Thinking back on 2008, it must have been the most eventful year of my life. Here’s a rough outline of major events in chronological order — some good, some bad (I’ll do a separate post with riding highlights soon).

1. Found out that my riding buddy, Dave, had a wreck and injured his spinal cord (he is recovering very well, and is back to riding the trails)
2. Got engaged
3. Had my wisdom teeth removed
4. Celebrated Sarah’s graduation from grad school
5. Took a trip to North Carolina and Virginia, to explore some job possibilities for Sarah.  While there, I was hit by a car (which then “ran”). I had some scrapes and a broken/dislocated finger, which still hurts sometimes (it happened in June). Then our car broke down. We did manage to see some beautiful sights while we were there, but the trip was pretty much a complete bust. Sarah did not get either job. Actually, we thought she was getting the one in Virginia, and just as we thought they were going to make an offer, they told us they had a hiring freeze, and could not fill the position.
6. Got married
7. Moved to Pennsylvania, since Sarah found a job here. I kept my job, and have been working from home.
8. Found out I’m getting laid off from my job. December 31 (tomorrow) will be my last day.
9. Took steps to form my own company providing Web development and other services. This is the first I’ve mentioned it on the blog, I’ll say more later.

I had a distinct feeling this morning that I wasn’t meant to ride to work today. Everything was going wrong: I couldn’t find my tire levers and patch kit (I don’t like to go anywhere without them), I was out of coffee, I almost forgot to pump up my tires, and I was running late. The temptation to drive to work was strong, mostly so I wouldn’t be late. However, I really wanted to ride — especially since I only got to ride to work one day last week.

So, I decided to ride anyway. I figured if I was going to be late to work, I might as well hit the ground running once I got there, so I went to Starbucks. I was going to go through the “ride through,” but there were a bunch of cars backed up there, so I leaned my bicycle against the front window and went inside. There was only one person in line. I got my iced coffee and a scone (splurging calorically) and left.

I rode over to my usual route and kept going. I turned onto the path that runs through IU’s campus, which I have been taking lately since 7th Street is under construction, and I saw EMS people and firefighters everywhere, with police cars and ambulances along the path. It looked like they were gathered around someone on the ground. I turned around and left to find and alternate route to my alternate route.

As I rode up Jordan Ave., the car behind me seemed interested in passing me. However, I had just had a truck turn a little in front of me while I was in the bike lane, and we were approaching an intersection. I took the lane. After I rode through the intersection, I was going to turn left into the library’s parking lot. As I approached the turn, the guy passed me on the left (i.e. in the wrong lane), cut me off, and then turned left himself! He could have just waited for me to turn left and turned after me. I followed him into the parking lot and resisted the temptation to ride up to his car and give him a piece of my mind.

The rest of my trip was uneventful, but I ended up getting to work about 30 minutes late.

I just got a disturbing message in a terminal session while working. Nothing seems out of whack, the UPS apparently did its job, but it’s still a bit nerve-wracking:

Broadcast message from root Fri Jun  8 11:17:29 2007…

Warning power loss detected on UPS ups4

Broadcast message from root Fri Jun  8 11:17:33 2007…

Power has returned on UPS ups4…