2010 Post Mortem

beyond producing some verbal vomit every so often into my little corner of the interwebs, these yearly memorials have been a fantastic time capsule for my already addled mind. so to ensure that i will always have a lasting visual of what my life once was, i will continue to type my babbles.

last years inaugural posting reflected on the seeds that i have planted while looking forward to a year of progress. looking back on it, i can say that it has been a year of partial successes and half failures. certain things moved forward while others stayed completely the same. so this year, no lofty goals, no inspiring quotes, just another year gone by.

december
a rambunctious and surprisingly productive lame-duck congress finally put an end to the 111th congress, the most active and successful congress in decades. though happily, unlike 2009, i wasn't forced to sit through endless hours of cloture votes this month and i was able to make my trip out to taiwan for a long overdue visit to my family.
november
this was the first year in quite a while that i was the sole chef for the thanksgiving table mainstays (turkey, ham, blah blah blah). and i tried a new recipe...and joined (though i've heard it many times before) the brining revolution. probably one of the best turkeys i've ever pulled out of an oven.
october
a month of political chatter and electoral banter led up to our shellacking of november's midterm elections. but us liberals did get a nice reprieve from the consecutive appearances of sarah palin and glenn beck with our own rally with our icons on the left...jon stewart and steven colbert.
september
a birthday month with a much more extravagant and costly (thanks friends) than i expected. it also came with a nice visit from a good friend from the other side of the country. another year older and another year wiser...well, i definitely got the year, but not necessarily the wisdom.
august
crossing off another state on my futile and not really active attempt to see all 50 states, i got a visit to minnesota taken off my list. as the new representative on health care issues for the senior senator from minnesota, i made my rounds around minneapolis and st. paul meeting all the players.
july
of all things that progressed in my life, my career was probably moving at the fastest pace. and with all the glory and reputation of working on health care reform, i was surprised that my half-assed and semi-unprepared job search ended in such swift conclusion with my hiring at the health legislative assistant for senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. also, i did get to make a very nostalgic visit back to california for a very nice reunion of san diego friends at helen's wedding.
june
before my move to the hart office building, i took a reward trip to boston as a reward for a year and half of being stuck in the dirksen office building. so while unknowing that i would cross minnesota off my list of unseen states, i got to add massachusetts to that list as well. i was sure to hide my lakers jersey while i walked the streets of celtics territory.
may
on this look back, i realize that i did a fair amount of traveling this year...taiwan in december, minnesota in august, massachusetts in july. for the month of may, we can add montana and new york to that list. montana for work for the old boss...a victory lap around the state to sell the bill law; new york for a vacation with an old friend...a personal celebration with drinking and debauchery.
april
like last year, april seemed to have dragged on, but in a much better way than last year. this april was more a "take a breath and relax" month as the finance committee's health team finally got some time to sit down and enjoy the spoils of success.
march
what a month march was. with another around-the-clock effort, democrats on the hill followed the president's leadership and determination to finally pass health care reform and the accompanying reconciliation bill. march 23 will now represent the peak of my legislative career.
february
this was a tough month...with our seemingly dead health care reform legislation sucking in its last breaths while being pumped by life support. not to mention that the entire district was snowed in by our own little version of snowmageddon.
january
before the political earthquake of a scott brown victory for ted kennedy's historically liberal democratic seat, the entire health care world was roaming around the floors of the capitol building, darting in and out of bicameral+white house meetings working on a conference health reform bill. though it included extremely late nights and painstaking negotiations, it was probably my favorite part of the entire legislative process.

so there it is, the year in a nutshell. i can't seem to find a proper wrap up of the past year or an appropriate prediction for next year. maybe it's my lack of imagination or creative instincts, hopefully it's not an omen for the future, but i'm having a hard time deciding whether my glass is still being filled.