2008, An Essay With Photos...

Well, another year is just about over. Even as I write this post on December 5, I can tell you that this has been -by far- the best year of my life. And I hope that every year continues to be better than the last.

Certainly, there have been bumps along the way: I experienced my first layoff at the end of October. But the opportunity to teach myself new things has been taken. I now know Illustrator almost better than I know Photoshop. I need to learn all the intricate techniques in Photoshop to make up for it!

The top 5 days of the year (there were many more good days than that, but I had to narrow it down!):

#5. Finishing the LA Grand Tour Triple in the wee hours of June 29.
#4. Finishing the HooDoo 500 on the morning of September 15.
#3. Helping Joan finish the Furnace Creek 508 on October 5.
#2. April 5.
#1. March 20. The day I met the most wonderful person ever to grace God's green earth!

As for movies: 2008 was sort of a mediocre year for good movies, but there were a few gems. We also saw a few old movies at the Stanford theater, but I've narrowed this list down to only the newly released movies (because really, what modern film could compete with Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Trouble With Harry, Harvey, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation or North By Northwest?). This is my five favorites that I saw this year...


#5. Son Of Rambow
#4. Happy Go Lucky
#3. Iron Man
#2. The Dark Knight
#1. Hors de Prix (Priceless)

Other noteworthy things that happened this year:

Gold Triple Crown (for completing 5 double centuries and volunteering at one). The doubles were: Devil Mountain, Central Coast, Davis, Eastern Sierra (my fastest double yet at 12:48), the LA Grand Tour (triple!) and Mount Tam (drove SAG for the last 50 miles of the course).

Concerts! Plenty of those! Joan and I saw The Waifs three times (twice in San Francisco and once in Santa Cruz), Amy Grant, and The Proclaimers (1.5 times this year for me as I was at there concert on New Years last year in Stirling, Scotland (only Auld Lange Syne was played after midnight)). The Proclaimers concert in May was by far the best concert I've ever attended. It didn't hurt that I managed to get 'I'm On My Way' dedicated to Joan during the set!

4th Alcatraz Swim. Not my fastest, but it's always fun to swim with jellyfish and all sorts of crazy people.

Skiing in the Canadian Rockies. Sunshine Village and Lake Louise both have better snow than anything I've skied in California; and those were 'bad' days!

First half-marathon. I didn't do this in a race, but in training. And I just squeaked it in before the end of the year. From Campbell Park nearly to Lexington Dam and back. And in under two hours. Not too bad! =)

And of course, every moment of ever day that I've spent with Joan has been priceless.

All in all, 2008 has to have been my best year yet. Sure, there have been obstacles. But life is about overcoming those. So they can't weight down the positive things that have happened in my life this past year.