Top 10 top 10 lists from the last 10 years as we head into 2010

I'm working on 10 lists to highlight some of my experiences over the last decade. I'm afraid that some of my lists are going to be more heavily weighted to the last few years because I don't remember stuff that well. I don't have all 10 lists yet, but I'll keep at it. Some of this may spill into next year.

Top 10 books I read in the last 10 years
10. Pistol: The Story of Pete Maravich
9. Count of Monte Cristo
8. Jitterbug Perfume
7. Harry Potter (I'm just lumping them all together, but I preferred the ones with Quidditch)
6. Ender's Game
5. Interpreter of Maladies
4. Prodigal Summer
3. The Perfect Mile
2. Bel Canto
1. Time Traveler's Wife

Top 10 years of the last 10
1. 2004
2. 2009
3. 2001
4. 2005
5. 2006
6. 2008
7. 2000
8. 2003
9. 2002
10. 2007

Top 10 songs played on iTunes (This is obviously skewed to the mid to late aughts)
10. Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly
9. Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz
8. Pale Moon by Shannon McNally
7. Screaming Infidelities by Dashboard Confessional
6. These Boots Are Made for Walkin' by Jessica Simpson
5. Gracie by Ben Folds
4. Age Six Racer by Dashboard Confessional
3. Half Acre by Hem
2. The Comeback by Shout Out Louds
1. 1B by Yo-yo Ma, Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer

Top 10 Athletic Achievements (I really feel like I'm forgetting something)
10. 6k victory
9. making HOV and contributing in the early season
8. consistent weight training (165 front squat!)
7. Return to Ultimate after the year (?) of the psoas
6. The Golden Cup from Wildwood
5. Sectionals '02 game-winning Callahan
4. Pacing MB to a 5-minute mile on the first try
3. breaking 30 minutes in a 5-miler PRs including 15:46 5k, 29:36 5-miler...
2. 4:41 mile, the fastest in quite some time by bunches
1. The training and completion of the Marine Corps Marathon in '04
1a. MUtants and the Peter L. Offense Sectionals '01

Top 10 TV shows (some on DVD)
1. Gilmore Girls
2. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
3. The Office
4. Friends
5. Project Runway
6. Coupling
7. Flight of the Conchords
8. Sports Night
9. Ed
10. Alias

The Christmas letter you didn't get from me

Dear Friends and Family,

I am going to share with you my year in Facebook status updates. I thought it might accomplish the same thing as a good letter, but I'm really quite vague.

Love,
Dave

Oh, yeah, the updates:

January:
David is looking for the team to come together after this.
David feels his philosophy shifting.
David is going to make popsicles… on the track.
David is kind of pretty sure we can. Maybe.
David is trying to fathom 1.8 million people.
David was on the wrong side of 15-14.


February:
David cannot think of a fitting superlative for Evie’s cookies.
David feels the sting of beard-ism.
David sends bearded kisses in your general direction.
David is wondering if anybody wants to go with him to support Kyle in the 24 hour musicals?
David's favorite moment of the day was entering the darkness on the first turn of the first 400 meters.

March:
David is frisbee crush on Sam, dance crush on Anne, general crush on February 28.
David is no longer amused by the Not-so-great Depression.
David is aw yeah.
David thinks marriages shouldn't last forever just so there can be more weddings.
David really just wants more parties with families, dancing, and love, not divorce as the genie named Aaron has pointed out.
David has a theory, will never tell, and walks through the fire.
David has a lot to learn.
Whatever it is, it isn’t here.
David just asked a squirrel, "Are you ok?" after it fell out of a 25-foot tree. The squirrel didn't answer, but scurried away.

