First off, I apologize for the title.  It’s how I feel, though.

Secondly, 2010 will always be a year I put down in my “strongly dislike” column.  Sure, it had its good moments, but I would say that was only 25 percent of the year.

Let me break down the good stuff first:

Family

My wife and kids have remained pretty healthy this year.  Amy and I have grown closer, especially at the end of the year. She has been a calming and solid force throughout some tough times right now.

Sports

My awesome alma mater kicked off the year by beating the snot out of U of Texas for the national championship.  My employer ended the year #1 and will play for the national championship in January.  Both teams produced back-to-back Heisman winners, so that makes my home state look pretty sweet all around.

Ghostbusters

The Alabama Ghostbusters literally exploded with memberships and charity donations.  We did a TON of events and simply had a great year altogether.  I’ve made a lot of great friends in the group.

I got to see Tom Merrit and Veronica Belmont again at Dragon*Con.  Always a highlight of my year!  Plus, tons of GBs from around the country came and made it an awesome experience again!  We are co-hosting PKE Surge next year with our Georgia Ghostbusters family, as well as other awesome GB fans.  It should be an absolute blast!

I finally got to hang out with Ernie Hudson (“Winston”)!  We ate dinner with him, and I got to spend a lot of time with him.  He really is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.

Thank you, Mattel, for giving us awesome GB toys (despite you draining my wallet).

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As most people who crawl out of their beds and work for a living, I’m happy it’s Friday.  I don’t have much planned this weekend except for a neighbor kid’s birthday party and running down to Montgomery to drop off some group supplies for Kevin.  Got a fundraiser next weekend for Project Ecto in B’ham, but I won’t be able to make due to plans for my birthday.

Speaking of Project Ecto, I’m ready to get it off my plate.  We need to raise $2,500 more, and the car will be ours.  No one is really contributing anything despite the fact this will be a charity/community event car.  It’s not for any of our personal uses, and I don’t even know if that belief is the reason we’re not getting many donations for it.  I’d like to think it’s just because the economy stinks right now.  Either way, I’m tired of asking businesses and private folks for a hand (on that note, please see the above link if you’d like to donate online).

The freelance voice gig site is in dire need of an update.  Yeah, I only launched it a couple of weeks ago, but you’ve got to maintain a site like that to draw people in.  I have one potential paying gig so far, and I hope that will open the door for more.  I’ve got a lead from a friend about a video production house nearby that could possibly use my services.  I need to call them early next week.  (Click here to “like” the BPVP Facebook page)

I’m also still taking freelance projects for websites.  The guy I’ve been working with hasn’t bothered to respond to my e-mails in almost two months, so I’m open for new jobs right now.  I really need the money to buy a new computer because my current one isn’t handling all the new CS5 software too well.  Actually, it’s not handling a lot of stuff too well right now.  The motherboard and CPU are almost six-years-old, so it’s time to upgrade.

We took lil’ man back to his cardiologist a couple of weeks ago, and he got a great report.  Doc said by the time he’s 10, all this will be an afterthought.  I’m so thankful for the doctors at UAB.  God has given them talents beyond my wildest imagination.

I’m hoping to see “Inception” some time this weekend.  I probably won’t, but I’ll try.  I’m really looking forward to it and what Chris Nolan brings to it.  After this dies down, they’ll start focusing heavily on Batman 3.  To say I’m excited about that is a huge understatement.

Speaking of sequels, we’re all hoping Ghostbusters 3 will get the green light soon.  I’ve actually been e-mailing back-and-forth with Ernie Hudson (“Winston”) about some things.  I won’t say what they are at this time, but he is an incredibly nice man.  I’m enjoying getting to know him a little, and I hope that will continue to grow as I work on some things with him.

Work has been great this week, except for the fact all my friends are gone.  A few are in Europe until this weekend, and a couple others took some time off.  I’ve been able to catch up on almost all my projects which is awesome.  This fall will be hectic as we move the university into a new website design.  I’ll be migrating possibly thousands of pages over to the new look, so any rest I can get right now is awesome.

Speaking of, we’re hiring a new multimedia specialist.  It’s a position that has been abandoned for about 1.5 years now, and I’ve been the sole keeper of the fort.  This will be a starter position, but it will allow me to toss all these small Web updates people want over to the new person.  That will give me more time to do bigger projects, as well as focus more on our social media plans.  I’m very grateful for that.  It’s so hard to work on any one project when e-mails come flying in from all over campus wanting these mundane changes.  It’s not mundane to them, but it is when I’m swamped with bigger projects.

Well, the official start time of the work day has arrived.  Need to knock out a couple of things before I get into weekend mode.

I really need this blog right now.  You wouldn’t think so with the lack of updates, but maybe one day I can treat this as a daily (heck, even weekly) form of therapy.

Work has me completely swamped, I keep waiting (and waiting and waiting and …) on my freelance guy to get back with me (even though I consistently e-mail him, but have other projects to keep me very busy) and I have taken a brief three-week hiatus from my ALGB events.  I’ve promised so many things to so many other people that I can’t remember them from one day to the next (I’m especially thinking of you, Stephen.  I’ll get to your site soon!).

You throw all that together, and the fact I might be looking for a part-time job after work every day, and I don’t know if I’m coming or going.  I forget how therapeutic sitting down and typing all this out can be.

