I married into a family that takes Christmas very seriously. So December is a time when a lot of things have to happen - baking, cooking, buying presents, going to see Santa so we have a picture to put on the Christmas cards which by the way need to go out no later than December 20, and so on. It's very hectic. Once upon a time, I could just get by on less sleep, but these days that's less of a solution for me. In part, I'm sure, that's because I've stopped drinking caffeine because now I get fewer migraines, but mostly I just get tired more easily.

So in an attempt to get things done, I stopped going down to the gym at 3am to run. I figured I needed every scrap of sleep I could get, so as soon as each night's tasks were done, I'd just crash and wake up (generally a bit too late.) This totally backfired. In the final three weeks of the year, I didn't run at all. And apparently, when I'm not running, I need to sleep even more. Previously, I'd become accustomed to sleeping 5-6 hours a night and feeling fine, but in the crap end of December, I slept 8-9 hours a night, and was still tired when I woke up. So basically, not taking time to run meant I had less time available to get stuff done.

I like to imagine that I have the power to recast the gun control debate to proscribe any argument that depends on the fact that we've made it too easy for evil people to get guns. Yes, maybe it will be painful when we enter that period when "only criminals have guns," but the current policy is just not working, and every day we continue to make guns freely available makes any other solution a little bit harder.

What bothers me most, though, is that no one really has the "right to bear arms" promised by the Bill of Rights anymore. One of the most powerful weapons used in the War of 1812, the privateer America, was not owned by the United States military. Now, I can't even buy a brand new machine gun, let alone an F-16 or a nuclear warhead. To the extent that the second amendment is founded in a need for our civilians to be an effective militia, it has completely failed.

Good things:

• My son's eating, weight, and height have all moved in the right direction
• I have not yet failed at transforming from "only guy working on a project" to "guy in charge of multiple people working on multiple projects."
• I'm much better at running
• I did a bona fide chin-up for the first time in maybe a decade (although it still feels like cheating that the only way I could accomplish that was to lose 30 pounds)
• I learned to make pasta
• My biggest financial disaster of the year was losing $450 on the FSA account

Bad things:

• I still freak out that I'm doing the parenting thing all wrong
• I also still freak out that I'm doing the being in charge of people at work thing all wrong
• I wanted to finish the year with 200 miles run, but only made it to 180
• I made no progress at all on any project that wasn't directly related to work or my family
• I read only one book from cover to cover this year
  
• One of my dogs died
  

Goals for next year:

• Run to Rivendell
• Help my son learn to read
• Read at least two books from cover to cover
• Make something new

In 1996 or so, I tried to install a *nix operating system for the first time. Up to that point, I had been using pico for editing on *nix systems. But then I learned that (at the time), when you first install a system, you need to be able to use an editor that is installed by default. And (again, at the time) as far as I could tell that meant I needed to learn ed, vi, or get really good at cat >>. I chose vi, and I've been using that as my preferred text editor, regardless of operating system, ever since.

At some point, probably around 2002 or so, it became easier to find vim than vi, so I started using that, but it seemed prudent to never actually learn anything about how vim "improved" on vi, since I didn't want to rely on that when I had to use vi. And now it's nearly impossible to actually find vi, so I clearly made the wrong choice there.*

Which is how it came to pass that I've been using vim for over a decade without knowing that "visual" mode exists.

* - yes, I know, I made the wrong decision back in 1996. It works for me, OK?

Over the course of the past few years, I've learned that if the only thing I ever drink is water, I don't get headaches. If I drink things with caffeine in them, then I get withdrawal headaches when I stop drinking things with caffeine in them, and if I never stop then I just go ahead and get headaches anyway after a few weeks. If I drink things with sugar in them, then I get headaches. If I drunk things with artificial sweetener in them, then sooner or later things with sugar in them seem like a good idea.
I had managed to get down to drinking nothing but one or two cans of diet soda a day (plus as much water as I want). And just as I managed to kick the diet soda habit, I realized that my three favorite beverages: honeycrisp apple juice, tangerine juice, and egg nog - are all in season. So it looks like I'm just going to be living with headaches for the rest of the year.

I've heard it said that if you don't throw up after a run, you're not training hard enough.
Today, I almost trained hard enough.
Also, the fitness center at my apartment complex is alarmingly popular at 2:30am.

Yesterday was a nice, easy 5 mile run in 58 minutes. I decided to try watching a movie while I ran. Running outside is more fun than watching a movie on a treadmill. For the future, I definitely need to use a different pair of earbuds - my ear still stings from where my sweat shorted the ones I was wearing.

