Kris and Andy decided some time in the last few weeks that the best way to celebrate the changing of the new year and new decade (yeah, yeah, don't tell me 2010 isn't the new decade because there was no year 0 - there was no year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or a whole bunch of other years, either. 2001 represents the END of the FIRST year, so yeah, there was a year zero and 2010 is the END of the first 10 years and January 1st 2010 is, therefore, the start of the new decade) is to celebrate the new year in each timezone as the day progresses. And what better way to celebrate each of these new years than by toasting, and drinking, a beer made in each of those time zones.

While they thought this was a brilliant idea, they had sufficient reservations to start in Russia instead of some place over the Pacific Ocean, which is what they did. Starting at noon yesterday, they toasted the timezones, drank a beer, waited twenty minutes, and tested their blood alcohol levels, and recorded them in a spreadsheet.

They started over at Kris' work, where I went to pick them up after they'd been drinking for a few hours, and to catch up on the festivities.

Well, where "catching up" means "find out what happened."

They were entertaining, to say the least.

I had handed Kris a camera and told him he had to take pictures, a directive that I impressed upon him by IMing a few minutes after the hour and reminding him to TAKE PICTURES. He did a good job, which thrilled me.

Fortunately, I showed up and saved him from having to take any more pictures. And even more fortunately, I took a lot of pictures to make up for Kris' lack.

So, like I mentioned, the timing of the day was supposed to go something like cheers! at the top of the hour, drink the beer for the next twenty minutes or so, wait 20 minutes for the alcohol to process through their systems. The twenty minute was was part of the instructions to get an accurate rating.

I was a the control. Hey look, the bottom end of the meter works!

I'm not quite sure how Kris thought he was going to continue working after having had a couple beers, but his coworkers didn't seem to think anything about it. While Kris tried to work, Andy and I goofed off. We went off to a furniture store to look for a bar for Andy (I think, I couldn't tell, though, given how much he had been drinking, but, hey, the other furniture was interesting, if only I had a bigger house or another house to furnish). We had to dash back for the next round, which pretty much set the tune for our merriment which included being accosted by an elevator, and teaching Bella what life on Jupiter must be like, include harder breathing with the greater gravity.

After their drinking for another two hours, three clinking of beers, we dashed off to P.F.Changs to pick up dinner and continued to Andy's house. We were originally going to go to Heidi and John's house, to continue our 5 year tradition of celebrating New Year's with them, but the boys were ill, and my house was a mess.

Besides, at Andy's everyone is greeted at the door by a chicken. Why would you want to go any place else?

Jessica and Eric joined us soon after for dinner. At this point, I didn't know if I should be embarrassed, embarrassed for Kris and Andy, or indifferent to their New Year's shenanigans. When Eric joined in and started drinking with them, I decided I didn't need to worry. Thankfully, Jessica was willing to drink the bubbly apple juice, so I had some who could easily interpret my eyerolls.

We had dinner, then toured the chicken coop, and noticed the blue moon with enjoyment.

Annoyingly, I discovered the time on my camera was off by an hour. Yeargh.

Around 8PM, Andy suggested a game of PowerGrid, with his Christmas present of the China/Korea board. In retrospect, that was a mistake. The game lasted FOR-EV-VER. Gah. The Chinese version had a different power station distribution model, with a much, much slower pace. The game we played before took 3 hours, this one would have taken 6 hours if we had bothered to finish it. Needless to say, the soufflés were MUCH more interesting, both to bake and to eat.

THAT tradition was definitely staying, even if going to Heidi and John's wasn't.

So, the night became each hour, we'd stop for a toast. Five minutes before, we'd be caught off-guard that an hour had passed already, the beers would change, we would be completely unable to find the ball dropping in NY on any cable channel including the Spanish channels, we'd cheer the hour, and continue playing.

Even after midnight, Andy and Kris were intent on continuing drinking and playing PowerGrid. They had beers for 1AM and 2AM. Jessica was done at midnight, even though Eric seemed willing to continue. I, too, was way done, especially with PowerGrid, so we managed to shanghai the drunken boys into ending the game. Oh, thank GOODNESS Jessica was there to help me on that one.