April:
David has already been fooled.
Sometimes you get what you deserve and even though you want more, you can't be too sad about that.
David is on the verge of creating a series of surveys about himself to send to his friends.
David thinks a run is in order. Wishes Borman lived up the street.
David was in second place for about three steps, fortunately they were the last three. Yeah.
David is 2nd again.
David’s legs didn’t quit, but everything else is striking on their behalf.
David has auto-tuning on his mind.
“He lives vicariously through himself”

May:
David saw two pirates making out and couldn’t resist shouting, “Pirate love!”
The rain will not deter us. It will only moisten our spirits.
If I achieve nothing else, at least I taught Tedward to dance.
The intensity got fixed but the mark got broken.
David wants to make out with this weather.
David suspended “your mom” jokes for the day. No need to thank me.
David is quietly rocking the red.
David is quietly watching the red get rocked. Ouch.
David needs Parks and Rec to go away or needs some self control. Both seem unlikely.
David is all about the slow start this weekend.
David had a dream about cleaning and is now making that a reality. Hopefully, that’s the start of a trend.
David might become a loyal customer of Southwest after all.
David wonders if overreaction might be the right reaction.

June:
David is pretty sure his hamstrings are tuned an octave too high.
David is no match for an armored King Hippo.
David blames it on the al-al-al- weather.
David hopes Betty bounced back and was glad to spend time with familiar faces.
David is warming up his weirdness. The leftovers will be slathered in BBQ sauce.
everything but the canoe
David is going for an unofficial tubing record today. The late start won't do us any favors.
dodging rain drops and responsibility.
David would rather be night-tubing.
David experienced a glitch in the Matrix.
David would like to auto-tune father's day. I'm not sure it would do anything, but it makes T-Pain and the news better, so maybe it would work for Dads.
David is alive. Thanks for asking.
David laughed and cried at "The Proposal". That's one perfectly predictable romantic comedy.
Wait? What? Michael Jackson is dead? Inconceivable. (Also, Billie Jean. Not my girl.)
David wants to shed material possessions in theory, but not in practice.
David is whaddaya know? 2nd place again (This time in my age group).

July:
David is trying to hold off a thunderstorm with just an outstretched hand.
David is in the promised land of leftovers.
David was not second, but is feeling a little fast.
David has got the beach vision, but still needs the beach attire (half of it anyway.)
David can't believe it. Turns out I was second in my age group on Friday.
David is in the peloton, but always considering a breakaway.
David wrestles with the age-old Sunday night question: watch low quality Lohan movie or do something productive?
David enjoyed downtown Fort Worth and is now headed to the land of diving in the sand!
The faux-Brits DO drink from a faux-golden cup!
David has finished his championship laundry and grocery shopping. Next up: Championship bathroom cleaning. There's nothing like glory.
David is not happy with non-confrontational double-speak. Make a decision and mean it, punks.

August:
David is watching his own every move on the Internet in a mirror. Don't raise your eyebrow at me, mirrorDave.
David is unable to handle his rock and roll lifestyle; considering something more bluegrass-y.
It takes very little to create the illusion of security: just a few pieces of wood can do it.
David has the best non-roommate ever and I'm not talking about the giant dead beetle.
the modern amateur philosopher inside of me asks, "If I cannot tweet or share my status update, do I really exist?"
David finds an increasing number of things irrelevant. Why not this thing?
As I pack the artifacts from my life into boxes I realize that the people in it have helped make it pretty awesome.
Newsflash: Usain Bolt= Fast. Wow.
David curses stuff.
“don’t stop ‘til you get enough!”
“Goodnight, Moon”
David is tempted by the prospect of a landline. Really, really tempted.
David met his adorable second cousin, ran up the side of a little mountain, watched the bright orange sunrise and is using up his adjectives in hot Arizona.

September:
David was only over Facebook when he couldn't get to it.
David ran a practice on the turf in the rain with 25 people. Did I slip into an alternate universe?
Field space is on my mind.
David is after fjords and bjork.
David wonders if he can be a fan of Finse.
The ants are throwing a welcome back party and lots of them are invited.
David feels a low constant hum of the question, "is this important?"

