The big thing this year was my internet provider, web host provider, and personal website were crushed when John Ogden shuttered SpiritOne. I started with SpiritOne back in the 90’s on dial up when I was on a Mac and a few other local ISPs told me they didn’t support Macintosh connections. I had stopped using my SpiritOne email address years ago, but the internet access and web hosting were nice. I have a backup copy of my old WordPress site but I haven’t had much luck restoring it. My new page and new blog are hosted on BlueHost and my phone provider has a decent enough DSL for our purposes.
Without the blog, recounting my year could be a little more difficult. I’ll have to scan Facebook, Twitter, and the pile of Moleskine notebooks by my computer (and bed, and chair, and under the bed, and under the chair….).
One thing I recently remembered was taking an online happiness course: The Science of Well Being which started in May or June.
I usually do these things month by month, but that can be kind of boring and I don’t have a list of publications to squee over, so maybe just some bullet points on the highlights.
2018 was the first year I worked a real job with real pay and real benefits, which has led me to not fearing homelessness or starvation or premature death. I was a contractor for a couple of years which was pretty good, then I was brought on full time in November for about 60% more pay. Last Christmas was good.
I took my first Goodreads challenge with 50 books. I’m sitting at 62 and haven’t recorded all the books I read. I’ll save that for a different post.
- Flew to Las Vegas for work. Got fatshamed in both flights.
- Did Broadway Night, our annual church music program fundraiser. I sang a tepid version of Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat, marking the second year in a row I had to pull a song out of a hat to fill the program.
- At work I had to learn Power Query and Power BI to do a lot of magic. Mischief Managed.
- Flew to Reno for the memorial service of Father Paul Towner, who was my rector from 14 months old to 18 when I did my petulant “I’m too good for God” shtick. Saw old friends. Beth Hastings and I looked at the list of people confirmed in 1984, remembering all the names and the pointing to one name and saying “who was that?” in almost perfect unison. Fatshamed by too-small seat belts.
- Bought Stephanie a car for her 50th birthday: A Kia Niro. Damn good car. We feel better knowing we’re helping the environment and really enjoying it when we get out of the car and see “AVG TRIP MILEAGE: 67”. We used to cry out “Fuck you Rex Tillerson” but we’ve calmed down now.
- Went to a Deadlift Seminar in Bellevue from the Starting Strength program. Also went to Seattle Art Museum MoPop history of Marvel. We followed this up by buying rubber matting for the garage and bumper plates for the bar so I could deadlift on something better that bare concrete. Things went swimmingly until early October when I damn-near hurt myself failing a 345 lb squat.
- We walked Southwest Walking Trail number 4, which we should have done last year, or the year before. There are parks and stairwells in the crevices all over this city.
- I replaced my dying Pebble with a FitBit. Someday I will have the smart pocket watch of by dreams.
- The June Ashland trip triggered some sort of Sword and Sandal Serialized Saga but for the life of my I can’t remember what it was.
- I made a prediction in September that the blue wave of November 18, should it happen, could be followed by “Trump is a Democrat Sleeper Agent.” I was wrong. The accusation never came up that I found.
- The October Oregon Shakespeare Festival trip coincided with a big move in the office. I came back not sure where I was, who I was, or if I had a job.
- I failed NaNoWriMo, and I’ve already autopsied that bastard.
- I did create a Twitter Bot called “NaNoWhineMo” that spat out excuses all month. Got some attention from the self-pub crowd.
- I instituted a new holiday in honor of Douglas Adams: Hoopy and Frood day. I called out several people on social media and in my life who were good to me in small ways.
Reality continued to suck with more school shootings and public shootings that made the news than I care to contemplate.
Some things I posted or saw on social media that I want to remind myself of:
When you find yourself contemplating exclusions to the Golden Rule you are on the wrong path.
I didn’t post it but I shared it and it’s worth keeping around:
“What happened to civility? You labeled it ‘political correctness’ and decided it was a bad thing” — Posted by Gabriel Gentile on June 26
And I said this:
I always thought true geeking-out fandom involved “I LOVE THIS THING AND I WANT TO SHARE IT WITH YOU” and not “I LOVE THIS THING AND YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR IT!”
#Comicsgatehttps://twitter.com/JoshuaREnglish/status/1034204544039710721
And this:
Whenever I try to kill time it fights back by piling up on my to-do list.
I will cover movies and books in other posts.