NPR Homework

On Saturday as I was driving home after work, on my way to "Christmas Break," and I was listening to NPR when the commentator assigned us homework. I was so enthralled by the idea that I called my voicemail at work to remind myself to think about it for the blog. I just went to elibrary for the transcript to give you the exact wording:

"Melody Kramer is a producer at NPR's WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME. She lives in Chicago. Melody just told us what she's happy she did this year. How about you? For this week's homework assignment, I want you to send me a story about the best thing you did in 2007. What are you proudest of? What did you accomplish that you never thought you could?"

I really liked the question, especially as I prepare to review last year's 43 Things to make new ones for the coming year. High on my list of best would be the recent Disney vacation. The 4 of us had a great time and it has been a long time since I have been away with my parents. Another highlight was riding the Segway. I had a massage in a palapa on the beach in Mexico this summer. Super awesome! I never thought I would actually read War and Peace. There are a lot of things I'm proud of this year, especially Ann's quilt. Even though I was already a technogeek, I made great a great leap forward with this blog and the Professional Collection one and other technology. Overall, despite the accident, I had a terrific year. Perhaps being happy at work and home is my great accomplishment.

Want to add your bests, proudests, and surprise accomplishments?

End of Year Thoughts

I will be making some posts to close out the year and I thought I would break them into separate posts to make them more coherent and manageable. First of all...Fantasy Football. Although football season is over and some fantasy leagues still have playing time, ours concluded this past week. I came in #2 behind EG who was our "control" subject. After setting up her account and creating a super cute avatar, she never logged in again. In the automatic draft she was dealt a very solid team. She had the #1 kicker and very consistent players at the other positions. EG never shuffled players off the bench to cover bye weeks or players out for other reasons. Nevertheless, due to the consistency of her team in the aggregate, she won. As I mentioned in previous posts, I neither follow nor fully understand football. I worked hard on my team this season. I read expert reports, researched players, analyzed statistics, traded players, and moved people around. My rank was never lower than 4th, I was in 1st for several weeks, and I ended in 2nd. For my first attempt at Fantasy Football, I feel that I made an honorable showing. I will admit that I am much relieved that the season is over. On Saturday night I was out to dinner at Il Primo and on side-by-side televisions Shark Tale and the Cowboys were playing. I was watching football. Not good!