A Warm New Year's Wish

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a cold night in 2011

To those from other places currently gracing Pasadena with your visit, be it for the holidays, the Tournament of Roses Parade, the Rose Bowl Game or merely lunch, welcome. 

I hope the weather warms up for you. A frosty night is no big deal in many parts of the world, but in Pasadena on New Year's Eve, if you camp out on Colorado Blvd., air horns and silly string are not going to keep you warm. 

Does anyone recall a (relatively) recent Tournament of Roses Parade when it rained? 2006, maybe. I remember those poor majorettes in their skimpy costumes, their booties filling with water, gamely tossing their batons but unable to catch them because the rain kept getting in their eyes. Everyone was freezing, even the horses. 

It won't be that way this year. The forecast says things will warm up a couple of degrees for Thursday, parade day. It'll be sunny, if a bit crisp. That's OK. When you're marching 5 miles, you tend to heat up. At least, so I imagine.

Happy 2015 to us all. I mean it.

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The "grandaddy of them all"—all City Daily Photo blogs, that is—has posted its final photo after ten years. Today Eric Tenin is retiring his groundbreaking Paris Daily Photo, which serves as an archive of inspiration to me and other bloggers. Thank you, Eric. I already miss you. 

Me and John atop Notre Dame Cathedral in May of 2006. We fell in love with Paris. About a month later I found Paris Daily Photo and I've been a fan ever since.

Happy New Year, Good and Not Good

 

We tell ourselves it will be different in the new year. We will be different. 

I will be different.

Do you make resolutions? I do and I don't. I don't resolve to do things that are out of my hands (write a bestseller! become a supermodel!) I think about things I want to do better and plan my resolutions to fit.

For 2013:
I resolved to do more gardening and I did for a while, then I didn't (summer was hot here, y'all) then I did. I really enjoy it. So that was good.

I also resolved to finish the first draft of a new novel but the main character kept changing, so I've started two first drafts and tossed them both. That was not good. I did, however, finish and publish a novel, and sell it, and it's still selling, so maybe I can let myself off that hook a bit.

I decided to be more generous with myself. That had its ups and downs. I'm putting that on my 2014 list so it stays on my mind. That's good and not good.

I resolved to exercise more and I have done so. That goes on the 2014 list too, because I can always do better in that area. So far so good.

I don't know if I'll be much different in 2014. I'll be good and not good, as I always am. I know enough not to promise myself things I can't deliver (edit the New York Times!), and I know not to proclaim my resolutions publicly ("Hey Petrea, remember you said you were going to learn to play drums?").

But I might have a nice back yard by the end of the year.


May your 2014 bless you, and may you bring blessings to others. Happy New Year.

Six, Day One

First things first! You should be able to see the Tournament of Roses Parade right here. We'll chat after the parade.

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I hope you enjoyed the parade! I'll add links later as I find them.
Here's one already! Dive is watching the Parade in Norwich, England.

The first of the year is traditionally a theme day for City Daily Photo. In the past we've shared our "best photo of the year." We're skipping that today and will do a different theme later in the month. I'll do a little "best of" retrospective tomorrow.

For now, here's a favorite picture I haven't posted before. I took it in December of 2008, while Boz and I were gallivanting about in the Lower Arroyo near the Colorado Street Bridge. I began this blog on January 1, 2008, which means today marks five years of daily blogging.

I am nuts.

You get it down to a system, but it's still nuts.

Rewarding, but nuts.

Thank you for visiting and commenting, for your support and encouragement. I wish you the happiest new year. Make every day better than the last.