Farewell, 2013

Well, here we are. The last day of the year. Alas, there will be no revelry for me tonight, as I have to be at work at 11:45 PM. Sigh. I'm not much of a New Year's Eve party person, I must say, but I would still much rather be at home watching the ball drop and raising a glass to the new year. Ah, the things I do for science. Well, I do have access to incredibly precise clocks at work, so maybe that will be fun? Even if they do all run on Universal, rather than local time.

Anyway. This would seem to be the time to look back on the rapidly ending year. 2013 was certainly interesting for me, probably mostly in the Chinese curse sense. Significant but less-than-fun events included: The government shutdown. Losing my elderly cat Happiness, as well as Mickey and Newt's feral mother (who really does appear to be gone for good). Dealing with medical issues that, while not terribly serious as such things go, are pretty annoying. And the excitement of realizing that holy crap, water is flooding into my bedroom!

On a much more cheerful note, this was also what I've been thinking of as the Year of Space Tourism, in which I paid a couple of visits to relatives and was able to thoroughly indulge my inner space geek in the process, with visits to Kennedy Space Center and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, not to mention the chance to get close to a real, live (OK, decommissioned) space shuttle.

And almost all of these things contributed to the other main theme of the year: me getting to watch my savings dwindle and my credit card debt rise. But, you know, I'm still doing OK. I'm still here, still being me, still enjoying the things I enjoy, with a job and a roof over my head, and family who care about me. And 4,000 books. I figure everybody in the world should be at least this lucky.

I hope the new year sees all of you alive and well and doing things that make you happy, too. I'll catch you in 2014!