Your 2010 summaries and 2011 hopes, plans and dreams

[quartz]

As per the title. I thought I'd start a thread where people can post a summary of their 2010's and their plans for 2011. I'm serialising mine on Facebook each day this week with a quarter a day followed by my 2011 hopes on the friday, though I'm not sure if I will keep going with it, anyway here are the first two entries.

Quote:The year began much like many have for the last 8 years but having caught a few gigs towards the end of 2009 I was keeing my eye out for gigs to go to this year. I also decided to actually start going along to the 5-a-side football at work this year and also to look into something I had considered learning to do for a while but havent gotten around to it .... learning to fence electric foil.

I also started trying to get back to writing version 9 of Transformer at the Moon (still not complete) and watching an 12 part anime series that I've still can not bring myself to watch the last two episode of as it was that bad.

Work was work, I wasn't really pushing myself or my skills, but I haven't needed to for a while, but there was a lot going on at the board level that was starting to causing ripples around the place. Much more was to come and the improvements that had happened over an odd previous 12 months were going to start going backward pretty soon whilst other things would move forward, but lets not jump the gun.

By the end of Q1 things were pretty good, I felt the happiest I had felt in a few years and was fairly trouble free (other than some problems with my eyes) . I had been to a couple of gigs including Them Crooked Vultures, had started getting into weekly fencing lessons and had got well into Final Fantasy XII and Football Manager 2010 as the main two computer games I was playing. By now I had my summer and autumn gigs booked and was looking forward to the Rage Factor event as I had wanted to see Rage Against the Machine live since the 90s.

On a Transformers front there was all kinds of mess kicking off about fake Lucky Draws and other chrome toys that I was rapidly uncovering the whole 8-10 year history of and causing quiet a stir amoungst many collectors. Jan was also when I was also talking to Derrick J Wyatt about artwork for Auto Assembly 2010. I'd confirmed Derrick's appearance at the end of '09 and I was already really excited that I would get the chance to meet the great man himself in August.

Ah, happy memories ...

Then there was the 2nd quarter

Quote:Welcome back to my round up of 2010. After a pretty relaxing Q1, I forgot to mention that I injured my ankle at the start of the year and the 5-a-side games and fencing meant the injury was taking a pounding and getting worse each week. Well Q2 saw this continue to the point that I was in pain all the time. Eventually I would go to the doctors and have to take 6 weeks off from sport to try to let it heal, but it would be another quarter before it really would be sorted and only after being told there was nothing the docs can do about it and that my flat feet were making it worse.

So on that note what else happened in Q2. Well for a start I was planning my "around Ireland by motorcycle trip" that was booked in for the start of July. I'd never been to Ireland before and was looking forward to seeing the country and spending 6-8 hours aday on two wheels riding. The plan was to stay somewhere different each night and to start in Dublin and work our way around the coast in a clockwise direction over a 7 day period. I'll talk a little about what went down in my Q3 report.

Computer game wise I was still playing some Final Fantasy 12 at the start before moving onto Red Dead Redemption.

I only attended one gig this quarter (that I remember) and that was Rage Factor. It was EPIC. Dave had a ticket but had booked a holiday flying out on that day so he missed it. I met up with Gareth Ardron from work at the event and some other crazy guys (Frank and some others I forget their names) who made the event extremely enjoyable. The atmosphere was electric and I was quite impressed by The Gallows TBH, they put on a good show.

The World Cup hit and I watched pretty much every game in the evenings and on the weekends and some whilst at lunch at work.

The rest of this quarter is some what of a blur TBH. I don't really remember what else I was up to, I know i didn't do a great deal of coding work but I did buy a new scanner so I could start scanning in some magazine back issues that I am still only about 1/5 of the way through. I bought FAR too many.

Work started to get more manic and after the split though the atmosphere changed a bit it still wasn't right.

The Auto Assembly Committee were getting really busy at this stage trying to tie up loose ends and sort out some more cool stuff that no one knew about. I remember reading lots of emails each day which was great to feel a part of something again. I tried to be a little more active on some of the message boards as I was missing the interaction i use to have with fellow fans, but it had been such a long time I didn't really fit in. Looking back, this was probably the time when my sleeping pattern really got mixed up as I was starting to form more plans about things I wanted to do post-Auto Assembly, getting ideas for new projects, I was dealing with some contracts trying to get some artwork commissioned and was starting to look around for additional contract work.

I had decided that since I was really struggling to fit in, make new friends and wasn't really seeing my old friends that much I would throw myself into more work to keep busy. But being me I started taking on way too much.....

