2009 In Review

Well, it's been a rather light year for me on the blog, but I wanted to go through 2009 and just hit the highlights. This will allow me to bring the year into focus, and also to briefly touch on a few events that, while important, for one reason or another never really made it into the blog. So, here we go, month by month.

January - 2009 was in many ways a year of awakening for me spiritually, one in which God really led me into a more personal, intimate relationship with Him, as opposed to one that was just based on what I knew about Him and what I did for Him. There were many significant events related to this throughout the year, the first one being a leadership retreat that I was on over the second weekend of the year. This also started a recurring pattern through the year of me taking many posts, and many more days than really necessary, to tell a particular story. This story can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The retreat ended on January 11th, and I only took until February 8th to finish blogging about it! In the interim, for the second year I became a "Partner In Hope" with St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital via the BOB 94.9 Radioathon, and for the second year in a row, I won one of the big incentive prizes - a guitar autographed by Brad Paisley. We should only be a few weeks away from the 2010 Radioathon - I wonder what they've picked out for me this year :)

February/March - I didn't blog about much in these months, except the occasional musing and the day when my Brad Paisley guitar arrived. In March, there was of course, my traditional pilgrimage with my Dad to Clearwater, Florida for Phillies spring training, made more exciting than previous years due to the Phillies standing as reigning World Series champions.

April - The month began with a quick roller coaster ride in terms of my sports world. I was able to attend the game where the Phillies were presented with their 2008 World Series rings, which has to go down as one of the best moments in my "career" as a sports fan. Unfortunately, the euphoria of that moment had hardly faded when, a few days later, legendary Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Somewhere in this month I also celebrated birthday #29.

May - May was highlighted by my heating/cooling system breaking down and taking 2 weeks and 3 technician visits to get repaired. I also discovered some "vintage" grape juice in a cabinet in my kitchen (and by the way, I still haven't gotten rid of it). Not to mention that early in the month, Messiah's softball team became the 3rd program to win a national championship, the school's 9th championship ever, all since the fall of 2000. For a refresher on May, you can go here.

June - What was unquestionably the most pivotal event of my year occured right in the middle of the year, and that was my family trip out to the West Coast - first to Seattle to visit my cousin, and then on to Northern California to visit my uncle and aunt and their family, and to attempt to climb Half Dome in Yosemite. From the plane ride out to the attempt up Half Dome and back again, it was a major event in my life, one that took me 9 posts over more than a month to blog about. Read about it here, here, and here.

July/August - Apparently I spent July and August blogging about the Half Dome trip, and not much else :) Actually, there was a lot going on during this time, however, much of it was of a more personal nature. Some will be covered in later posting, some, not so much. Most significant was that at the end of August, CrossWalk Community was closed after almost 4 years of ministry.

September - Spurred on by my desire to one day successfully climb Half Dome, I buckled down and began a regular workout routine, which coupled with some earlier and subsequent initiatives accidentally morphed into a full-fledged emphasis on health and fitness. Also, over Labor Day weekend, I made another trek to South Bend, Indiana to visit my dear friends, the Ritters.

October - The Phillies had another wild October ride, but fell disappointingly short of repeating as World Series champions, losing the Series to the Yankees in 6 mes. In one of my prouder moments as a fan, I did not join the parade of fellow Phillies fans who became loud advocates for a salary cap in baseball the day after the Series ended. Yeah, tell me THAT's not sour grapes. A summer spent wrestling with God over His plan and hand in the life of my friend Lynn, who is in the advanced stages of ALS, culminated with some realizations, some revelations, and even a bit of clarity, and led to me blogging the entire story of my interaction with Lynn's situation over the past two years. Those posts can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

November - My workout routine began to morph from daily elliptical workouts towards actual running. More on this later. The Thanksgiving holiday came, finding me with a really nasty cold, and also leading to the discover that my dog can actually behave around other people now. That report is here, and here.

December - I began a full running training program, leading to a rather nasty spill that resulted in some scrapes and scratches and a bruised ego, but no long-term damage. Overall, I've stuck with a regular work out routine for 4 months now, which is about 3 months longer that I've ever stayed with one before. That, coupled with my other health-related changes, has left me about 20 pounds lighter (still falling, though at a much slower rate), and on the basis of yesterday's 2 mile run time, in the best shape I've ever been in. This is both a testament to how well this workout routine has gone, and an indictment on my lack of commitment to fitness in year's past, even going back to high school when I was a soccer player. Predictably, the Messiah men's and women's soccer teams both win national championships, the 7th for the men, 3rd for the women, and the 3rd time in both Messiah and NCAA history that they've both won the championship in the same season. All in all, that makes 11 championships for Messiah in the last decade. Equally predictably, the field hockey team made the national title game, and lost for 7th time in 7 tries. Maybe next year...

So, that's 2009 in a nutshell. It was a great year on many, many, fronts - and it has me tremendously excited about what is to come in 2010. Right now, a few things are known. There will, of course, be another trip to Clearwater in March. After a year off, I expect to lead another team to Thailand for about 10 days late in the summer. Assuming I continue to enjoy and stick with the running through winter, I anticipate starting to run some 5k races come spring. Those are just a few things, and of course there are many other things ahead that I could never anticipate, much like many of the things above were to me on December 31, 2008.

So, with all that said, blessings and prayers to everyone for an awesome 2010!

So, here we are at the end of another year.