Dear gods, I want to take this flight!

What is the longest flight from SFO?

Just so I can take this flight. It would only cost me about ten grand in business class, a bit over $13,000 for first class.

Another year over, a new one just begun.

As I write this the new year has already begun making its entirely symbolic march around the world. Amazing how much significance we give to an entirely artificial and arbitrary moment, yes?

I was thinking about skipping the traditional year in review, simply because 2011 was one of the hardest years for me since I first got sick. At this time last year I was unable to breathe, battling doctors and the California disability system. I spent much of the first quarter of 2011 deathly ill, to the point I was openly questioning my ability to live to see my 45th birthday. I was hospitalized, on oxygen, and flat out told that the career I had come to love was barred to me for medical reasons. I went from being a cheerful, profane truck-driving fool to a wreck in less than a month. And that hurt. I've spent most of 2011 recovering, trying to slowly rebuild so semblance of what I used to be, Part of this is trying to deal with the fact that my days as a blue-collar redneck are over.

But the more I tried to dwell on the negatives, the more my annoyingly optimistic nature kept pushing me. Yeah, I'm not well. But I'm one hell of lot better than I was a year ago today. Yeah, I'm never going to push a truck for eleven hours a day. That just means I have no excuses for not getting back into school and doing something else. Change is hard for me. I like my ruts. But I'm too damn young to curl up and wait for the end. So I'm taking classes as we can afford them. I'm going to contact my social worker and have him help me plan a way to get into a community college program taking advantage of every available aid package. murphymom turned me onto a site where I can challenge some course requirements. Even if I just get a business administration A.A. that will help me turn these decades of experience into something other than another grunt job.

I can't even complain about my personal life that much.kshandra and I celebrated our 20th anniversary last May with a nice trip to Reno. Some big plans for the summer fell through, but we did make Renovation and had a blast. While we didn't actually get to any baseball games this year, the Giants did keep me company and made the pennant race exciting. Now I have a surprising 49ers team in the hunt for their sixth Lombardi trophy. I've discovered the joys of our local library, been reading history like mad, and there's enough decent stuff on the TV to keep me entertained. I'm lucky to have awesome friends and family who have been there when we needed help.

Even now I can see that 2012 is not going to be without challenges. Barring a miracle, I'm losing my Kaiser coverage in June. I haven't actually been in a formal classroom environment in decades, so I'm really nervous about that. Money seems like it will always be an issue, and of course, looming over everything, is my health. But I'll deal. I'm Infantry, we don't quit.

Normally, I dislike resolutions. I prefer to think of them as goals. Here are a few for 2012:

• Continue to improve eating habits and exercise.


• Wear my damn teeth everyday.


• Write. I have a project now, but I don't want to fall out of the habit.


• Keep my eyes open for a good job that I can do.


• Get out more. Get involved.


• Make at least one Giants home game this season.

For Offhand Manor, it's to continue the decluttering and get the damned art framed and up on the walls. Which reminds me, I really need to clean the floors... ah well, life goes on.

and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy New Year, y'all.