Ringing In The New Year

Mrs. Laz and I spent New Years with our old friends Skip and Linda and Phil and Jill. Skip, Phil and the Lazer have been friends since we were 14, which is either a testament to their patience or they are as weird as I am.

Skip lives in suburban San Diego and Phil just moved back to the area so it made sense to have us all get together and welcome in the welcome New Year.

Just after Christmas, I was whining to Kellen that it would be nice to see 2005 in the rear window. He told me that there were plenty of sad events that happened in our family this past year, but there were happy things too. We were able to travel a lot together, our business remained successful, we met new friends, and we all had each other. A most interesting perspective and one that can only come from a younger person who hasn’t had the chance to have all the optimism reasoned from him.

Well, I do believe I will take the optimistic point of view for 2006 and know that everything will turn out well for me, my family and my friends.

Oh, and on the two photos, Skip, Phil and I were attempting to recreate the magic of 29 years ago. The first (in case you don’t notice) is a picture of the three of us at the half-century mark. You can see that the years have not been kind to Phil’s hair, Skip’s forehead (and, not pictured, his colon), and my big fat ass. Of course Linda took the photograph and I have heard it said that a bad picture angle can put 20 pounds on someone. This must be the case and not the pounds of chocolate I had for the holidays.

The second picture is when the three of us were celebrating Phil’s 21st birthday in 1977. For seasoned readers you will note this picture has appeared before on the blog. Phil had this picture on his desk at home so the three of us made our best stab at looking like three 21-year-old gay lovers again. Sure hope we pulled it off. And, yes, I was an idiot back then. But not anymore, right?