Andy Oakley

It’s probably a sign that�you’ve spent too long in the office when you hit 6am Monday morning commuter traffic on the drive home. Still, it was a worthwhile trip and�a couple of hours of sleep made a world of difference.

Interesting side note: Malcolm Gladwell is in the northwest at the moment promoting his new book. I keep hearing him — from a spot on NPR, a talk at Microsoft and a televised Town Hall show put on by UofW shown at 6.30am this morning. I thoroughly enjoyed his work on The Tipping Point and from what I’ve heard his new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, is going to be equally fascinating. I need to get a copy onto my bookshelf.

Today happens to be Sean’s birthday. Happy birthday, Sean. On this day last year, Seattle got a good few inches of snow and everything ground to a halt and it was great. Despite the conditions, we still managed�to find a taxi (driven by an Ethiopian who had never seen snow) to take us up to O’Sheas for the occasion.

I’ve no idea how tonight will unfold. Please let it snow.

It’s always entertaining to see the wide variety of ‘2004: Year of’ round-ups that do the rounds about this time of year. Some are reasonable, some surprising and some just reflect really poor journalism. Make up your own mind.

• TIME: 2004: Year of George W Bush
• PC World: 2004: Big Year for Blogs
• Kofi Annan: 2004: Year of Opportunities, Difficulties for UN
• eWEEK:�2004: Year of the Cyber-Crime Pandemic
• Canada Free Press: 2004 - Year of the nanny
• Jackson Sun: 2004 - Year of firsts in West Tennessee
• Manteca Bulletin: 2004: Year of the parks for Manteca
• AlterNet: 2004: Year of Perversion
• Hindustan Times: 2004: Year of the copycat
• Islam Online: 2004: Year of Islam in France
• Vancouver Sun: 2004: Year of condomania
• NorthJersey: 2004: Year of the underdog
• Mid-Day Mumbai: 2004: Year of the sucker

The break at home was much appreciated. Christmas and Boxing Day spent with family and an evening of fine wines and smelly cheeses with Ed felt long overdue. It even snowed (properly) on Christmas morning and left a few�inches on the ground throughout the day and�a late night snowball fight with brother and parents was made all the more fun by the challenge of seeing incoming projectiles.

The journey back was interesting to say the least. Despite a long check-in line at Manchester it proved to be an easy flight through to Chicago O’Hare. Touching down an hour late was always going to make for a challenging transfer as I was about to discover. Passing through immigration took the usual forty five minutes (we aliens get a special longer queue and have the privilege of being photographed and fingerprinted on arrival). Customs was a breeze and I made haste from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1 for a connection to Seattle. It’s worth mentioning that the design of ORD puts international arrivals and gate C27 at opposite ends of the site but undeterred, I sprinted through the airport to see them shut the gate 50ft in front of me.�No problem, I’ll get on standby for the next flight in a couple of hours. Hah. As the next flight rolled around, they were asking ticketed, confirmed passengers to surrender their seats due to overbooking. Those kind souls were offered a ‘convenient’ connection through Denver the following day. Suffice it to say, being on standby wasn’t the place to be as I found out talking to others standing around - some had spent several days in the airport waiting to leave. Respect goes out to the guy who figured a sneaky connection through Juneau, Alaska when all other flights across the country were fully booked.

Living in the airport for a couple of days wasn’t going to work but thankfully a plan was taking shape. I changed my flight to one of the few that wasn’t fully booked in the following week - two days later on Friday evening, New Years Eve. I would rent a car and drive the 200 miles to Grand Rapids, MI to meet up with Katie who was similarly on vacation there. A $20 per day ‘under 25 surcharge’ later, I was behind the wheel of�a Jeep Wrangler soft top in the middle of winter. Quite how Jeep has managed to coax the masses into buying this vehicle is beyond me - the road noise is deafening, the suspension stiff (especially fun on icy bridges) and it’s so light that it sways all over the road in the wind - but it did the job. Passing through yet another time zone (in the wrong direction), I got in just before eleven to stay with with Katie at her�friend Matthew’s place who kindly put me up for the night. It was an unexpected surprise to be able to see Katie before she returned to Seattle and we did a whole lot of nothing for a couple of days before returning to Chicago on Friday for a trip to the Shedds Aquarium (recommended) before flying out.

The flight back was easy in first class and though an evening of celebration possibly wasn’t top of my ‘things I must now do’ list, it seemed inevitable. Sean and I met up with Tina and Jeremy and headed to a party in Queen Anne (nice house) to see in the New Year. Standing outside around a wood fire pit added a certain rustic flavor to one’s personal scent but gave plenty of opportunity for drinking. We walked home through the rain, somehow ended up eating many slices of Mario’s in Pioneer Square and capped off the night with a hefty glass of Grappa. Marvellous.

Happy New Year! Bring on 2005.