2011: A Look Back

I was thinking about this post for a few days now.2011 has been divided into three roughly equal parts for me. This division wasn't made by me purposefully, but rather forced upon me.

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Part One

This was the second half-year of my stay at QuinStreet. This was after the Insurance.com acquisition. I was kept aboard and at the time was hopeful that things would work out. I had some doubts, but I was seeing real progress in how the thinking was shaping up.At this time I started really thinking about moving and En was brought into the mix as well. We had things to do around the house that we didn't really move forward with because we didn't want to sink a lot of cash into the house that we didn't know we would be staying at for any real length of time.Things were odd. Things were on hold.- = -

Part Two

On a fateful day in mid May I crashed my bicycle. This was a disruption if ever there was one. The accident wasn't chosen by me obviously. Could there be things I could have done differently to prevent it? Probably. But hindsight is 20/20. What's done is done.That day changed my summer. It changed many things. I was going to go on a trip with En somewhere. That was obviously canceled. My riding, both bicycle and motorcycle, was curtailed. I was helpless for a month or so.Not a day has gone by since then that I don't get a reminder sometime about it. Something that causes me to think of it. (Even excluding the scar or neurapraxia)We did go to X-Day like we always do. It was a strange not being able to do nearly as much of the setup work. Even just walking to the shower was a pain (literally). The seeping wound on my leg wasn't helping matters much either. (It was a stitch that hadn't yet worked its way out) We brought along the crutches but thankfully I didn't have to use them -- I just had to walk slowly.That summer with me working from home melded with the start of part three.

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Part Three

I'm not going to recap all of what I wrote about looking for a job. You can find it if you want.Suffice it to say that as summer started turning to fall the mood at the office changed dramatically. With one of my co-workers leaving it put me in an odd spot. A spot that left me way too stressed out for my own good -- the classic untenable position. A position that I didn't choose. I tried to effect change. Try as I might the condition didn't improve.This led to a long and protracted effort to change jobs. Part three is that process.A process where En and I did a 180 to restart settling into the house. A process of putting up the antenna in the back yard. A process of reconnecting.I wound up somewhere where I'm happy.  :-)  (And it's closer to my house!)

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2011 has been a year of things happening to me. It's strange. The feeling of being a passenger on my own life.I'm hoping 2012 is more riding, and less of being along for the ride.