After Jessica and Eric left, Andy, Kris and I hit the hot tub. I was more than a little worried when the two of them started slurring their speech, but figured as long as I was alert, I could keep them out of most trouble. That midnight beer was not a good choice. The two of them were blasted.

The evening wound down with the three of us watching some really, really bad videos. They made it through thirteen beers in twelve hours, some of them really impressively alcoholic (the 12% one was a little overwhelming). Kris never managed a BAC less than 0.4 according to the breathalyzer he was using, which caused much mirth throughout the evening.

While I have to say being the sober person in a group of drunks isn't exactly the easiest way to transition to a new year, it's still an entertaining way to do it.

Welcome 2010. There are a few ways you could be worse than 2009, but let's not go there, okay?

Years ago, Mom, Eric and I went to Curaçao on vacation. We went to see the eclipse that was crossing the island, with Aruba being just too darn expensive. The eclipse following desire was the inspiration for my trip to Peru in '94. I can tell you, if you want to travel the world, go see eclipses. You'll end up in amazing places along the way.

I had brought along my spiffy new clarinet, as I was teaching myself how to play (a feat that surprised and impressed Eric, that someone could pick up a musical instrument on one day and be able to play a number of tunes on it fairly well a week or so later, having never played a reed instrument before). I spent a number of hours by myself, making sure Mom and Eric had time to be alone without the third wheel known as Kitt. I spent the time by myself, but I needed that time to think, away from life, away from distractions, away from work, to just think. I'd sprint on the beach, play my clarinet, and think.

Aside from the wind and lack of fresh milk, it was a good place to be to think.

Mom and Eric were more adventurous than I was, but I'd still head out with them to various ports or museums or other adventures. A wind-swept island with little vegetation doesn't offer much in the way of lush hikes, but some adventures could be found.

On our way to one adventure, we drove along a dusty, yes, wind-swept road, following the gentle rolling of the terrain. Where the ground was low, lush trees and bushes grew, away from the wind. Where the ground was high, the land was barren, as the ocean breezes kept anything from staying in one place long enough to set roots and stay.

Along one of these small hills with no vegatation was a house. Surrounding the house was a large number of cars in various states of disrepair. They were all older cars, seemingly waiting to be fixed up, rather than just providing parts for other cars. I tapped Mom on her shoulder, and pointed them out as we drove past.

"Each one of those is a Someday," I told her.

Those cars represented a Someday for the owner. Some day, he was going to get to them. Some day, he was going to fix them up. Some day, he was going to have that car to drive. Some day. Some day. Some day.

We all have our Somedays, that one wish, that one dream, that one goal we want to accomplish. Some of us have many more than one. Some of them linger a short while before disappearing. Some linger for a lifetime, never quite arriving.

A large number of my friends are selecting a word to define the new year (admittedly, some of those non-internet friends are doing them at my suggestion). I like the idea a lot, but instead of a single word, I am choosing a full sentence to define 2010 for me.

Someday is today.

Life is way, way, way too short. The end can come unexpectedly way too soon. I can't bear to arrive at the end and think, "But, but, some day I was going to ..." Someday has to be today, or it will never be.

Someday has arrived, and it is 2010.

I talked to Mom today. We chatted about various topics, and eventually came around to the topic of my project that I've been pouring so much time, effort, money and life into. After I gave her a status update, she told me how proud she was of me, that I found something I was so passionate about, that I was focused, and smart and going to succeed with this project. It's a great idea, solves the needs of many, and it was going to work well. But even if it doesn't work out, she's still proud of me, because it's about the journey.

After she finished speaking, and heard nothing but silence on the other end, she knew something was up. She waited for me to speak, which took me a longer time than she probably expected.

Kris had made the same comment, that the outcome doesn't matter, it's the journey.

It's the second time I heard that it's not the end, it's the journey that matters, and I have to say no. No fucking way. No god damned fucking way is this journey worth it. I can't sleep at night, worrying that I won't be able to raise the money soon enough to buy that land. My stomach clenches into knots when I tell people what I'm trying to do, and how quickly I need to do it, and what will happen if I fail. My head hurts most of the time. I can't run more than two miles given how out of shape I am. I've left bills unpaid, not because I don't have the money, but rather because I didn't think to send payment because the loss of that 30 minutes means one fewer bug, one fewer feature will be ready. I regularly curl up into a crying ball of fear of failing on this which means so much to me, before I realize that the fear isn't helping, that courage is moving through that fear, and I sit back down and start working again. I haven't spent much time with friends, and the time I do is peripherally when I'm in the same room as they are: they're playing games, I'm in the corner programming. The neighbors hate me because my yard looks like crap, I haven't had a chance to clean it up since harvest. My business clients are wondering where the hell I am half the time.

