What A Fucking Waste Of Time

Here we are again, at the end of another year. It seems like only yesterday we were all scared shitless about Y2K… now we’re at the halfway point of the decade and the tech industry is booming once again.

Since I’m writing this just a few days before December 25, I thought I would highlight 2005 in a retooled carol of the season I wrote with a little help from Tina. Each day contains a link (or a few links) to something that happened in 2005. I tried to keep most of them to Wikipedia or Wikinews links in order to keep them from becoming dead links in the near future. Enjoy.

On the first day of Kissmyass my true love said to me:
Twelve acquit Jacko
Eleven million voters
Ten bombs al-Qaeda
Nine planets questioned
Eight country rock show
Seven tours for Armstrong
Six Harry Potters
Five months in jail
Four Hurr-i-canes
Three dollar gas
Two Popes make news
and a shuttle returns to flight.

With the world events out of the way, it’s now time to cover what happened in my world in 2005.

I’ve actually been somewhat good about making entries in this blog, so some things may be covered in entries I made during the year. But some events I didn’t write about…

Two thousand and five started out quiet enough. It was status quo for the first two months; wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, wake up… ad nauseam… The weather in January was unseasonably warm, but I didn’t care. I hate scraping frost from the windows of my car. It’s such a time-wasting pain in the ass.

However, my world fell apart in the early morning hours of March 1, 2005. I got a phone call from Arizona saying that my father had passed away. He had been in the hospital for quite some time, being treated for Myasthenia Gravis (MG) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). In fact, I flew down to Arizona in February 2004 when he was first diagnosed with MG. He was out of the hospital by April of 2004, but by mid-August 2004, he was back in and never made it out before dying on March 1, 2005. What made his death even harder to deal with was the fact I couldn’t afford to fly to Phoenix for the funeral. I was still dealing with court and restitution costs related to my departure from my previous place of employment. To this day (and probably until the day I die) I regret not finding a way to attend the funeral.

By early April, I was in the hospital again dealing with the never-ending saga of pneumonia. Every year since 2002, when the cold of autumn and winter settle in, I get a nagging cough and shortness of breath. Each time, when the symptoms get really bad, I end up going to the emergency room. They put me on oxygen, draw blood for tests, xray my chest, pump me full of antibiotics, give me a prescription for an inhaler, and send me home. While taking all the medication and building up my breathing with a spirometer helped, it didn’t “cure” me. It seems like a big money sink every time. This year is no different. The cough and shortness of breath is back. This winter, I’m going to try not visiting the ER.

In May, two friends/co-workers turned in their resignations where we all worked. They were going to greener pastures and relocating to the “suburbs” of Seattle. This opened the door for me to take over as Hostmaster at work. I’m pretty much in charge of setting up, deleting, registering, and renewing anything related to domains, DNS, and web site hosting at my place of employment. I like the job, even though there are days it’s quite stressful.

By June, we had a stray cat and a litter of kittens at the back door. Mama cat brought us three kittens. Now, with a house of birds, we can’t bring them inside, but we set up a couple of pet carriers for them to live in. When the kittens were old enough, we tried to find them homes. Two of the three kittens were homed with people I work with. It was only a matter of several months before mama cat was back with another litter of kittens. I think she’s part rabbit.

I turned 39 in July, and that’s all I have to say about… umm… what was I talking about? Can I file for Social Security? Anyway, August brought the devistating Hurricane Katrina. Like most Americans, I couldn’t do much but donate money, so I did. In early September, the CTO of the company I work for went to Louisiana to personally help out, while the company matched employee donations to the Red Cross. All told, the company and its employees donated $1,400. Oh, and September also marked the end of my probation stemming from the bullshit my previous employer put me through. It was only a year, and I was a good boy all year long.

October is an odd time to cut off my hair, but that is what I did. After 10 months of letting it grow out, I couldn’t stand it getting in my face and eyes any longer. It was drastic, too. Less than an eighth of an inch. And I’ve kept it that short, too. I kinda like that I don’t have a couple hours of drying time and there’s no need to brush it. Simply run a soapy wash cloth over the head and behind the ears, and you’re done! Tina hates it, though. She likes it long. It’s my head. I win.

As I mentioned earlier, autumn also brought back my respitory problem associated with pneumonia 3 years running. The cough, the phlegm, the shallow breathing — it’s the trifecta of feeling generally shitty.

Well, that’s about it for my 2005 year in review. Hopefully your 2005 was a bit more exciting than mine. Here’s wishing you and yours a Happy 2006. Let’s hope it’s a good one.