It's been more than a month since the last time I ran a mile as fast as I could, so I tried it again, but this time on the treadmill. Last time, I averaged 6.8mph; this time it was 6.5mph. The amount of misery I'm experiencing right now suggests that I should probably make this a bigger part of my routine. It's really amazing how it takes longer to recover from running one mile at ~6mph than it does to actually run 5 miles at 5mph.

Running on a treadmill has always been difficult for me, to the point that I considered it nigh impossible for a long time. But the ability to listen to music without headphones was a powerful draw. Also, it's cold outside, and lately "right after everyone goes to bed" has been my only chance to do any self-directed activities. So tonight at two a.m., I ran 5 miles on the treadmill. It sucked.
The worst part was the fact that the muscles that keep me balanced on a treadmill aren't the same as the muscles I use off the treadmill. So I have lots of little tiny muscles that are very angry with me right now.The second worst part was the fact that I decided to set goals based on "when this song ends." It makes music less enjoyable when you can't remember if a song has a bridge or not, and you're thinking it's maybe almost over and here comes the bridge and it's at least another minute before you can drop your speed another 0.1mph. And then a Nightwish song comes on...Anyway, with luck and determination, I'll have run 200 miles in 2014. That's pretty awesome. I'll be resetting the counter in January, and I hope in 2015 I make it to Rivendell.

One thing I have focused a lot on as an instructor, a manager, and now as a parent is giving the people I've been instructing, managing, and parenting opportunities for constructive failure. At some point as a kid, myself, I became a little too afraid of falling - I was 10 before I learned to ride a bike, and I've never learned to properly use skates or a skateboard, and I've always wondered if maybe being a little less afraid of falling would have translated into better balance and thence into competence.

The biggest thing, though, is that I don't believe you can ever learn the difference between "hurt" and "injured" without being injured. I don't think you ever learn the difference between "oops" and "oh shit" if all you ever experience is "oops" - and certainly not if all you ever experience is "I followed instructions and everything turned out fine!"

The more we allow people to turn off their brain, the more we allow them to rely on systems already in place, the more we endanger them. It's like removing all the traffic signals from an intersection to force people to pay attention and make decisions.

I have to constantly remind myself how important it is to let others screw up. I'd think it would come more easily, given how frequently I screw up myself.

One thing I knew before I became a parent was that parents and kids interpret "maybe later" differently. What I didn't realize is how inescapable it is when you're suddenly the parent. Even knowing that my son is going to take "maybe later" to mean "yes" when I really mean "either this is going to postpone the tantrum, or you're going to forget about it, and either way that's a win for me," I just can't stop. Because it really is a win either way.

On the other hand, before I became a parent I was just FULL of quiet disapproving clucks for parents that wouldn't just take a moment to indulge their child in whatever harebrained scheme the child was concocting at the moment, when really all it would take is just a little time. Now I'm relieved that I never actually clucked out loud, because I've finally realized that kids always have a harebrained scheme that will just take a little time to indulge, and if a parent even makes it out the goddamned door, it's because they callously cut one of those schemes short.

Today, I made the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever experienced. I feel compelled to make a note of how I did it. (It always saddens me when I reflect on the fact that every time I'm really proud of something I cooked, it involves dairy and/or gluten, and so many of my friends have a hard time with one or both of those.)

2 slices Nature's Own Butterbread (we're off to a healthy start already!)

1 tablespoon of butter

1 slice of deli gouda

1 slice of pepper jack

1 ounce of fresh mozzarella, sliced thin enough that it makes a layer all its own

1 slice of muenster

2 thin slices of onion

1 medium slice of a gorgeous tomato that happened to be almost as big as the bread

Melt the butter over medium heat. Sauté the onion in the butter until glassy, and remove from butter (trying to leave as much butter in the pan as possible). Place the bread slices in the pan, and on top of them, the cheese (2 types of cheese on each slice of bread; I did gouda and pepper jack on one, mozzarella and muenster on the other, but I don't imagine it matters much), then the onion - one slice of onion on each side. My rings of onion fell apart, so I tried to spread them out a bit. Reduce the heat and leave it on the stove for a while, then put it under the broiler for a while. Put one slice on a plate, top with a tomato, and then put the other slice face down on top. Press down, let cool for a minute, and eat over a plate to catch the juice. If you're the kind of person who doesn't just stand over a plate in the kitchen wolfing down a sandwich without ever setting it down, you'll probably want a second plate to set the sandwich down on so you're not laying the toasted side of the bread down in the drippy juice.