So onto Q3

I can't be bothered with FB now so I'll just post it here

Quote:Q3 an Q4 Combined

This was the BIGGY.
First off I started the quarter with a motorcycle trip in Ireland which saw my credit card get cloned, my bike travel around the country with a half flat tyre and me almost come off a couple of times. The trip, however, was fantastic. Though it rained a lot on some days it was a brilliant trip which I have fond memories off and will certainly do it again at somepoint.
After that trip there was the Green Day Wembley Stadium gig which was pretty much the same as last years but being in wembley it was great.
I was also heavily into last minute Auto Assembly organisation at this stage and got in contact with Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster about attending the convention. It was touch and go for both of them, Jim was in a meeting the night before and almost missed the event and Bill, who was broke and stressed, missed out on the Iron Maiden album launch for the event. Both guys were fantastic and well down an absolute storm at Auto Assembly, they fully justify the cost of flying them over and went well above and beyond the call of duty. I can not praise them enough.

Auto Assembly itself came and drew the logistical headache of transporting the figures up for the show. We went up early to make sure we could set-up in time and had problems checking in but the event was, by far, the single greatest Transformers convention I have been to ANYWHERE in the world. The three guest I bought over, Derrick, Jim and Bill were all superb and I feel honoured to have been able to meet them and bring them over to these shores. I've already praised Jim and Bill but Derrick proved he is THE MAN when it comes to staff on any TF show for me. He is a fan first and picked up loads of cool stuff at the event. The committee were running around like headless chickens and Simon once again fought his way through it but he did at least manage to keep smiling longer this year. Thankfully he finally took a break after the event to spend some much needed and deserved time with his family, but the amount of work and effort he puts into these events is amazing to see. I had a great time meeting and chatting to all kinds of people and it reminded me so much of the earlier Transforces and our own pub meets and I found myself with a feeling of joy and belonging that I had not felt for such a long time I had not realised it had gone missing.

So THANK YOU to everyone who attended the event and made it what it was. Stressful it was at times, but it was the happiest I have felt in years.

After the event things would not be the same for me again. Work was turning crazy as one of the other senior devs was ill for 6 weeks so I had his job and mine then the third had to go back to Columbia for a family emergency so I was covering that as well. This got me very overworked, and that tied into the energy I spent in the month prior to AA left me a shattered and pretty much dead person.

Oh I forget before AA I also had a very nice business meeting with a Devil Soundwave about a project he was starting, which i was and still am very interested in, only i have not had the time to look into it which is a shame and something I regret. Sorry Ross.

Anyway September started as August ended at by the middle I simply had enough. I needed a holiday. Ireland was a nice break but that many hours on a bike concentrating was not relaxing. So I decided to book a holiday to Japan ... for the start of October! So in about 3 weeks I had booked a hotel, flights and rail pass and was on my way back to Japan with Moonbug for our second visit.

Japan was AWESOME! I loved it. We travelled a lot more, we spent a lot but man was it worth it. We had not spent much time together in 6 months so it was good to catch up as well. After Japan I came back feeling much better but after another week things changed.

In this same period I had started back working on Transformers At The Moon V9 and also had started work on Transformers-Prime.com so I was coding for a good 12-15 hours a day. I was also not sleeping.

Everyone was back at work but there was a lot of friction around, not just in the department but within the company. This grew and grew and has come to effect me heavily to the point of being very vocal about it in recent weeks which is most unlike me. So where Q3 had a great middle and tough end with a silver lining at the end, Q4 started with a positive trip to Japan and went down hill from their. By the middle of November I was down to about an hours sleep a night, if that. By the end I was properly depressed. Scarily so.

December started and I was still low, people were off work on holidays and two new guys had started who I had to train as well as do my own work and cover for others which meant I was even more busy and frustrated which made me more depressed.

That basically takes us up to Christmas.

Oh Q3 has one gig, Muse and Q4 had three. Motorhead, Weird Al Yankovic and Disturbed (Rockstar: Taste of Chaos tour).

Now I am off work till next year but on call for the next three days. I'm feeling a bit better and am trying to think of the positives for next year, but whether work will finish me off when i go back i dont know as we have been told that there are going to be a lot of changed at the start of the year that we will not like,

So that's 2010. 2011 coming soon

[GALVY]

the first six months of 2010 were hell. no job, mortgage to pay. almost lost my home. then i got my job back.
the last six months were much improved as you can imagine.

hopefully 2011 will tick nicely along and plenty of work comes my way. as long as i can pay the mortgage,feed the trolls umm, i mean troops, and add some g1s to my collection it will be a good year.

and world domination would be a bonus :lol: :lol:

[quartz]

Posted a summary of Q3 and Q4

[Gruff]

