The is my year in review, blog style. I always say this blog is an adjunct for my memory, and it most certainlyt is. This morning when I woke up (I finally went to bed a 3:30am) I took stock of the past year. It's amazing all of the things that have happened in just this one year. I am hopeful for 2006. I can hardly believe I am even using that date; it feels like something out of a science fiction movie.
As most of you know by now, the world is coming to an end in 2012. The Mayan calendar simply stops at that point, and we are all supposed to be transformed into beings of light energy, or something like that. It can hardly be coincidence that I might well be Worshipful Master of my lodge on the same date. You do the math; there can be no doubt on this point.
So, as I tick down the days to the great psycho-spiritual transformation of the human race, I ponder the past year with a certain amount of hope and a look towards the future.
Using the blog as a reference, here are the prominent events in my life this past year:
January 2005: I picked up a Xenon projector and a new print of 'Dumbo'. I tried to purchase a massive 12x12 movie screen but it was unusable and I returned it. I won an Ipod-mini at a poker tournement at a New Years eve party. I made a committment to become more involved in my community in the year. I made a resolution to drive my piece of shit Ford Focus to work so as not to wear out my BMW. I was still sworn off of alcohol.
February 2005: My wife and I decided to purchase a piece of property in the Lake of the Ozarks with the fantastical ideal of perhaps retiring there some day. Our friends Diane and Lenny Brown movied away. This spurred me into thinking about how I might make some new friends in the area; which led me to petition the Wentzville Masonic Lodge. I was initiated an enterered apprentice and passed to the degree of fellowcraft this month. I purchased a 1,000 watt portable gasoline generator so I could do outdoor movie showings anywhere over the summer.
March 2005: I was raised a Master Mason. I received my first piece of Masonic schwag; a pimped out gold ring. I attended the Computer Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco. I spent a lot of time with my friend John Oberschelp's family. We had a fun day letting the boys play chess with some people on a street corner. I caused book author Ian Lawton to have an existential crisis. Our company showed off our technology for the first time, including some demos I worked on. I participated in a high school mentoring program. At John Miles suggestion I read 'Focoult's Pendulum'. I purchased a massage chair because I was having terrible back pain.
April 2005: I went on vacation to Chicago and Michigan with my family over Easter break. We saw lots of museums in Chicago and went snow skiing in Michigan on a 60 degree day. The weather was generally nice thanks to global warming; I went boating and fishing and began driving my convertible again. I found out my neighber Dave McNeil was a Freemason when he showed up at a meeting. I was quite surprised having known him for years. I acquired a bunch of 16mm prints that my friend Steven Sigel resold for me and we split the profits. This included the feature 'King Kong' which I kept for myself.
May 2005: May was a month of back-yard parties. I took Alex to Springfield for the State Math finals. I went to San Francisco for E3 and got to go to a baseball game at PacBell stadium. I crunched at work on a demo for E3. My son Alex joined DeMolay and we attended State Conclave. On Memorial day we threw a giant BBQ and many young people showed up and had a great time. I had long since given up on my diet and was now drinking beer again. My weight began to balloon as it always does in the summer time. I purchased an LPP copy of 'Back to the Future'. I bought a scanner and uploaded my entire portfolio online. My son John graduated from High School.
June 2005: I threw many summer parties, including the Ageia BBQ for Simon. My nephew Charlie joined my Freemason lodge. I tracked the Prophet Yahweh's predictions of a great UFO encounter that, of course, never happened. One of my coworkers infected me with a terrible virus he brought back from the Orient and it laid me waste for over a week.
July 2005: I got hit for a series of expensive car repair bills. My boat broke down as well. This prompted my wife and I to purchase a new truck. We gave our old minivan to my Mom and Dad and sold my son Doug our Ford Focus. I decided to simply run my BMW into the ground commuting. I attended many World Team Tennis matches. Alex got to see Andy Roddick finally. I started getting interested in theological topics again, and began posting lots of bullshit on this blog. I received two college interns from Zurich and spent a lot of time entertaining them.
August 2005: I took a short trip to Seattle. I flew to Florida and got my son John signed up for college. I began to really resent my commute to work. I was unable to work from home because of the college interns. I was installed as junior steward in my lodge. Finally, the month of August ended on a terribly tragic note when my dear friend Steven Solomon was killed in a car accident. We had spent the entire summer throwing backyard parties and BBQs. At the beginning of the summer, around Memorial day, Steven just showed up one day with a car full of beautiful young girls. He asked if he could use our swimming pool, hot-tub, massage chair, and BBQ grill. That is pretty much the way the whole summer went, until this unexpected and tragic ending.