Some really cool things have happened the last couple of weeks at work.  Did you hear all the commotion about Taylor Swift coming to Auburn to hug a couple of guys?  Yeah, I was there and knew she was coming before most everyone in town.  That was last week, and this past Monday Rudy Giuliani came to campus, too.  I got to meet him and listen to him speak.  Very, very awesome man and very funny.  I’ll post the photos I got with him when I get them.  Next week also promises to be cool because at graduation, Apple COO Tim Cook will be the commencement speaker.  He’s an AU grad, and he’s Steve Jobs’ right-hand man.  I’ll get to hang out a little with him, too.  I do love my job.

While all those good things have happened at work, my personal life has been spiraling out of control on occasion.  I’m certainly not getting into a lot of details here for many reasons, but I’ve got to take some time away from all this other stuff for my family.  Amy and I really need to get away alone for a few days, but therein lies the problem of actually being able to afford a trip.

I really want to open up here and just vent all my frustrations about the last few months, but I won’t because I’ve got to maintain some privacy here on the Internet.  I might make a private post where I put all my thoughts down.  That way I don’t rock the boat with anyone in particular.  I don’t know.

I guess I can say I’m aggravated with life in general right now.  The money’s not there, the calm at home isn’t there, my freelance work isn’t there, I can’t finish my voice production site the way I’d like, etc.  I’m more prone to biting someone’s head off right now because of all this.  I even took two or three days at work last week where I didn’t say anything to anyone.  I even avoided lunch with my coworkers.  There are so many days I don’t feel social at all, and I hate that.  I love my friends and family, and I don’t like wanting to avoid them all the time.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m complaining all the time on here, either.  I’m sorry if I’m coming off that way.  I just have so much stuff on my chest, and I know it’s not important to you or many other people in worse situations.  However, it’s major to me, and this is my avenue of release despite me not saying too much here right now.

I’d better hop off and get in the bed.  I don’t want to chance saying something someone might take out of context.   Plus, I’d be surprised if you’re still here by now.  Maybe I can sit down with my “Life by the numbers” series again soon.  I always enjoy thinking of old times.  Then again, that could be where a lot of my problems start bubbling … missing my past too much.

If  there is one thing I’ve learned over the last few months, it’s that Southeastern Conference football and friends from rival schools don’t mix too well in my social media universe.  In fact, it’s causing my feelings about some people to change, specifically how I behave around them.

I’ve got a couple of really good friends that I don’t talk to, or a lot around anymore.  There have been so many things said on Facebook and Twitter that strike my heartstrings in such a way that I’ve lost the desire to communicate with them face-to-face.  I’m not talking about just from them.  I’ve done my fair share back to them, so it’s both of our faults.

I’ve blocked several people from my Twitter list, and I’ve closed off my Facebook status updates to countless people.  I’ve also trimmed my news feed back from seeing anything they have to say.  They’ve done the same to me, but I keep them as my “FB friends” instead of outright deleting to show them I’m not wanting to completely shut them out of my life.

I feel it’s a survival mode.  Not to save my life or theirs, but to try and salvage real life, real world friendships.  I couldn’t even look or talk to a couple of people in church today because it’s gotten so bad.

That is absolutely pathetic, and it’s bothering me that we’ve let status updates, tweets and football rivalries get in the way of being good friends.  There is so much more to life than this, but living in my state college football is practically a second religion.  It literally tears families and friends apart, and it has effectively started that trend in my own life.

What makes it so much worse for me is I graduated from one school and work for its chief rival.  I love both of these places dearly, and it absolutely tears me in half when I hear either side rip the other.

I know I’m making it all too personal for no good reason.  This rivalry was here long before me, and it will be here long after.  However, it’s making me miserable while I’m on this earth.  I love my alma mater, and I wouldn’t trade anything for my job and where I work.  I chose both these places, and they chose me.

I just wish I could sort out all these nasty feelings I’m getting toward people on either side.  It’s going to take a lot of prayer and time to heal these wounds.  This is not what I wanted my social media life to become.

I was born and raised in southeastern Alabama, speak without a Southern accent, have all my teeth (and zero cavities) and a well-paying job, live in a nice house and have a degree from the University of Alabama.

Wait … what?  You mean I’m not a redneck, and I went to Alabama?  That’s impossible!  All Alabama fans and graduates are toothless and uneducated rednecks!

It’s true, yet for many of my friends and co-workers, they love to throw the “Alabama redneck” title around.  I know many of them are not directing it toward me personally, but I have an unbelievable amount of school pride.  When they make these generalized comments, it angers me, no matter how much I love them.

The worst part is they either went to schools in the Southeastern Conference with just as many redneck fans, or they didn’t go to college at all.  Heck, I know of a few that never finished high school.

I am beyond excited that Alabama won the football national championship again a couple of days ago, but I also loathe a lot of the “fans” that are now bringing all this stereotypical venom down on us alums.  Too many fairweather people have cropped up lately.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, especially to my friends from rival schools (that perhaps actually like me), please consider all of your loved ones before you spew your hatred for my school.  I honestly try to do the same for you and yours.

Besides, my UA degree got me an awesome job at Auburn, and I love it.