2007 In Review

I'm a little later with this than I had planned on being, but better late than never. I mean…I was actually waiting for 2007 to be over, that way I wouldn't miss anything. Yeah…that's it.

Since this is my first complete year of blogging here, I thought it would be interesting to go back over the past year and pull out some of the most interesting and important posts that happened over the last year. I'm intending this post to be a summary of my 2007 and not really a "best of" type post. So…here we go.

Overall, 2007 was kinda blah for me. A lot of stress and frustration about my current situation, with school and work and life in general. There were definitely a lot of good moments though, but overall I'm happy to see 2007 leave and I'm looking forward to what 2008 will bring. This is just a summary of major events. I know I will have left stuff out because I don't have the time and the space to mention everything. I should mention that through all of 2007 came weekly (usually) gatherings with my friends, helping to keep me stable through the bad times and enhancing fun in the good.

January

It has Penguins!

Three days into the new year, I got sick for the first of what would be 5 seperate times before the year was over. 2007 really started though, with a bang that really kinda set the mood for what the rest of the year would bring when on January 5th, about half of my department at work ended up getting laid off or shuffled out to a different department due to low sales. I somehow managed to make it through (I was the lowest man on the totem pole). While that event wasn't exactly good, it did spur me to finally get into contact with somebody at school and figure out a plan to graduate, which at that point, I had thought would only take me until the end of the year. Capping off a craptastic January, I fell down my stairs, injuring my tailbone and making it a pain to sit down for several weeks after. But then, on the 31st, my friend Wassy surprised me with a little scheme she had been cooking up. More artwork!

February

If I had to describe February in one word, I would use "stuck" because thats what I was. It started out being stuck at home for several days because I got sick again. Then, later that week, I got my car stuck in the snow at the end of my driveway. That same day I realized that I needed to get my life more organized, but as I look back now, that only lasted a week or so and I became stuck back into my old disorganized ways. I also started feeling stuck in life, not liking where I was (or am currently actually) and getting frustrated. Then, the day after I posted that, I ended up actually stuck again…in the snow, at the end of my driveway.

Mutant Strawberry!

February wasn't all bad though, and it started to turn around a bit towards the end of the month. My friends and I were busy planning a trip to Washington DC that we'd be taking the next month and my mind slowly shifted away from my frustrations towards looking forward to that trip. February 18th was a day to remember because that was my sighting of the strawberry bigfoot. Never to be seen again. The 20th brought one of the all time classic moments of the year when Wassy, fed up with lake effect snow, proposed a plan to tarp over the entire great lakes so this wouldn't happen anymore. And in a fit of boredom, I figured out how much it would cost. That same day I decided I would try to lose some weight since I had gained a lot back from my previously sucessful weight loss attempt. Unfortunately this didn't take. Finally, February 28th I purchased my first actual camera, in anticipation of the trip next month.

Angled View of the White House

March

March 4th I managed to get my friend back for scheming me up some artwork earlier in the year by gifting her a little plush yoshi. Then…two days later, I got sick again. Number 3 for those keeping score. Not much happened between then and March 16th when the trip to Washington DC began. It was a fun trip, but not without it's little setbacks, as all trips have. It ended up raining a good portion of the time and our legs and feet were not very happy with us after a while, since we ended up having lots of pain by the end of the trip. But despite all that, I did have fun. I didn't have as much fun this year with my NCAA Basketball Tournament Bracket that my family does every March as I posted on the 24th. It was not a good year for my basketball picking skills. The end of March came with a realization that people from my family actually read what I post up here.

April

Flowy Frost

The fish obsession began April 2nd. I had been thinking about getting some kind of a pet but I couldn't get anything in my current apartment (no pets allowed) so I decided that I'd like to start keeping fish. April 8th was the beginning (near as I can tell) of my introduction to the world of anime with Chobits (mmm…Chobits.) I also settled on getting a 20 gallon tank for my fish. At this point I was still planning on a Betta, but that would change. I showed off how truly fish obsessed I was on April 9th when during class, I came up with the famous root beer fish. I made the commitment to fish keeping the next week when I bought and set everything up. After doing more research, I determined that going with my betta plan wasn't going to work because of the tank size I wanted. Unfortunately, more trouble struck on the 27th when I broke the LCD on my brand new camera during a trip to the zoo. However, the end of the month brought with it another surprise from my friend Wassy. Flowy Frost.

Bleeding Heart Tetras

May

My continuing frustration with trying to get through school reared it's ugly head on the 4th of May when I realized that I couldn't graduate in 2007 after all. At this point, I pressed on with fish ownership for mental health reasons, just something to do and to look after to take my mind off of stuff. I purchased my first fish on May 8th. Not everything was bad regarding school though, at least for other people. My friend Jason graduated from college, which I was really happy about. I met him my first year of college and I knew what he had gone through to get to graduation so I was glad when he finally got out.

May also contained a surprising discovery. Somebody else liked the music I listen to. On a trip to get some new fish, Wassy came along and I was playing Porcupine Tree in my car on the drive. Apparently she liked it. The obsession kinda exploded out from there. The next week I had her over to my place to listen to some more music and I ended up playing her Dream Theater, which she liked enough to instantly plan on going to a concert later in the year.

