hevle.com 2006 Posts of the Year Awards

My 2006 was a transition year, getting used to the new job, settling in to the new car, and not a lot of significant changes. I managed to achieve almost all of my 2006 New Year's resolutions, except the ones about dreadlocks and huffing.

I've been blogging for about three years (my third anniversary was in October, 2006.) I posted about 130 times in 2006, about every third day, but I started the year by posting daily for two months straight, which I think was a pretty big accomplishment. I also tried to incorporate better content, like articles and good links, instead of posting about what I had for lunch (although it's usually pretty interesting!)

So without further ado, here are the 2006 hevle.com Posts of the Year:

Best Article Nominees:
How to Avoid Spam
How to Buy a Computer
Le Tour 2006

Best Personal Post Nominees:
Four Things
What's the best thing that happened to you today?
Tacos Tacos Tacos

Best Picture/Video Nominees:
Cartoon
Drew Goes To White Castle
Bethfest 2006

Funniest Post Nominees:
Words to use in your resumé or performance evaluation
Top 10 Cell Phone Pet Peeves
Top 10 Email Pet Peeves

Best Political Post Nominees:
25 years ago today
Cartoon
Le Mort de Landis

And the winners are:

Best Article - Le Tour 2006
(excerpt)
Observations
1) The sprinters are done wearing the yellow jersey, it will be the time-trialers for a few days until they get into the Pyranees, then the real GC contenders will emerge
2) The sprinters can either win stages or wear the yellow jersey, not both, unless your name is Mario Cipollini
3) Leipheimer is out of contention ("Worst time trial of my life"), he'll have to try for a stage win somewhere
4) The leader of the Discovery team is still unclear, but it will be either Salvodelli or Hincapie, and the mountains will decide
5) The leader of the T-Mobile team is still unclear, but it will be either Andreas Klöden or Michael Rogers, and the mountains will decide
6) Tom Boonen can only beat Robbie McEwen in a time-trial
7) Thor Hushovd can't even beat Robbie McEwen in a time-trial
8) There will probably only be one American (if any) on the podium in Paris and his name is likely to be Floyd
9) Ratings are down more than 50% in the US from the Lance era
10) Lance says he'll be in France for the last week of the Tour, maybe that will help the ratings. I doubt it.
11) After Operation Puerto, if Lance had decided to just ride one more, he'd have won eight Tours instead of seven
12) If Jan Ullrich hadn't been booted he'd already have won the Tour, unless Lance had decided to just ride one more, or if Basso could have kept up in the time-trials and beat him in the mountains, which might have been tough as good as T-Mobile looks
13) I thought the Tour would be much more exciting when the outcome was uncertain, but I think this much uncertainty is chaos

Best Personal Post - What's the best thing that happened to you today?
(excerpt)
1) Being in San Diego, a beautiful town
2) Nice weather, 50's in the day and a little cooler at night. It's a nice change from the 90's in Houston.
3) Having all my work for my committees done a week ahead of time
4) Receiving an award tomorrow
5) Getting special treatment
6) Buying some folks lunch for no real reason
7) Seeing my friends at conference
8) The most comfortable bed I have ever slept on
9) Getting to sleep in because I didn't have any meetings first thing this morning
10) Being named chair of a committee I am working on by a bunch of folks that I really respect
11) Having a great sushi dinner
12) Paid for by the company
13) Finishing a really good book
14) Starting on a technical paper due in a week and realizing I would have plenty of material to complete it
15) Not having to shave this morning (I'm alternating days, now)
16) Free high-speed wireless internet access at the convention center
17) Being mentioned by name in a presention of a very technical paper
18) Not feeling compelled to blog every day
19) Sticking to my Lentan sacrifice
20) Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, health, wealth and prosperity, total consciousness, intact faculties, true friends, contentment, professional satisfaction, hobbies like this blog, etc. etc. etc.

Best Picture/Video - Bethfest 2006
Bethie had a "white-trash" party on Saturday night, and this is Mike's costume. He brought the cheese-whiz, boy. Click on the picture to see the video.


Funniest Post - Top 10 Cell Phone Pet Peeves
(excerpt)
3. Super loud ringers

Certain phones must be designed for senior citizens with hearing problems, because their ring tones are an order of magnitude louder than normal. If you have one of these, DO NOT set the ringer volume on the highest setting, even if you are a senior citizens with hearing problems. Not everyone wants to hear your tight new "Hello Eileen" polyphonic ring tone.

2. People who go through the checkout line talking on the cell phone

Seriously, get off the phone when you are interacting with another human being. It's only common courtesy. I know it's tempting to put those cocky grocery store checkout clerks in their place, with their condescending "I'm all that" attitudes, by not acknowledging their existance and carrying on a critical conversation like "I'm grocery shopping, what are you doing?" but really it's impolite. Just give them an obviously fake smile, mispronounce the name on their nametag, and argue about whether something is on sale or not. Ask to speak to a manager. Count all your coin change twice.

Best Political Post - Cartoon