The End of September

We're quickly nearing the end of September, and as you might expect life continues to get better and better. 2010 has quite literally been split in two for us, with my new job starting in mid-June I can easily consider the year as 6 months of unemployment and 6 months of recovery from those harder times of our lives. I certainly don't expect easy times from now on, but it's nice to be in what I can consider easier times for a change. For absolutely no reason other than my bizarre love of numbers, let's break my life down into some segments:

By Age (in years):

1-4 - Pre memory for the most part, though I did become friends with Dennis during that time (in pre-kindergarten, Chipmunks 4 life!)

5-11 - I became obsessed with things I am still pretty obsessed with, Nintendo / videogames, Transformers, TMNT. At some point early on in these years I saw and liked Voltron and Thundercats, got toys for them, but then mostly forgot about them so my most vivid memories of those franchises are of the TOYS and not the shows themselves. Everything for me in this time period was put down to ambitions of what I'd be able to accomplish at the age of 12, I have no idea why but for young-Danny that was the age of supposed adulthood.

12 - I realized it was not, in fact, an age of adulthood at all and that I was not any closer to building a blue suited boy robot as my best friend (seriously)

13-15 - My dad probably started bugging me to get a job before this, but he started working at the age of 14 and that's when he could legitimately get on my case for being a bum. Middle School also introduced me to my friend Andrew the O, who would gateway me to becoming friends with Dave and thus is the origin of the power-friendship that would somehow lead to Critical Hits becoming a website that Wil Wheaton (who I was watching on TV at this age) knew the name of.

16-17 - Driving, gaming like crazy and also getting into board games in addition to playing all kinds of RPGs and videogames. Also I finally got a job in the kitchen at the local Olive Garden (thanks to Andrew working there already).

18 - End of highschool, summer of conventions and debauchery, then college studying Architecture, met Becky and life would never be the same again (take that as you will :P )

19-22 - Somehow ended up continuing to study Architecture, no matter how hard I didn't try at some points, moved in with Becky / got engaged, dealt with the ongoing realization that Becky was majorly depressed and how we were both going to handle it, then graduated and again somehow got a job that started one week after college. That was probably still one of the luckiest moments of my life because that was the ONLY place that offered me a job

23-26.5 - Working for a living, got married, awesomest. honeymoon. ever. (Disney World FTW) Adopted two cats, bought a house, adopted the cutest white German Shepherd in the world. Then got laid off from my job just shy of 5 years of professional experience.

26.5-27 - Endured 7 months of stressful but not entirely terrible unemployment, learned the incredibly valuable lesson that Becky and I can spent nearly 24 hours a day together, at home, with little to do and very much enjoy it - plus not really get sick of each other! Then getting hired at a new, incredible, and absolutely better than I could have even imagined job and now beginning to pay off some of ours bills from the last 8 years.

That's it, not sure why but just felt the random urge to break it all down like that. Hope you enjoyed it!

Quite thankfully, nearing the end of the book with The Shadow Rising has brought with it many interesting and cool events in the Wheel of Time universe so I'm back to reading quite a few pages per day and am up to 88% through the book, now a full 20% beyond where I was stalled for quite a while. It is a bit tough to remember things from the first 1/2 of the book having read them over a year ago, but once I'm finished with the book I'm going to read a synopsis of the whole thing to hopefully refresh me on all of the connections.

Oh also we're hosting our usual kickass Halloween party at the end of October, which I'm looking forward to a little too much. Becky and I have already decided on our costumes and it should be awesome. Pictures will definitely show up after the party!