2009 was a Good Year.

For all the political crap from stupid teabaggers and spineless Democrats, for all the economic troubles and joblessness, for all the crappy Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Hannah Montana stuff, for all the "it's all about ME, ME, ME!!" crap from the brainless Wonder Twin beauty queen team of Prejean and Palin, there were some awesome things in 2009.

The fortieth anniversaries of four different Apollo missions. That's 12 badassess who have yet to be topped:
McDivitt, Scott, Schweickart (Apollo 9, 3/13/1969)
Stafford, Young, Cernan (Apollo 10, 5/18/1969)
Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin (Apollo 11, 7/16/1969)
Conrad, Gordon, Bean (Apollo 12, 11/14/1969)

USAirways 1549 took a swim in the Hudson River; no one died. A highly-trained pair of pilots brought that bird in after the engines were disabled by bird-strikes. Another couple of bad-asses.

We got our first Black president. No, he's not perfect, he's not a savior; he's just a man. I hope he doesn't turn out to be a complete scumbag. At least he's managed to get the Dems AND the Dirtbag Party pissed off at him. That's kind of bad-ass, isn't it? Oh, and there's that Nobel Peace Prize thing. That's bad-ass. Hope he earns it.

The other good side of the Obama coin: W--The Worst got his sorry ass out of the White House. Eight years of the back end of the horse finally ended. Unfortunately, his female soul mate from Alaska won't go away. Can't have silver linings on all the clouds, I guess.

The big thing for me: getting that X-11. In just a week, it'll be a year since I got that little car--and in that year I've seen it go from dirty and incapable of moving under its own power to 25 mpg in the city and a little less rust. She's got a long way to go--that leaky sunroof and windshield will lead to much worse if I don't get them fixed--but she's coming along a hell of a lot better than I had any reason to expect. I just fix one thing at a time.

Vroom.