Current mood:	reflective
Entry tags:	past

2005
Significant things to happen in 2005 for jodiamonds, in no particular order.

• Both of my grandmothers passed away (eleven days apart). We buried my mother's mother today. I miss them both. My siblings and I are left without grandparents, and my parents without parents.
  
• My niece Natalie's brother Jason was born. Jason is still mostly a loud crying blob, if a cute blob when not crying. Natalie has progressed to the point of being endlessly entertaining in the way that two year olds can apparently be when they are related to you. (Certainly not all two year olds entertain me this much.) Also, she is quite spoiled and bosses everyone around. Alas, largely unavoidable.
  
• Met some new friends who are great. My social circle has, in recent years, been a bit more stagnant than I think I like. (It's not that I don't have friends. I have great friends. But I enjoy meeting new people and it's surely emotionally healthy for me to keep doing so.)
  
• My friend, coworker, and one-time boss Tom moved back to New Zealand. I wonder if he ever uses much of his NT-networking course knowledge.
  
• Bought all Collective Soul's albums. I know, they mostly aren't new. I know, lots of people do things like that all the time. I don't.
  
• Moved house for the first time in five years. Miss seeing you as much as I did, Aris. Glad to see more of my three new housemates. Lest I be insulting through omission, I am in fact pleased to continue living with Dan. Anyone from further back can deal with it.
  
• Empire Earth II was released. Since products I work on only release slightly less than about once per year on average, this would seem to count.
  
• Speaking of Empire Earth, I represented Mad Doc Software at Empire Earth II University, which was actually pretty cool. I like talking to fellow gamers in general, but players who are especially interested in games I make are even more interesting.
  
• I read "The High Price of Materialism". This is clearly the most important book I read in 2005 (I don't think anything else is coming up before the year is out). It's somewhere up there with "Unequal Protection", "Ishmael", and "Goedel, Escher, Bach" for thought provoking material that I'll probably keep thinking about for the rest of my life (justified or not!). Unlike all of the other books, though, "The High Price of Materialism" has remarkably concrete suggestions that can be incorporated into my (or anyone's) life, back by what appears to be fairly substantial research (which I should admittedly verify more closely). For those reasons, it might be the most important book I ever read.
  
• Time passed, everyone got older. Some got some wiser.