originally posted december 18, 2004

Please Try Again

2004 Year In Review

"I opened up a yogurt, and under the lid it said 'Please Try Again,' because they were having a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong. Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me: 'Come on, Mitchell, don't give up. Please try again. A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait: Fruit on the Bottom, Hope on Top.'"
— Mitch Hedberg

Lately, "a lot can happen in a year" has become my mantra. This year, a lot happened; I'm already looking forward to what 2005 will bring.

What I Learned

Last year was the year that I officially entered the real world: a new apartment, full-time job, and the new responsibilities of homemaking. This year all that stuff became secondary.

I met up with a few old friends and made some new ones. I learned that self-delusion is a bad, bad thing. I learned that you can't trust what Apple zealots say, or really what any zealots have to say.

I learned that middle America is bigger and more powerful than anyone imagined. The news is now a battlefield; I'm a tool for reading boring wire service articles and not paraphrasing the boring wire service articles for mass consumption or purporting to be a pundit because I know how to type. Those who get their news from satirical TV shows believed themselves to be smarter than those who watch other news commentators, but they still weren't crafty enough to find anyone more presidential than John Kerry to elect.

I learned that you can make money by telling people that fast food is bad for you, that liberals don't like George W. Bush, and that Jesus Christ got lashed a lot.

I learned that spending 23 months at one's first job is the exception more often than it is the rule now.

I learned that Seattle, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area have changed a lot since I last visited them more than a decade ago. All three are interesting places in their own twisted way.

Lastly I learned that people are difficult, but it's much more important to interface with them than to interface with protocols and programs and ports.

Resolutions: How'd I Do?

Last December, I made a list of goals for 2004. How'd I do?

Lose the Weight

Last year I discovered software engineering as a full-time job. I also discovered a place (which has since gone out of business) that offered $2 Guinness specials and discounts on greasy bar food. To make a long story short, I went from 155 pounds at the end of 2002 to 185 pounds at the end of 2003.

The initial track for 2004 was a bad sign: I peaked at 192 early in the year and thought I was destined to crack 200. Throughout the year I made an extra effort to eat healthier, eat less fast food, and start exercising more. The net result is that I gained no weight in 2004 but I didn't lose any; my December weight this year is right back where I started from.

Make the Apartment Better

This one was easy: improve my apartment by getting more art, plants, and decor. This basically amounts to "amass more interesting stuff" or "amass more, interesting stuff." I bought a couple of IKEA prints, but found far more interesting work at the various arts festivals in Pittsburgh throughout the year. I have a few nice photographic prints from Jman Photo now, and I have a newfound appreciation for people who, in their old age, have collected objets d'art from all the places where they've traveled.

Cut Back on Caffeine

So last year, I drank "one cup" of coffee first thing in the morning, but the cup was one of those travel mugs that's the size of an artillery shell. This year I started using this revolutionary technology called "ordinary-sized cups," and it helped to reduce the amount of coffee that I drink to start every day.

Normalize My Schedule

For the most part, I've established a pattern of getting in no later than 10:00 and trying to get to bed at a reasonable time. Part of that is by fiat -- that is, my boss requested that everyone be present at 10:00 -- and part of it comes from a social commitment. If I get in at 11:00 and have to stay at work until 7:00, dinner plans suddenly become that much harder. There's a cycle that builds up: I can't get up early if I don't go to sleep early, so the whole thing just spirals. Thankfully I have managed to avoid that effect this year.

Meet the Neighbors

Some people who rent an apartment rent from a "landlord." Others answer to an "agency" or a "board." I rent from a company whose name ends in "productions," complete with a lowercase p. I haven't bumped into my neighbors very much while I'm at home, but I did go to the first holiday party thrown by my building's production company. I got to meet many of the cultural haves that live downtown and elsewhere in the new-fangled loft apartments and condos that my landlord produces. I had no idea that it was such a new yuppie thing to live in an old factory; I just signed up because I liked the idea of living so close to where I work.

Resolutions for 2005

So a lot can happen in a year. A lot of things happened in 2004; who knows what I'll do next year?

A Place Of My Own

In 2005 I will move out of my loft, which I like very much, and into some other place. It could be a condo, a townhouse, or even a full-sized house. I'm not sure what would be best or what I can afford yet. All I know is that next year, I will move to a place close to my friends instead of just close to my job. I figure that if I have to commute to work, that's just one alternative to commuting to friends. The former is fine as long as the ride is short. The latter is something that I would rather not do.

All this will start early next year as I figure out just what my price range is.

Leave the Country

When I joined my company in 2003, we had a formula for accruing Paid Time Off (PTO) that basically allocated me three weeks per year to start. This year, we moved to an open PTO system: take as much time as you want, as long as your boss is okay with it. That worked out just fine, and I ended up taking about three weeks of PTO anyway. Next year, my boss brought up the idea of having mandatory time off: every employee would have to take at least a week of vacation to decompress and avoid burnout.

Meanwhile, I still babble on about my last international trip, when I spent six weeks in Japan in 2002. I certainly have the means to travel abroad for a week or so, but never got around to it in 2003 or 2004. The closest I've come to a personal, non-family vacation has been a long weekend here or there with friends in other American cities.

I would love to pick up and leave the country to go somewhere else for a while, to once again readjust my perspective on the world. Whether "a while" is a couple of weeks or a longer leave of absence, I consider this vital in 2005. Now all I need is a good traveling companion.

Find a Traveling Companion

See above.

See You Next Year

It's been a crazy, emotional, reminiscent, nostalgic, and above all crazy year. Through all of it, I feel good to be capturing my thoughts for all the world to see, for better or for worse. There's a lot of factors that reshaped my life in 2004 that you won't read about on the web.

Stay tuned for more of me once a month, every month, until I get completely tired of it.

Back to December 2004, or to the year 2004.