Recap time

OK as always, let’s review my 2008 goals.

Get the kitchen counters replaced – nope.  This is getting ridiculous.  It has been a goal for 3 years. It WILL get done in 2009.

New pool drains, fencing, hdtv, pool cleaner – check, check, check and check and then some. We actually knocked out almost the entire wish list which I didn’t expect to do.

Personal goals, retain fitness level – yes.  I continued my 300 work out deep into 2008, at one point even completing the once impossible 1500!  Nagging injuries in the last few months however has sidelined me from the 300 as well as much of my regular work out routine. Current weight hovers between 175 -180 pounds.

Jumping out of a plane – another goal that has been sitting on the list for entirely too long.

Be happier – For most of the year (and most of my life) I did a pretty poor job of this.  In recent months I have been taking active measures to try to correct this.  Most days I feel pretty good.  I still have a few gray ones.

Ok so all in all I did a decent job of hitting goals. Let’s talk about the highlights of the year.

Home projects were once again big on the list and I did a bunch of them  in 2008 after a year or so break.  Fencing in the back yard was the biggest project of the year.  It was not as technical or precise of a job as installing the sprinkler system but it required more back breaking work.  Even though it was completed in March, I still look out upon the fence line with pride 9 months later.  The project gave birth to new freedom for Nicki.  She LOVES being able to have a couple acres to roam free on.

Most of the other projects were minor.  Replacing the landscape borders was probably next on the list as far as amount of work goes.  Expanding the garden area also was  a welcomed addition.  We actually are reaping a bountiful harvest from some of our crops.  I expect that to increase dramatically in 2009 as we further tweak our set up. 

The most surprising list item to be accomplished in 2008 was getting a HDTV.  Not just only a HDTV, a MONSTER 73 inch HDTV! It is in a word, nirvana.  I never knew what all the commotion was about HDTV. Well now I know.  I am very grateful to Ali for letting me get the unit.  An added bonus was being able to give our old 61″ Sony to mom.  After some initial hesitation, she LOVES having a big screen in her condo as well.

Getting the HDTV also necessitated getting several other things like a HDTV Tivo and HD Satellite so I could watch my Eagles games in HD.  Football in HD is spectacular.

I hoped to have the rest of the inside of the house painted in 08 but we only managed to knock out the office.  I am thinking about paying someone to paint the main living area while we handle the remaining bedrooms and bathrooms. 

The other list items were mostly purchasing a few items that were needed for the house.  One of the cheapest but most welcomed was new pool drains.  After searching for a couple years I FINALLY found drains that prevent the pool cleaner from getting stuck on them.  This, combined with my rediscovery of the benefits of using liquid chlorine instead of granulated stuff for pool upkeep has dramatically reduced the amount of pool maintenance I must perform weekly.  It’s been like night and day.

We had two major trips in 2008.  In June we traveled back up to PA for the Rumble.  When I last played the Rumble in those miserable, rainy, muddy conditions in 2006 I doubted that I would ever return.  My knees were so torched after that debacle.  Despite astronomical gas prices that resulted in us spending $700-$800 in gas alone, we took the party van up so we could bring Nicki with.  The trip was a lot of fun.  The only thing that wasn’t so fun was our play at the Rumble which was subpar at best.  Even so, I was very happy to just be able to play and having Randall make the 1200 mile trip up north to play with me was very cool and appreciated. During the trip I also got to take in my first Phillies game at the new stadium.  Hell it was my first Phillies game I had seen in person in probably 20 years.  It was a beautiful park and a great time.

Our other journey was to northeast Georgia for our anniversary.  We stayed at a timeshare that was located in the middle of the mountains. It was probably the most laid back week I have had in a long time.  We did a ton of relaxing as well as seeing the local sights.  We hiked along the Tallulah Gorge twice with Nicki. That was a ton of fun.  During the entire week we didn’t go out to eat a single time and it didn’t matter one bit.  We just enjoyed having very little to do.  It was an unconventional but surprisingly enjoyable way to spend our 10 year anniversary.

