Despite [or maybe beause of] my dismal blogging track record this year, I figured it was worth trying to put together a recap of 2009. At this point, I suspect it's primarily for myself, because anybody who might have been reading this blog likely gave up on it a while ago.
So, in rough chronological order:
I got into mountain biking in a big way this year, starting out on a bike first borrowed and then bought from my friend J. My first trail ride was a night ride at St.Edwards State Park and I was hooked -- riding around at night in a forest, with a headlamp, over slippery mud, roots and rocks, was a total blast. I ended up joining a group of folks that ride every Thursday night, rain or shine, pretty much throughout the year, and actually even did a few cross-country races in the Indie Series, as part of the Project 529 cross-country race team. It was after the first of two laps in my first race, when my lungs were ready to burst, that I realized "Hold on a second, this is an endurance sport, and I don't do endurance sports" ... In any case, my goal as far as the races went was "just don't finish last", and I'm glad to say that I achieved it, even though there was one race that almost killed me -- I was ready to quit 3/4 of the way through the first lap, and had to have a serious "Dude, don't be a wimp" internal conversation in order to make myself do the second lap.
I also got a chance to do some downhill mountain biking at the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, and that is much more my speed -- very little pedaling, and just going as fast as you dare to go. Check out the video below to get a taste of what my favorite trail, "Crank It Up", is like:
I think it's safe to say I'll be doing a lot more of this in the future ...
On the subject of two wheels, I also sold my motorcycle -- I just wasn't riding it enough, and, besides, I needed money to pay for the mountain bike [which is also bright yellow ...]
Xander turned 3 in August, and shortly thereafter started "official" preschool, at Giddens. We considered sending him to a Waldorf school, but we thought Xander's "energetic" nature might be a bit at odds with the calm, peaceful classrooms we saw when we visited the nearby Waldorf school. In other words, we thought that loosening Xander upon them might be a bit like letting Vikings loose on an unsuspecting hippie commune -- visions of burning buildings, sacked ruins and weeping women came to mind. Giddens also has the advantage that it's literally right across the street [useful for punctuality-challenged parents], and a couple of Xander's playmates from the neighborhood also go there. So far, we've been pretty happy with it. We've even had our first "parent-teacher conference", complete with an evaluation of Xander, which resulted in some head-shaking on our part -- the evaluation form claimed that they wanted to work on his climbing, hopping and jumping abilities, which is patent nonsense. Anybody who has seen this child on a playground can attest that his gross motor skills are about equivalent to those of a 3-year old monkey ie pretty damn good.
In general, Xander has turned into a very funny, if often very obstinate, little man. He's been announcing his career aspirations a lot recently, and they mostly revolve around driving various types of trucks, but my favorite so far was his announcement a couple of weeks ago to the effect that "When I get big, I'm going to drink beer and drive a garbage truck". Reach for the stars, baby !
In between Xander's birthday and starting school, we went to Ghana for 2 weeks. It was the first time I'd been back since April 2004, so the trip was long overdue. We were initially worried about how much of an nightmare the flights would be, but a combination of a portable DVD player, flight times coinciding with Xander's sleep schedule, and Xander being unusually cooperative made the flights relative non-events. The time in Ghana was fun as well -- I got to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in over 12 years, Xander and my mum had a great time together, Christina and I got to spend two days by ourselves lounging on the beach, and we had a big family get-together/reunion where I met a bunch of cousins etc that I hadn't met before. All in all, a good trip.
The Mallet Menagerie also morphed -- just before our trip to Ghana, we unfortunately had to put down Christina's old cat Mooshi because he developed an extremely aggressive cancer. When we came back, Christina was in full-on "cat replacement" mode and found a likely candidate in the form of a Siamese cat that had been living across the street from us, in a carpentry school, and that needed a home because the carpentry school was being torn down. After some hemming and hawing, I gave in, and was promptly confirmed in my stance that pets are, in general, more trouble than they are worth. After 24 hours in our house, the new cat simply ... disappeared. Christina looked everywhere and literally ripped the house apart, prying up floorboards, breaking down drywall etc, all to no avail -- the cat remained resolutely gone.
Ever resourceful, Christina then engaged the services of a pet detective [no, not Ace Ventura ...], who supplied her with infrared cameras and motion sensors that were strategically deployed in areas that the cat might possibly be hiding in, like the basement. Still, no dice. After 17 days of Christina losing her mind, she [I thought] finally accepted that the cat had just somehow slipped out of the house and disappeared, so she went and got another rescue cat. And, of course, the day after the new cat arrived, we found the other one by following its miaowing -- it had somehow managed to get underneath the floorboards on the second floor, and stayed there, without food or water, for 18 days. But it apparently had finally had enough, and started miaowing, so we had to hack some more holes in drywall to get the friggin' thing out. So, now we have 4 cats, and it's fair to say they're still trying to establish an equilibrium -- the screams of catfights are currently a pretty regular occurrence, usually around 3 am, but so far nobody seems to have drawn any blood, so we're letting them work it out.
On the professional front, Christina had a fairly busy year, despite the down economy -- apparently the demand for great photography is fairly inelastic. Besides boudoir photography, she also did a few weddings, a Bar Mitzvah, some pictures for Giddens, and managed to score a full page in the upcoming Valentine's Day edition of Seattle Magazine.
On my end, nothing much changed at work, besides having to deal with the standard once-a-year reorg and team shuffle -- my team grew a bit, but nothing really changed in the areas we were working on.
So, all in all, a pretty good year.
Here's hoping 2010 is at least as good, if not better.
