0 for 2011

Just when you thought it was safe to open your Google Reader, I'm back.

It seems so wrong to me to have a blog and not write anything in it.  And yet I was able to do just that (i.e. nothing) for nearly two years.

I have missed writing, though it's not clear to me that I miss it enough to set aside time to do it consistently.  That's a concern for another day.  For right now, let's talk about what's happened since I last posted...

Part One:  January 1, 2011   (I wrote the section below two New Year's Days ago.  And I hate to waste anything.)

Having a few days off work allows me the time to think about things that I think are actually important, rather than the things I convince myself are important so that some one will direct deposit my paycheck every two weeks.  I know I can't speak for everyone (though that idea is clearly an appealing one - to me anyway, if not to all of you) but it seems that human beings need to break up existence into manageable bites in order to cope, to help make sense of and give order to things.  Why else would we approach December 31st and January 1st so differently?  Surely there isn't anything intrinsically different about these two days.  It's just that we have decided that one day is the end of something, the other the beginning of something new.

We construct the year like a container in which to place experiences, to measure our progress through life, perhaps to motivate ourselves toward a goal, or just to keep things neat and tidy in our own minds.  Having done this, I can look back and compare last year to the year before it (2010 was a definite improvement over 2009 which, using the contemporary vernacular, "sucked").  I also reflect on the milestones passed during 2010, some things I had done for the first time (appearing in a play with a leading role, having my daughter move out of the house) and other noteworthy endeavors like winning our annual golf tournament for a second time (I plan to win once every 20 years), being The Boss for a couple of months while my supervisor was recovering from heart surgery, and finishing the editing of some Wing Chun Do instructional videos.

Part Two:  2011 in Review

I think we'll just go to bullet points here.  If I don't, no one will ever get to the end of this post.

• Our family celebrated my grandmother's 100th Birthday party at her home.  And three weeks later, she died.
• UnmitigatedMe and I had lots of fun vacationing with our close friends, Leslie and Larry.
• I hurt my back.
• Our Music Night Federation celebrated it's 20th Anniversary in June and our 100th collection of songs in October.  [Have I never posted about Music Night?  Oh yes I have!]
• And, most important of all, our daughter, Ms. Partly Cloudy, got married in November.  The two of us got a lot of positive feedback by doing our father/daughter dance to Ray Charles' Hallelujah I Love Her So.

Photographic evidence:

Part Three: The Present

2012 is shaping up to be another action-packed year.  I've already sold my car, created two T-shirt designs at Zazzle, saw all 9 Best Picture nominees, and will be embarking on vacation next week to see both the Gulf of Mexico (Captiva, FL) and "The Mouse" (Orlando, FL).

With any luck, I'll share some of that with you right here.  I'm gonna try to post once a week.  If I can't do that, I may as well close up this pop stand.  Hopefully, I can make it worth your while to stop by every now and again.  Leave a comment if you're still out there.

Take care.