Although there was a big build-up in the news for the possibility of snow for New Years in Las Vegas, we didn't really get any. There was some on New Year's Eve in the morning on the drive to work, but the flurries stopped by mid-morning and never came back. Instead, it's just cold. If I'm going to read meaning into weather patterns, I think 2015 is going to be a cold and disappointing year.
But if I'm going to read meaning into other types of data, 2015 is looking to be an interesting year. But before getting to those things, I'm going to look backwards at 2014, which was certainly an eventful one. A year ago, my new kitchen and living room were only somewhat set up. Since my living room and kitchen are an every day sort of thing, I'm very glad that I did it, and I'm mostly glad with how it turned out. I'm still disappointed that the undermounted sink didn't happen, and I feel that one every time I try to wipe down the counters and can't just sweep everything directly into the sink. But it's really a minor blip (one of a few) on an otherwise successful remodel.
Last summer, I went on my first real short term mission trip. That is clearly among the highlights of the year. I made four different posts talking about it (1, 2, 3, 4), so I'm not going to say too much more. But I will say that the personal connection that it has created with the region has resulted in something I wasn't expecting. There was some recent violence in which Pastor Chable was nearly killed. I know that this type of violence happens in lots of places in the world, but closing the gap between the abstract idea of "violence" and concrete picture of "violence against a person that I've met and have shared meals with" is somewhat visceral. The good news is that the process of things getting better has already started, but there's still a long way to go.
Another big change for me in the last year was the transition to department chair. At the start of last year, this wasn't even on the radar. And now I've been doing that for 6 months, and it has been going well. There has been a lot of learning, and it's probably good for me to learn the things I'm learning now. The most interesting aspect about this position is how much it's about people and relationships. It's a good thing I've had all of this small group training, because I'm constantly finding analogies between the growth and development of relationships in a small group and the types of things that are important in this professional relational environment.
Lastly, food has starting coming back around again. There was another successful crawfish boil (with ambitions to grow it into something more next year), a double fried turkey Thanksgiving (with ambitions to grow it into something more next year), and a few other one-off food opportunities (learning about beer and Irish food, for example). When I think about tastes of the year, I think about crema de mezcal and that bread pudding from Lola's. I don't know where that's going for the coming year, but I hope to keep finding chances to do that sort of thing.
That's the quick overview of last year. 2014 ended well. I was in Livermore for about 5 days. Christmas Day was quieter than it has been in previous years. There were only a dozen people (including two kids). That made for a much more restful day. Dinner was mostly under my watch this time. There was a pair of pork loin roasts that was served with a simple apple compote, a stove top potato gratin (finished in the oven), a simple chicken and bean soup, and green beans (that didn't quite come out the way I wanted). We still had the big family Christmas gathering on the weekend, and that was the usual sort of Christmas chaos. But overall, this trip back was far less eventful and far less busy than other years, and it was good to have that change of pace.
But anyway, what's on tap for 2015?
First, I see robots in my future. Just before the New Year (December 30), I visited a local high school's robotics club and brought a report back to the Dean. And he wanted us to jump on the chance to do some robotics with our students, with the long-term goal of building up a relationship with the robotics club. There are different levels of robotics. Some clubs are doing things that are in the tens of thousands of dollar range. The types of students that would get involved in that level of robot building would be engineering students, and we don't have those. But this club is doing things in the thousands of dollars range, which is about the right level for our students to be able to contribute meaningfully. However, before our students can do robotics, I need to do some robotics. I don't exactly know where things are going just yet, but I like all the possible destinations.
In a similar vein as the robots, I've got that Raspberry Pi (small, cheap computer) that I'm learning to program. This is new for me because it's not just programming inside of the computer, but programming with physical components. This is less exciting than robots, but it's got potential to be all sorts of things.
The Mexico Mission trip is going to be different this year (assuming things move forward the way we had discussed a month ago), as there will be more of a science angle and not just a VBS. One thing that we're almost definitely going to do are water rockets (the 2 liter plastic bottles that you fill partly with water and then pump air into). This can be combined with balloon to talk about propulsion, and we've also talked about sky lanterns. Not only that, but there's the possibility of doing some soil biology and soil chemistry. This one is going to play itself out in the planning over the next few months.
Beyond that... I don't know. I didn't anticipate most of the big things that happened to me last year, so why do I think I'll be able to anticipate the things that will happen this year? I've got a few bit things on the horizon, but it's hard to predict what will be big things and what will be little things. It's entirely possible that the robot thing falls through for one reason or another. I don't know how the events in Oaxaca will impact the summer camp. I might get frustrated with the Raspberry Pi or I might just get bored with it. So we'll just go for the ride and see what happens.
Happy New Year!