Another big moment came in October when both my sister and her family and my brother and my niece came down at the same time.  Sis and crew stayed at mom’s place, Todd and Caroline shacked up with us.  Our entire family has not been together in Florida at the same time ever.   Even though there were the expected little bumps in the road it was very special to have everyone there.  We had A LOT of fun. 

An unexpected bonus was my brother-in-laws willingness to help me swap out the front door.  He builds houses for a living so I couldn’t imagine anyone more qualified to help.  He took the bull by the horns and did almost all of the work himself.  As a result we now have a front door that matches the house, doesn’t leak and looks good, unlike the old piece of shit door it replaced. Todd jumped in and helped quite a bit on that project as well.

During the visit I was able to get to know my nieces a whole lot better.  Caroline, my brother’s daughter was extremely shy and would hardly say a word to me when she arrived.  The day she left we were out back playing wiffle ball together and later she had fun as I would throw her onto stack of pillows on the bed again and again and again.  My other niece, Emily took an unexpected attraction to me.  She wanted me to hold her constantly.  The last night we saw them she screamed bloody murder as we left because I had to put her down.  She is adorable. Their visit made me wish we could all get together on an annual basis.  Too bad logistics and expense make that rather difficult.

The Wii finally made it into our household in 2008.  I remember when it first came out I thought it was just a fad.  I was sure that since most people are lazy by nature, the idea of having to get off the couch and move around to play a video game would get old very quickly.  Boy was I wrong.  The Wii opened up a whole new genre of games.  Even though many of the games are graphically inferior compared to titles available on other systems, the playability and interactivity is hard to beat.  The recent addition of Wii Fit to my collection just further expands on that concept and can actually make working out fun.  All you need to know about Wii is this.  My mom NEVER played a video game in her life with me.  She plays on the Wii and likes it.

My other main video game entertainment is STILL WoW.  It’s very casual instead of a compulsion but I still find it a very enjoyable way to spend my allocated gaming hours.

The Phillies were the big sports story of the year.  It actually got me watching and caring about baseball for the first time in years.  They managed to break a quarter of a century drought in sports championships for Philadelphia and boy did the fans appreciate it.  Now if only the Eagles could follow suit.

Speaking of fitness, my 2008 was up and down in that regard.  Yea I have stayed in shape but it has been increasingly difficult to do so.  I have run several races this year but there still seems to be a random nature to if I will get hurt doing so.  I can get on a running kick for awhile and then out of the blue a pain will flare up out of nowhere in one of my knees that shuts me back down.  I played in three volleyball tournaments this past year, including a return to the Rumble.  Hell we even won a tournament.  However I still had a similar situation, lots of aches and pains.  My left shoulder seems to be permanently tweaked and again my knee condition is always a question mark.

However surprisingly my knees were not my biggest pain in the ass of 2008.  Instead tennis elbow (tendonitis) has taken that title.  It is something that developed slowly over time.  I kept trying to work through it, figuring it would heal on it’s own.  Instead the symptoms just got worse.  I had to stop doing 300’s and pretty much any exercise that involved pulling and/or gripping.  I think it is slowly improving but I need to really be careful.  I also recently developed odd pain in the heel of my left hand.  It feels like it is deeply bruised but there is no discoloration to indicate that.  It makes pushing exercises a challenge as well.

I basically have just been experiencing what I have been told for many years.  As you age you just start breaking down.  Handling the break downs in an intelligent manner that allows you to heal and get back on track is the challenging part.  Ignoring pain and pushing through it as I have done in the past is a recipe for disaster at 41.

Ali and I took on another big project in 2008, getting a new electronic timing system implemented for our running club.  Basically the club entrusted me with researching, buying, configuring and running a chip timing system.  It has been challenging, rewarding and frustrating at the same time.  After making the purchase, the Tennessee based distributor that we bought the French made system from stopped being a distributor.  That move meant that we had to deal directly with France for any problems.  Any attempts I have made to do so have been extremely frustrating and unproductive.  The system works pretty well most of the time but it’s not as bullet proof as I think it needs to be.  I’d like to move to a different vendor and hardware if we can in the future.