June

Repair Status…

June was to be known as the month where my computers rebelled. June 4th, my desktop exploded in a blaze of electrical shortage. June 6th marked the release of Dream Theaters new album, which was pretty disappointing to me, although I didn't think so until after the newness wore off. My computer woes continued in the 14th where my MacBook Pro decided it was going to stop working as well. I took it out to the Apple Store as soon as I could and it ended up being a pretty costly repair considering it was out of warranty. Then on June 30th, my sister got married and I got to meet with a couple of people I haven't seen since High School.

July

Oooooohh.

After several weeks of being out of commission, my Macbook returned to me on July 1st in working condition. It's been my only computer in the house ever since. July 5th contained the inception one of the longest running inside jokes my friends and I have. If you recall, back in April I broke the LCD on my camera. I finally got around to trying to get it fixed July 13th, but hit a snag with the warranty since I couldn't locate the original receipt. Dissapointment continued next week when one of my fish died. RIP Ol' One Eye. On the upside, I finally dumped my piece of junk Palm Treo 650 for a Blackberry Curve which I made use of when my sister and I took our yearly trip out to the Sterling Renaissance Festival.

Center For The Arts

August

August came in and one of my arch-nemesis for the rest of the year came with it. My basement little drummer boy, the worlds worst drummer and the grandchild of my landlords. His horrible drumming would become a soundtrack for several of my weekends for the rest of the year. Aside from that, August was a pretty slow month when it came to blogging about stuff. The middle of the month revealed why as I posted that the feeling of blah was back again, this time centered around work. However, all that was pushed aside August 20th, because that was the day of the long awaited Dream Theater concert. A couple days after, one of the years most interesting stories happened where one of my Zebra Danio's tried to make an escape attempt.

The Butter Sculpture

September

September began on a high note with a trip out to the State Fair with my friends which ended up being a really awesome time. The next week Wassy and I located a really awesome local music store that had a bunch of progressive rock and independent stuff in it. A lot of changes also took place in September, for both me and my friends. I decided that after 3 years of playing City of Heroes, I was quitting
. Partially due to financial reasons, and partially due to burnout.
For my friends, well…they moved into a new apartment after they both landed new jobs within practically a week of each other. I, of course, was tapped to help them move. Lugging heavy things around is part of the whole friendship deal. As a little thank you gift for helping them move, I got a bottle of wine. Penguin wine. Which I had to get a penguin wine bottle holder for, of course.

October

Waving Goodbye

October brought with it more frustrations with school. Specifically my Software Engineering course. It quickly turned around though, because of a really fun gathering with my friends dubbed the gaming sleepover which was a really nice way to unwind and destress which at that point, I really needed. October 9th was the day when I bought another cool fish for my aquarium to replace a couple of my missing zebras. The next day I realized how dumb some people in restaurants could be when out with my dad. That night I finally fixed my broken camera LCD as well, with a little do-it-yourself action. A couple days later I found, with much sadness, that the music store Wassy and I found last month had closed up shop. Drat. Musically though, that was made up for by two concerts in Albany: Porcupine Tree and the Blue Man Group

Nissan Rogue, Side View

November

November was a big month. I finally paid off my Civic and winter was coming, so I decided that it was time to purchase a new car. I ended up with my Nissan Rogue on November 5th which I love (still). However, school continued to rear it's ugly head, especially Software Engineering. No matter though, I still had the weekends with my friends to help keep me going without physically harming the professor, including a trip out to The MOST in syracuse to catch an IMAX movie which ended up being somewhat of a bust. However, it was made up for by the dinner afterwards. Thanksgiving with the family was a fun time this year, followed by a fun time with my friends during gaming sleepover 2.0. Fun and games came to an end by the end of the month though, when the crushing final weeks of the semester began and there was an awful lot of work to do.

December

My Own Companion Cube

My computer, knowing that I needed it to do homework, developed yet another issue, this time with it's AC adapter, making me take an unscheduled trip out to the Apple Store to buy an unscheduled expensive power cord. And, in another bout of perfect timing…I ended up getting sick during the weekend where I was going to finish up most of my homework. However, I manged to get it all done and actually managed to pass everything. Unfortunately, my car developed an air bag issue which should be fixed soon, by the way. I was surprised in the middle of the month again by Wassy who made me my very own companion cube to keep me company. My stairs, not content with their failed attempt to kill me earlier in the year, make another attempt. When that fails, they conspired against me with my door to lock me out of my apartment. Christmas was pretty fun this year too, hanging out with the family and playing rock band for the first time, doing the whole gift exchange and going over to my grandparents. And finally, to end the year on a high note…Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Laser Beams!

Looking Ahead

While 2007 definitely did have it's high points, there was enough low points in there (including some I didn't discuss on here) where I'm happy to see it go. 2008 looks to be the year where I finally graduate from college and hopefully I'm able to move on with my life after feeling like I've been stuck for so long. We'll see what happens.

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