2012 was a weird year for me. We started our year living in London and it sure had an impact on us. 

We loved our 14 months in London. We loved the travel and the food (mostly the cheese, bread and chocolate) and all the great people we met. And while we couldn’t bring back the people or the food, we did find some things that stuck with us. 

Doctor Who

One year ago today, on New Year’s Day, my family and I were on day two of our Doctor Who marathon. I had never watched Doctor Who before but has always been interested in it. So we rented the Doctor Who, Season 1 and started watching. We never looked back. Our family watched ever single new episode of Doctor Who in 2012. We are now officially Whovians. 

Sherlock Holmes

But Doctor Who wasn’t the only fictional character that dominated my 2012. I read every single Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes story, and even a few written by other people. I love Sherlock Holmes. I love the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. (I even love the Hans Zimmer Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack) and we also got hooked on the amazing BBC Sherlock. If I had to choose between Robert Downey Jr or Benedict Cumberbatch, I don’t think I could. That would be like picking between peperoni pizza and a good cheeseburger. 

Although I do have to say I love Cumberbatch’s Dr House like portrayal. (Maybe I should be concerned that I relate so well to high functioning, genius, sociopaths.) 

But fictional characters were a bit of a theme for me this year. I made a goal at the beginning of the year to average a book a week and read 52 books. Which I managed to do. I’ll have a separate post about that later covering my favorite books of the year. 

Coming (Back) to America

So then on July 25th, my 40th birthday, I was laid off work. Happy birthday to me! Don’t worry, this isn’t a pity party and I’m not looking for sympathy. It wasn’t a surprise, I had initiated the discussion that lead to my dismissal and a very generous severance. I was relieved by the decision. It was time to move on. We were sad to leave London earlier than planned, but it was time. Although we sure miss our friends, the travel and the food (mostly the cheese, breads and chocolate). 

Then began our transition back to Seattle. It was an amazingly smooth transition. We’re back in Issaquah, just a few blocks from where we lived before and the kids are back at the same schools, we’re at the same church and have the same friends. 

After spending a good 3 months trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, (still don’t know BTW) I’m now working at Amazon and I love it. You can read more about that here. 

From Digital to Physical

For me the biggest shift actually came from inside my own brain. (That sounds weird.) My personal interest in social media has waned and what interests me now is the emerging trends in 3D printing and the whole maker movement coupled with the advancements in DIY consumer drones and robots. But if you really want to see what interests me in that space you can follow along on my PostSocial Tumblr blog. 

For me 2012 was all about transitions, shifts and changes. All in all, it was a pretty good year. Best of all, I can say that I have no regrets and I’d do it all again, just the same way. 

As for 2013? I’ve got some ideas and I’ll share those later. 

It’s not that I don’t want to remember your name, it’s that I’ve already filled my attic up with a bunch of junk. 

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

- Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have a dark confession to make: this is my first Doug Adams book. While all my friends were devouring The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I was going through a strange period of contrarianism. Instead of being influenced by what all my friends were doing, I was doing the opposite of all my friends. I think I wanted to be the first one to discover a book or a band or a fashion trend. If my friends had already discovered it, I was going to find something else. So besides watching the Hitchhikers movie, my life has been ignorantly Douglas Adams free. My loss.

Then recently the BBC decided to turn Dirk Gently into a TV series and it was brilliant. It stared some of our favorite BBC actors and it was expertly written, but like most things BBC that aren’t Doctor Who, it’s life seems to have been cut short. As heartbreaking as it is, I don’t think they’re going to continue the series. They’re loss.

So I walked down to my nearest Waterstones and bought Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (they’re not available in Kindle). There are only two of them, although there was a third Adams started to write as a Dirk Gently novel, but then apparently decided would be better as part of the Hitchhikers “trilogy” and then he died. Our Loss.

The first Dirk Gently novel is, what I imagine all Adams novels are like, hard to classify or explain. It’s a detective novel about time travel, ghosts and aliens. The story often takes a back seat to Adam’s writing and Dirk doesn’t even make a proper appearance in the story until almost 2/3 of the way through the book.

I quickly realized the TV series is only loosely based on the books but both are very enjoyable. If you’re an Adams fan, I probably don’t have to recommend the books to you. If you are a general scifi fan and a fan of Sherlock Holmes then I definitely would recommend Dirk Gently.

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