2004 - The Good, The Bad and the Stupid

Seems like after high school, the flood gates of time were left open and time slips by so quickly! Thinking about it earlier today and 2005 will be a 10 year high school reunion (although I'm not sure it will actually happen).

So, every year seems to slip into a category, and for me, 2004 was the year of :"The Good, The Bad and the Stupid".

The Good - All the 'lessons' from art that I've learned over the years seemed to come together and just 'gel'. It made sense and was a productive year. I keep a rough number system on the 'finished' pieces and a good year normally has about '20' of these. This year it was around '60'. So a goal has always been to increase speed, which is getting better. Now to work on the 'quality' aspect.

The Bad - were to begin with this one? Probably best not to and leave things in 2004. Also something about the respective parties in Australia and US having control over both levels of goverment with increased majority ... where is that igloo in Northern Canada I always wanted to buy.

and the Stupid - I hate shopping with a vengence, under-staffed, under trainned and making it as difficult as possible to give them money. It occurred to my economics founding was at a time when the latest and greatest buzz words were "Just in Time" method and employee "Empowerment". Now I think we are "Just out of time" and employee "Empowered to Make excuses". Cyncial I know but when I had my best shopping experience with amazon.com (product was lost and with a simple email, they sent me out replacement product no questions asked), long term this can't be good.

So to everyone out there, Happy New Year and I'll see you some time in it!