Studio711.com – Ben Martens

The year is drawing to a close and that means it's time for another Year In Review post. Here are links to 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 if you want to read posts from the past.

How can I begin to sum up the last 365 days? This was the first full year that I spent in Seattle, but I've been out here for 18 months. On one hand, it feels like forever since I said goodbye to my friends in Jersey, but on the other hand, it feels like time has been flying by out here.

The winter months at the start of the year were filled with skiing. Jay and I made our first trip up to Whistler Blackcomb for skiing on a mountain so big it boggled our minds. The snow wasn't great for those three days, but we had a blast hanging out on the mountain and in Whistler Village.

Right at the end of February, I flew to Philadelphia and rode up to Maine with Jay and Juliet for another round of skiing at Sunday River. I'll have to check my records, but I'm pretty sure that means I have been at Camp Ticawa at least once every year for the past 5 years! It's getting more and more difficult to keep that streak alive which just makes me more grateful for every opportunity.

Winter activities were cut short when the doc said I needed surgery. Recovery took longer than we had hoped so I was fairly bored for about three months. The surgery brought a host of new experiences for me. I had never been under complete anesthesia before, but that turned out to be a magical little experience. Poof! It's done! It was also the first time I can remember being under such restrictive orders about resting. That was pretty tough, but thankfully that stage didn't last too long. As the warm weather fired up and the softball team stepped onto to the field, I had to watch from the sidelines for the whole season. The motorcycle was also neglected until the middle of summer. At the time, I felt like I was missing out on so many activities, but I made it through and grew in the process. It has helped me appreciate good health and the time that I'm able to spend hiking, camping, riding a motorcycle, skiing, or hanging out with friends.

Other trips included Jay and Juliet's housewarming party, almost a full week during August in Maine with the Abendroths, an October weekend trip to Indiana to visit the family, and another October trip to Philadelphia for Microsoft recruiting as well as a quick visit with the Jersey crew. Thanksgiving was spent with three days of skiing in Whistler. I finished off the year with a week in Indiana and Illinois for Christmas. It was a special trip which included Grandpa Martens's 90th birthday party. Over 160 people signed the guest register at the American Legion building in the tiny town (~800 people) of Reynolds, IL. Happy Birthday Grandpa!

When I moved to Washington, I thought I was done having roommates. I was looking forward to having a place to myself, but that all changed when the opportunity to live with Tim arose. He moved in around Thanksgiving last year and quickly became one of the best roommates I've ever had. Now that he's getting married next January, there's a deadline set for him moving out. Who knows how I'll feel then, but right now I know that I get bored quickly when he's not around. It will be interesting to see how I feel when the next Year in Review post rolls around.

This year brought some more failed attempts at dating. Some took longer to fail than others, but they were all pretty quick. I suppose it's part of the journey. When you think about it, every one of your relationships will get broken off except for one (if there is one.) Maybe that's a dismal way to look at things, but it makes the recovery a little easier. I'm much less worried about this than everyone else seems to be. God has his plan for me and either I'll meet her some day or I won't. "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" [Matt 6:27] … or a wedding ring to his finger?

In late September and early October, I started focusing all of my free time around CascadeSkier.com. I was convinced that there was a market for a Seattle specific ski website. For two months, I worked countless hours digging up new content and trying to get more eyeballs to visit the site. Around the beginning of December, I called it quits. I still think the idea is solid, but I need to adjust my plan of attack. Maybe it will be resurrected some day, but for now I'm satisfied that I gave it a good try.

There are a seemingly endless supply of activities that I want to do in Washington. Activities this year included motorcycle rides to Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier and Leavenworth, a trip with the parents to Mt. St. Helens and Cannon Beach, and camping trips to Penrose Point State Park, Deception Pass, and Ocean Shores. Tim bought a book showing great hikes in our area, but we really only crossed one off the list: Tiger Mountain. Arye invited me out on his sailboat on the Puget Sound, and I got to watch the Blue Angels fly at SeaFair. I'm sure I've leaving plenty of things off the list, but even with all these busy days, I feel like the To Do list is growing.

That brings us to my goals for the coming year. First of all, I'd like to cross a lot more of the aforementioned activities off the list. It's difficult to explore new areas, because the activities I've already done are so fun that I'd like to repeat them. I'm hoping to find time to hike and camp around Rainier including a possible day hike to Camp Muir (basecamp for Rainier summit trips), ride my motorcycle along the Washington and Oregon coast, visit the Olympic Mountains, kayak, tailgate at a sporting event, ride my motorcycle up through the annual Tulip Festival, take a ferry ride, visit the Grand Coulee Dam, and generally do even more hiking and camping. Can it all be done in one year?

I've been tossing around two even bigger trip ideas. They may not happen in the next 12 months, but they are on my short term radar. I want to go heli-skiing with Jay and I've also been looking into a climb to the top of Rainier. That's part of the reason for wanting to climb to the base camp on Rainier: it's a tough hike and it marks the half way point on the summit trip. It would be a good workout and would help me evaluate my chances of making it to the peak. When I moved to Seattle, I was all set to climb Rainier. I still remember the first time I was driving south on 405 and the clouds parted so I could see Rainier. It's HUGE. At that point I realized that hiking to the top was going to be much much harder than I had anticipated. It's still something I'd like to accomplish and maybe my hiking this summer will bring me closer to that goal.

While I have plenty of words to fill up this post, I still don't feel like I've communicated a single life-changing event or overriding theme. There was no single topic that drove my thoughts each morning, and that's a very relaxing situation. Sure there were very stressful periods, but overall, I feel like this was a great year. Now that I've had a little time to reflect on my decisions to move out to Seattle and buy a house, I'm still completely happy with both of them. Maybe in the future I'll be ready for a change, but right now I hope that 2008 brings a lot more of what 2007 had to offer.

