• Ever heard the term “Twin brothers from different mothers”?  Last night I had “triplet sisters from different mothers”.  Three 13 year old girls having a sleepover means dear old DaddyBear retreats to the bedroom to shoot electronic Nazi’s after Boo goes to bed.
• Seriously, when you get three or more girls together, they almost set up a choral of talking where two are talking while one is breathing.  This causes a continuous chatter that can last for days.
• Two adults, three teenage girls, and one three year old were somehow able to eat three large pizzas, two dozen leftover Christmas cookies, two batches of jalapeno poppers, two bowls of popcorn, a bag of potato chips, and four two-liter bottles of soda. 
• Somehow, the father in this scenario went to bed a bit hungry.
• Apparently turning off the TV and telling the girls to go to bed at 12:05 was fruitless.  Irish Woman reports they were up talking all night long. 
• I made it to 12:20, an improvement over years past.
• Breakfast this morning was banana bread, fruit, milk, and orange juice.  The girls wanted leftover pizza, but there wasn’t any.
• As expected, I heard the not too distant sound of gunfire at midnight last night.  No impacts on our property.
• Hopefully, there will be a nap in my future.

So, a new year just begun.

This is going to be a busy year, both for me personally and for all of us.

For me, there’s a lot that’s going to happen, and a lot that I want to do.  First, Girlie Bear will be starting high school in the fall and starting that short climb up to adulthood.  Little Bear will be halfway through with his journey through high school this year too.

It’s going to be a tumultuous year for Irish Woman at work.  An expected big deal at work was just cancelled or put off and she’s a bit worried about what that means to her.  But she’s working for a good boss who recognizes her abilities and contributions, so the worries are a bit dampened.

My plans for the year are to continue and improve my shooting, get into better physical shape, and get a bunch of things done on the house.  Irish Woman is hinting at renovations in the kitchen and basement, so I should probably start thinking of what tools I will have to buy in order to accomplish what she wants.  I’m thinking table saw.

Of course, in the U.S., we’re looking at another presidential election this year.  A lot of people are calling this the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER!!!!!!  I’m not sure if this election, while as important as any, is any more important than 1980, or 2000.  How different would our world be without the Reagan or Bush 2 presidencies?  Yes, I think that President Obama needs to be fired, but if the Republicans gain the Senate, hold the House, and Obama gets re-elected, the resulting gridlock will be as good as having a Republican in the White House with a compliant Congress.  Heck, it might even be better.  The things that Bush did that I disagree with mostly happened while he had a majority to work with in both the Senate and the House.

One thing I don’t see improving is the fiscal situation of our government and our world.  The Democrats won’t cut spending far enough because doing so would impact their core constituencies of welfare recipients and retirees.  Republicans won’t cut spending enough because doing so would confirm the stereotype that conservatives hate babies, black women, and old people.  So, we’re going to continue down the path to financial armageddon.  Not sure if the final meltdown will happen this year, but it’s going to come unless we make some pretty fundamental changes.

Internationally, Europe will continue to be a bleeding sore.  The poor and unproductive will drag down the productive and comfortable, as they have since the Romans figured out that if you give free food to the poor, they vote for you.

Iran will continue to rattle its saber, enrich its uranium, and be a pain in our ass that would have been taken care of 30+ years ago if Jimmy Carter had been more of a president and less of a nursemaid.  If Iraq goes as badly as I fear it may, then Iran may have to divert resources from its atomic program to fight a shooting war, but they will continue the program and will eventually be successful.  Physics and engineering are physics and engineering.  Once someone knows something can be done, it only takes time, talent, and treasure to actually do it.

North Korea may or not be interesting to watch this year.  Kim Jong Un could hunker down and just keep making faces at the world like his father, he could try to ease up a bit or make changes that could cause turbulence, or he could go for broke if he feels our attentions are elsewhere and try to make a move across the DMZ.  I honestly don’t know enough to make a good prediction about this, and I honestly doubt that anyone else does.

So, Happy New Year.  I hope everyone has a good year. I’ll see you in 366 days.

Reports are still sketchy, but it appears that a servicemember has been caught with military grade explosives at the airport in Midland, Texas.  I see three things as possibilities for this:

1. This is an American jihadi ala Nidal Hasan who was stupid enough to try to take his bomb in his carry-on
2. This is a soldier coming home on leave with a little something to show the people back home
3. This is a soldier PCS’ing to a nearby base who has a little something extra 

On the whole, this has been a good year for us.  Irish Woman and I are still gainfully employed, and everyone is in good health.  Knock wood, but no major catastrophes have hit our little family.  The kids continue to do well.

I’ve met a lot of wonderful people this year, both in the real world and on the web.  I may not speak to all of y’all every day, but I read what you write and it gives me new perspectives on the world.

Thanks for putting up with my bad jokes and rants.  I promise more of the same for the new year.