Bet you you didn't expect to see this

Once again it’s been drought season on this blog. It’s been a busy past month and a half and while I’ve probably had plenty of chances to update this thing I’ve been relaxing a bit more. We’ll play the update game once again to cover some highlights of all of the time I’ve missed.

In November I went out to Milwaukee with my buddy “Dirty” (the nickname isn’t for what you’d assume so clear your mind of all thoughts of the creepy roofie-slipping party guy). We visited a couple high school friends that I get out to see a few times a year and caught a Bucks game (OT win versus the Mavs), hit Milwaukee’s version of Brother’s, and went down to Chicago for a day where we attended Shedd’s Aquarium, ate the original Chicago-style pizza at Pizzaria UNO and had a few drinks at the ESPN Zone. In that same time period I also found out one of my friends was now engaged and was asked to be one of the groom’s men so that was a great way to top off a fun three day trip out of town.

The following week I started my full-time gig at the Industrial Design firm. It’s been going pretty good so far. It’s a smaller firm (17 people), but for the ID industry I guess that’s medium sized. I have to say that the space we work in is amazing and it’s definitely a creative environment, which I like a lot. The people are pretty nice too, which makes any job better. The biggest challenge for me is coming in as a Marketing guy and learning enough about Industrial Design and their process to eventually be able to write and talk about it intelligently. That’s going to be a bit of a hurdle and is part of the reason they haven’t thrown a town of work at me yet. I’ll get there with time. This is a good place to start my career and gain experience doing a lot of different things since I’m the sole Marketing and Publicity guy. In my heart, I know I’m going to want to get back over to the ad agency side or get a position with Red Bull if I can, eventually.

When you’re working a full-time job, the weeks go by like days. December has flown by and I feel like I haven’t had much of a chance to stop and take in my favorite time of the year. For Christmas this year I’m heading out to Wisconsin with my family and significant other to spend the Christmas with my Dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been out there in a while and even though it’s real small-town, I enjoy it. Christmas Eve will be at my Aunt and Uncle’s new house and then on Christmas morning the girlfriend and I will be getting up early to drive to back to the cities and spend the day with her family in St. Paul. Thank God I have Monday off to relax after all that driving.

To change subject, I'm just going to say that I was sooooo wrong about my prediction for the second half of the Packers' season. I'm back on the Sherman must go tip, and pray that the Packers find a good replacement coach, get Favre to come back and patch up some of the gaping holes in their lineup in the offseason. Actually this editorial sums up what I'd like to see happen quite nicely.

Since it’s the end of the year, you’ve probably noticed that every media outlet, blog, etc. has been coming out with their 2005 lists. Lists of the best music, books, movies, events and probably even celebrity sex tapes. Fimoculous has a good collection of categories from all sorts of media. My love for music is surely no secret, so although I’m no Pitchfork writer, I thought I’d post my top 10 albums of 2005. Drumroll please…

10. Lucero – Nobody’s Darlings
9. The Shout Out Louds – Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
8. Spoon – Gimme Fiction
7. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
6. The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan
5. Josh Rouse - Nashville
4. Ryan Adams – Cold Roses
3. Kanye West – Late Registration
2. Wolf Parade – Apologies To The Queen Mary
1. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm

Sorry, no Sufjan Stevens or Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah for me. While they were ubiquitous in 2005, topping most pretentious indie writers’ best of lists, they’re not my cup o’ tea.

No clear plans for New Year’s yet. I’m sure my friends and I will end up getting crazy sauced as usual so I’ll fill you in on that (and maybe include some visual evidence) in a later post...assuming I actually update this thing in 2006. To close the year, I thought I’d revert back to the customary top 5. Here’s five for 2005 and five for the coming year.

Top 5 of 2005 (as always, in no particular order)
1. Graduating college
2. Getting a job
3. Two-year anniversary with Vanessa
4. Learning how to snowboard and getting really into it
5. Jon’s Minnetonka boat/downtown graduation party -tie- Spring Milwaukee trip

Looking forward to in 2006
1. Getting a new car
2. Vanessa’s brother’s wedding in Maui
3. Going to Vegas or NY
4. Seeing where my career goes
5. (Hopefully) seeing a healthy and vastly improved Packer team

That’s all for now. Merry Christmas and God Bless.

- EH

P.S. There’s no “War on Christmas”