2008 - The Year In Review

Biggest news of 2008: Andrew got married. She is the love of my life and the angel I was searching for. Compared to this, everything else is inconsequential. Second biggest news: We adopted Ava to be Eugen's sister. Two wieners are better than one. Third: Both of us still have our jobs. The difference between a recession and a depression is that in a recession, your neighbor loses their job. In a depression, you lost yours. While things ain't exactly rosy, they're pretty damned good.

Health and happiness to all my friends and loved ones in 2009.

And now, a little Segovia

Merry Christmas!

Yeah, I said it. Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. We love you all, and wish you a safe, happy holiday season and a wonderful 2009!

My faith in humanity is restored... for the moment

This time of year seems to bring out the worst in people. Crowded malls, long lines, scrambling to get that last-moment gift always turns people into growling monsters. After fighting my way through the mall this past weekend, I have officially reached "Ba-Humbug" status. This morning, however, a ray of hope for mankind glimmered ever-so-softly into my world. Kathy was driving through Starbucks (insert eeeeeeevil corporate hiss here) after she dropped me off at work for her morning caffeination session. After she worked her way through the car-conga line, she finally pulled up to the window and the person in front of her had paid for her coffee. She told me about this little holiday miracle when she got to work, and I got a contact high just hearing about it. It made me feel that there was indeed a chance for humanity to survive. I resolved at that moment to do the same for someone else today. It may not make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but I know that just hearing about it made me feel better. Hopefully I can pass that good feeling along. Now if I can just survive the trip to the mall that I have to make after work...

If it ain't on radar...

I don't mean to turn this into a weather bitch blog, but in Iowa in the winter there isn't much else to talk about. The last two days have been cold. Bitterly cold. Go outside for long without a coat and you will die cold. My previous entry bemoaned the panic that preceded a basically non-existent weather event that happened (or didn't, as the case may be). The last two days have been rather ho-hum from the weather heads here in Central Iowa. Pardon me, (I'm not a meteorologist, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) but wouldn't you think that if the temperature is -6 with wind chills in the -20 to -30 range, that would call for some kind of stern warnings and program interruptions from our oh-so-eager-to-warn-us-about-snow television and radio stations? I mean, some snow and ice is bad, but these kinds of temperatures will kill you. We get the mother of all panics over a storm coming our way (or not) yet nary a peep when the temperature plunges to frostbite in two minutes weather. I guess if the radar screen is blank, there's no need to alert us. I'll remember that as I slowly freeze to death.

That was it?

All through the day yesterday, the meteorologists and talking heads on the local news channels were predicting Armageddon for Central Iowa. You would have thought that the greatest natural disaster since, well, ever was poised to drop death and destruction on our fair state. Reporters were stationed all over the state to breathlessly report on how absolutely nothing was happening where they were, but boy HOWDY was it going to be bad! The weather guys and gals were looking appropriately disheveled as if to show us how they were workin' that Super Duper Whopper Doppler for all its worth to keep us informed of how much snow, sleet, and freezing rain wasn't falling. I went to bed last night confident in the knowledge that when I awoke the next day, three of the four horseman of the Apocalypse would be thundering down our street. Imagine my surprise when I woke up, looked outside, and the world had not transformed into a wasteland. My first thought was "That's it? This is all we got?" I am sure that the Ed Wilsons and Brian Karricks of the world are just as perturbed as I am but for vastly different reasons. There would be no screaming headlines of "POWER OUTAGES STATEWIDE" or "INTERSTATES CLOSED" that they could report on. There would be no human interest stories of how people were dealing with another crippling blow dealt to the fine folks of Iowa by Mother Nature. No, this morning there were no massive pileups that brought the morning commute to a stop. There were no poor unfortunates huddled in shelters because their power was out. It was pretty much just a morning in Iowa in winter. It's cold, the streets are a little slick, and that's about it. I just have one request for the weather professionals in the state: If it's going to storm, just let us know its going to storm. No need to scare the bejeezus out of us by telling us that the world is coming to an end and you heard it first from StormTeam8. Then school administrators won't be cancelling school and letting the kids go home early when there isn't a cloud in the sky. Then people won't be jamming the aisles of Hy-Vee stocking up on beef broth and aluminum foil and toilet paper because God knows when we'll be able to get to the grocery store again. Just tell us that we have a storm coming our way, because we know how to deal with it. We're Iowans. We're used to it. This is not something new to us. If the four horseman did come thundering down our streets, we'll just politely wait til they pass, and get on with our business. It's what we do.

OK, so it's been a year

So shoot me. It's been a pretty eventful year. I got engaged, married, moved twice, got a new dog, my company got sold, I changed departments thrice, said hello to new friends and goodbye to old ones... I've been busy!

New Year's Resolution: To maintain this blog so Kristin will be proud of me :D