And all I can think about is how do I represent a multidimensional array with internal linked lists in a flat file with defaults so that I can reread it and generate it into another format. How do I add this feature or that feature or save this data in the database, and extract it again, and what the fuck is that bug? Shit.

I don't want this journey. I don't want to be sleeping fewer than 6 hours a night. I don't want my stomach in knots because I may fail. This is not the way I want to lose weight. I want to skip to the end. I willingly sacrificed my twenties to hard work, I should be sitting pretty. I should be coasting, happy with my career choices, two kids, working if I want to and, eh, whatever, if I don't.

So, no, it's not about the journey. This journey sucks. The only good part of this journey is that it's over one way or the other in 6 months. Statistically, that's only 0.5% of my life, but I feel like the stress of those six months are subtracting more than six months at the end. I've probably aged more in the last two years than I had in the previous 6.

Not worth it.

No, way not worth it.

So why not do it?

Because the alternative, the alternative of not trying, that's even worse.

For as long as I can remember, my meals have always included more liquids that pretty much anyone else I've eaten with. Where my classmates would often have milk left over after lunch in elementary school, I often wished I had two cartons. Where friends will finish a meal leaving their water glass untouched, I'll have gone through two glasses and be frantically looking for the bathroom before we'd have even left the restaurant.

I often wonder what my friends think about my always going to the bathroom after eating. Of course, I know they think I have the smallest bladder in the world, when in reality I just have it really really full all the time.

My pasta meals are often a bowl of sauce with a dash of spaghetti, instead of a bowl of spaghetti with an accent of sauce. And really, the whole purpose of a french fry is to get ketchup to my mouth.

I've talked to my dad about this habit of mine, of drinking a lot of water or other liquids during my meals to wash down the food. I rarely, close to never, willing choose alcoholic drinks for the washing-down part, just doesn't work. Aside from not being able to find a wine I really like (there is an exception), the thought of drinking wine like water isn't an appealing thought.

So, dad thinks the issue is a physical issue that I was born with, since he has similar issues. I overcome the discomfort of swallowing by drinking water frequently with my meals. It makes sense to me, given that I've been doing it for as long as I can remember.

So, Kris and I went to the doctor's this morning , because he's been having problems swallowing. Now, his problems swallowing is considerably different than my having problems swallowing, so off we went for him to have tests run. To my frustration, the doctors concluded the problems were in Kris' head, that there is no physical cause for his difficulties. I HATE this type of diagnosis: we can't find anything wrong, so we're going to blame the patient.

The only good thing the doctor did do, other than confirm the problem was EASILY IDENTIFIABLE as a physical problem, is give him pointers on how to eat the food that's difficult to swallow. Aside from the suggestion of "blend a hamburger and drink it," they suggested that he, oh, guess what, EAT LIKE I DO. Which is to say, take a bite, take a drink, take a bite, take a drink, take a bite, take a drink, continue until meal finished or interrupted by the need to talk.

I couldn't help but think, oh, good, lord, add ANOTHER action to his eating rhythm? The man is the slowest eater in the world already, does he really need ANOTHER step in the process because he doesn't eat slowly enough already?

You know, when I decided to fast with Kris so that I could sympathize with his plight (which includes resisting making chocolate brownies in the evening, because, well, that would be just too cruel), I expected the burrito I purchased at lunch to actually be edible.

Instead of the normal light salsa at lunch today, I ended up receiving a scorching, burn-your-mouth-just-thinking-of-it hot burrito. I think they may have substituted habanero peppers for the green bell peppers when making the damn thing.

How hot was it? So hot, I nearly puked.

Yeah, that hot.

So, though Kris may be able to fast from 6 pm until 9 am, I am unable to fast from 11 am until much past 10 pm. Of course, he has the 10 hours of sleeping advantage over me.