Burrowowl

Lots of people in various media, be it print, radio, television, or online, have seen very reflective lately. New Year’s is a good time to look back and take stock, to consider the good and bad choices we’ve made, the good and bad things that have happened to us, regrets and pleasant surprises. That’s just not me.

Rather than look back on December 31st, I prefer to look forward on January 1st. Five things I look forward to (with anticipation, dread, or both) for 2009:

• My second kid. My lovely wife is expecting our second son in late March. So far all is looking good regarding the health of the child, but there’s nothing quite like a pregnancy to ramp up all the anticipation and anxiety of the human soul.
• A new president. I was never happy with our current one, didn’t vote for him, but he managed to do something that Bill Clinton and Al Gore Jr. couldn’t pull off: he got me to vote for a Democrat on the top of the ticket. I suspect that Barack Obama will be much more reasonable than the right-wingers fear and the left-wingers hope. Here’s to Mike Malloy’s feelings of “anticipointment” being fulfilled.
• An interesting economic situation. I don’t pretend to know with any precision what the stock market, job market, or the grocery market are going to do in the next twelve months. Happily I don’t anticipate drawing down from my modest investment portfolio in the near future, and the deflation of the housing market doesn’t matter to me as I don’t intend to sell any time soon. I may buy up some index funds if the Dow dips below 8,000 again and I have a little cash, but I expect to sit this whirlwind out.
• Lots of changes at work. My employer is going through a transformation of sorts at the moment, as we brace for the inevitable consequences of regulatory changes that have been a long time in coming, and as the technologies and customer expectations keep shifting on us.
• Seeing what whacky hijinks Daniel will get himself into next. I swear, the world seems intent on ambushing that guy sometimes.