Bringing 2010 to a Close

2010 was one hell of a year.  It found me in five countries, several airplanes, one big ship, numerous boats, and, somehow, only five states.  There were ups and downs and each of my little victories was matched by an equal or greater defeat.  I spent most of it feeling like I was doing more and ending up with less to show for it.  Suffice it to say, I'm glad to have this one behind me.


So glad was I that I set out to celebrate the death of 2010 a full day early.  I went with my sisters and a friend to Maggie McGarrity's Pub in North Beach to see the Spazmatics, a nerdy 80's cover band that can be found there every Thursday night.  They make for a good time:





They do such a good job with their nerd motif that they actually stay in character even in between sets.  Here's a couple of pics of nerds with the girls:


 




All of the nerdery made it pretty easy for everyone to be goofy as well:


Here's a winning shot of Kendall rocking out:

(either that or she's ripping a fart, hard to say)
We stayed through both of their sets on stage and ended up leaving around 1a.m. 

On the morning of New Year's Eve I awoke on the couch at my parents' house when the niece and nephew started putting small dogs on top of me.  It's hard to sleep when a hybrid chihuahua-weiner-shivery-annoying dog sticks its tongue in your nostril.

Once I'd had time to regain calm and got out of my puppy killing mood, I went outside with the kids and helped them launch model rockets for a while.  Here's a shot of the junior rocketeers in the midst of their pre-flight checks:


There were several launches and I filmed them all, but the best part was the countdown sequence shown here:

In the aftermath, if you go to that same spot and look at the trees in the background, you can find a couple hundred dollars worth of model rockets dangling from the branches.

When they'd tired of launching things, I had them stow the remnants back in my workshop.  That's when my nephew decided he had to try on my HALO armor.  It was a tiny bit too big for him:


His older sister got in ot it too, but with less gusto:


Turns out he was so fond of the whole rig that he refused to take the helmet off until he went to bed:


That was New Year's Eve.  I'm only a bit sad to say that I decided to stay in.  I fell asleep barely half an hour into the new year while watching a movie.  It was a fitting fizzling end to the year.

Here's to hoping for a better 2011.

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