Wow, here we are, Halloween and the last day of October.  BOO!

October began for me with the observation that you can't script October, made as I was recovering from being really sick.  I couldn't ride the Furnace Creek 508 as I'd planned, and pretty much everything else was unscriptable from that point, too; the financial markets melted down suddenly, dragging the U.S. into a recession, and, well:

• I saw the BMW Oracle Trizilla up close and personal.  Wow.
• SpaceX reached orbit.  Yay.
• I got my little Dash GPS and later Dashed around with it (I still really like it, BTW; need to post some more about that).
• Sarah Palin debated Joe Biden, after which both VP candidates slid into irrelevance.
• We had the great government bailout bill, designed to restore confidence, which it did somewhat, but which we're now all trying to understand and figure out how to pay for...
• The Dodgers swept the Cubs.
• John McCain and Barack Obama debated, and then did it again; the start of McCain's resurgence, needed since he's being tarred with the "bad economy brush", despite having worked hard to avoid the FNMA/FDMC disaster...
• The Angels lost to Boston.
• We all saw the infamous Sequoia powerpoint featuring a butchered pig's head, and foreshadowing gloom and doom in all startups as they grapple with the new realities of the capital markets.
• Stock markets collectively lost 20% in one week.
• I went to the Cal Prog '08 concert, and loved it (wearing the tee shirt right now).
• We saw the I am Joe meme take off...
• I rediscovered how crappy it is when new versions suck.
• I discovered Lala, and I liked it (still do, but maybe not quite as much; the novelty has worn off).
• I watched the World Series with Smokey (my guinea pig).
• We all realized the pollsters have given up, the election is too close to call, and too weird.
• We all realized the mainstream media are in the tank for Obama.  Some of us knew this before, too.

And last but not least:

• I had an incredible experience on the U.S.S. Midway, in which I reconnected emotionally with my father and which subsequently inspired many hours of thinking about who I've been, who I am, and who I will be...

Just another month...  ho hum :)

BTW one of the cool things about my archive, which I still think is really cool, is that I can view all the posts I've made in October, all at once, and in forward chronological order.  Pretty useful when you want to write about, um, what happened in October :)

I wonder what November will bring?  In the world, the election, of course, and the post election reaction and analysis.  Closer to home, I've planned a business trip to Brazil and another to Chicago, Aperio is shipping a release, and there is 2009 budgeting to do, I will be back on my bike as much as possible, and of course we have Thanksgiving, college football, and the start of the Christmas season which given the economy will be pretty weird this year.  I'm guessing you can't script November, either...