DanBailey.net

Kate Bailey. She of the wifey-ness! Her take-charge attitude of 2011 was amazing, especially considering that she spent half the year pregnant. We bought a house, moved across town, and began preparing for the arrival of Edwin Cooper Bailey (ship date in Q1 of 2012), and throughout it all, she was on her A-game. Very inspiring and makes me really want to bring my A-game in 2012.

Alex Cook. My compadre, and the owner of A-Train Cycles, who quit his full-time gig to pursue the dream of being a full-time framebuilder. I admire the hell out of him (and might be a little envious as well) for taking the plunge and doing what so many of us dream of.

Mike Tyson. Yes, the former boxer. I’ve been following him on Twitter since I read an article/interview in (I think) the New York Times this past year, and have been pleasantly surprised at how someone could turn their life around so drastically. He’s inspired me to push on to bigger and better things.

Erika Napoletano. The driving force behind RedheadWriting, and a great source of knowledge as I push forward with my own small business. I’ve learned a lot from her articles and think that I might be 50% less likely to execute Operation Footbullet.

Tim Ferriss. The dude behind the 4-Hour Workweek and the 4-Hour Body books. Not because either of them significantly impacted my life in 2011 (though I’m hoping I can use the latter to good effect in 2012), but because it was eye-opening to realize that anything is eligible to be hacked — computers, sure, but when you realize that things like social expectations and structures, or even your body can be hacked, you start looking at the world through new eyes. Lately, thanks to Tim, I’ve been looking for things to optimize in my life (and you can expect to see more info on that in an upcoming post.)

I admit it: I’m way behind the curve on my recaps of 2011. Thus far, all I’ve managed to post is the video games recap. Things have been a bit busy.

Expect posts on the following topics:

• People Who Inspired Me in 2011
• My 2011: Books
• An Update on the 101 Things Project
• A Plan for 2012

So yeah, the holidays are pretty much done. Over. Kaput. Normally that would imply more free time and fewer obligations, but I have a B&B weekend with Kate, a bunch of birthing classes, and a few OB appointments to go to yet. Oy vey.

So once I’m through with these posts, I’ll get back to my semi-scheduled blather. With 100% Less Blather™!

• I have the weirdest combinations of shit luck/good luck, as evidenced by the disasters on my road trip to Michigan back in February.

• Be more careful around hot steel. Burns leave nasty scars and the lesson was no exception. On the plus side, as a friend pointed out, there’s positives in putting yourself into your work.

• Finding a house to buy is hard work.

• Moving is even more difficult than buying a house.

• Buying a house is made much easier if you’re married to someone who works in home mortgage and can navigate everything.

• Prep for the trade show months in advance, not weeks.

• It is far easier to be an asshole than it is a decent human being.

Yeah, I’m 39 years old. Probably means I’m getting too old for video games, right? WRONG. They keep the brain and the reflexes sharp. I’ll keep playing them. Granted, it’ll never be like my teenage years again, but still.

Playstation 3

Medal of Honor

This one gets filed under “meh” — seriously. While the increased realism in combat is nice, and the environments are beautifully rendered, I just couldn’t get into this game. I never finished the single-player mode, and seldom played the multiplayer. No strong hook.

Battlefield 3

A much better first-person shooter than MoH. The single-player mode was seriously bleh — easy, with a pretty contrived storyline, and a short arc that made it mostly a waste of time. The multiplayer, however, has been awesome, and I’m a big fan.

Portal 2

Hands down, the best game on any platform this year. If you love puzzle games, this should find its way into your game library if it hasn’t already. Seriously, this is top-notch gaming and should be a front-runner for game of the year.

iPad/iPhone

Fieldrunners (iPad)

I played the hell out of this game this year. It’s not super-strong on graphics, storyline, or anything like that. And it’s in dire need of some updates (new boards, units, etc.), but still tons of fun for a “tower defense” game.

Cut the Rope HD

A fun puzzle game, but not spending a ton of time on it. If you’re a puzzle game type, I recommend it.

Battleheart

It’s like Final Fantasy VII, but without the plot, the graphics, or depth. Skip it.

Galcon Fusion

Was fun for about two days. Yawn.

Scrabble for iPad

Not playing much of this, as most of my friends play Words with Friends.

Tiny Wings

Charming graphics, music, concept, and environment. Very much a reflexes-and-physics game, but still a lot of fun.