A few weeks ago, I ordered some official cornhole bags, and Saturday I finally got around to building the boards. Since I helped Jay build his back in Jersey, I knew what I was getting into and was able to modify the design a bit. This time I used MDF for the surface boards and put hinges on the legs for easier transporting. Unfortunately it was pretty rainy so we didn't get to try them out, but I'm sure we'll get to play some night this week.

I'm writing this from Washington state. Sometimes I have to stop and remember that. I'm in Washington. Last year I complained a bit about nothing noteworthy happening. Maybe I was just gearing up for all the changes that took place this year.

The move from Jersey to Washington was the biggest part of my year. A few people weren't happy with me leaving while others were excited for the opportunities I had out here. The one common sentiment was "Wow, I don't think I could do that." I'm not the kind of person to randomly quit my job and move across the country. I put a lot of thought into it, and these are the top two reasons that I left.

• Jersey isn't a bad state, but it's not me. Coming from Indiana it was a big culture shock that I initially rejected. That was a pretty close-minded reaction, so I tried to accept Jersey for what it was and enjoy it. New York, Philly, the shore, Baltimore, DC… they were all fun, but I kept coming back to the realization that it's not where I wanted to stay. I'm glad I lived there. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, but I knew for sure that I wanted to leave. I wanted mountains. I wanted trees. I wanted lakes. I wanted some elbow room. I narrowed down my choices to Seattle, Denver, or Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine. Seattle was at the top of the list, so I specifically concentrated on getting into Microsoft. I gave myself three months to get into Microsoft before broadening the search. In that time I turned down a couple other fantastic offers because I wanted to let the Microsoft option run it's course. After 2.5 months I still hadn't heard anything so I started making some phone calls. Making the right phone call changes everythingand in about two weeks I had an offer.
• I enjoyed my job, but it's no secret that I'm a Microsoft fanboy. I felt good with what I had accomplished at Lockheed. RickB and I put .NET on the map at Lockheed and put fear into the Java camp. We pumped out great technology with extremely short schedules and budgets that the other groups couldn't even touch. I was happy to have that on my list of accomplishments, but it started to feel repetitive. (Un)fortunately, we were so good at it, that we got pegged as the website guys. After a while, websites are all the same. I know I could have found other things to do in the Lockheed family, but Microsoft offered many more opportunties for the career path that I've identified. This test engineering job at Microsoft is a huge challenge and a new skill for my bag o' tricks.

Those were the positive reasons for the move. The negatives were harder to stomach. I've never had a group of friends like the ones I had/have in Jersey. I've always had a friends in other places I've lived, but we had a huge group in Jersey. I made friends there that I'll have for the rest of my life regardless of where we end up. I knew it would be hard/impossible to recreate that experience anywhere else. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, and it takes me a while to make good friends. I was NOT excited about finding a new social circle. That one reason alone delayed my job search for about 6 months.

I do feel like a bit of a hypocrite. Last year I wrote about how there weren't any major events, but the year was defined by good times with friends. So what did I do a few months later? I ditched my great group of friends and headed west for a job that I wanted. I still haven't figured out how that makes sense.

It was a tough decision, and I spent countless days in prayer about it. I had previously been nervous about the move from Indiana to Jersey and from Jersey to Minnesota, and look at what God provided for me during those moves. It was foolish to doubt that He'd be just as generous if Seattle was where He wanted me to be. He opened so many doors in the process of moving out here that the choice was pretty obvious.

So in May the movers came and packed up everything I owned. I attended a great party with all my friends and said my goodbyes. And then I took off on my one way trip to the great unknown in Seattle.

This is the third cross country move I've made. It's not easy, but it's intriguing to see the similarities and differences between them all. The first few weeks are insanely boring. I don't know anyone. I don't have anything to do. And even if I had something to do, I don't know where it is. But this time was a little different for two reasons. First of all, I was set on putting an end to rent checks. I spent the first three weeks talking to mortgage companies, looking at tons of houses online and in person, and having long chats with my realtor about interest rates, housing market fluctuations, and future plans for the Seattle area. Secondly, I had family here. I'd only met them once at Rachel and Luke's wedding, but it was a place to start. Thankfully they're not too crazy, and they've all quickly become great friends. My transition would be entirely different without their warm hearts.

But that's enough about the move. I did other things this year too! I discovered the Melting Pot, almost got tossed out of a Phillies game, spent a couple good nights at Chain's house, bought a house, attended the NASCAR race in Michigan, went to my first Mariners game, hiked and rode to some amazing scenery, flew back to Jersey for Jay's bachelor party, spent a few nights in a tent with great food, showed my parents the sights of Seattle, stood up at Jay and Juliet's wedding, spent Thanksgiving in Spokane, and kicked off the ski season with a bang.

I won't even begin to speculate about what might happen next year, but I do have a few goals:

• Ski Whistler/Blackcomb
• Make at least one trip back east
• Take at least two camping trips
• Take a motorcycle ride along Hwy 2 through Stevens Pass, through Leavenworth, and back through Snoqualmie Pass.

You'll notice those are pretty small goals. There's nothing too life-changing in there. That's because I'm finally feeling like I've planted myself in a good place. I'm here for the forseeable future. I might try to make the leap to a house with a yard at some point, but that's the only move I could see myself making and that won't happen for years. But who am I to predict the future? I've been wrong a hundred times before… and that's the exciting part.

Previous Years in Review: 2005, 2004, 2003