October:
David is going to plop his priorities in a coliseum, have them battle gladiators, and if they live then he'll know what to do.
David played crab soccer in the park this morning. It was a crabtacular day to abuse my arms and hands.
David is quite pleased to know you.
David is ham and cheese, ham and biscuits, hamhocks, ham and pineapple, honey-baked ham, MC Hammer, green eggs and ham...
David screamed like mad for a tie and walked home with chants of U-S-A ringing in his ears.
David quietly wrestles some big questions. The questions appear to have both a size and tactical advantage.
David just found out that deep down inside, he's still a Chiefs fan.
As the Kool-Aid man once said as he broke through the wall, "Oh yeah!"
Wayne's World?
Adversity is the test. Defeat is the education. Pay attention and pack some extra socks next time.
David thinks the Internet should know that Roller Derby is awesome. See, look, I even said it on the Internet.

November:
David is turning left.
David thinks daylight savings time should be an individual choice. This could be problematic when meeting someone at 10 PM give or take 1 hour.
The rain is complicating an already complicated weekend. Biting off more Ultimate than I can chew is catching up with me NOW.
My marathon PR is about 50 seconds slower than Sarah Palin's. Who do I get to blame?
A very late layout on some bad force side defense led to full on cramping in BOTH calves simultaneously. Not the highlight of my day.
David is wondering when he became a planner.
I'm an Uncle x 2. Welcome Parker!

December:
The Internet is good for lots of things, but hugging isn't one of them.
David is brought to you by the number 5.
David is concerned that babies are taking over Facebook. First Facebook, next...
If I get sick, I'm going down fighting. I am not afraid to pull hair.
early to bed and early to rise, hopefully makes this man f-a-s-t.
37:07 in the morning, not shot by John Wilkes Booth at night. Nice day, indeed.
I need some hair to pull. I'm going down...
oh instant karma, why do you take so long to get at me?
David has decided to mentally add "in bed" to all Facebook updates. It's like eating fortune cookies for days.
You can cancel my flight, but you can't cancel my fun. Yeah, snow!
David is excited and nervous to tele-ski today.
David hopes status updates and snow blanket you and yours with all the holiday cheer you can handle, and maybe a cup more.

Back to basics

It's been about 10 years since I went from downhill skis to the snowboard. I can't remember the exact moment when I looked over jealously at all of those "cool" boarders shredding the mountain and thought, "I want to try that." I wasn't the greatest skier, but I could go pretty much anywhere on the mountain from in the trees to the black diamonds. I couldn't keep my skis perfectly parallel, but I sensed that it would take many expensive lessons to get me from "good" to "great". Instead, I decided to try a new way down the hill. I've read that skiing is easy to learn and hard to master and snowboarding is hard to learn and easy to master. I think that's accurate. The first few days of snowboarding were brutal. I slammed into the ground repeatedly as I caught edges or couldn't find a way to stop. Snowboards don't pop off in a violent crash, that plank stays attached to your feet which meant hopping up to try again was a cinch. Slam down, hop up, slam down, repeat. I took lessons, I had body aches, and then... it all came together. Turning in those sweeping parallel turns that look so cool and take years to get good at on skis, suddenly clicked on the snowboard. From then on, I was mostly a snowboarder. If pressed at the top of a precipice or a field of moguls, I would probably still choose skis, but on an open run a snowboard is still really cool.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to try a new way down the hill- telemark skiing. It's downhill with a free-heel. It involves lunging turns and probably works best for use in the back country. I wasn't in the back country, instead returning to A-basin after 15 years or so away. A-basin has a lot of acreage above the tree line, which can be disorienting. Yesterday, I was disoriented for other reasons as I tried to learn this new way down. The lunges were as tiring as I expected and my struggle was mostly frustrating. I was surprised to find that in a pinch I could fall back on alpine turns, but since I'd come for the challenge of learning tele (short for telemark) turns, that's what I tried to do. I'd read a book of tips and A tried to give me hints as we went, but mostly I battled. I could see the similarities between snowboarding and tele-skiing, but translating the body motions was exhausting work. I was able to turn right with some success, but turning left was just not happening. A claimed I needed more speed, but I know that I needed more body control and a renewal of trust that when I moved from one edge of the ski, to the flat, to the other edge I would be able to recover. At times, I had enough success to make me proud and at other times I threw up my hands in exasperation. Tele-skiing and the altitude wore me out quickly, but I enjoyed the challenge enough that I might try again. In ways that I can't quite explain, I think getting out of my comfort zone was a very good thing.

