The 2007 Post to End All 2007 Posts!!

I haven't blogged much...but here is my token end of year blog entry.

It seems like 2007 kinda sucked for everyone from what I've seen and heard. Don't get me wrong, this has been an awesome year...but it's like chocolate cake with hot pepper spice sprinkled all over the top of it.

It started off with a bang with me coming out of my first brush with relationships and how to go along for the ride,helping to shovel coal into the engine, as the train hurtles towards the end of the cliff. (you've seen the movies) With that brought a very blurry Spring season...I'm sure cool stuff happened, I'm just not sure of all the details. January and February are like gone from my memory, I seriously can't pull much of anything out of that. I remember the Israeli girls visiting the Chabad. They were pretty cool and one even managed to put the beetle into the wheel of the Rabbi's jeep. CLUTCH AND BRAKE!!! I'm sitting here trying to pull more than that but I've got nothing. I was so wrapped up in myself for so many months that I guess I just didn't care what was going on around me or with me enough to actually log it.

OH :) I remember the lovely Sargent that pulled me over twice in a one month period...the one who seemed rather rude and “smart” if you ask me. I still doubt that the second ticket should have happened, but who am I to judge these things. I was the dumb nut that didn't even at least take it before the judge to try and get the points reduced....well...I was naive and ignorant then though. I didn't even know there were points on them. Either way, Dept Motor Vehicles knew and they sent out a nice suspension notice around the beginning of July. Every official I spoke with DMV and cops said I couldn't take the class, had to serve the suspension, no way out of it. So August comes, I go to Israel on the Mayanot Israel program...which was what really made 2007 awesome...not only did I finally leave the country, I actually visited Israel!!! I saw some relatives in New York and Penn. for a week before getting on the plane which was really nice, and I think over the course of the trip, all of my problems with the end of last year started to come together. Granted I wasn't fully cured but the beginning was now in sight.

Back in the states I helped with the Community Room/Synagogue project at the Chabad as they finished converting the garage into a place of worship and activity. Towards the end of August I go to put in for my route restricted license so I can at least work a little bit. I mail in the digital copies of my routes only to have them sent back. DMV wants handwritten copies only! Oh by the way, you can also fax them in.... So I faxed them in and get a call like ten minutes later. She wants me to fax over the main sheet again with the counties I'll be in written on them. Fair enough...so I confirm that with her and get ready to end the call when she asks a rather odd question. She wants to know if I've heard about the Defensive Driving course at the college. I told her I had and that I was going to take it before the suspension took affect. She said no....she said I could take it now and all this rubbish would go away. We said our goodbyes and I hopped online to find out when the next class was. Minutes later I'm signed up for the Saturday class...two days away. I call the next morning to confirm what I've been told with another DMV official...I learned quickly that the DMV will give you as many answers as the times you speak to them...best to confirm and reconfirm. She confirms it and I'm off to the class that Saturday. Eight hours...pretty cool class...no tests....I get my paperwork and wait for my ride. I call Monday and reconfirm with another person...still the same story....looking good so far. My friend says he'll take me Tuesday down to Blythewood, SC so I can show corporate DMVSC that I'm good to go. He decides to test drive an 80's BMW 740i first....that doesn't go so well in the end because the shady car lot dude decides to disappear and leave us arguing with the people there.... So that day ended in a massive fail as I'm dropped back off at work to try to recover some hours for the day. The next day he has everything worked out and we are on our way south to the middle of SC. This goes well...I take the test, do the eye thing...almost fail the eye thing...get my new license with even crappier picture, and I'm driving us back to Greer.

Okay....so it's Sukkot time in Jewish Religion...I pull into the Sunday afternoon Sukkot party at the chabad, hop out and walk up to the house. There are a group of woman standing around talking....they look like Russians that are like visiting from New York or something...well, it piqued my interest....I'd never seen any of them before and one looked like she might be youngish. Fast Forward a little bit and it turns out she is young(a bit younger then me)...she's also very complicated....really cool...really interesting...rather confusing in more ways then one....did I mention complicated???....and really cute. So I spend the next two months getting to know her and her mum and her little niece. Somewhere in this time frame everything from last year has come together, I've come up with an explanation and I'm able to fully appreciate and move on from the events...it's really good feeling. I saw Milagro...from last year...at the Christmas parade in Greer...her mom showed me the baby....Milagro did an over the shoulder wave after she had passed.....we'll say “her loss” and whatever....I do hope she does well though, and I hope she's living how she wanted...well, if it isn't, it's the path she chose and if nothing else, she has that fact. In the end it probably doesn't matter if you are suffering or happy, as long as what got you there was your choice. No one to fully blame, no one to fully credit. Your choices and ingenuity got you here...you screwed up or you were awesome...but it was you.

So here I am...the gates of 2008 are before me on my path...I'll be walking through them in a few days more confused about life, the universe....bloody everything then I've probably ever been. I survived 2007 with nothing but good things to show for it and I'm not going to ask a whole lot out of 2008. The only thing that I do ask is that the Volkswagens come out of their comas so that I can unleash their awesomeness on Greer once more.

(insert random VW love entry here...oh wait I did :-/) I love them both...but I feel so connected with that little beetle. I'm sure it means I'm crazy or something but it's always been there for me and it's been such a good friend for all of these years, through the good times and the bad. In fact! My biggest regret last December was that when I was crying over my “loss” with the whole relationship drama...I was doing it in that stupid rental car. I still can't believe I didn't share those sad moments of pain with the beetle.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year and may your 2008 be the best year you've had yet.