Words with Friends

Two words: crack. cocaine. Addictive, fun.

X-Men

The 90′s arcade game, ported to the iPad. Fun, but only for so long.

Carcassonne

An adaptation of the board game, and a ton of fun. Needs a social network interface so you can play against your friends remotely.

The short and sweet of it always remains the same: be more awesome. I say it every year, and every year, I work to be more awesome. Sometimes with mixed results. This year, I’m focusing on three things.

1. Be a better husband. I won’t say I’m a bad husband — I don’t cheat, I’m not abusive, I’m gainfully employed, and so on — but there are things I need to get better at though, and I’m working on that now, and want it to be a strong focus in 2012. I’ll write more about that in the coming year, too.

2. Be a good dad. Holy crap, this is important to me. Remember that recent Onion article about parenting? Yeah, I laughed, but I was also horrified, because I think it might be true. Anyway, I want to be the best possible dad I can, and that means staying involved with my kid, but not hovering around constantly and not trying to micro-manage their life. Striking a balance.

3. Do something every day to advance Pallas Athena, even if it’s something small, and where it does not interfere with #1 and #2 on this list.

So that’s it. Nothing earth-shattering. But it should make for an interesting 2012.

Oh. Wait.

4. On my 40th birthday, the day after the Mayan calendar “ends”, incessantly mock anyone that stocked up on bottled water and canned food and/or built a bomb shelter. Because really, people, we’ve all had calendars that have had a last page and the world is still here.

So the weekend was pretty good. Did some housework, played some Battlefield 3, and went to the Vikings-Saints game.

Battlefield 3 mostly occurred while Kate and her friends undertook the 1st Annual Holiday Cookie Baking Blitz™. I hung around in the basement and fragged. Those of you who said that the solo campaign on this was bad? You were right. It’s really bad. Flaky storyline, wicked short, and not really much of a challenge. The multiplayer is where this shines, and it’s all that I’m playing now.

The Vikes game about like you’d expect when a 2-11 team meets a 10-3 team. Bloodbath. The Vikes looked really good in the first quarter and held on in the second, but ultimately, the third and fourth quarters were their undoing. I’ve got a lot of opinions on what the Vikes need to do going into next year, but I’ll touch on that in another post sometime.

Kate rocked the Xmas shopping this weekend. All I have left to do is buy her stuff. I’ve already got a pretty solid idea of what I’ll be getting her, so that rocks.

And next week, I have off — all contractors here do — and while it’s unpaid, I am using it as an opportunity to get a LOT of stuff done for the bike biz. Finish garage, get frames finished, etc.

So the first of the WordPress themes is coming along nicely. I didn’t do a mock-up in Photoshop or anything like that, but I know roughly what I want it to look like. Using the Blueprint framework, Cufón for some of the typography (headers and the blockquote), the Google Fonts API (body copy), and there’ll be some jQuery in there as well, I’m sure.

I figure I’ll have it running on here by the end of the weekend or so. Spend a bit of time debugging/cleaning it up, and then I’ll GPL it and post it on the WordPress Themes index.

So part of the reason I haven’t continued to commit heaps of electrons to my blathering on this blog is that I’m having an identity crisis about what it should be or become.

I know that one big step in the development is going to be the visual layer. I’m working on that. Whole new WP theme, using YAML, Cufon, the Google fonts API, and a few other gems. I want to make this site stand out a bit.

But, where I really struggle is the content. I write about my life on here, obviously, but I can’t imagine that it’s all that interesting. The primary topic over time has been my bicycling-related stuff, but there’s also bits of writing and e-marketing stuff that I’d like to cover. And yet, that seems to dilute the content of the site far too much.

Thus: quandary.

What to do?

For now, I’m hammering away at a new presentation layer, which will satisfy much of the needs of whatever I hash out for this site. Plus it’ll help me get some progress on my 101 Things in 1001 Days, which I am FAR overdue of an update on.

In the meantime, if you need to bend your brain a little bit, Charlie Stross has an interesting line of thinking that might give some insight into the Fermi Paradox.

I am hereby coining the term “the Yorke Conjecture” which postulates that no public discussion of music will go more than 5 minutes without someone bringing up Radiohead.

(Not because Radiohead is awesome, mind you. No, it’s because Radiohead fans are worse than Apple fanboys when it comes to vocal smugness.)