Yeah OK so it took me a bit longer to get around to doing the year end review but here it is. This was actually a busy year and a down right hum dinger of a year. It was filled with happy memories and sad memories. Fun times and I can't believe that just happened times. I pretty much gave up on myspace early in the year and started blogging and this is were we are now.

The beginning of the year saw the removal of one retard housemate and the moving in of a much better housemate. I was also sick in early part of the year with the same thing that I was sick with the last couple weeks. I also had a fun lovely skin problem on my hands which was NASTY. This year I hope to prevent that with lots of moisturizer.

There was a ton of car action this year learned to replace the engine in a Mazda RX-8 and a stupid little piece of metal in my Lumina which required the removal of the steering column and a lot more money than it should have been. Also went to a lot of car shows and a lot of Autocross events. Even managed to watch some extra motorsport events thanks to torrents.

Went on a few trips this year more than I've been on in some time really even went on my first plane trip as well. Went to Reno for a good friends wedding and had a great time. Also went to Seattle by car with the housemate to pick up an extra set of rims for the RX-8 and to enjoy a good time. Also got to unleash my inner Otaku and Porschephile just a bit. Also learned that Mango is bad for a road trip.

This was also the first year that I started purchasing anime figures. I'm up to 7 lil figures now and adding more here and there. Of course this has both slowed down the purchase of diecast cars (only 4 total this year) and Star Wars action figures. But that's OK. Also this year I inherited and bought several different firearms. I inherited my grandfathers police revolver and holster and I purchased and customized a Ruger 10/22 along with a Mossberg Maverick 88 shotgun. Managed to get a fair bit of shooting in during the year as well which was a nice thing. You know if I would have known there was an indoor range in 2002 I'd still have another pistol to go shooting with as well but that's just how things happen I guess.

Did manage to get in a good deal of photography and even one paying job as well even though that paying job sucked some serious donkey balls it was for a good cause even if it was a bit late. Loved photographing cars during the year though and think a good amount of them came out really well. Still need to do some more work on it though. This year I also changed from Fotki which was a pain to use really to the much more powerful and friendly Flickr for my picture hosting needs. Lately I also switched to IGoogle and GMail away from my.yahoo and yahoo mail. I thought it was time to change once I started getting spam mail from myself. That and yahoo was really starting to SUCK at the spam guard wanting you to instead pay for some more advanced mail program.

With all the good things going on it felt like a great year sure the other housemate owed me $300 and stole my stuff but meh he's gone and there's nothing I can do about it but move on right nothing else will happen this year to ruin it right. No in fact quit the opposite happened. As far as it goes this year SUCKED so much more than last year when my grandfather passed away from a chest infection. Things like this are just not supposed to happen but in late June my mom was diagnosed with Brain Cancer and by the end of September she was gone. Yeah it was just that fast.

And that was 2008 in a nut shell. well there was a lot of work, a lot of sleep and a hole ton of anime watching in there as well. But here is to the new year and new times. May this year be void of any more family deaths or broken cars.

Couple weeks ago my dad and grandma found in the back of drawer my grandfather's holster for the S&W Model 15 that I also inherited and they decided that I should have it as well. I was actually in the process of looking for a holster for the Model 15 at the time so the timing couldn't have been better and I gladly accepted it. When I first saw it I thought that it might have been hand made by my grandfather as well since he liked to work with leather in his spare time as well as gunsmithing but after a little looking around it turns out that it was a genuine Smith and Wesson made Holster specifically for the Model 15. Without a doubt a nicely manufactured and handy little holster so when I got it home I had to try it out of course.

Now being as that I'm a complete dork that actually meant a good amount of time was wasted playing cowboy and trying out different draw methods and tactics for both open carry and concealed carry. And yes I did attempt to draw, twirl then holster the Model 15 several times never did actually work though, the Hogue grips make it a bit chunky to actually twirl it that well. The important thing that I did come away with from the cowboy play is that it isn't easy to conceal such a large and chunky revolver unless I'm wearing my huge leather jacket. The holster pokes out from underneath any of the other jackets and coats I own. Not good but then I really wasn't considering CCWing the revolver anyways but just had to try it out. It'll be good for open carry out in the woods (you can still do that in Idaho damnit) or when out shooting with the friends so I don't have to lug the revolver around all the time just stick it in the holster and it's good to go.

Of course all this just meant that I could dig out the camera equipment and take some more pictures and you can find the rest of the ones that I took of the holster and gun at the usual place of course on Flickr, all the new pictures are at the end.

Well that was a rather boring start to the last month of the year. Of course that also means there is only 4 more weeks left of the year. Last week was a rather slow week of blogging and everything else really. Another slow week that I should have taken the time to catch up with friends and family since I haven't really been in touch with a lot of friends lately and now is the best time to do that catching up with you know.

The only thing that I did last week that didn't involve working, sleeping or donating plasma was I got bored and I busted out the camera gear and took some pictures. I took some test pictures of Yoko with the ammo and I discovered that I really need to work on that some more as only one picture came out crystal clear (the one I posted here) while most of the others had halo effects going on all over the place not to mention being out of focus as well. And since I haven't done any firearms photography in a while either I took some pictures of a holster that my grandma gave me for the Model 15 revolver. Her and my dad found it the other day while cleaning up some of my grandpa's belongs and she thought it would be good if I were to have it. But that's a blog for another day.

I did also pick up most all of my Christmas cards for the season so I'll be getting those written up and mailed off in the next couple weeks. I am however really getting annoyed with the Christmas music already. Doesn't help that I have to listen to it at work for a good solid 8 freaking hours five days a week. It's enough to drive someone insane.

So that's it for the first (boring) week of December and on to the next one. Hopefully it will be more interesting.