–“So Ben, How was work today?”–

 I started off the year as Manchester’s Lead Demonstration Specialist, a management position right below that of Assistant Manager. The promotion of myself the year before and that of our new Assistant Manager, Jeremy, had led us into a Golden Age at Bose, where one could gladly look forward to coming into work every day. Life was good. I was thriving in this new stress-free atmosphere, with all of my new added responsibilities. But this peaceful age was not meant to last, because as we all now so very well know, as soon as springtime rolls around everyone wants to get the hell out of Dodge.

This year was no different! First we lost our noble Assistant Manger, Jeremy. To a mere child, nonetheless! To be serious for a second, he and his wife had a very cute baby boy named Abe, and because it made the most sense, Jeremy became a stay-at-home dad. We definitely missed him. And apparently he missed us a bunch too, because this fall he came back (thankfully) to work part-time for us on weekends.

But before that could happen we had to lose our two Johns. John C. basically got kicked out of the house he was renting and couldn’t find a new place before he had to move all of his stuff out of the house. So instead he and his family moved back to Jersey. Amazingly he went straight from our store to the Time Warner store in NYC, so we can still keep tabs on him in the Bose world. That was a bit of a culture shock for him though. He went from one of the slowest stores in the company to one of the busiest. On top of that, their store is only a fraction of the size of ours!

John R. went on to bigger and better things, acquiring a job at a Wine and Beer magazine that publishes out of Manchester. Then he announced that he and his amazing wife, Megan, are now going to have a baby! So congratulations guys. As of the last I spoke to them, they were planning on moving back to Maine to be closer to her family for when the baby comes. Anyone who needs a house in Shaftsbury, VT, just give him a call.

With everyone leaving, you have to hire someone, right? I immediately applied for the Assistant Manager position. Unfortunately, I didn’t have quite the managerial experience necessary for the promotion at the time, having not at that point even held the title of Lead for a year. In one of the nicest rejection talks I’ve ever received, I was told that the only reason I wasn’t being considered was my lack of having put my two years in. Whether it was true or not, that felt nice. So instead we hired a Manager from one of the other stores in town. And thus we learned our lesson of why it is much better to hire from within.

That was a long summer. That’s all I really have to say on that.

Before long we started hiring some replacements for the staff. Yeah! Garth and Frank now join the cast of the roughly billion people I have worked with since starting up in Manchester. May they last longer than the people they replaced!

And then there was another development. Our newest Assistant was offered a new job that honestly seemed a lot better suited for him. Again the question arose: Who will be Manchester’s new ASM? I immediately threw my hat back in the ring, but may I remind you that the reason I did not get it before was because of lack of experience, and at this point I still did not have those two years in. I was sweating bullets that I would be grilled by countless managers, in lines going forever and ever up the corporate food chain.

But a funny thing happened. Apparently acting like I was the Assistant Manager (which I did) while cleaning up after the previous one was all of the experience one needed to accept those new responsibilities. Instead of numerous interviews I was subjected to one phone call with our District Manager who basically just asked me: “You sure you want the job?” Hmm…let’s see. I’d have to keep doing the same thing that I’ve been doing, but I’d get paid a lot more to do so? Uh yeah, I still want the job.

And then things were good again. I love my new job. I like feeling responsible for “my” store. I like being the big cheese. Things are definitely good.

And what a time to be good! After a rocky start in the Spring we have since been doing better than the store has ever done before. This December alone we have been breaking store records left and right. It’s madness! We were well over our sales quota for the month with a week still left to go, which is just simply amazing when you consider that the year before we were scrambling at the last second just to hit 80%. It’s Christmas magic! It’s like there is nothing that we can’t sell right now. In general I’m very happy to be working where I’m working right now. The only thing that would make this feeling better would be if secured Employee of the Month for this December. I’ve been working my ass off trying to make this happen, so hopefully I’ll at least be in consideration. I pulled in quite a few ginormous sales this month, so hopefully it wouldn’t be too hard to do, but things are not looking in my favor. Rachel has this one in the bag, methinks.

–Speed Racer’s got nothing on me–

It wouldn’t be A Year in Review if I didn’t discuss my latest escapades in my car. Because let’s be honest: After work, the only place I spend more of my time is in my car. And when you have a speeding problem, stories are sure to develop. Like for instance when I made a new personal best land speed record this year, cruising over 105 mph on the highway stretching between Olympia, Washington and Portland, Oregon, trying my best to get back home to Olympia in time for dinner. I didn’t do it in my beloved Mazda 3 (now lovingly named The Snarf), because she couldn’t make the trip with me and was left at the airport in Albany. Ironically I did it in almost the exact same car. After witnessing a group of Olympia’s finest arrest a man and woman at gunpoint from their car at a gas station downtown, my cousin Martin and I found another Mazda 3 for me to rent. And it was the exact same color and everything. Unfortunately it was the shitty basic model without all of the bells and whistles The Snarf has, but I didn’t care. It was like having a little piece of home breaking state laws on the other side of the country with me.

