Good Morning Internet

2009 was kind of a rough year for every­one. The econ­omy did a swan-dive into an empty pool and a lot of us lost our jobs.

This year, I declared, would be dif­fer­ent. While watch­ing Olympic hockey and a space shut­tle land­ing (I’m a mul­ti­tasker), I could tell this year would be filled with adven­tures. And wow, yes, it sure has. It’s been bet­ter than I had imag­ined, and I feel so lucky to have had so many expe­ri­ences this year. A quick ver­bal montage:

• Sur­vived the snowpocalypse
• Played a reunion show with Three Track Mind
• Turned 30
• Went to South by Southwest
• Saw the final (sched­uled) launch of Space Shut­tle Atlantis
• Went to MaxFunCon
• Quit an unful­fill­ing job
• Watched the World Cup
• Watched fire­works from my roof
• Met Tom Green
• Found an amaz­ing new job
• Started my sec­ond year of grad school

And now it’s Octo­ber. It’s autumn, my favorite sea­son, and I still have a few adven­tures before the year wraps up. Next week­end, I’m bik­ing 100 kilo­me­ters in the Seag­ull Cen­tury. In Novem­ber, I’m one of the lucky ones going to the NASA Tweetup for Space Shut­tle Discovery’s last trip to space. (That’s right: Two shut­tle launches in one year!) A week later I get to see my all-time favorite band, The Posies, play in DC. And then it’s the holidays.

I feel so incred­i­bly lucky. As I write this, I’m sit­ting at the same table where I was back in Feb­ru­ary, day­dream­ing about all these adven­tures. I couldn’t be hap­pier with how every­thing turned out. 2010 has been filled with expe­ri­ences, friends, and fam­ily I wouldn’t trade for anything.

What was your favorite adven­ture of 2010? How do you plan on top­ping it in 2011?

Related Posts:

• STS-133 NASA Tweetup
• I’m lead­ing a panel at SXSW Interactive!
• The Posies at the 9:30 Club
• Thanks, Mom and Dad, for intro­duc­ing me to space
• 13 days until the NASA tweetup

This is prob­a­bly fool­ish of me, but I’m giv­ing the Ori­oles another chance.

First, the tough facts. As of last night’s loss to the White Sox, the Ori­oles’ record is 36–74, which puts them at a win per­cent­age of .327. That’s still the worst record in all of Major League Base­ball. The team is 32.5 games back, so even if they won every sin­gle game for the rest of the sea­son, they still wouldn’t stand a chance at get­ting into the play­offs. So, the sea­son is basi­cally over with a lit­tle under two months’ worth of games to go.

It’s been a depress­ing sea­son for Ori­oles fans. Not only had I writ­ten off the team, but I was so dis­gusted with their on-field dis­play and their poor man­age­ment I stopped fol­low­ing base­ball alto­gether. If it hadn’t been for the World Cup, I would have stopped fol­low­ing all sports. (I haven’t ruled that out. I’m still not sure the con­stant heart­break is worth it.)

But there is a glim­mer of light for the future of the Ori­oles, but it’s brief, faint, and ten­u­ous. Last week, under the new man­age­ment of Buck Showal­ter, they swept the Angels and, for the first time in a long while, were able to cel­e­brate a series of wins. They had some great momen­tum, and we saw some­thing we hadn’t seen the Ori­oles do for a long time: They worked as a team, not just as a group of indi­vid­u­als look­ing to up their per­sonal stats.

But, like all good things that hap­pen to the team, the cel­e­bra­tion was short-lived. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it was the excite­ment of hav­ing a new man­ager that kick-started them into a string of wins. Maybe it was because the Angels are a middle-of-the-pack team.

Last night, the Birds lost 4–2 in the first game of a series with the White Sox. Despite the fact that the team seems to per­form ter­ri­bly on Sun­days, I’m head­ing to the game this after­noon, pos­si­bly fueled by that fool­ish opti­mism that’s kept me a fan my entire life. Some call it “Ori­oles magic”. But it’s start­ing to feel a lot like an abu­sive rela­tion­ship. I’m going back to the team because this time they’ll be dif­fer­ent! They’ve shown me how much they’ve changed! They won’t let me down any­more. They won’t break my heart.

I don’t know if I’ve com­pletely given up on the team or not. Can I be accused of being a fair-weather fan even though I’ve suf­fered through 15 years of dis­ap­point­ment? Will it be worth it to come back next year for another sea­son? One thing’s for sure: I’m not buy­ing a Sun­day ticket plan again.

I guess I’ll see how things go this after­noon. Lets go O’s. Sigh.

Related Posts:

• The year of adven­ture continues