Firewallender // Cassie Wallender

While I realize one cannot both be an honest person and act happy all the time, I do strive to see the silver lining around even the very dark and stormiest clouds that enter our skies.

The truth is, 2008 was my toughest year yet for personal reasons. But that also means it was a year of great opportunity to learn and to try to be a better person for it. This is not a time to get jaded, it’s a time to count the blessings and strive to find joy in what you have, even the memories of things now lost.

So in my own Pollyanna-like way, I’ve decided to list some highlights of my worst year ever. I want to look back on this year and think of these things. And if a personal blog is for anything, it’s for reminding oneself of what’s good in life. Without further ado…

Happy Highlights from the Worst Year Ever

Volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters

I have a really awesome little friend, she’s seven years old, about to be eight, and I just started hanging out with her this year. Being a part of a child’s life is a significant commitment, but it’s a blessing too - her friendship really warms my heart and she always cracks me up. We do a lot of activities together like bike riding and swimming. In motivating me to try to be a good example for her, I think maybe she’d done me more good than vice versa. :-)

She’s a bit of a ham (okay, a huge ham), and loves playing with my computer, so we made a video the other day:

I think it’s pretty easy to see how special being a Big is to me; I hope we’re always friends and someday when she’s taller than me we can celebrate 2008 as the year we met.

Becoming a Part of the Seattle Startup Community

It’s hard to imagine that is was only January 25th, 2008 when Seattle Startup Weekend was held at the Adobe headquarters just a stone’s throw from my house. That weekend was really the beginning of something much more for me though, it introduced me to so many amazing people. More than just networking, I’m happy to count them as friends, and have had such a blast spending time with them.

Startup Weekend truly was the toppling of that first domino that led to my attending so many other tech events in Seattle like Gnomedex, nPost events, MindCamp, Lunch 2.0 and Hops and Chops, and of course Startup Drinks, and making further friends and acquaintances. It’s funny this all happened this year, because it really feels like some of these people have been in my life for much longer than that. We’re like one big geeky family, and I am grateful for 2008 because of it.

Being a Best “Man”

I got to be in my best friend’s wedding. Definitely a highlight, even if I did sound shaky and nervous during the toast, it was such an honor to be in the wedding party, and spending time in Kansas City with so many friends was a blast.

Traveling my Little Heart Out

I went to the Caribbean this year! I went to Leavenworth and Hood Canal! I went to Phoenix to see Connie! It was all a blast.

Seeing Last Year’s Resolutions Through

Guys, I did it. I really quit biting my nails. Really and finally.  Other minor but happy accomplishments include doing my longest run yet, putting chains on my tires all alone, and doing a lot of helpful introspection (something I’ve never been very great at before).  This is the first year I’ve really paid attention to fitness and taking care of my body and made it a priority, and I think that’s an important milestone since it’s been a huge attitude adjustment for me. I’m pretty sure I can do just about anything I set my mind to now. Watch out, 2009!  You’re going to be the best year ever.

A Few Goals for 2009 (trite, but good):
Spend more quality time with close friends & my family
Work on being more focused and efficient with time
Continue to deepen healthy eating habits started in ‘08

A Few Goals for 2009 (less trite and also good):
Visit people in Washington, D.C., St. Paul, & Phoenix
Run another 5k or two at least, stay on fitness targets
Jump off that abandoned part of the 520 bridge
Sneak into that members-only goth club just for fun
Try seeing the opera once more before you give up entirely
More dancing, canoeing, hiking and climbing this year
Read “Atlas Shrugged” by March 18th

I have the coolest friends ever, which means I end up with the coolest weekends ever. Really, you guys spoil me. Last weekend was spent with a small group celebrating Micah’s birthday in a beautiful riverside cabin on Hood Canal.

And this weekend? I’m hanging out with my lindy hopping crew. A group of twenty two (TWENTY TWO!!?) of us are renting out a huge log cabin in Leavenworth.

Ah, December. Full of rain and snow and win.

Leavenworth, WA during the holidays (picture from Leavenworth.org)

First, a definition, as the backdrop to my story and subsequent experiment on you, gentle reader:

From Wikipedia: “The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it. This is a specialised version of the effect of serendipity.”

There are several theories about the psychological explanation of the phenomenon, including a popular one that cites its primary cause as being the recency effect, in which the human brain has a bias that lends increased prominence to new or recently acquired information.”

Now, a specific example pertinent to my own personal life.  Browsing Etsy for Christmas gifts, I noticed this design on several pendants:

I didn’t pay it much attention aside from thinking it was a nice sentiment, until I noticed it was on a few designs from multiple sellers.  Surely, I thought, this must mean something.  The design haunted me a bit.  Perhaps “haunted” is too serious a word, but as a member of the microwave generation, which has grown up with information at our fingertips, the fact that I knew it meant something but didn’t know what that something was began to very subtly annoy me.

I had more pressing things to attend to, so ignored this subtle annoyance, but the next morning got an email from my favourite online tshirt store only to be slapped in the face with a reminder of my annoyance:

An obvious play on the original.  I had to know: what the heck was this from? What did it mean?  What was it’s significance, and why was it so influential that my favourite tshirt site was satirizing it?  I did the obvious Google search and found the history of the design, an interesting little story.  My curiosity appeased, I was now a happily satiated information junkie.

At lunch I noticed a poster directly outside my building, which convinced me once and for all that this slogan was now following me about.  Hours later after dinner, I found it again outside Hops and Chops at Linda’s, waiting for me without any hint of shame.  I took a photo on my trusty iPhone:

Now, the funny thing about this slogan and design is that now I know about it, I am keen to notice it everywhere.  That’s the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon at work.  It is like buying a Dodge Neon, and then suddenly noticing Dodge Neons everywhere.

And of course, it’s sort of a Catch-22.  Now that I know about the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, I’ve been noticing examples of it in my own life, like my little story above.  My “Keep Calm and Carry On” instance happened only a week or two after I’d discovered Baader-Meinhof.  And I’d already been meaning to write about the phenomenon because I’m curious to see if once people are informed of it, it starts popping up into their lives as well.   So if you read this, I’m somewhat sorry, it’s like opening one of those vile chain letters that say you’ll now have to forward this to six people to kiss someone at midnight, et cetera… because the way the brain works, now that it has a label for it your brain will start to look for these Baader-Meinhof patterns whether you like it or not. I know mine certainly did. I’d like to hear about it if yours does too. 

The brain is an amazing machine.

(For even more info on the origin of the phrase: See Damn Interesting: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon)

After watching today’s U.S. presidential debate, this quote came to mind, often attributed to an inspiration, Alexis de Tocqueville, though the author is technically unknown:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

Well, my bank has failed, and everyone’s talking and blogging and twittering about economics and politics, two topics I’m terribly passionate (read: opinionated) about.  In an effort to not get run out of town, I’m going to stick to this as my commentary for now, and try very hard to keep my mouth shut otherwise:

Why keep my mouth shut?  My opinions aren’t going to change yours, and this time of year, some (thankfully, some, not all) people start hating people who don’t think like them.  I like my friends, and would like them to continue liking me.  I know I’m not going to change your vote, so how about we just agree to disagree and go back to talking about Star Wars and web startups like we used to?  I guess I’m just also a little exhausted from political mud-slinging drama, and fairly bummed (dare I say depressed? *Ba-dum-ching!*) about the bailout. Can’t we just be friends?