2005 :: The Leap Second in Review

It's hard enough trying to grade an essay question, but how does one grade a Gregorian Calendar Year? Do you compare it to the the prior year? To your performance against your own resolutions?

For me, 2005 was probably one of the best years of my life, despite all of the shitty things that happened. My boss and mentor was walked out the first week of 2005 and replaced with a useless tool that betrayed me. I spent three years building my Ottoman Empire -- assembling my political capital, hand picking and shaping my dream team, and proving to myself that a 24 year old could take a piece of balsa wood in a billion dollar company and turn it into the model for how a company should run their back office -- and in October I said goodbye to all of that to take a pay a cut and move back into a cubicle for the first time since 1999.

But for all of the negative events in 2005 there were an equalizing number of positive ones. I bought my first house, I attended my infamous leadership training that produced a poetic postcard ("The weather is hot, but I'm learning a lot. The food in the South tastes good in my mouth.") but also changed my outlook on so many things personal and professional, I attended the wedding of two wonderful people that I introduced, I finally saw the Physics Mobile in person, after a year of "thinking about it" I finally made the jump and went to DJ school, I made new friends and spent time with old ones, and I made the important (and selfish) choice to put myself first in all things personal.

While I won't share my New Years Resolutions, know that I generally keep them.

Looking back at all of those, I can honestly say that 2005 was the year that I was truest to my resolutions. I'm not generally a fan of "I will quit smoking on January 1st", but I think we all need to have reality checks throughout the year to keep us on track. I usually start my "Resolutions" in October to see if I've kept with them in January, and while I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore I use Lent not to give something up, but to try and improve on myself for that time.

I wish I had something thoughtful, funny, sarcastic, or pithy to write that will tie it all together. 2006 could be the year I become the biggest DJ on the planet or get Cancer and die, I could get the call to be the product manager for Oracle Financials or start smoking again. I really don't know, I don't think anyone does. If they do, I'd appreciate them emailing me those winning lotto numbers that Santa forgot to put in my stocking.