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.