September 2005: After Steven's funeral I just didn't feel like posting for a while. When I finally started again it was about my fascination with the New Masonic Temple. I held a movie night fundraiser for Troy DeMolay. Apparently not much happened in September that I felt like talking about.
October 2005: I continued to post rambling crap about religion and stuff. I was able to take a short trip to Zurich and a one day excursion to the Alps and Lucern. I uploaded my entire photo-album of the past two years. And, finally, I joined the Shrine.
November 2005: I travelled to Paris for two weeks.
December 2005: I attended the Shrine Christmas ball. I took Charlie to the Sword of Bunker Hill. I became a dual member of Naphtali lodge. I attended the DeMolay state installation of officers. I went to a Halloween costume party. My daugher threw a number of parties at our home. I picked up a copy of 'Kung Fu' on 16mm. I took vacation over Christmas break and wrote a whole bunch of crap on various websites and produced a DeMolay event calendar. Alex got an Xbox-360 for Christmas and we gave Doug the Ford Focus as a present. My wife Terry got an embroidery machine.
I entertained some visitors from Sweden; went to a show at the Fox and took my family to the symphony. Mostly I really obsessed about all this Freemason stuff. I gave a lecture at Troy Lodge. I think a combination of my visit to lodges in Paris and the extensive amount of reading I did while I was travelling really got me all riled up about these topics. I probably should give it a rest.
Now that it is 2006 our company will making a big push to meet their goals and agenda. I am hopeful I will get to travel some more. This is dependent on my doing well on my current projects. I will be leaving for Paris for a little over a week on Tuesday. When I return I have many, many, activities with the youth groups in our area. I strongly suspect that will consume a lot of my time and energy this next year.
My son John decided to take a semester break from college but will be going back full-time again next fall. I will probably travel to Florida again to visit him and help him get registered.
In just this past year I travelled to:
I realize this post might be excruciatingly boring. Especially since it is just a recap of the crap I have already posted here for the past year. However, as I review these blog posts it sparks my memory. It amazes me how much I have done, how many places I have travelled, and how passionate I became about various topics. I can only hope 2006 is as exciting as 2005 has been.
As most of you know by now, the world is coming to an end in 2012. The Mayan calendar simply stops at that point, and we are all supposed to be transformed into beings of light energy, or something like that. It can hardly be coincidence that I might well be Worshipful Master of my lodge on the same date. You do the math; there can be no doubt on this point.
So, as I tick down the days to the great psycho-spiritual transformation of the human race, I ponder the past year with a certain amount of hope and a look towards the future.
Using the blog as a reference, here are the prominent events in my life this past year:
January 2005: I picked up a Xenon projector and a new print of 'Dumbo'. I tried to purchase a massive 12x12 movie screen but it was unusable and I returned it. I won an Ipod-mini at a poker tournement at a New Years eve party. I made a committment to become more involved in my community in the year. I made a resolution to drive my piece of shit Ford Focus to work so as not to wear out my BMW. I was still sworn off of alcohol.
February 2005: My wife and I decided to purchase a piece of property in the Lake of the Ozarks with the fantastical ideal of perhaps retiring there some day. Our friends Diane and Lenny Brown movied away. This spurred me into thinking about how I might make some new friends in the area; which led me to petition the Wentzville Masonic Lodge. I was initiated an enterered apprentice and passed to the degree of fellowcraft this month. I purchased a 1,000 watt portable gasoline generator so I could do outdoor movie showings anywhere over the summer.
March 2005: I was raised a Master Mason. I received my first piece of Masonic schwag; a pimped out gold ring. I attended the Computer Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco. I spent a lot of time with my friend John Oberschelp's family. We had a fun day letting the boys play chess with some people on a street corner. I caused book author Ian Lawton to have an existential crisis. Our company showed off our technology for the first time, including some demos I worked on. I participated in a high school mentoring program. At John Miles suggestion I read 'Focoult's Pendulum'. I purchased a massage chair because I was having terrible back pain.
April 2005: I went on vacation to Chicago and Michigan with my family over Easter break. We saw lots of museums in Chicago and went snow skiing in Michigan on a 60 degree day. The weather was generally nice thanks to global warming; I went boating and fishing and began driving my convertible again. I found out my neighber Dave McNeil was a Freemason when he showed up at a meeting. I was quite surprised having known him for years. I acquired a bunch of 16mm prints that my friend Steven Sigel resold for me and we split the profits. This included the feature 'King Kong' which I kept for myself.
