What can I say about 2006? I think about it and it reminds me of A
Tale of Two
Cities -
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Some of the stuff
I blogged, some I didn’t, but let’s see if we can recap some of the
major happenings.
In January, I ended my three year stint of taking allergy
shots. I still
have some minor troubles now and then, but nothing like it used to be. I
put it to the test when we went karaoke-ing at a local
pub, marking it as the
best time I’ve ever had at a karaoke bar.
In February, Stu and I invented
“units” - running up against
a video game for sometimes hours on end. Jenn and I started working
out to try and look good
for the wedding (and it didn’t totally fail, but it didn’t really
succeed, either).
In March, following a great run at Paper
Mario, I
went to the Corillian Casino
Night and had a blast.
We saw the Cirque du Soleil show,
Varekai,
and we decided a lot of stuff surrounding the wedding (like catering). I
also went to a really great Peer Mentoring
seminar and learned a
lot of stuff I use all the time.
April found Stu entirely addicted to
coffee in a week
(which we’d find out would end a few months later after he decided it
was really kicking his ass). I got further into some fun board
games,
switched to cable phone service,
and got my Xbox 360. We rounded the
month off with the 24: Season 1
marathon. April also found Stu
and Tiff getting divorced, which, while I didn’t blog it and won’t go
too far into it, was an unfortunate occurrence for them that affected
Jenn and I far more than I think either of them realized. This was
actually quite a turning point for a lot of things. I’m sorry it had to
happen, and I wish things would have worked out.
In May I spent a lot of time playing Tomb Raider:
Legend and my dad got
an Xbox 360 (though he’s
rarely on it, which sucks). It was all to be overshadowed with my
granddad passing after a bout of
cancer. I still
think about him all the time and miss him very much.
In June not a lot happened beyond some experimentation with
scripting
and contact
information
and a round of rototilling at
home. I did take a bad
drink in there, but I wouldn’t
really qualify that as “eventful” as much as just gross.
July was much more eventful. My sister, Tori, got married to a really
cool guy named Brandon
(congrats again!); Jenn and I did our usual pyrotechnics at the sewage
treatment
plant; I
turned 30 and had a great
birthday (even though my Xbox 360 died and had to be sent in for
repair); and my stinking dad got me hooked on R/C helicopters so I had
to spend a lot of
money.
In August we got our sprinkler system
installed. I got
my Xbox 360 back and discovered the lameness that is Xbox Live Digital
Rights
Management.
We got the house trim painted, but it didn’t turn out too
great and had to
be fixed. Stu’s parents
came to visit and it was
great to finally meet them in person and talk, even if they couldn’t
stay very long. I also went a little
aggro because
people just don’t understand the need for RSVPs when planning a
wedding.
September started off with a fun, unit-filled Labor Day
weekend. I
didn’t (and still don’t) get
Sandcastle and think
Microsoft should have just taken NDoc over. I got myself a
PSP (love it!) and
discovered the awesomeness that is
TypeMock.
October began with my bachelor party in
Vegas, one of the
best times I’ve ever had. I saw the Cirque show KA while I was there,
front row center, and it absolutely rocked. The month peaked when Jenn
and I got married and went to
Aruba.
November was fairly uneventful, which was fine since October was
exactly the opposite, and ended with a fairly lame
Thanksgiving (my least
favorite holiday).
December started off slow, but things definitely started happening
toward the middle of the month when we were hit with a city-wide
blackout. I also wrote
about some of the cool gadgets I
use to help
me keep the house clean. The month took a definite downturn as Jenn’s
fat kitty got sick and had to be put
down. That cast a shadow
on Christmas, making it sort
of hard to have a great time the way you really should during the
holiday.
I took the last two weeks of the year off and started back to work on
the third of January, 2007, after taking a while to recover from Jason
and Tracy’s yearly New Year’s bash (which was a load of fun where I
proved once again that I am an unstoppable force at Scene It! and
where I successfully avoided getting conned into going streaking). Stu
was there, but ditched after showing up fairly late and only hanging out
for about an hour - just as we were starting to play games. He missed
out on a great time.
2006 was a pretty stressful year. A lot happened, both good and bad,
and I’m really not sure where 2007 will lead. Friends I thought were
really tight with me have drifted (extremely suddenly and fairly
inexplicably) away. I find that unfortunate, particularly as I’m sure
they don’t actually realize it. Or maybe that’s just the way things go.
Friends that had drifted away over the course of the years have come
back and are just as much fun as ever, albeit slightly changed over
time. Things I thought would become regular traditions turned out to be
more important to me than to other folks, and things I never thought
would happen came to pass.
Regardless, the past is past and what’s happened has happened. On to
2007, whatever it holds in store.
This
year the holidays have had an unfortunate shadow cast on them as, on
December 21, we had to put down Jenn’s nine-year-old cat, Semper. She
was losing a battle with fatty liver disease and pancreatitis, and there
was nothing we could do to save her. It came on very suddenly,
especially considering just two weeks before that we had taken her in
for a routine check-up and her blood work came back fine. She was a bit
overweight (20 pounds!) so we were in the process of transitioning her
to a prescription diet food when this happened.