2013 in Review

I’m not gonna get carried away with a massive examination of the previous 12 months, but enough things happened in 2013 that a bit of retrospection seems appropriate. Any of the following items are worthy of a blog post in themselves, some have been detailed here previously, but many haven’t been mentioned here. I think the cumulative effect of it all knocked the wind out of my blogging sails.

In no particular order, here are what stand out as the most significant events–on a personal level–of 2013.

• We went to hospital emergency rooms four times; five if you count one follow-up visit which was requested by the ER doctor. The first three (and the follow-up) were for Tracie’s allergic reactions to a medication she was prescribed on Christmas Eve of 2012 for trigeminal neuralgia. Any one of these episodes could have killed her; the third one almost certainly would have if I hadn’t stabbed her with an Epi-pen while the clueless folks behind the counter ignored us. The first trip was hampered by a snowstorm. The next three trips were in Japan. The last one was due to a cat bite. (Our cats aren’t the biting sort, but Freddie took violent exception to our attempt to put him in a carrier.)
• We traveled to Japan twice. The itinerary of the first trip was interrupted by the aforementioned medical emergencies. We managed to have a pretty good time anyway, and the second trip was free of medical consultations.
• We lived through a flood, one of the most significant natural disasters this country saw this year. The American Red Cross and even FEMA showed up to help; fortunately we didn’t need their assistance, but many other people did.
• A couple of months after the flood, we and 7200 other homes went without gas for 2.5 days (longer, in some areas) during an unusual cold spell in which the daily high temperatures stayed in the single digits (measuring degrees Fahrenheit). The Red Cross came back.
• Tracie had a fairly massive amount of dental work done. This ended up requiring a total of nine trips to a dental office in Littleton, a one-hour drive each direction. Huge thanks to Summit Family Dentistry and CarePoint Anesthesia for their excellent service. Before that there was a trip to an office in Loveland (about 45 minutes one way) to an office that strung us along on the phone for three weeks. Upon our arrival, the dentist perfunctorily told Tracie that he couldn’t help her after all.
• Tracie demonstrated that rheumatoid arthritis can be successfully treated through dietary change and non-prescription supplements, and multiple sclerosis can be ameliorated as well. Yes, really. Huge thanks to Dr. Jill Carnahan for her expertise, advice, and encouragement.
• My mom visited us. It was great to see her–it had been far too long.
• We replaced Tracie’s laptop and the Paper Jade business PC with new machines. This doesn’t sound like much until you consider that the laptop was over seven years old, the PC was over nine years old, and both were still running Windows XP.
• Our veterinarian retired. We have six cats. Need I say more?
• Tracie’s neurologist left her practice. Tracie has MS. Need I say more?
• Audio Damage made its debut in the music-hardware business by introducing four(!) Eurorack synthesizer modules. It’s hard to describe how proud I am of this; I’d have to start by saying that I’ve had a deep love of modular synthesizers for over 30 years.
• Coincidentally, Audio Damage celebrated its tenth anniversary of incorporation. Not bad for a couple of guys working out of their houses.

That’s the list that we came up with. It seems to be weighted a bit heavily towards the unfortunate, but that’s how the year looks in retrospect.

Happy New Year!