Thursday, December 20, 2012

49

I guess this is just my birthday blog now.

Anyway, another year has passed.  The interesting things that happened:  my older son is now in college (UC Berkeley); i ran my first half-marathon since my hip surgery.  And... that's about it.

My hip felt better this year.  Still stiff, but i'm able to run a bit and do martial arts.  Obviously, i don't approach my former level of activity, but that's probably also related to being nearly 50.  My annual birthday bike ride this year was just a token ride around my neighborhood, since the weather was bad and i was recovering from the flu.  The only travel i did this year was a trip to Denver for work, and a trip to Ithaca/Cornell when my son was touring the colleges to which he was accepted.  I guess i could also include the drive back/forth to Berkeley.

Music and books that i can remember:
  • Lots of Guided By Voices
  • Tame Impala (Lonerism)
  • Pinback
  • The Black Keys
  • Bob Mould's Silver Age
  • A few Neal Stephenson books
  • Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
  • Gleick's The Information
  • Dark Pools by Scott Patterson
  • Strange Beauty (a biography of Murray Gell-Mann)
  • Re-read Crime and Punishment again
  • Also re-read The Snow Leopard
  • Also re-read To Kill a Mockingbird
Blood Meridian is one of the best, most memorable books i've read in years.

Sadly, the day before my 49th birthday, a man shot and killed 20 children in an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.  One of those children was the 6 year-old daughter of a couple of friends who had moved from San Diego a couple of years earlier.  It's impossible to really process this.  I can't really comprehend how, as a parent, your life can go on.