New Years 2010

<— Do these tires make me look fat?

 (new meaning to “rubber-necking”)

Another year come and gone and I totally nailed this year’s resolutions- pretty easy as I never made any for 2009!    So I’m not gonna rock the boat too hard this year either.  I’ll just wrap up my year end and “goals” for 2010 for my hobby trifecta: 

Beer: 2009 was an awesome year- I visited more than 50 new breweries including 2 beer fests (EBF and GTMW), Philly beer week, and 2 road trips canvassing the southeast to Georgia and zig-zagging the north to Wisconsin.  Our Monday night tasting group tried over 778 beers (743 not including duplicates) from 291 breweries – thanks for the stats Scott!  One crazy Monday even included 31 Barleywines which if I remember correctly (though I probably don’t) led to one helluva Tuesday morning hangover…  I also came across some of this year’s most coveted beers from sours like Allagash’s Gargamel and Vagabond to Lost Abbey’s Duck Duck Gooze to Pliny (Elder and Younger) and even some Kabert- wipe the drool off your chin!  For 2010, I want to visit more new places (maybe another trip to Europe) and drink better beer.  I’ve already started with visits to Alpine Brewing (mmmm…. Nelson), Hamilton’s (tried Alpine’s 17% barleywine), Breakwater Brewing Company (good IPA’s), and the Neighborhood (RR “standard” IPA on tap- delish!) during my holiday trip to San Diego so this should be easy to accomplish…

Sports: I’m still playing aggressively on the softball field – as aggressive as you can on a coed slow pitch team.  Proof is in the injuries, waiting for a big toenail to grow back and hopefully the scar on my shin from a hard hit line drive will go away soon.  Hopefully in 2010, my mountain bike won’t collect dust as a garage ornament and maybe I’ll break out the rollerblades again to relive my old dream of becoming a freestyle street competitor. More like a fantasy really, but one I carried until years ago when some crazy lady running with her baby stroller collided into my leg and my chin cushioned the fall before my well-guarded wrists could stop me.  I reluctantly accepted her offer of a diaper to alleviate the bleeding until the doctors stitched me up.  Aw, good times!  I doubt I’ll be jumping trashcans and sliding off benches like the past, but we’ll see. 

And though I can’t control how successful my sports teams play, Padres owner Jeff Moorad recently said he wouldn’t rest until the Pads are in the World Series.  Good luck dude- last year they looked brilliant both ends of the season but that damn middle performed like the stock market a year ago.  Thank you Chargers for bringing me some SD sports pride- totally awesome season so far (11 in a row!!!) which I’ve neglected to talk about for fear of jinxing it but I’m waiting for them to bring home the coveted Vince Lombardi. Go Bolts!!!

Cars: I need to get my ass in gear (um, pun intended?).  I only drove my turbo car 27 miles this past year- how lame is that?  Hopefully I can swap over the NX 2.0L manual into the rust-free hard-top 1.6L auto shell so the cancer-ridden track NX can stop using up a parking space in my driveway.  I miss the track…  There was one car accomplishment in 2009 I have to gloat about – I (we) finally got MotoIQ running.  After a 2 year legal delay, this kick ass, no BS car publication generated a ton of interest at SEMA and is finally getting the traffic we expected to see from motorheads previously drowning in sorrow after Primedia dissolved any halfway decent car mag at the beginning of the 2009.  We have thefinest car writers to exist writing for MotoIQ, from the “revenge of the nerd” (Mike Kojima) to the technobabble of Dave Coleman to engineering adventures of Eric Tsu to track reports by professional race car driver Billy Johnson.  And for some reason, they let me write with them– must be part of some affirmative action program.  Anyways, check out MotoIQ even if your car knowledge is about as good as knowing your car has four tires and they mostly have air in them.  You might find we intersperse just enough humor to keep you interested in the tech jargon.

Here’s to 2010!