So, 2007, Adios

It's been an eventful year.

2007 will, no doubt, be remembered mostly for LOLcats, which rapidly developed into LOL everything else. Ah, culture. So easily overwhelmed by cats with words.

It was a year of mixed blessings in science, I have to admit. In the plus column, I got a paper in PNAS, a major triumph! In the minus column, I have now been scooped on everything I proposed to do at my prelim. Ah, well. I have other projects. (I'm starting to see the wisdom of Jorge's system.) Hopefully, the first half of 2008 should see a couple more papers hitting the presses. I'm starting to feel like I need to wrap things up and graduate.

Anita discovered the local zen dojo, and has quickly become a hard-core zen woman, meditating and firing arrows all over the place. She's only shot herself once. (And completely refused to make the obvious "becoming one with the arrow" joke. Sigh.) In fact, she's off to a late night New Year's zen party even as we speak. It's good to see her with something to do other than work.

New bands were discovered (by us, anyway), and we struggled to stay up late enough to take advantage of some of Madison's music scene. Jonathan Coulton is lots of fun, and Trampled by Turtles (along with a rocking Old Crow Medicine Show concert) gives a fellow hope for the youth. We also caught both Ravi Shankar and Solas at the Overture Center. Good shows all around.

Nearly lost in all the excitement, Anita and I did manage to get married in June. So far, so good! Seriously, though, thanks to everyone who came. It was great to see everyone, and the whole weekend went better than we could possibly have hoped. I only wish we could throw a party and get all of you together again without having to be all freaked out about getting married.

It seems to be marriage season - Sarah's all engaged, the next door neighbors are off getting married at this very moment, my coworker Jeff got married this past September, and now I hear that Abbie and Joe are finally going to make it official. Something's in the air... Perhaps we're getting old.

And so, on to 2008! Let's hope the politics is less depressing (hah!) and that life continues to be good. All the best to all of you! See you soon!