Last week, for work, I got to take a tour of the sad and dusty Astrodome.

It was my first time, and probably last time, in the building. (I’m a late-blooming Texan.)

In spite of it’s weathered appearance, it was still absolutely beautiful. My resulting slideshow ended up getting quite a bit of traffic thanks to Deadspin. If you’re feeling nostalgia-y, take a tour of the world’s first domed stadium.

Hot Springs is beautiful and we spent a lot of time sleeping in, staying up late, and walking all over town. Bathhouse Row is pretty damn amazing, but there are other awesome middle-America aspects to the town that I’ll talk about in a future post. We were so lazy we didn’t even go hiking, and going to some pace outdoorsy was one of the main goals. Oh well. Just gives me something to do next time, and believe me, in fell enough in love with the town that there will be a next time.

The whole time we were there I kept thinking about where I was and what I was doing the year before. We have to travel so much to see family during the holidays (this year it was Oklahoma for Thanksgiving and Florida for Christmas) that New Year’s is usually our own holiday together. After all the stress and buildup of the previous months we usually like to get away to some place secluded. In 2008 it was Robber’s Cave, Oklahoma. Last year it was a week through west Texas, culminating with a camping trip in Big Bend.

2009 had been a pretty shit year for me. I won’t go into details but I will say that two major events sent me spiraling into a well of hate and depression. I’m not really much of a metaphysical person, but on New Year’s Eve, just outside of Big Bend, I decided to do something I’d never done before: I wrote down all my heartbreaks and regrets on a piece of paper, and I threw it into the fire at La Kiva in Terlingua.

It didn’t matter if it worked or not. It made me feel better. Then I got waaaay too drunk on champagne and puked in the National Park the next day.*

What’s crazy is, it seems like it *did* work. 2010 was one of my most amazing years in memory. I started it off by running my first half-marathon. In March I went to SXSW for the first time. In May I found out my portfolio was accepted into the creative writing program at UH. In June CLH and I went to Sweden for a month, spending July 4th weekend in Stockholm.

Just before our trip to Sweden, I’d been asked to fill in for my music editor at work. I was flattered by the responsibility. On my last day, I found out about a job opening there. Not just any job opening… and opening for my dream job. But, it had been years since I’d worked full time, and I agonized and agonized over applying. After applying, I agonized over whether I’d take the job if offered. Then I agonized over not hearing anything about it for the month I was in Sweden. I actually did my job interview from the kitchen of our apartment via Skype, miles and hours away from my interviewee. And then, a few days after we got back to the US, I was offered the job.

Life since then has been hectic and happy. Believe me when I say I am literally working at my dream job, the kind of place I wanted to work at when I decided to study journalism. But it is a 24-hour position and has left little room in my life for other pursuits, like all my crafting projects, blogging and the thing I miss most from my former life — travel. But I am working to balance things out and hat is one of the goals for 2011.

But the awesome year didn’t stop there. Probably the most amazing thing I did this year was jump out of a plane. In November a large group from my running club got together to do the scariest thing I can possibly imagine doing. I hate heights, I hate the feeling of not having something underneath me (like when you’re standing on a ledge) and I hate airplanes. But skydiving is probably the most amazing and formative experience I’ve ever had in my life. There is no way to describe the freedom you feel, freedom of movement and freedom from fear, as you are falling 120 mph toward earth. It was so peaceful. I can’t wait to do it again.

Just look at the grins on our faces there. That is life well-lived. I also kind of feel like I’ve done the scariest thing I can possibly imagine, and it was awesome, so what do I ever have to be afraid of again?

So what will 2011 hold for me? In three weeks I’m running my second half-marathon and I may run a third at the end of February. Other than that, I have really no idea. I have a lot of goals for work, for my personal life and for my creative endeavors, but if this year is half as challenging and rewarding as the last one was, I’ll be happy. Bring it on, Elevensies.

* Didn’t think about it until now, but might this have been some kind of purging of negative energy? God, listen to me.

And now a Patric Swayze reference.

God, that trailer is so ’90s. But there are two things I love about this movie (besides the obvious, because it’s awesome): 1. it was directed by a woman, and 2. the three main actors did all their own stunts.

Uhh, language is NSFW.

(Via MetaFilter, where the comments are, as always, priceless.)

Those fuckers better not screw up my approaching Florida vacation, and they better not fucking kill off the 8,000 remaining endangered Ridley sea camp turtles that are just beginning to recover from a 1979 oil spill.

Yep, that is Dean’s Credit Clothing 41 years ago, when it was actually a clothing store and not a music venue. Also, in the background:

The Lomas & Nettleton Building originally housed offices, but was converted into a residential loft tower in 1999 and renamed the “Franklin Lofts”.

Although given the title of Houston’s first “skyscraper”, the structure is not actually a high-rise. As the Franklin Lofts is considered to be a low-rise building, the 10-story 711 Main, now known as “Capitol Lofts”, which was completed in 1908 and rises 10 floors, was actually the city’s first “high-rise” building to rise at least 10 floors.

Here is my review from my first-ever Jimmy Buffet concert.

I regret to inform you that I might now be a Jimmy Buffett fan. I am certainly no Parrothead, but I had a working knowledge of his music before Friday night. However, as I say in the review, it’s fucking impossible not to like the guy. His early work is sentimental without being cloying. His later work is innocent escapism. His politics are sound. And he loves manatees. It’s the first show I’ve been to in a long time in Houston where the drunken crowd didn’t get aggro. It was a damn good time.

You can see a slideshow of pictures here.

* The title of this post? I want to learn that song on the ukulele.

Don’t you just want to gobble her up?

I spent the last morning of my 20s hanging out with a 5-day-old kid. She is pretty awesome. I even forced an awkward CLH to holding her. I let her sleep on my chest while I laid on the floor, and she was all wrapped up like a Freebird burrito.

When you hold a sweet, innocent baby, you get a kind of warm fuzzy feeling inside. The feeling is so strong I’ve been on a high since this morning. I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s the evilness of babies. They exude this pheromone that makes you love them so that you won’t eat them instead. Seriously. It’s in some medical journal somewhere.

I am the oldest grandchild on one side of my family and the second oldest, by several years, on the other side. Tomorrow I am turning 30 years old, and some of my cousins, ten years younger than me, are already parents. People now feel that it is appropriate to ask me why I don’t have children, and the only answer I have is that I just haven’t felt it yet. Even today, spending all morning with a 5-day-old and a 9-month-old — I didn’t want to put ether one down, but I also didn’t want to take either one home.

I had just met Crystal, the Rocker girl, about five minutes before the shoot, and then we had to sit there and stare at each other menacingly. I couldn’t stop giggling. The awesome part was that she rode her own bike, and I rode mine. We’re legit!

It’s official.