2010 what a horrendous year for me. It started with my friend being killed New Years Eve in a drunken assault. Great start to the year. In working for Game I'd become very very disillisioned with the business and how our company was changing things, closing stores and changing trading patterns. I predicted that in one year our Newton Abbot branch (where I worked) would be closed.
I began a real war of attrition against my manger in the way of Steve Austin (me) vs Vince McMahon (her) and did everything but hit her with a bed pan and a stunner. I came close though. At home, things between my partner and I were worsening, arguing over petty things that it felt that sometimes she just wanted to argue with me for the sake of arguing with me. The main problem being that although we both wanted marriage I wanted kids and to move back to Scotland, she just wanted marriage and didnt want to move more than two streets away from her parents. She also seemed to want to be more controlling of my life telling me what I could and couldnt do.
Then it got worse, her Game store branch was being shut down ad she was being made redundant, her gran was then also diagnosed with cancer. No survival chance and would be lucky to see out the summer. Heartbreaking stuff, at home for me though just after all this I was informed that my Great Gran had been diagnosed with cancer and dad let slip he was battling heart disease. When I told my partner I was accused of trying to "compete with her". WTF!?!

I'd had enough, my mate got me a job with him working for Woseley UK's Parts Centre (full time and salary paid job) and I took on extra shifts with my security job to just keep myself busy and away from it all. One foul mouthed hour long torrent of abuse down the phone from my partner later and I knew it was over. We seperated after 6 1/2yrs together mid april. Her Gran died end of april. My Great Gran had an op to try and remove the cancer which was succesful, this 95yr old wont let anything slow her down lol.

New job started ok but over the months has started to irritate me greatly. My new co-workers want to know the very ins and outs of my life. What I do and where when I'm not with them. Fell off the wagon from depression for a bit and went drinking every week for 2months before going sober again as I realised that wasnt the key to happiness. Went back to basics, little things to cheer me up and keep me going. Importing Transformers, Godzilla DVD's, comics, rediscoverd my love of the X-Men and got back into that. Bought my own litter of Degues (Had some with my ex but she got the kids in the divorce so to speak). During a bank holiday weekend in the summer I experienced the worst night of fighting in years and in a major scrap I got dropped on my head and almost broke my neck. I suffered a stinger which put me in hospital for 2 days with temporary paralysis, an X-ray and MRI revealed a dislodged disk in my lower neck which causes me some pain and discomfort from time to time.

Rest of the year was quite uneventful thankfully, decided that I already want to quit my day job. Fed up of their bullying, double standards, attempts to control my private life etc etc.
Was given my own security unit at the weekends, started off well but then realised the landlord we worked for was a complete psychopath, made several requests to go back to my old unit which were refused so I quit. I'm now classed as a filler, if a unit needs an extra body I fill in.
Finally made complete peace with my Dad and went and spent a weekend with him, my step mother and new extended family up in Inverness mid december. My day time boss rang me the day before I travelled up and asked if I could cancel my trip, yes seriously they did. Travelled up, watched Rangers VS Inverness and had a great time!

Going into the Xmas period I found a police force that was recruiting (Central Highlands) and applied for them. Worked the LONGEST new years eve of my life (time and a half though WIN!) and hoped to start the new year afresh and hoping for the best.
Yet as I type this here, january 8th, already another friend of mine has passed on (he suffered a stroke which caused a brain anneurysm) and my police application has been rejected.

Feel a bit lost and quite lonely now. Since my split from my partner there hasnt been anyone else and with my application rejected not sure what to do with myself now. Almost 30 and want to do something worthwhile with my life. What does the rest of the year hold.........................?

[quartz]

Man that really is a tough year Gruff. It sounds like your ex has issues she needs to sort out so getting out of that relationship seems like a good decision, and though single try to think of the positives of that situation. You can focus on you and rediscovering interests you lost or gave up for someone else. Rediscovering yourself can be a very rewarding experience as I found out a couple of years back.

You say you want to do something worth while, there is still plenty of time so just take time to think about what you'd like to do.

Are there other police forces that are recruiting?

My year has just started with 15 people form my company being made redundant yesterday and 2 more to come. Its about 1/3 of the staff, but I'm determined to try to make this a better year than the last one

[Gruff]

*BIG MANLY HUG FOR QUARTZ*

[Starscreams_Ghost]

fecking hell Gruff I thought I had a bad year but that was just money worries and health issues that are slowly sorting themselves out

hope this year is better for you and everyone else who had a crap one

mines already off to a both good and bad start

got the missus an engagement ring on order, (just about scraping the cash together)

and yesterday had to buy a new fridge freezer as the soon to be missus though it would be a really really good idea to defrost our old one with a cleaver........ yup a cleaver......... :roll:

suffice to say it's now got a rather large hole in the back and no longer works

[minion]

Starscreams_Ghost Wrote:got the missus an engagement ring on order, (just about scraping the cash together)

It's a trap!

[grizzley8u]

may be a trap but he's cornered and she's a dab hand with a cleaver! ;-)

[grizzley8u]

Double post!

