2008: The Year In Review, in photos

Last year I thought that I’d do a recap of the previous year, since a hell of a lot of shit went down in ’07. I decided the best way to do that was by scanning my flickr stream and picking a few photos from each month to try to sum the whole thing up. By the time I finished seeing 2007 in photos myself I had a whole new perspective on the year. It was pretty fantastic actually. So I decided I should do the same for this year, and I’ve been meaning to all month. Sorry it’s taken so long, but here it is. And it’s long, so I’m putting it after the jump. Keep reading if you wanna check out what went down for me in ’08, visually anyway.

I started off the year in Berlin, there was snow. After 23C4 everyone I knew left and I had Berlin to myself for 2-3 days. I wandered around alone a lot. I remember it to look just like this. I loved it.

From there I went to Cologne and snuck around old abandoned factories with German hackers.

From there I made my way to Amsterdam. It was my first time there and I didn’t really know anyone in the city, so most of the I spent there was solo. I enjoyed it, but it was definitely kinda lonely.

After that I went to Cork. I’d never been there either and I wanted to see more of Ireland so thought that would be a good place to start. It definitely was, ask me about it sometime and I’ll tell you a crazy story.

Then I went to Dublin and toured the old Jameson factory.

Then I went to London and had lunch in a bus.

And that was just the first 2 weeks! But this was the end of that adventure, and I finally made it back to LA. I was pretty happy to be home so I played it low key. One day after getting some coffee I snapped a photo of something that caught my eye and almost overnight it became the most viewed thing I’ve ever posted to flickr:

And then had some fun watching the internet manifest itself anonymously in person.

And then snuck into the LA Marathon bike tour. Did I say “snuck” in? I mean registered totally legally 100% for sure. No shenanigans at all.

OK maybe a little.

Then I few to Texas for SXSW and got some new tattoos.

Then this happened.

This is one of those things that means way more to me than to you. Maybe. I could let you in on the secret but what fun would that be? Well, I didn’t get a picture of her but I met someone this night would turn out to be really important to me. More on that later.

Instead of flying back to LA, I drove back with some friends. But we took the long cut.

Oh, I should probably mention that at this point it’s still only March.

Right.

In April I went back to Berlin for another conference and met some cool folks. We played a lot of soccer. Inside.

On the way back I stopped in NYC and rode the ghost train with Bre & Chapman

And celebrated Kathleen & Atom who finally tied the knot.

And had coffee with Autumn, which was rad since I hadn’t seen her in like a million years.

Then I went back to Florida for another wedding, this time of the family variety. Here’s me and my mom. In Florida. Yay.

And I finished out that trip by routing through SF, where I took this photo of Tara. She’s the girl I was referring to earlier. It’s kinda funny for a million reasons that this is the first photo I have of her.

As you might have guessed from the t-shirt, we’d been talking a lot by this point. And that brings us to May. Holy crap this year was busy! I finally made it back to LA and just in time for the Wolfpack Dragrace.

And before you know it, I was back on the road. This time the to the Pacific Northwest to visit Tara. I dunno why this photo is small, but it turns out I made it through Seattle on like their one beautiful day of the year. Score!

Then I swiped her car and went to Vancouver. And Portland. And then back to Seattle and picked her up and we headed south on the roadtrip to end all roadtrips. Or maybe to begin them.

We drove south on the 101 mostly to LA over a week. I can’t even try to recap that in this post, but lets just say a lot of ground was covered in more ways than one. Oh, and we went to the Goonies house too.

We figured out a few things on that trip, but even more when it was over. And soon enough I was back in Seattle. Which was awesome. And we went to see Snoop Dogg. Which was less than awesome. And the photos I took of it are even less than less than awesome so I won’t even bother posting them here.

Speaking of photos I’m not posting, all through this my bike obsession has been growing which seems to have resulted in lots of photos of bikes just sitting there. They are all on flickr should you care to look them up.

Finally Tara came to LA and geeked out at the proximity to famous dudes.

I mean, you know, more famous than me.

And I continued getting tattoos.

Then Tara moved to SF and I started visiting a lot. Which included rock band. A lot.

Then I went back to Tokyo and went monster hunting.

And Boris and I saw the coolest Nikes ever, which they refused to sell us.

Oh yeah, before that I asked Tara to marry me. Over twitter. And she said yes. So after Tokyo, I joined her back to the great white north to meet her family.

That was awesome.

Then back in LA we sealed the deal.

And then everyone’s hoping for change paid off.

And we celebrated in the streets of SF, with a bajillion of our closest friends.

Then Al Gore gave me a stern talking to.

Not really, he was talking about the web. And really well. Turns out he knows what he’s talking about. Who knew?

And then someone new wiggled her way in my heart.

Back in LA I got kozy with Keith Haring while at a thingy at Dennis Hopper’s joint.

and caught up with some old friends.

and then rushed back to SF and toured a chocolate factory.

But I didn’t see a single Oompa Loompa. What a rip off.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, headed back to Europe with Tara to cap off the year. We minded the gap in London.

Took obligatory photos in Paris.

And bounced to Berlin in time for the new year, and in time for new years day brunch with friends.

And then, it was 2009. 2008 had come and gone, and I’m pretty sure I lived it to it’s fullest. One thing I realized in 2007, though not till it was over, was that we only get one shot at this whole life thing. We don’t get any do overs and we can’t go back and do things we skipped over the first time around. You get your one shot, and you either take it including the good, the bad, and everything that goes along with it, or you pass it up and the only thing you can do after that is wonder what might have been different if you’d made the other choice. I decided that I never wanted to regret not doing something, and the experiences alone would be worth it. Experiences can’t be taken away from you, they can’t be undone, and they can’t break, be outgrown, or sold off at a garage sale. The places you go, the things you see, the people that touch your life. These might last minutes, they might last years, but these are the things that make you who you are. They are yours forever but only if you seize them when you have the chance. I can’t wait to see what 2009 has to offer.