A long December, and there’s reason to believe

that maybe this year will be better than the last…

The first full week of 2005 has been, um, interesting, he said politely. The most interesting parts:

* I was given a new assignment at work, a nearly full-time cops and courts gig. That isn’t bad in and of itself, but my new work week — Sunday through Thursday — is. There are plenty of husbands in the world who would love to have just one day a week to spend any significant time with their significant other. I am not among them. In order for The Wife and I to be able to spend a nice weekend together will now force one or the other to take a comp or vacation day … instead of, you know, just spending the freaking weekend together like normal people do. This is just bellyaching, I know; there are plenty of other folks in my newsroom who have had a major chunk of their weekends taken up by work, and they’ve been doing it for years. The Wife actually took this better than I did, so maybe I’m overreacting here. We’ll see on Jan. 16.

* I was one of just a handful of people who canceled our annual Groundhog shindig. Our hosts decided that the task is a bit much to handle these days, and it seemed like the right time for their generation to pass things on to the next … and that’s me. The timing of this news was such that finding a solid alternative to our venue in Mansfield in time to realistically put something together for this year … um, it just wasn’t happenin… And calling the thing off for this year was the right thing to do. It’s just a scary thing to be making this kind of decision for a strong-willed group of close to 200 people, if you count everyone. We’re sending out official notice this week, and I’ll be very curious to see what kind of reaction we get. There could be hostility. We could lose some people. But the folks who hang with us likely are the ones worth keeping.

(And this just hit me: a new blog, to keep FOGers up to date on what we’re doing. Hm.)

* Apparently, I missed winter. It was here for the last couple weeks of December — when I was too busy to go skiing. Now that I have new skis, bindings boots? Sorry. You missed it. Try again next year. It doesn’t really even need to snow, it just needs to be cold enough that the resorts can make their own at night. Unfortunately, for the last 10 days it hasn’t even been close, rainy and warm. Crappity crappity crap. If you look at the cams page on Seven Springs’ web site, you’ll see the most pathetic-looking blobs of snow you’ve ever come across. On Christmas day, all those trails were white. I don’t need to go every day, and I don’t need a freaking winter storm — I’d just like to get a couple days in before we go to Colorado. And it would be helpful if The Wife’s next skiing experience — her third or fourth — was at someplace a bit easier to handle than Snowmass, for Christsake.

Wow. That’s a lot of bitching. And for some reason, despite all that crap I’m feeling fairly positive about 2005. Last year seemed to be a year of coasting. We had lots of fun, but when you look back it seems like it could have been more. There’s going to be some changes, it’s going to be hectic … but it’s going to be good.