Happy New Year.

A short milestone post, really.  It's not even so much "mental tab clearing"--that would be a full-time job in and of itself.  Nonetheless, it somehow seems worth setting down some updates, and the turn of a new year is not a bad time to do it.

I'm happy to get on with 2015.  2014 had way too much major-caliber ugliness in it, especially late in the game.  I lost my job in November, which is enough of a disruption by itself, but it also meant I finally got thrown into the whole ACA mess (I still think Arthur Silber stated it about as well as anyone could have), which has proven to be every bit the Kafka-esque mess that we all knew it would be.  (Best I say as little about it as possible.)  I was made aware of way too many sudden, aggressive cancers in people that I know, often acting so fast that I heard of the attack only after its lethal conclusion.  Other debilitating sicknesses.  Frustrating and demoralizing turns of work and life that seemed to feature a complete lack of even Pyrrhic remedies.  The ever-present relentlessness of those who would force their better way of life onto us all.  And above all, the still-unfolding saga of my poor neighbor, who is currently living every father's worst nightmare.  (Another topic I will try to say as little as possible about, until it is all concluded, but rest assured "every father's worst nightmare" is the most literally accurate term I have been able to come up with.)

There were some bright spots, of course.  Of greatest interest to this column is that it was a darn fine "gun year", with the conclusion of all four Gunsmoke projects that I originally commissioned way back when we moved to Alaska.  Unfortunately, the largest part of the bill hit late in the year, right as I lost my job, but still, these are magnificent projects that will undoubtedly be featured here in the future.  As well, the year also featured the launch of both the Airsoft adventure and, again right before the employment scramble, the launch of the hunting airgun project.  These are all encouraging things.

And the best of it, damn it all, will carry into 2015.  (That includes Wilmeth Critter V3.0, due in May.  :-)

I'm intending to keep on in "outrage fatigue recovery" mode for as long as possible, and with luck this space will see a great deal of T&E, constructive planning, and new ideas.  We'll see, of course--if I need the outlet, the outlet it will be.  But for now, 2014 is happily in the rear-view, and I'm going to focus on making self-determinancy (how's that for poetic license?) the prominent feature of 2015.

Happy New Year, fellow outcasts, heretics, and decent people everywhere.