That being said, the system has made life much better for both the runners participating in our races as well as for us after the race.  Race participants can now start getting results from the race while the race is still going on.  We no longer have to deal with the antique card based system that left so much room for human error.  The chip system also makes it extremely easy to post results on the web site after the race.  Before Ali would manually have to type in each and every runners name and finishing time into an Excel spreadsheet.  Now I press a few buttons and the process is done in minutes.

I also grabbed the horns with redoing the clubs web site which had not been updated for a half decade or more.  I found a cool flash template that I modified to fit our needs.  The feedback I have gotten for the update has been all positive. 

It’s funny just how deeply involved Ali and I have become in the running club, especially since neither of us are exactly hard core runners.  Evidently the combination of Ali’s organization skills and my technical know how were two big holes that needed to be filled.  Now we both are a crucial part of the race operations.

I’ve had some other technical challenges this year like dealing with IX Web Hosting and the results of their security holes that allowed my site to get hacked repeatedly throughout the year.  I also recently replaced my home network server, router and switch hardware.

On a sad note, we had Buttons put to sleep in 2008.  She had suffered from diabetes for 8 years.  Her up and down health situation and the excrement associated with it was the cause of much stress and anger for me over the years.  Even so, when we were in the vet office and the injection was administered it was one of the saddest moments of my life.  I still sometimes find myself looking down for her after I wash my hair in the morning so that I could drip water on her like she always liked.  It bums me out.

Politics really dominated my blog for a lot of 2008.  I felt strongly about the presidential race and expressed those feelings repeatedly here.  My doing so ruffled some feathers along the way, including in my own family which I regret.  Things have been smoothed out since then.  Of course I am very happy with the way things turned out.  I am very hopeful that Obama is going to turn out to be a very special president and not just another wind bag full of empty promises.  I sincerely believe he has the attitude, personality and the tools to actually get stuff done. Let’s hope for all of our sakes he does.

Ok that is enough of an 08 recap, let’s talk about 2009 goals.

The two big carryover goals need to get addressed, replacing the counters and jumping out of a plane.  I have nearly $500 in gift cards to kick start the counter installation process.

I’d like to get the rest of the interior of the house painted.  Painting the exterior of the house with the elastic paint that helps hide hairline cracks would be awesome as well.  I wish I didn’t dislike painting as much as I do.

Of course I want to remain vigilant with my fitness routines.  I need to get the tendonitis under control.  I want to return to my bi-weekly 300 routine as well as try to keep running and volleyball in my activity lists as long as I am physically able to do so. Wii Fit should continue to be a nice supplement to my fitness goals.

Happiness is a constant goal that I will continue to work on.  I now realize that I don’t have to be a helpless victim to circumstances when it comes to happiness.  Happiness comes from what you feel inside about your life not externally. (although external things can certainly help amplify your happiness)  That mindset is easy to say, not so easy to put into production.  I’m working on it. Reading the book about the subconscious mind and trying to put some of it’s principles to work has been helpful.   If you told me I would be endorsing a book that talks about “scientific prayer” at this time last year I would have called you insane.

Boy would I love a 2009 Camaro.  I was very excited a few weeks back when Ali didn’t exactly crush my hopes of it.  It would be the kind of deal where I would keep this car until the day I died.  Sort of like Dad’s Alpha Romeo.

I need to shake things up a bit.  What that exactly means I’m not 100% sure of.  One thing I can pretty much guarantee is 2009 should be memorable.

Have a safe and enjoyable 2009 celebration.  Ours will be tame involving watching a stroked out Dick Clark once again with a small bottle of champagne.  With my dad, step mom, brother and their two dogs visiting a couple days later, we should have our excitement quota filled to the brim.  New Years Day I actually will be working in the office for a few hours.  I need to get some servers cleaned up and swapped around.