Looking back at '06

Man, it's always fun to look back at old posts on this blog ...

Simply put 2006 was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

It all started barely a week into the new year when I arrived home from work one afternoon to find our house had been broken into and burglarized. The suspects busted a basement window, just outside a room where I keep some of my most treasured memorabilia. They scooped up all they could fit in a duffle bag, we guessed, before ripping our DVD player from an outlet and leaving out our front door. It still hurts ...

Rough mornings. A lost cell phone. Problems with our roof repair. Costly car repairs. A lost camera. And hassles with our lawn mower repair didn't make the year any easier. At times it seemed like the whole world was ending.

It also was the year of Dick Cheney, TomKat and Katie Couric ...

But hey, let's talk about the fun stuff ... Like the Sunday night Chinese, our anniversary weekend, the Tigers or the awe and wonder that was the blizzard of 2006.

It also was a great year for TV. We said good-bye to Will & Grace, and we were forced to say good-bye to Love Monkey, Sons & Daughters and Invasion before we even got a chance to know them ...But we also welcomed My Boys.

Kates began her sixth year of teaching fourth grade and, as I write this, she's reached the halfway mark to completing her Masters degree in reading instruction. And though things haven't always been peachy keen for her, she continues to amaze me ...

For me 2006 was the year I got to see Washington, D.C., in a way I hadn't before. I got back to playing baseball. I got to watch blind people drive racecars. I got to go kayaking on Lake Michigan. I rode my bike in a virtual marathon and still played baseball that afternoon. And I got to watch Superman on my birthday. And I made a return to St. Louis ...

And oh, the concerts and theater! Kates and I saw "Annie,". And I traveled back in time with the River Root Band. O.A.R. won me over. Imogen Heap dazzled me in May. Summerfest left me feeling as alive and exhausted as ever in July. The Goo Goo Dolls and Counting Crows rained on us in August. Seeing James Taylor in Chicago was sweet. And I met James Blunt in Milwaukee ...

I got to meet Elvis' best friend, Mo Rocca and Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell ...

Strangely though, for all the new things, excitement and experiences that defined the year for Kates and I, 2006 might be best remembered by me for something I've known all my life. 2006 was the year I fell all over again for vinyl records ...