Not all speeding is good, though. There is the kind that results in a speeding ticket. It wouldn’t be another year without me getting another speeding ticket. I must have the luck of the gods on my side, though, because the nice officer that gave me said ticket chose to ignore the fact that I had gotten a ticket the year before (and before) and let me off easy. That, or Vermont has really shitty computers. The odds are pretty even on either of those possibilities.

Just like how I can’t pass a year without getting a speeding ticket, it also seems that I can’t make it through the year without hitting something. This year it was my (dis)pleasure to run over a dead deer, going at least 65 at the time. What followed that night shall forever be burned into my memory. Just thinking of the smell (that smell!) makes me gag a little. And once I got home the fun had only just begun. If I never have to do anything again as gross as pulling freshly killed, rotting deer carcass out from underneath the bottom of my car, I’ll die a lucky man. For more of the horrific details you need only search the pages of this here blog (because I ain’t searching it for ya).

All of that and my insurance keeps going down. How, I have no frakin’ idea.

–Look ma!  I’m on vacation!–

I really wanted to write about my vacation to Seattle in my blog after it happened, but never did, and it is looking like it is going to get the short stick again this year, as midnight is drawing close on this year of 2006. To be brief, it was definitely a trip of firsts. My first real vacation since I started working at Bose. My first trip cross country. Hell, my first time in a plane (if you are not counting that time when I was two and don’t remember anyway).

Anyway, the plane ride wasn’t nearly as scary as everyone makes it out to be. I quite enjoyed it. Not so much the stale recycled air. I could have done with a lot less of that. But my first flight was very cool. Early in the morning we pulled up over all of the lights, watching tiny towns pass on by, and then the sun came up. That was really neat, watching the sun rise up over the horizon from so high up. And so quick! I was in Philly before I really even got comfortable. Am I the only one that finds it odd that I can get to Seattle faster than it takes for me to get to Cape May, New Jersey? The flight back was just as nice, as we passed right by Mt. Rainer, allowing me a few minutes to get some last pictures from the plane.

The first day there was a whirlwind. My cousin Martin took me on a very cool sight seeing tour of Seattle and it still surprises me how much of that tour I retained, considering that I was going on zero sleep in the last two days at that point. All it took was a nice 12 hour nap to get my batteries recharged, though.

Martin’s family was so amazing and very giving. I was surprised at how quickly the kids took to me. I thought I was in for trouble when I first met Lily, hiding behind the door, unwilling to say hi to me. 15 minutes later though it was like I always lived there. They all just accepted me as part of the family, which might have been the best part of the whole trip for me.

The weather the entire week I was there was uncharacteristically beautiful. When you think Seattle, what’s the first thing you think of? Rain, right? The whole time I was there it was one day after another of clear blue skies. The second day there, Martin, Harper and I went to see the Pacific Ocean on the Olympic Peninsula and Martin was just shocked at how beautiful and like a normal beach it was out there. Apparently usually, not so much.

I took a trip down to Portland by myself to see what that was like. My only regret was that I didn’t get to see more of that. Martin was such a good tour guide, introducing me to all aspects of Seattle, that I really wish I went around with someone who knew Portland just to get an idea of how they see that city. I had a great time tooling around on my own though. I saw some landmarks and toured their Chinese garden, which was very neat. I got lots of great pictures of that. I wandered around Powell’s bookstore and got a neat T-shirt I proudly wear on my days off. And then there was that whole landspeed record thing.

My other cousin, Cris took me out to do the touristy thing in Seattle with his girlfriend. That was another great day. They were all great days, really. Anyway, we went up the Space Needle (perfect to do when the weather is beautiful, which, duh, it was) and went to the Rock and Roll museum, then did the Underground Tour, which I totally recommend. Plus I almost hit a guy crossing the street with my rental car. Sweet! Images of me passing off on the insurance waiver at the rental place flashed through my mind in an instant. Luckily, no damage was done.

I got to see three Bose stores in the Pacific Northwest, walked around Freemont and got to visit the world’s biggest video store (something only a geek who geeks out as hard as I do would think to do on a vacation). And I got to eat some of the best food I’ve ever gotten to eat in such a short amount of time. Seriously, everything was awesome, whether it was home cooking or a meal at a restaurant. All and all, a great time was had. I didn’t want to leave and I can’t wait to go back.

