Apparently even quarterly updates are too much for me to keep up with on this site. Hopefully that is a passing phase as my workload drops back to sane levels.
It’s been a year of change in many ways. I lost one of my oldest and closest friends this year, I lost my uncle, and I lost my Father. I am now essentially the family elder on my Dad’s side. That’s an odd concept I am still trying to wrap my head around. Rough spots aside, as the year draws to a close I feel very grateful for all of the people that are close to me, and especially for the one who has stood with me through all of it.
2012 held the hope of a great deal of travel. None of that happened as planned, but we did manage some small trips throughout the year.
Sue and I spent almost a week in Sandestin FL before spending a weekend in Charleston SC with Chad and Leigh Ann eating great food (bacon butter on fried chicken skins!) and seeing a part of the city where the houses from the 1830’s were the “new” houses on the block. 
I drove to Atlanta on two consecutive weekends. Once for Chad’s Birthday to go whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee:
The next weekend was to attend the DragonCon in Atlanta, and spend some time hanging with Chad and Leigh Ann again. They are not in this picture:
Finally we spent Thanksgiving weekend camping out on Cayo Costa, which is an island off the west coast of Florida. 3 days of no electricity, cool temperatures, and camping with the sound of the waves.
As for events, we got to see the US Mens Soccer team beat Scotland 5-1 in Jacksonville, followed by a 3-1 win over Antigua/Barbuda in Tampa. We also got to see the Tampa Bay Rowdies win their league championship in one of the best sporting events I have ever attended.
Musically we had a few great shows, including Snow Patrol, VNV Nation, Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor, Johnathan Coulton, and the best Ani Difranco show I have ever seen.
Other highlights include getting some of my pictures published in the Tampa Bay Times, and getting drafted into a dragonboat team at the last minute. I’m still mad that we lost our last race by 2 tenths of a second 🙂
Now that 2012 comes to an end, I look forward to 2013. There are few solid plans yet, but Sue and I have a talent for keeping our schedules filled with interesting things. Looking forward, I will try to keep this thought in mind for 2013:
“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.”
– Lao Tzu
With that, here are a few songs that I got to see live this year (not necessarily from these recorded shows):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiCh0LeZ3Fc