dbrycegh

I got a contract job at IBM. I'll be on a team of editors working on their developerWorks site. I'm excited about it, I'm sure I'll be learning a lot. I start next week.

In other news, my 15th high school reunion is coming up. I haven't been in touch with anyone from my high school at all, pretty much since graduation. That's mostly because I expect that a lot of these people probably still think of me as a doughy, spoiled, somewhat judgmental prude. And sure, I've probably just been mostly paranoid about it anyway, but it hasn't been worth it to me to find out. To the extent that this opinion of me was based on anything real, I would feel embarrassed to be around these people, and to the extent that it wasn't, I would feel indignant. Either way, it's meant no class reunions for me, at least up to now. But when I look at myself and how much I've changed since high school, and realize that everyone I knew back then could very well have changed as much, that does make me kind of curious. I can't go anyway because the timing is bad with the new job, but I do have the chance to get in touch with some old classmates, so I am. If I don't even give them a chance, I'm the one who's being unfair.

I went out to Missouri this past weekend for the baptism of my twin nephews. I am now Sam's godfather. I doubt I'll ever really be called upon to give him much active spiritual guidance, but if I am, we'd all better get started praying for him now.

Alex (my singleton nephew, age 1.33 years) has developed a lot since Christmas. It took him a while to warm up to me, but I'm told it was partly due to his cold. Letting him play with my cell phone was a real icebreaker.

We also went to see the house I grew up in, which is now for sale and had a timely open-house showing. Well, the "grew up in" part isn't quite true, because (a) I'm not sure how grown up I am even now, and (b) I was even less grown up at age 16 when we moved out of it. But we lived there for about ten years, which is twice as long as any other residence I've had so far. It looks pretty different now, but it felt so familiar, not at all like someone else's house, in spite of all their stuff being in there. Some rooms seemed a lot smaller than I remember, others actually seemed bigger. The walkthrough sparked an odd assortment of memories, including some total surprises. Like the first time I was busted for swearing. Or playing wiffleball in the backyard. Or singing with my sister on our makeshift stage (the downstairs fireplace hearth). I'm really glad I got the chance to go through and remember these things.

( pointless introspecturbation )

I guess there was a point after all, and it is that I need to relax. Stare at anything too long and it'll start to look weird; one's own self is no exception.

My number one resolution this year is to keep in better touch with my family. This is extremely similar to last year's resolution, the main difference being that it's vague enough to be easily attainable. Last year I made very specific goals, and then basically forgot all about it. Which brings me to my next topic: memory.

Visiting with my grandparents over Christmas, I listened to them telling stories of things they'd done years ago. Grandpa quoted a few lines from a speech he had given while taking the Dale Carnegie course. My grandma talked about the time they were flying back to Kansas in grandpa's plane and had to make an emergency landing in an alfalfa field.

It occurred to me that I won't have as many stories of this type when I'm their age, partly because my memory is kind of leaky. I don't really understand the algorithm it uses to determine what's forgettable (e.g. entire years of childhood, apparently) and what must be kept (e.g. names of members of the A-Team), but there's got to be a misplaced decimal in there somewhere. So I've decided that I need to be posting here more often, just as a memory aid.

However, the other reason I won't have as many good stories is because I don't exactly generate a lot of good story material sitting at a computer all the time. So I'd also like to get out more and have more experiences that would actually have some meaning to someone else if I were to explain them. So hopefully, my posts won't be as dull as they are frequent. I don't think I'm off to much of a start on this one.

I'm usually kind of noncommital when New Years' rolls around, but this year I'm considering these to be secondary resolutions. Wish me luck.