–Yeah man, I’m with the band–

This year I managed to see not one, but TWO concerts, neither of which I paid for and both of which rocked. First up was probably the best concert I’ve ever been too. My friend Josh, who works for OK Go, got me on the VIP list for the show, which also included some band that was on EQX whose name now escapes me and the headliners, She Wants Revenge. I went with Ross and we got up nice and close, only a few people away from the stage. OK Go rocked my world. They are such a great band to see live, so I totally recommend you check them out the next time they swing around your way. They are definitely more than just the band that made that treadmill video. After that things mellowed out just the tiniest bit as She Wants Revenge took the stage. Somehow the PA got turned up between OK Go’s and She Wants Revenge’s sets and never got turned down, so that when they finally threw down in felt like the drums and bass guitar were stomping on your chest. It was so LOUD. I thought the waves of sound would crush in my chest. And of course, that was awesome. It also taught me an important lesson: Never go to a show without earplugs. As we walked out I was sure there was going to be permanent hearing damage, but once I popped out those earplugs I was overjoyed to discover only minor ringing.

Of course now whenever I listen to She Wants Revenge it never seems the same. It just isn’t cool if my chest doesn’t feel like it is going to explode.

Next up was The Strokes in downtown Albany. Another very cool show. Unfortunately I went right after work so that by the end of the last song my feet were killing me. But it was nice to see a big band like that so (again) close to the stage. And I (re)discovered South there, who also kicked some major ass. I’d be tempted to say that they were really the highlight of that show.

–If Ebert kept a schedule like me then maybe one day he might be famous–

This year I tried to reintroduce the Monday Movie Review, to mixed results. The reviews got better than the first time around, but the (frequently late) schedule stayed about the same. I really liked my new rating system, and tried to use it to focus the rambling ideas in my head to make it easier for anyone other than me to read. I wrote a lot of frakin’ reviews this year, which I’m pretty proud of. I’m amazed at how long I kept it going.

But eventually and inevitably time wore me down. Right around September the schedule ground to a halt, first when I slowly fell behind in my writing and then when I just stopped trying. Josh accurately noted that everything fell to pieces right around when I went to Seattle, but that wasn’t the reason why it stopped, just an excuse. The major reason was that the new television season started and I found that I was suddenly too busy to watch movies and TV and somehow find time to wedge in reviewing both of them between work and sleep. I probably could have kept it up, but I was seriously burnt out.

And with good reason. I’m amazed I did as well as I did this year, especially considering that I broke all sorts of viewing records for myself, watching many, many more movies than I ever had before. When you consider that I kept about the same schedule for reviewing that I did with the original Monday Movie Review, except that I watched twice as many movies this time around and didn’t have a job the first time, I’d say I did a pretty good job. Hopefully with the New Year I’ll consolidate my losses and make for a fresh start. Because, really, I enjoy writing the reviews and sharing them with you all. It’s just such hard work! The procrastinator in me has a problem with that relentless schedule. I’d try to take a vacation from it, but in all that free time I’d just watch more movies, thus only contributing to my growing problem.

–Statistics–

I know for some of you (and especially me) this is the best part of A Year in Review. This is that part at the end where I spew out a whole bunch of numbers to help quantify the amount of crazy that resides in my head for all of the scientists and mathematicians out there. What did I do with my time? What did I spend my money on? How did that compare to years previous? The answers to all of those questions and more will soon revealed, so enjoy!

[Caution: Pregnant women, those with heart conditions and those who are easily frightened should probably turn back from whence you came at this point. After this there is no turning back from looking over the brink at my dark mind.]

Total # of CDs I bought in 2006: 151
CDs Bought in 2005: 141
CDs Bought in 2004: 211

Total # of DVDs I bought in 2006: 667
Total # of DVDs I owned in 2006: 1,662
DVDs bought in 2005: 417
Total DVDs owned in 2005: 995
DVDs bought in 2004: 288+
Total DVDs owned in 2004: 578

Total # of movies I saw 2006: 487
Total # of movies I saw 2005: 427
Total # of movies I saw 2004: 352
Total # of movies I saw 2003: 362

Total # of movies I saw in the theater 2006: 67
Total # of movies I saw in the theater 2005: 76
Total # of movies I saw in the theater 2004: 59
Total # of movies I saw in the theater 2003: 57

Total # of movies I saw for the first time 2006: 429
Total # of movies I saw for the first time 2005: 357
Total # of movies I saw for the first time 2004: 291
Total # of movies I saw for the first time 2003: 246

How about dem apples?