In longstanding Vacant Nebula tradition, I am kicking off the new year with a look back at what happened here over the last year.1

We came into the year in the midst of a writer’s strike, which allowed us to experience new reality shows.  Then, we decided to formally provide a Vacant Nebula Statement Of (dis)Integrity.  (I’m still waiting on free stuff to start flowing in.)  We also came into the year with a pregnant Stephanie, and we went on a final just-the-two-of-us vacation in Atlanta. Then, I had a few months to kill until Emma arrived, so I tried my hand at drawing maps from memory, which didn’t go so well.  I broke a delivery at work, which led to a few less-than-awesome meetings before everything was sorted out.  I studied eclipses, and now I have plans for August 21, 2017.  Mark your calendars!  I also got my name mentioned by (a blog hosted by) The New York Times, and made a few observations about the upcoming Firefox 3. (Wow, it feels like I have always had Firefox 3, but it was only nine months ago!)

And then life changed when Stephanie decided she was tired of being pregnant and ready to be a mom, something that comes with its own holiday.  I wrote some words and posted some pictures concerning the momentous arrival of our very own Emma Leigh.  Over the year, Stephanie would make a few posts about the experiences of motherhood.  Of course, life must go on and eventually we got some more uneventful posts, like when someone I’m almost kind of related to was briefly on national television, or that time I tried out Facebook and learned that I actually don’t hate it.  Then I said something controversial and soon after retracted it (the first and thus far only time anything posted here has been retracted).

We went on our annual beach trip, and took some photos while we were there.  Over the summer I delighted you with some awesome stuff, and then to get everyone ready for international athletics I posted a schedule of the Beijing Olympics.  True story: if I look at the statistics for number of visitors to this site, and August 8 or August 9 are included in the graph, the rest of the graph is a flat line rounded to zero.  Apparently having a page titled “2008 Beijing Summer Olympics TV Schedule” posted the day the Olympics started will nab you quite a few hits from search engines.

As the summer cooled down, so did the economy.  I found out I won’t have my job much longer, and gas prices soared to new heights, leading to awkward conversations about gas.  Then it was time for an election which later inspired some reflection.  Then to finish out the year, I commented on my long-overdue completion of the Narnia books and took a long Christmas vacation.

Along the way, I also reviewed a few games, and posted way more pictures and videos of Emma than would be practical to list here.  And I guess that’s all that’s worth mentioning from this most recent trip around the sun.  May you all have a happy new year!