Two weeks from today, I will be in Atlanta enjoying the heck out of good company and a great environment!  Dragon*Con 2011 is almost upon us, and I can’t wait to take an extreme break from reality and forget the living hell this year has been so far.

So many costumes to choose from!  Well, not really.  I’ve done too much planning for this shindig for the Ghostbusters to be anything but.  Besides, I don’t really have a desire to do any other form of costuming at the moment.  I’m happy being little ol’ GB me. Don’t think I’m not already planning for next year, though.  I have some stuff in the works for an extra costume or two … If I can get motivated enough.

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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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It’s Monday night, and that means my extended weekend is over.  I took last Friday off so we could head to Dragon*Con in Atlanta.  That’s two four-day work weeks with a four-day weekend thrown in for good measure.

We left Friday morning after David’s doctor appointment.  We had three celebrity photo-ops scheduled for the weekend, and the first was at 1:15 that afternoon.  We made our way to our hotel, dropped off the car and proceeded to speed walk for about four blocks to the Sheraton to pick up our convention badges.  With Amy’s heart condition, that probably wasn’t very smart.

We picked up our badges and walked two more blocks to the Marriott, where the photos were being taken.  After a couple of wrong turns, we finally made it in time for a photo/meet-and-greet with John Schneider and Catherine Bach from “The Dukes of Hazzard.”  They were both extremely nice, and it made Amy’s day to meet John.  She’s always liked him and Tom Wopat, but I think only John will show up for this type of event.

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A miracle has occurred.  I have slept more than seven hours each of the last three nights!  I’m usually get six hours or less, so this is awesome.  I’ve felt a little better because of it, so I may work on keeping this up. 

Today should be interesting.  Alyssa was supposed to go to a birthday party, but David is running a slight fever, and she had a bad upset tummy last night.  We’re going to keep her away from the other kids for awhile to be safe.

She feels and acts normal, so I am going to run with her to Columbus this morning.  We’re going to Ranger Joe’s so she can try on a kid’s flight suit.  Heck, maybe we’ll get lucky, and they’ll have the suit we actually need.  It’s for her Halloween costume.

We’ve got a prayer request for you this morning.  Our friends Kyle and Stephanie are dealing with H1N1 flu with their son.  Poor little guy.  Please keep them in your prayers.

I’m slowly gathering my thoughts for the 1981 version of “Life by the numbers.”  I’m trying to remember lots of things from kindergarten, plus I haven’t had much time to devote to this lately.

That’s it for now.  Got to get ready to run to Columbus.  I avoid that city as much as possible, but it’s a great place to go whenever you need anything military-related.

Got an awesomely huge piece of my Halloween costume in the mail yesterday.  I’ve got some personal touches to add to it, but not many.  Oh, I can’t wait until I can actually talk about it and show it off!