The Highs and Lows of 2012 - The Lows

Once again, it's time for my annual recap of the year. In the greater scheme of things, this year was really pretty good. This is my eighth year of doing this, and as I've found in the past, it's hard to come up with ten real "lows". In fact, this year was easily more full of positives than the prior three years combined!  Of course, there were some terrible things that happened in the world, but I won't list those.  This list is filled with things that affected me somewhat directly. They don't necessarily mean they were bad things, or that life as I knew it changed. In fact, you'll probably consider many of these fairly petty.  That's the problem when you had a pretty decent year.  Just things that brought me down or perturbed me during the year. These are what make my "lows" list (the "highs" list can be seen above...):

"The 10 Low Points of 2012"
(from least low to lowest of the low)

10. "New" Blogger - I started blogging in 2005.  Blogger was in its infancy, and had plenty of bugs associated with it.  Enough to drive many over to Wordpress.  I, on the other hand, stuck with Blogger as it turned into a pretty decent and stable platform.  At some point, the geeks at Blogger/Google decided that they needed to make a major overhaul.  For those who were relatively new, it wasn't that big of a deal.  For old-timers like me, it was a fight to the death.  Finally, the last hold-outs were switched over to the "new" Blogger.  Was it a big deal?  No.  Bothersome?  Somewhat.  A pain in the butt?  Most definitely.  After all these months, I still don't like it...

9. Balcony remodel - OK, this one is just frustrating.  The owners of my apartment complex decided that all the balconies needed to be replaced.  Actually, there's some merit to this.  However, the final results are far less than adequate.  There's real problems with the lack of a roof on the top ones, and ceilings for the lower ones, making them fairly unfunctional.  Add to it the shoddy workmanship, and the property value plummets.  And I've found out this winter that the bottom of the door frame to my balcony door was damaged when they ripped out the original flooring.  I now have a half-inch gap where the sub-freezing temps and snow can all blow in...

8. Big Soul - That's the name of the soul band I've been playing in since 2010.  The band itself isn't the downer here.  It's the lack of playing opportunities.  One of the problems with a nine-man band.  Rehearsal scheduling is difficult too.  Sadly, we haven't played since March, and there's nothing on the horizon...

7. The Neighbors - Fortunately, I don't really have to deal with them.  The only time I really see them is when the fire alarm goes off.  Which happened three times this year.  Due to the poor cooking abilities of someone on the first floor.  What I've learned is that I now live in a white trash building.  I believe I might be the oldest tenant.  I know that not everyone who lives here is paying rent--there's more than one family living in a couple of the apartments.  And the ones upstairs have a toddler who has learned how to run.  From one corner of the apartment to the other.  Over and over and over.  Loudly.  An added bonus--I've heard this same running around from the kid at 2 and 3 AM.  Unfortunately, the rent here is some of the cheapest in town and it's not worth it to try to move...

6. Davy Jones - I found myself far more affected by his death than I expected or should have.  It made me reminisce about my youth, my musical influences, and the deaths of celebrities I grew up with.  More deaths are going to come--each one marking a spot in the road map of my life...

5. Health - Not really something that I blogged much about, but my health still consumes more of my time than I'd like it to.  The diabetes is being controlled, though it's a pain in the ass.  I'm in the midst of switching over to a different brand of insulin, so there's the accompanying tweaks to that.  My vision is not as good as it used to be, but that's probably more due to my advanced age.  In addition, my knees are causing all sorts of problems.  I think it's the arthritis that has been genetically passed down from my dad's side of the family.  Some days are good, some are painful.  It's bound to get worse, too.  All I can really do is neutralize the degeneration.  There are days where I wish I would have taken better care of myself...

4. Death of a Friend - Over the past couple of years, I've had to deal with deaths in the family, and the death of a close blogger friend.  This year was pretty free from that sort of thing until I learned that a high school friend had died in late October.  And not just any friend, but an old girlfriend.  And not just an old girlfriend, but the one that I learned about the boundaries of first, second and third base with (nope--no home run).  We hadn't actually spoken to each other in decades, but this news really caught me off guard...

3. Football - I'm rather embarrassed to admit that this one ranks so high (so low?) on the list.  In 2011, the Griz played in the FCS semi-finals, the Saints played in the NAIA Championship game, and my high school alma mater were the state champions.  This year?  The Griz had their first losing season in 20 years, missed the playoffs and lost to the Cats.  The Saints didn't win their conference for the first time since 2000 and missed the playoffs.  The Bruins backed into the playoffs but lost their first game.  It was a painful year as far as my teams were concerned, and sort of put a dark cloud over Helena...

2. HNT/OHNT Retirements - Interestingly, this ranked #2 last year, too.  But for different reasons.  Last year it was because of the unknown.  This year it's because of what was missing all year.  Many blogs I thought I'd continued visiting disappeared.  As did their writers.  Many people I thought I'd still be chatting with after a year disappeared.  Many people I thought I was closer to, I found that perhaps I wasn't.  Being the optimist, I'll take some of the blame on that part, but overall, the HNT community scattered to the winds, and I don't know if I'll ever experience anything similar...

1. Politics - Man, was this year a banner year for bad politics.  Negativity permeated the news at all levels, and social media wasn't spared.  Many FB friends were unfriended by others.  My Facebook friends list didn't take a hit, since I don't really care about the political stance of any of them.  But this meant that my newsfeed was filled with posts from the loonies on the left, the loonies on the right, and the loonies that didn't have a clue what they were talking about.  I saw more misleading graphs, quotes and polls that supported their points of view--even the same info supporting both sides!  The ignorance that was spewed by friends, friends of friends, links to "news"--it all was pretty sad to watch.  Outside of the internet, the commercials that ran for far too long were so full of lies that I couldn't possibly watch them anymore.  All in all, it was a disgusting display from all sides.  Sadly, it's bound to continue.  The MT Legislature convenes in a week, and there's already controversial bills being written up.  I can't wait...

So, that's the downer list for 2012.  Mostly not so bad. But as I said at the top, the year really wasn't monumentally bad. Fortunately, there were lots of good things that happened too! You can check those out in the "Highs" post above this one. Go. Now!