{"id":46427,"date":"2018-12-28T21:37:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T01:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46427"},"modified":"2020-08-09T21:39:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T01:39:42","slug":"the-year-end-post-circa-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46427","title":{"rendered":"The year-end post, circa 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I believe more and more with each passing year, time begins to feel like it moves faster the older we get.\u00a0 I go to work in the morning, do my thing there, come home, have dinner, tidy things up and do one or two tasks I had in mind, and then it\u2019s suddenly 10 pm, and now I\u2019m at the point of the day where I can\u2019t really commit to anything too time-consuming, lest I put myself into a position of going to bed too late, and then being tired at work the next day, and therefore I usually just end up going to bed at a sensible time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rinse, repeat, and suddenly it\u2019s the end of December, and we\u2019re on the cusp of closing out 2018 and entering 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often said in the past that it seems silly the notion of encapsulating things into calendar years, and having hope that things will miraculously be better the following year for no reason at all other than the fact that the last number in the date has ticked up one.\u00a0 I say that, but I still find myself at the end of every year putting together these kinds of posts reflecting on a calendar year, and deciding whether it was good, whether it was bad, or more often than not, somewhere in the middle.<\/span><\/p>\n

As far as two thousand and eighteen is concerned, I\u2019m fairly confident that I can say with conviction that it was a pretty good year.\u00a0 Not somewhere in the middle, but definitely up in the upper quartile of being good.\u00a0 To those who kind of follow my life, the reasons for such are pretty obvious, but it kind of goes without saying that I\u2019ve made some pretty big strides in my life in general, with none of them being larger than proposing to mythical gf<\/a>, and making her mythical fianc\u00e9e and soon-to-be future wifey.<\/span><\/p>\n

I always figured there would be marriage in my life at some point, and it\u2019s been an enjoyable albeit steady and deliberate ride, as that\u2019s pretty much how I do most important things in my life, but I knew I was making the right choice moving forward, because as has been often times the case with the things in our relationship, things just felt right, and it was just time to make it more right, and move forward in our relationship to the next logical step.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I go any further reminiscing, getting engaged is what sets 2018 high atop years past, and by that logic, 2019 already has the groundwork laid down for it to be hopefully better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Aside from getting engaged, 2018 was also a year in which I saw some actual, real progression in my career.\u00a0 For the first time in my long, nearly two-decade old career as a graphic designer, I actually applied for and received an actual promotion<\/a>.\u00a0 All throughout my career, when I wasn\u2019t freelancing and bouncing about, the places that I\u2019ve worked for as a full-time employee, have always been in these pretty dead-end positions where advancement hadn\u2019t always been an option, and if I had wanted to make more money, or advance upward in my career, the only thing really to do was go somewhere else.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I like where I work and I like the idea of staying here for a while and making a career out of it, so when the opportunity presented itself for some advancement, I took it, went through the interview and screening process to move forward, and was fortunate enough to have been selected for an actual promotion.\u00a0 And not only did I get promoted, I\u2019m now officially in a management capacity, and therefore it\u2019s almost like starting a new career, since I\u2019m doing less actual graphic design work, but am now responsible for other people, direct reports, and going to a fuck ton of meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n

If anything at all, it\u2019s definitely cut into my ability to write in my lunch downtime, because as is often the case, I simply don\u2019t have any, on most days, and if it weren\u2019t for the fact that the time between the holidays is usually pretty dead, there\u2019s no guarantee that I\u2019d have had the time to be writing all this otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s still exciting nonetheless, and something that I\u2019m very proud to have accomplished in 2018.\u00a0 For once, I feel like my hard work and contributions to a company have actually not just been recognized, but used as justification to elevate me within the company, and put me on an actual path towards progression and a brighter future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, without either of these two events occurring, 2018 would otherwise have been a pretty much just another year in the books, but slightly more on the positive side.\u00a0 A lot of things happened that mean things to me, which is usually to say recapping things that happened in sports, wrestling and various social events that provoke thought in my little world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alabama won the college football national championship at the expense of Georgia<\/a> in an exciting and heartbreaker of a loss to Georgia to start the year, and are pretty much on the cusp of another one as 2018 comes to a close.\u00a0 The Philadelphia Eagles somehow emerged from the pile of crap known as the NFC and upended the mighty New England Tom Bradys for the Super Bowl which makes me nauseous just thinking about a world where the fucking Eagles are Super Bowl champions<\/a>.\u00a0 The celebration in Philly continued with Villanova winning the college basketball national championship<\/a>, while the NBA saw the third year in a row in which the Cavaliers and Warriors met in the Finals, with the Warriors winning their second championship in a row at the expense of LeBron James<\/a>, who packed his shit and left Cleveland for the Lakers not long afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n

