The general catch up/look forward/first post of the year post

Well… 2009 is gone already, huh? I feel obligated to blog something here more than an Ariella photo to start off the year, so here’s my stream of consciousness…

My 2009 was largely focused on two things – my new daughter and the Central Terminal. While the former was entirely positive, the latter was a mixed bag. It still stings that Mike Miller is gone. I miss chatting with him about cars, getting together for the occasional dinner and bottle of wine, and of course to discuss the Terminal and the future of Buffalo. In Mike’s footsteps, I was elected to the Board and am trying hard to improve the operations of the organization. It’s something that takes as much time as you can afford to sink into it, but it feels like good work is being accomplished.

More on Ariella – she’s so incredible! I’ve had the last two weeks off, and being able to spend that much time with her and Amanda has been a ton of fun. Ariella really seems to learn something new every day and I swear she’s grown up a bunch in the last two weeks. I’m sure 2010 will be no less amazing.

The end of 2009 also marked the completion of my 10th year at Praxair. Incredulously, that means I’ve been out of college for 10 years now! More credulously, it means I get 4 weeks of vacation now. That’s awesome. While being off, a bit of restructuring was going on in our department which should make for an interesting start to the year.

2009 was the year that I finally admitted to myself that our Select Comfort Sleep Number bed sucks ass, but not without making Select Comfort own up to the fact that their shit sucks first. Social media for the win there.

2009 was also our first year as primarily a single income family. Having just closed the books today, we managed to hold pretty closely to our budget. Had it not been for some unexpected drainage work that needed to be done after we decided to replace all the upstairs windows, it would have been a net positive year. We’ll need to work harder next year to build the savings up a bit.

I was able to improve my photography skills a bit last year as well, having the opportunity to take lots of baby pictures, as well as attend a David Tejada photo workshop and get the occasional feedback from my new friends over at Nickel City Studios.

Here’s to another year of new experiences and growth.