Lemon tree wrapup

[flexagon]

Once upon a time in a city rather like Boston, there lived a lemon seed. "Damn," said the lemon seed, "they never seem to write Choose Your Own Adventure books anymore. Whatever happened to those?" The lemon seed thought about this and was a little sad. Then it decided to choose its own adventure anyway and went to the library, where it reserved a copy of The Bastard on the Couch for perusal in January. Going home again, it was crossing a grassy median when a most peculiar sensation came over it. It didn't want to go on anymore. It sat on the dirt and fell asleep, and before long it found itself both above and below the dirt as well. It was growing! When the man who worked for the city came to mow the median, he saw the six-inch-high sapling and mowed around it (not for any good reason--he just liked trees). He even watered it a little on his way past. By the time the man quit his job the sapling was large enough that everyone else assumed it was supposed to be there. And so the lemon tree lived on the median and ended up having a pretty decent life.

Hey, kids! What parts of the above story do you think were derived from the author's personal experiences? That's right... just the part about going to the library. What kind of drugs is flexagon taking, do you think, kiddies? That's right... refactoring and caffeine. Always a scary combination. Kids, resist the peer pressure! Don't ever refactor, drink coffee and blog, or you could end up like flexagon. :)

Edit: that was a joke, intended to make you think I was giddy and happy, rather than going nuts in a bad way. I love refactoring.

I'm looking forward to writing my year-end retrospective. The best thing that's happened to me this year--by far--has been getting this job. The worst thing was probably getting shafted by our old landlords this spring... it's not fun to get screwed out of thousands of dollars and have no legal recourse, even if you knew it was a risk.


Sorry, this will probably bore you all to tears, but it's good for me to have notes when I sit down to write my annual wrapup.

Good things:
Closing on the condo
Getting/having my new job
Not having my old job (the boredom, the anger, the guilt, the having to travel to military bases, the security clearance. All gone. Ha!)
TA'ing the Dale Carnegie course
Getting sterilized (*relief*)
The boring things: continued good health for me and my family, continuing friendships, read some good books, tra la la.

Bad things:
Getting shafted by old landlords (must wait a few more years until they've forgotten me, then plan cold-blooded revenge...)
Breaking up with TKD school
Not being very creative... all I did this year is a few comics and, of course, decorate the condo.

Neutral things of note:
My dad getting engaged

It was a good year, but I have hopes that '05 could be even better, as long as summer doesn't suck too much.