2009 Year-in-Review

Note: This post is AI-generated based on my twitter archive.

It’s crazy to look back through the old 2009 Tweet Archive and see just how much was going on in the Kirk household. Between balancing a busy year at the office and our growing family, I still somehow found the time to geek out over new technology and obsess about the Steelers. Here are the high notes from a very busy 2009.

Family First: Welcome Emma! Without a doubt, the biggest milestone of 2009 was welcoming the newest addition to our family. Emma Rosemarie Kirk joined us on August 10th, weighing in at 7 lbs, 2oz. After a brief and stressful stint in the hospital dealing with jaundice, “Super Mommy” Alicia and I finally got our baby girl safely home. Meanwhile, little Drew was growing up fast. He celebrated his first birthday in July (which involved more crying than cake mashing!). Watching him progress from crawling to standing up by the ottoman, and finally walking across the great room was a new definition of “joy” for me. Between Drew’s teething and Emma’s arrival, sleep was definitely a rare commodity for Alicia and I that year.

Peak Geek: Cord Cutting and the “FrankenMac”! 2009 was a big year for my homelab and tech projects. I actually pulled the plug and canceled our cable TV, saving us $80 a month. To make it work, I built a homemade HD antenna that I eventually mounted up in the hot attic. I also spent an inordinate amount of time turning spare parts into an Atom-based “FrankenMac” to run my SageTV media server. It’s also pretty funny to read my old tweets speculating about the future of computing. I spent the end of the year holding off on buying a Netbook, actively holding out hope for the heavily-rumored “Apple Tablet” or a Google Chrome OS device for couch surfing. Little did I know the iPad was just around the corner!

Sports: A Super Bowl High. For a die-hard football fan, 2009 started off perfectly. I spent January and February happily watching the Pittsburgh Steelers make a run all the way to a Super Bowl victory. Of course, “Kirk Luck” and standard sports fandom caught up with me by the end of the year because by December, the Steelers were struggling and I was taking to Twitter to demand we fire the special teams coach and offensive coordinator.

Looking back, it was a year full of sleepless nights, tech tinkering, and an expanding family. Time definitely accelerates as you get older, but I’m glad I have these digital memories to look back on.