May 2005: May was a month of back-yard parties. I took Alex to Springfield for the State Math finals. I went to San Francisco for E3 and got to go to a baseball game at PacBell stadium. I crunched at work on a demo for E3. My son Alex joined DeMolay and we attended State Conclave. On Memorial day we threw a giant BBQ and many young people showed up and had a great time. I had long since given up on my diet and was now drinking beer again. My weight began to balloon as it always does in the summer time. I purchased an LPP copy of 'Back to the Future'. I bought a scanner and uploaded my entire portfolio online. My son John graduated from High School.
June 2005: I threw many summer parties, including the Ageia BBQ for Simon. My nephew Charlie joined my Freemason lodge. I tracked the Prophet Yahweh's predictions of a great UFO encounter that, of course, never happened. One of my coworkers infected me with a terrible virus he brought back from the Orient and it laid me waste for over a week.
July 2005: I got hit for a series of expensive car repair bills. My boat broke down as well. This prompted my wife and I to purchase a new truck. We gave our old minivan to my Mom and Dad and sold my son Doug our Ford Focus. I decided to simply run my BMW into the ground commuting. I attended many World Team Tennis matches. Alex got to see Andy Roddick finally. I started getting interested in theological topics again, and began posting lots of bullshit on this blog. I received two college interns from Zurich and spent a lot of time entertaining them.
August 2005: I took a short trip to Seattle. I flew to Florida and got my son John signed up for college. I began to really resent my commute to work. I was unable to work from home because of the college interns. I was installed as junior steward in my lodge. Finally, the month of August ended on a terribly tragic note when my dear friend Steven Solomon was killed in a car accident. We had spent the entire summer throwing backyard parties and BBQs. At the beginning of the summer, around Memorial day, Steven just showed up one day with a car full of beautiful young girls. He asked if he could use our swimming pool, hot-tub, massage chair, and BBQ grill. That is pretty much the way the whole summer went, until this unexpected and tragic ending.
September 2005: After Steven's funeral I just didn't feel like posting for a while. When I finally started again it was about my fascination with the New Masonic Temple. I held a movie night fundraiser for Troy DeMolay. Apparently not much happened in September that I felt like talking about.
October 2005: I continued to post rambling crap about religion and stuff. I was able to take a short trip to Zurich and a one day excursion to the Alps and Lucern. I uploaded my entire photo-album of the past two years. And, finally, I joined the Shrine.
November 2005: I travelled to Paris for two weeks.
December 2005: I attended the Shrine Christmas ball. I took Charlie to the Sword of Bunker Hill. I became a dual member of Naphtali lodge. I attended the DeMolay state installation of officers. I went to a Halloween costume party. My daugher threw a number of parties at our home. I picked up a copy of 'Kung Fu' on 16mm. I took vacation over Christmas break and wrote a whole bunch of crap on various websites and produced a DeMolay event calendar. Alex got an Xbox-360 for Christmas and we gave Doug the Ford Focus as a present. My wife Terry got an embroidery machine.
I entertained some visitors from Sweden; went to a show at the Fox and took my family to the symphony. Mostly I really obsessed about all this Freemason stuff. I gave a lecture at Troy Lodge. I think a combination of my visit to lodges in Paris and the extensive amount of reading I did while I was travelling really got me all riled up about these topics. I probably should give it a rest.
Now that it is 2006 our company will making a big push to meet their goals and agenda. I am hopeful I will get to travel some more. This is dependent on my doing well on my current projects. I will be leaving for Paris for a little over a week on Tuesday. When I return I have many, many, activities with the youth groups in our area. I strongly suspect that will consume a lot of my time and energy this next year.
My son John decided to take a semester break from college but will be going back full-time again next fall. I will probably travel to Florida again to visit him and help him get registered.
In just this past year I travelled to:
Chicago, Illinois
Lake City, Michigan
San Francisco, California twice
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Seattle, Washington
Zurich and Lucern, Switzerland
Paris, France
I realize this post might be excruciatingly boring. Especially since it is just a recap of the crap I have already posted here for the past year. However, as I review these blog posts it sparks my memory. It amazes me how much I have done, how many places I have travelled, and how passionate I became about various topics. I can only hope 2006 is as exciting as 2005 has been.
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