I thought I'd put some comments down as to what the past year meant to me. Some items are purely personal, others are varying degrees of global.

• Karen got a new job, with more pay, and much more importantly, 3 weeks of vacation (vs. 1). Mostly, the new job has resulted in less stress for her, which is the real goal.
• Almo will miss Sean Weil, who passed away in an accident on a hiking trip.
• We added a fourth ferret, Muscatele (Musky) to the household, and later in the year, passed away. Freya, Karen's ferret from Vet school also passed away. It was a tough year for our ferrets.
• Tana (Santana, Ann's Doberman) passed away on 11/24. Tana and I shared Ann's house for 3 years before I headed to Mass, and I will miss her. Ann also has my deepest sympathies for her loss. I can state categorically that Tana was very lucky to find Ann as her person.
• I only made it to two baseball games! One Red Sox game, and one Rochester Red Wings game.
• The Red Wings are playing in their new Frontier Field, replacing Silver Stadium, the place where I first learned the love of the game, where I saw players such as Cal Ripken Jr, Eddie Murray, and many others working their way through to bright futures. Frontier Field, it must be noted, is a *very* nice place to see a game.
• The Red Sox game I went to was the archetype of a game to make people love the game. The game started with the Sox, behind Steve Avery, losing ground quickly. But they worked the deficit down to 3, and then 2, and then, in the bottom of the 9th, the tableau was set. Garciapara came to bat, and being rookie phenom, got the crowd going, and responded with a single. John Valentin came next, and he also got on base. Next came Mo Vaughn, and the crowd went wild. As he fouled off pitch after pitch, the crowd roared, and seemed to have complete confidence in their hero. After 7 pitches, sure enough, he hit a home run to the deepest part of the park. No one left, no one stopped cheering, even after Mo had his on-field post-game interview. A full stadium of fans refused to let the moment fade away, and I am sure you will hear stories of this game being told to grandchildren 20-30 years from now.
• My hockey game for the year was the U Mass Lowell vs Army game...and I get even more appreciation for the Field House (which I thought was a better place to watch a game than any of the arenas, such as the Knick...er...Pepsi Arena.
• Rick Pitino coined the phrase "Fellowship of the Miserable" to refer to some of the depressed Celtic fans, a term which the talk radio stations, of course, embraced!
• In gaming terms, I started playing Highlander: The Collectible Card Game, and it has replaced Magic as my card game of choice. I also learned new classic games including Settlers of Catan, Lowenhurtz (sp? Lionheart), and Legends of the 5 Rings. Civilization II conquered my home PC, with my high score list including "Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod", "Jimmy of the Greeks", "Red Auerbach of the Celts", "Siouxsie Sioux", and more. I finally loaded Win95 on my home PC to play Magic: The Gathering (computer version), and it was even worth the effort (I did not delete DOS/Win31 yet though).
• The Devils Wielding Scimitars came out with a new album!!!!
• Sarah McLachlain's new album came out, and she ran Lilith Fair (there were a number of cute names, like Babe-apalooza tour, but I would simply call it heaven). The Mansfield edition included Sheryl Crow, Paula Cole, Tracy Chapman (a local favorite who got her start in Harvard Square), Fiona Apple, Julianna Hatfield, and more!
• The world will miss a number of people, including (in no particular order), Mother Theresa (who, from a non-Catholic's viewpoint, should be sainted), Diana, Princess of Wales, Charles Kuralt, Alfred Sheinwald (Bridge player/writer) Michael Hutchence of INXS, John Denver, Stubby Kaye ("Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat"), Red Skelton, and many more.
• 1997 was the year that we spent more private/corporate money in space than government money. I guess at least the earth orbit has grown up.