2010: The best and worst of Rapid Eye Reality

Looking back at 2010, I’m surprised I survived. In the span of 12 months, I found myself under a tsunami warning; I was lightly assaulted by Nelly and who I still suspect to be Snoop Dogg’s father; and I offended Montel Williams. I waded through a throng of angry South American protestors. I sat in the same poker chair as suspected killer Joran van der Sloot (it was still warm). I spent 106 days on the road. I said goodbye to my dog. I saw my dignity harness fly off more times than I could count. All in all, it was a pretty tame year.

It was also one of the better years in recent memory. I worked more than I have in my life. I took the best vacation ever with my wife for our ten-year anniversary. I went on my best-ever family vacation. I ran the my first (and second) 5k races. After not being able to jog a mile without stopping in August, I racked up more than a 100 miles of running. I played 44 rounds of disc golf. I only played 63 total hours of online poker. I played 284.5 hours of live poker for a profit so modest it’s almost funny. I saw some great live music with great friends, read a lot of good books, and marked nine years of writing on this little blog.

The past 12 months have been eye-opening in a lot of ways I have a hard time defining. I’ve been up and down more times than I can count. It’s been a ride and a half, and with only 12 hours left in the year, I’m still not sure what it all means. I only know that it all makes me who I am, for better or worse.

As I look ahead to 2011, I can’t help but recognize some pretty significant goals I’m setting for myself. I have no idea if they are attainable. For the sake of brevity, I’ll not bother to list them here. If I had to boil it all down, I want only one thing: to be better than I am.

If you’re having a slow start to the new year, I’ve included below some of my favorite Rapid Eye Reality posts from 2010. It’s some of the better writing I’ve done this year and a fairly good measure of my manic head. If you’re really bored, I also included some of my favorite personal photographs; all the books I read; all the movies and documentaries I watched, and my favorite meals throughout the year.

Finally, a word of thanks to those of you–old and new–who continue to come back, read, comment, and email. I give up on this space in the ether about once a month. Your encouragement, guidance, and friendship keep me writing. Thanks for making it happen.

Happy New Year, friends. May you be as lucky as I am.

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The road

Husband, Father, Suburban Warrior

Pompous, self-righteous commentary

Navel-gazing to the nth degree

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30 snaps from 2010

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23 books I read in 2010 (in order!)

Under the Dome
Inherent Vice
Eating the Dinosaur
Killing Yourself to Live
Then We Came to the End
The Road
Game Change
Invisible Man
Same Kind of Different as Me
Double Whammy
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and People Who Cook
Lost Vegas
Cat’s Cradle
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
The Chosen
The War of Art
Freedom
The Corrections
Tokyo Vice
The Financial Lives of the Poets
Horns
Everything Matters!

41 documentaries I watched in 2010

Vernon, Florida
Food, Inc.
Waco: The Rules of Engagement
The Kid Stays in the Picture
A Certain Kind of Death
Loose Change: An American Coup
Our Brand is Crisis
The Union
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
Touching the Void
Kurt and Courtney
Dear Zachary
Street Fight
Grateful Dawg
Love the Beast
June 17, 1994
Queen: Making of a Night at the Opera
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
When You’re Strange
Pressure Cooker
We Live in Public
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride
Anytown, USA
Black Money
Jesus Camp
The Most Dangerous Man in America
The Fog of War
Overnight
Rank
Lost in La Mancha
Deep Water
From Dust to Glory
Tales From the Script
Art & Copy
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
Rolling Stones: Stones in Exile
And So Goes The Nation
The US vs. John Lennon
The Kennedy Detail
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Heartworn Highways

37 movies I watched or re-watched in 2010

Primer
The Hangover
13 Days
The Ant Bully
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
California Split
The Spanish Prisoner
Braveheart
Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion 
Lewis CK: Chewed Up
Willy Wonka & Chocolate Factory
The Informant!
Blow
Heat
Men Who Stare at Goats
District 9
The Hurt Locker
The Invention of Lying
The Heist
Syriana
Sherlock Holmes
Edge of Darkness
Spartan
Crazy Heart
Duplicity
The Mist
Zombieland
Up in the Air
The Brothers Broom
Step Brothers
In the Loop
The Candidate
A Serious Man
Homicide
Waiting for Guffman
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Little Children

12 best meals of 2010

Seafood Haven (Nassau)
Super Bowl gumbo (Homemade)
Rick Erwin’s (Mastodon Weekend meal, Greenville, SC)
Frank Pepe’s pizza (Mohegan Sun, CT)
Blackened mahi (Homemade)
Zozo’s (St. John, USVI)
Bonita Michoacan (Las Vegas)
Grayton Beach shrimp boil (Homemade, FL)
Slow-cooked pork; aligator/shrimp pie (Rosario, Argentina)
Halloween Corn Chowder (Homemade)
Thomas Keller roasted chicken with root vegetables (Homemade)
Nantucket (Greenville, SC)

And still the reason I get out of bed every morning