I thought I'd just put something happy up here as for me 2010 was awesome! I went back to work in engineering doing what I do after spending a year doing hard work, I'm now back in my career not a job and it's great long hours, good pay, crazy people and hard work I love it. I'm as happy as can be single as a cricket umpires finger giving someone out and loving pretty much every minute of it. I'm just hoping 2011 is as good as 2010 as I'd hate for my 30th year to be pants.

[quartz]

2011 for me has started with more socialising than last year which means I've fallen behind already on the coding projects I wanted to do, but its good.

Work has been strange this last week due to all the goings and the plans to totally re-write the platform from the ground up and possibly outsource all the work leaving us on maintenance or out on our ear, though now they are coming around to let us design and lead on it, if it gets approval.

On positives, I've got a holiday coming up, am thinking about going to Botcon and might take another motorcycle trip to southern Europe (money provided for the last two).

I'm back to 80-90% positive nature now after my depression last month and have some cool plans forming for new projects.

I also had my first cricket net session last Friday almost 15 years and though my batting sucked, by bowling was pretty good and I delivered a beauty of a bouncer that made me so proud lol.

Hopefully I can keep this positive feeling going and will continue doing things and going for it this year.

[Impactor]

quick summary of the past year

DRUNKEN MESS!!!!

slightly longer summary
bought a brand new 10plate car from a dealer (first time i have ever bought a car that wasnt fromerly owned by me dad)
spent a week up in inverness went along the 2 longest zipwires in the uk
became a zombie and had a striking resemblance to nick frosts character in shawn of the dead
went to my first ever music festival (download) f'ing loved it already booked time off to go again this year.
turned 30 and had 2 days of drinking to celebrate
went to autoassembly (after finding some suprisingly good accomodation at a cheap price)
my closest mate left emigrate to australia (which sucked the big one took a while to get over it)
went to stockholm and then helsinki (very expensive to live out there but damn nice scenery)
won a fancy dress contest at work dressed as the devil (MWAHAHAHAHAH)
thats about it really

hopes and plans for this year
got a nice 3 week holiday planned for australia at the end of may (scraping money for the flights)
go to download again.
play more golf
be more awesome than last year

cant think of anything else

[Moonbug]

2010 was a very odd year - good or not, depends on your point of view.

Can't really remember much about the first 2 months, other than gaining a member of staff in Jan and letting them go in June.
March I got together with my girlfriend (thought what the heck, we'll give it a try).
June went to the Seychelles with her for her birthday - nice, great experience and an amazing place
Employed Gareth (The Great Destroyer) as my sidekick at work - easily the best decision I've made in years. Had nerves about working with him, as we've known each other for years, but it worked really well so far
Did a biking holiday round Island in July (I think) was great
AA 2010 was amazing, meeting Derrick, Bill and Jim was great.
Went to Japan in November and moved in with the girlfriend a few weeks later (renting). Really nervous, first time of living away from Steve - so far finding it very hard to be away from our colleciton and my hobbies.
December ended with a trip to New York with the GF - which was cool.

2010 meant lots of work, more responsibiities, employing people, going out with and moving in with my girlfriend (complete life change ... whether it's for the better I'm not 100% sure yet) and ending with debt.

2011 has been busy working, expanding the department from 2 to 3, and gaining more stress and challenges at work. Things with the GF have been OK, lots of arguements and we've done very little, but it's been OK (still find it very hard and odd).

Jan ended with me crashing my bike, doing a couple of hundred pounds worth of damage. Just booked a trip to BotCon, that I can't really afford at the moment, but gives me something to look forward to. first 4 months are crunch time on the relatinship state - with out 6 month get out option on the flat coming up. The horrid news about Galvy was shocking and depressing, and I'm determined to drag the year to a positive.

My hopes are just to try to be happy, I ended the year on a low emotionally, and started that way - but hope things will work out.

[thegreatdestroyer]

I almost feel like I shouldn't post in here because I had a great 2010 a 2011 is so far going better.
I was in an easy job with nice people at the start of 2010, jumped ship to work for Moonbug which has been great and since then I've not even had a cold which compared to being sick over the last 3 Christmas day's is a nice change. Saved like a madman during the 2nd half of 2010 which restricted my fun a bit but 2011 has seen everything pay off. The extra running around at my new job helped me play the best basketball I've played in a decade and I've just come back from an epic trip to Japan with Quartz, Grizz and one of his friends. I saw the full size Gundam and I am literally surrounded by toys at the moment and my biggest problem is that I have 3 shelves worth of toys out on my sofas and only one shelf to put them on.
Sure I'm still single but I kinda like and enjoy my life so I'm not going to sob over that. The only possible concern I have is that 2011 has been pretty awesome so far and it's more likely to go downhill than up but now I don't have to save for Japan, I'll have more money for anime and manga so that and my good friends chocolate and sugar will keep me more than happy.