The year's top ten personal notables for me. Remember all this stuff? Yeah, it was all this year.

10) Twisted ankle: still not 100%, but nearly there now. There's a reason the rules prohibit crossing into the opponent's court underneath the volleyball net. This is it.

9) New iMac computer: purchased for making panoramas, but actually used as a gaming box. Okay, did a bit of panorama work, but not enough to count for a tax deduction, I'm afraid.

8) Finally finding an ideal panorama solution: the Precision 360 head really does work with no effort, once it has been calibrated. Take sets of eight still shots, run a home-grown Perl script to sort them into folders, then set the image-processing software to batch-create the panos. Wonderful results.

7) Travelling back east for a week: seeing friends and family in Ohio, Ithaca, and Albany, while simultaneously showing off baby.

6) Loss of Diablo: still a hole in our household unfilled, but Earl Grey seems happier to have the place to himself.

5) Home improvements: finally completing a number of to-do-list items, such as replacing grody carpet in the front and living rooms with wood floor and new tile; overlaying kitchen linoleum with stone floor; installing new kitchen lighting; upgrading dishwasher and wall oven.

4) New job: still better than the last one; damping down now, will have to see how long it stays interesting.

3) Three weeks in Hawai'i: Sea, surf, volcanos, snorkelling, sea turtles, nene geese, camping, rain, shopping, hiking, togetherness in the calm before the threesome.

2) World of Warcraft: The gift that keeps on taking; I would say countless hours of enjoyment, but each and every one has been counted, I'm just too scared to look at the total.

1) Birth of Kelley Amber Stuart: A whole new adventure!



Hmmm. After typing up that list, I just remembered that I left out turning 40. Wow. That was such a non-event that I forgot about it. I guess I had other stuff on the noggin.


Here's to a happy and healthy 2006 to all my family and friends!