledge of the other. Some years after they graduated he made his move, and the rest as they say is history. The wedding was bittersweet; her grandfather passed away shortly after due to terminal illness. It was in May that I was reminded what a pretty state Arkansas is, and how nice some of the people are and can be.

The family history with a particular university there continued with my generation, and the folks and I spent some time with Mom and Dad's old teachers there. It was a neat experience, especially conversing with Dr W, whose wife suffers from MS. She functions great mentally, but she is completely paralyzed, even unable to speak. He truly loves her greatly.

This wasn't the only wedding in May, as the Ks (I'm trying to find a good name for them—maybe K-squared?) were hitched. L and I were in the wedding party; they're good friends and we're thankful for them. I took a lot of pictures after the event. It was a beautiful setting for beautiful people, and we had a terrific time with friends all day. It was tiring, but full of good memories.

R was baptized in June in the Atlantic. We turned the occasion into a beach trip with a lot of friends. Not one for the beach, I mostly stayed out of the water and took a few photos. The baptism itself was unseasonably chilly, with a lot of wind and spray off the ocean. R wasn't feeling very good at all, and I am sure the dip wasn't much fun. Afterwards we spent our time on the boardwalk before coming home.

Just a few days later I was in Seattle for a training session at one of our customers. A accompanied me. He arrived early from Finland so he could hang out in the city for a little while before and after the training. He was kind enough to serve as my transportation when we needed it. He attended Columbia when he lived state side. I bought a netbook for the training so as to make it a bit easier when traveling, and it was marginally useful. A's machine was more often hooked up to the projector than mine. We arrived near the end of a nearly 40-day stretch without rain—a record, I believe.

At the end of June was the 2009 black belt testing. It's always a fun time. This year D and I handled the 2d day in preparation for some day when we might have to run them ourselves. We woke them up at 3 AM for an hour-long bit of PT and also bought D (another D, not the one running the test) some tea. He was sick throughout the test, but he thought the rigors of it helped clear out a chest cold.

July was something of a break. The team competed in State Games. It was a decent experience and bore some fruit later in the year. This was the first time we competed away from home, and I hoped it had been more eye-opening than it was. As a group we have competed very effectively, but the fall back to earth has taken somewhat longer than expected to materialize. The difficulty is that we don't really know whether it's because we're good, or because the competition hasn't been very stiff.

I acquired a real estate agent in these months, though I don't remember the exact time. He has been a rock—unflappable, systematic, and extremely thorough. He was recently diagnosed with stage III lymphoma and will be undergoing chemo when I close on my house next month.

At the end of the month, and really the beginning of August, I traveled with the folks to MI to visit Gram and some other family. It was good to reconnect with some parts of the family and chat with them. It's a pleasant surprise to find people you haven't talked to in a long time and see that they have grown and developed into pretty cool folks. W and Gram talked some—they are both waiting, I think. He is a little slower than he used to be, and his hearing is mostly gone. Gram by contrast has lost mostly just her vision, but is still pretty sharp. We celebrated J's birthday with M Jr.

On my birthday we participated in a fundraiser for the karate school; I did some impromptu forms in public in jeans and took some press photos of the kids.

In the middle of the month we held our karate party, and I took some photos of a huge butterfly attracted to S' flowers. His house is in a more rural area and enjoys the pastoral setting by planting a lot of flowers.

One of L's friends was married at the end of the month, and we enjoyed a scenic trip down through southeastern PA and northern MD. It had poured buckets two days before, and they had to shovel mud out of the reception area prior to the wedding. By all accounts it was a minor miracle that the wedding wasn't postponed. I can't imagine much more stressful than that.

Football season started in September, and with that came an anticipated reunion with good college friend M. We had originally planned on seeing OSU and USC in Houston last year, but a little hurricane got in the way. Despite the loss, we really enjoyed our time together; it was fun introducing him to L and showing him around more of the area than he saw last time. We had some sublime subs at Parkside and hung out a bit at the Franklin Institute. He doesn't get too much vacation, so I think it was a bit restful for him.

In October, the team traveled to Disney for the tenth annual Martial Arts Festival. I wrote about this in some detail, and I don't think that repeating it will do much here. Suffice it to say that it was a lot of fun and a great experience that exceeded all of our expectations.

L and I also celebrated our one-year anniversary in October. It was pretty simple: we walked and took pictures in pouring rain. We came back pretty soaked, but with some good memories and beautiful shots. Our time is largely confined to Wednesdays and weekends, and we made the most of this one. I appreciate simpler things, and despite L's confessed appreciation of "nice things," I think we both came back from the excursion eminently satisfied—especially since Mom was waiting with some homemade soup.

In November L and I took a trip to NYC as the bookends (Friday and Sunday) to another tournament in Jersey City. I did not perform well at the tournament, though I saw some minor improvements in my fighting. The nicer thing was to visit some of the old places I had been before. Going back to St Paul's Cathedral at Columbia was fantastic; it really is a sanctuary (almost burning hot compared to the weather outside, and insulated from the horrific noise of the city). L and I spent some time on the town, enjoying some good food and a little bit of time together. We also spent some time at the Met.

Her folks came to the tournament, and some of my relatives came also; they had a chance to get to know each other during their lengthy wait for me to compete. L's parents left after the competition, but we were able to get some dinner with my relatives. Despite the nastiness of the tournament, the time with L and family was great.

We spent the night at one of her friends' apartments in the city, and I took some pictures from Mt Sinai. We attended an offshoot of Redeemer in NYC called Emmanuel. It was the first service in years that I could fully participate in. They even used real wine in communion, which they must celebrate every week. It was almost enough to overcome my hatred of cities. Almost.

By this time my house was under construction, and I spent parts of November and December looking in on it, marking electrical connections and taking some pictures of the plumbing and generally marveling at the rate at which they were making progress. Originally slated to be finished in late February, settlement will be near the beginning of that month.

The week before Christmas was a trip to the Burgh again for another Nerdfest, though a slightly different format. We all planned a few hours' activities, whether board games, video games, and in one case also a murder mystery. Despite their rabbit attempting to chew my leg, it was all in all a lot of fun.

It began snowing right when I got there (Friday) and continued for most of Saturday. But I had little trouble getting out on Sunday and driving home. In fact, driving home was a lot faster than driving there.

Christmas was great, with a few family members from all around coming in. We enjoyed the company for several days as family trickled out over time. I spent part of Christmas day with some of L's family, eating some of her uncle's fantastic food and arguing over the legitimacy of certain answers in Scattergories. They had a lot of people over and it was a lot of fun.

New Years this year was a quieter affair, involving a visit to a friend's with L and then watching Jack Benny Show reruns with the folks until it was time for the ball to drop. I hate New Years celebrations, but I enjoy getting together with family and friends. A comfortable fire and time to chat was nice.

While I suppose it's not strictly in the provenance of the previous year, this one has started off with yet another wedding and a Rose Bowl victory, both most promising starts.


It's taken me over an hour to write this, and I hope it vindicates my lack of posting. I'm pretty sure I'm only hitting the highlights—I could've written several pages about my experience at Emmanuel if I wanted, but that would make me gushier than usual.

In sum, I am continually blessed, and despite all the ways I can enumerate my satisfactions, I find yet more of them unexpectedly. And I know that I am not really fully awake yet; this process has been exhausting, but undeniably good for me.