Baseball saw a historically good Boston Red Sox team storm through the regular season, all the way to the World Series, but here in Atlanta, the Braves arrived a year early, and have given Cobb County hope<\/a> that they\u2019ll once again be contenders again in 2019.\u00a0 The legendary career of Ichiro supposedly came to an end<\/a>, although there\u2019s speculation that he might make some cameos in the future, as he has yet to formally sign any retirement papers, but it\u2019s safe to say he\u2019s kind of done for realsies.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a World Cup in 2018, where France ultimately won, ousting a Croatian national team that kind of came out of nowhere to announce their position in the world futbol scene.\u00a0 But fewer things were more memorable to me than South Korea embarrassing themselves in the first round Group of Death™, jobbing to Mexico and Sweden in pathetic fashion, before upending the defending World Cup champion German national squad in a critical, face-saving, mother of all upsets<\/a>, effectively eliminating them from the entire tournament and leaving the door wide open for a new champion in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two major cities\u2019 championship droughts were ended, if you counted hockey and soccer, when the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup<\/a> and Atlanta United winning the MLS Cup<\/a>.\u00a0 Sure, neither city won a big three sport championship, but at the same time both cities are so starved for any measure of success that I don\u2019t think sports fans in either city are particularly complaining anymore about championship droughts.\u00a0 Granted, Atlanta United still can\u2019t use their own stadium over Monster Jam<\/a>, but baby steps.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the world of news, the United States saw a completely fucked up nation divided up more than ever, with those who like the president, and those who don\u2019t.\u00a0 A middle ground doesn\u2019t really exist, and I\u2019m not hard pressed to believe that it\u2019s probably going to be a minute before it isn\u2019t like this anymore.\u00a0 There were at least ten major shooting incidents where numerous lives were senselessly ended, but of course, no end in sight when it comes to gun control.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon led the nation on a ridiculous goose chase of a contest<\/a> to see who could woo them to build HQ2 in their respective cities, but in the end was just some gross ruse where they ultimately ended up picking two obvious layup cities instead of one, plopping them into Arlington, Virginia and Long Island City in New York.<\/span><\/p>\n

But at least outside of America, things looked to be slightly better than they were in the United States, unless you\u2019re from Syria.\u00a0 But no more news seemed more important in my world, than the news that came out of Korea all year, with several events where South Korea and North Korea made some pretty impressive steps towards actual peace.\u00a0 What started as an olive branch at the Pyeongchang winter Olympics eventually turned into both countries\u2019 respective presidents taking steps on the others\u2019 soil<\/a> for the first times in ages, and longer than I\u2019ve been alive.\u00a0 Sure there\u2019s skepticism and a general lack of trust for the North Koreans, but baby steps have to be taken before people can walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

For our annual international vacation<\/a>, future wifey and I went to Munich, Budapest and Vienna, where beer was cheaper than water, and learned of the wonders of chimney cakes, saw a ton of Thai massage parlors and had wiener schnitzel from its places of origin.\u00a0 It was yet another fun trip visiting some places we\u2019d never been to before, and I will always be jealous of Europe\u2019s train system, but critical of the fact that 75% of the country smokes and will probably all die of lung cancer at the rate in which they do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other quick bullets because I\u2019m losing my steam to continue on long form:<\/span><\/p>\n