DC has it

I got to place a small check mark next to a few big items on the DC list. Thanks to the deputy roomie, we woke up early in the morning and went to see decorations at 1600 Penn. We saw the more public spaces, the colored rooms, and such. It was a thrill and something on my list, but not quite as exciting as I'd hoped. I couldn't really detect the O' touch with any of the decor.

Later in the weekend, C took me to Ford's theater for "A Christmas Carol". It was good for getting in the spirit. I've never seen the play with actual Christmas carols, so I thought that was a nice touch. I'm told Ford's theater has recently been redone, but I don't have much theater experience, so I'm not sure what we saw. I did enjoy the set design of the play, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of the renovation. Lincoln's infamous balcony was still intact. I was proud that the bus got us part way too and from the play. So urban.

Last weekend, we got the snow I've been waiting since that first year when it snowed about 15 inches. I'd say it was about 20 inches where I was. It canceled my flight out of town, but was otherwise great. It was pretty, white, and I could dive in it. A lot. So, I did. I found I was only diving off my right foot. Next time we get 20 inches I might need to work on that. I left town before it got too messy. Probably not a bad way to go, well except for the 11-hour travel day...

Triumph in the land of doubt

I spent much of the week explaining to myself why my 10k race would not be a success. My body felt tired. My running felt out of sync. I hadn't run enough. I hadn't run fast in quite some time. I don't run 10k races. It would be cold or wet or I don't run 10k races. I've run enough races to know that my brain lies and I said something about it to AJ, "My brain is in negativity mode." He said something like, "You know how to push your limits from running and from lifting. You'll be fine."

MB and I formulated a conservative plan. We would run 6:15 miles for a while and see how we felt. We were running as Team Shiver, a collection of Ultimate players brave enough to run a race in the mild Mid-Atlantic winter. There was a chance of rain, but I was secretly hoping for snow. The rain let up and turned to a mist. We crawled over a barrier and into the front quarter of the starting group. There were thousands of runners. "Go" was uttered and we shuffled to the start. Moments later, the race plan was out the window as competitive urges took over. We dodged and weaved our way through the crowd. Sometimes I was on MB's heels and sometimes he was on mine. The mile came quickly at about 5:55. So much for strategy.

From there, MB and I settled in and passed people. He led me. I led him. We each took a side and cruised on. We passed the mayor. I took a look at Reagan National Airport in the morning fog. We cruised through two miles at about 12:08. We hit the 5k mark at 18:43. Things were going well. We wrapped around the point and doubled part way back. I felt my first twinge of tiredness at that point, but fought on. Our passing had slowed and teammate SM informed us we were in something like 55th place as those coming met those going. I wasn't sure what to do with that information, but my inclination was to find more people to pass. We crossed 4 miles at something like 23:58. I don't remember how it happened, but suddenly MB was way out in front of me. I could still chase the black and gold of his stocking cap, but we were out of touch. I struggled on. I watched him battle a green and gold singlet and move on. A little later I went past too. I kept my eyes up and on his hat. I passed the 5 mile mark at 30:03. My body felt strong, although at times my arms felt a little heavy. As I pushed on, with the bobbing black and gold as my goal, I figured if I could hold on for 6 minutes and 43 seconds, I would be done. I don't know exactly why I thought that was the amount left, but I was pretty convinced. I crested a small hill on the mostly flat course and found a small group to battle as we made our way to the straight-away finish. I checked my watch and I still had 3 minutes to power through. I chased a woman who was moving, then I passed a guy as well. For the first time all day, someone came up on my shoulder. I held him off as we picked up the pace more and more. Then I break him. The long straight to the finish was still a pretty long straight to the finish and I soon broke too. He came back and passed me and kindly encouraged me. I struggled in, frustrated that I'd made my move too early. I had to fight a bit and I used the team as inspiration. I made my way in at 37:07, with a final place of 31st. Not a bad little 10k.

Since there were very few uniforms, there was no way to get a sense of how the team was doing. We could only support one another and hope. I think each of us had a moment where the team inspired us to fight off a few extra seconds. Later we would find out that we were 4th out of 49 teams. We'd done well as our 7 or 8 member team had become 6 and one of those didn't get a working chip. Four times (at least one of each gender) counted toward our final time. We were about 7 minutes out of third place, but had lots to celebrate over breakfast. I'm hoping for more some other day.

The posts that got away
I didn't quite get through the blogging month, but I'm pleased with what I did get through. I found a few things out. When I work at it my interests do still extend slightly beyond running, Ultimate, and working out. I also found that writing every day made me more observant. In the last few weeks as I've fallen out of the habit of posting, days sometimes go by both instantly and terribly slowly. All of this can't be attributed to blogging, but I think blogging takes my awareness of interaction and purpose up a notch.

I can't decide if the daily writing also loosened up some other creativity inside of me. I had a quick spell where I was feeling all kinds of creative. I came up with projects for myself. I hardly ever do that.

I haven't meant to stop blogging completely, although the thought did cross my mind, but somehow each day has managed to get away. I'd like to tackle a few of the items in brief for my memoirs before moving into this weekend and adding a few more.


Hiking on Thanksgiving
For the second year in a row I was in the Smokey Mountains with C's family and we did a little hiking on Thanksgiving. The fresh air and the sense of completing a hike pre-turkey is extremely satisfying for me. It's all made possible by the fine cooks who stay behind, but it certainly gives me something to be thankful for. I don't know if two years are enough to make a tradition, but tradition or not, it's a great way to enjoy Thanksgiving.

Roller Derby Fan Club
Friends gathered together to cheer on LBJ in her first full bout. We brought signs. I had my face painted. When I sat down, I forgot that most of my face is covered in beard, but the artist did well to work around it. As a fan, I had a terrible time sitting still. I paced. I worried that LBJ wouldn't get playing time. I worried about how she'd do. I worried about her getting hurt because she seems to think that injury is a foregone conclusion. She played. Her team had a stirring come from behind victory. She had some nice hits and either hunger or nerves left a curious feeling in my tummy.

Girls on the Run
I don't even remember how I got roped into this one, but somewhere along the line I signed up to be a "buddy" for a fifth grade girl. I didn't know what to expect, but I was told that I'd been placed with the fast girl. Running a 5k at that age is impressive, but what's fast? I didn't have a clue. Up at 5:30 AM and riding with a stranger, I soon was on a bus full of young girls and their buddies (mostly moms and teachers). The girls seemed excited. They'd been working for several months building up to this distance. The chaos had only just begun. About 6,000 girls and their buddies later, we were crossing the starting line in waves and my buddy was rearing to go. The road was packed and my buddy tripped and fell. It was snowing. Buddy picked herself up and wiped away the pain and made her way on. There was lots to complain about- snow, cold, puddles, crowds, falling, but I tried to keep it positive. I offered to sing songs, but for some reason buddy wasn't buying it. She struggled a bit, but kept after it and finished in about 40 minutes. I think she was a little disappointed, but mostly proud as were her classmates. They had a lot to be proud of. It's a big deal to run that long at that age. I might consider returning in the spring, but probably only for the same buddy. I think it's a great program, but the race and be done involvement is likely not as rewarding as seeing the girls become runners. On the flip side, I feel great about my 5 hours of community service.

Symphony
I probably should have napped after the run, but instead I went to the Symphony to support a friend and her viola. The snow continued. I felt so cultured, warm, and sleepy.

Dance party
I've lost track of the days, but I'm pretty sure that some time after the Symphony I ended up at a dance party. It's well told that I enjoy dancing, but I'm primarily a wedding dancer. Club dancing to me is a bit like ice dancing to a figure skater. Maybe it was the size of the group I was in or the thump-thump-thump of the music hit me just right, but I awoke from my club dancing stupor and got into it. I wasn't as into it as the chubby guys GETTING DOWN to "All the single ladies," but I was into it. I've got moves. I'm pretty sure my moves are all about enthusiasm, but it seems to fool most people. I wonder where else that would work.