2009 in retrospect, welcoming 2010.
Its New Years Eve, and while I’m in the office right now handling things that need to be done, I realized I do need to take some time to reflect on what 2009 has been for me.
2009 was a tough year. (Probably a serious understatement.) It started off with a bang, Obama became President, and there was plenty of optimism based on the message of “Hope” and “Change”. But then reality set in really quickly, Barack isn’t Superman. (Haven’t given up on him though.)
The economy for one was particularly devastating to many, lost jobs, home foreclosures, and unforeseen expenditures that has prevented many from accomplishing goals.
I thought that 2009 was going to be the year that I can get the clothing line off the ground. My lucky number is 29, hence why I sign off my blog posts with the obligatory “NOIS29″ as my name. Alas, it was not meant to be.
Expenses and priorities had plagued 2009. I saw many other streetwear brands falter, many new startups sputter or put out a ton of poorly thought out products. It seemed like this was the year that so much garbage was put out, just for the sake of capturing a piece of the market. Everything I saw just seemed so uninspiring. Visiting Vegas and going to MAGIC and POOL really sealed it for me. I was very discouraged with the direction this industry was going, and I was afraid to get my designs and ideas out during this time. So since then, I’ve held out.
Oh yes and the state of my football home team the Washington Redskins has been laughable. 
Disarray in the roster, the offensive line, and poor coaching. I hope either Jim Zorn gets his 3rd year to really grow into the HC role, or Bruce Allen finds a truly competent head coach next year.
Coach Zorn, I wish you the best if you don’t come back 2010. Stay Classy.
I can’t say that 2009 was all bad. I have many things to be thankful for.
- My parents. Their continued hard work is still what affords me to live comfortably, without their help I would be in a much worse situation mentally and financially.
- My beautiful girlfriend. I think us meeting earlier this year and being together since then has made us both better people.
- My fellow bloggers. (Get)MadEven particularly, he obviously is the next one with the most blog posts and I hope his contributions continue to pique the interests of our visitors.
- Me making it to my 30th birthday. Yes, I can complain that I’m an old fart now, and my body has become less cooperative with weight loss and physical fitness, but I still have the mind and optimism of a young buck.
- Photography. This year I found an artistic outlet that satisfies my need to create art while feeding my gadget addiction.
- Vinny Cerrato leaving the Redskins organization.
- Also, the day after Christmas, we added 4 new additions to the family. 3 Roborovski Hamsters we’ve named Stevesie, Kingsley (Ned) and Klaus, the trio is now known as Team Zissou.
- Finally the 4th addition is especially dear to me. I grew up with German Shepherds and the death of our last one, Pilot (in fact he’s the logo of Radar/NOIS) was especially hard, and even though Bandit, my miniature long-haired Dachshund will always be my boy, I needed a GSD in my life again. So on the same day that we got Team Zissou, we also brought home a beautiful 11 week old female GSD, Mischa.
Kingsley (Ned) Zissou pictured here
Mischa Robin
So, I am looking forward to 2010 to being a much better year, but I know that it’s going to be a lot of hard work. This blog will see a facelift in the next month. I’ll be working on making it more intuitive, and make it a little bit more than an outlet for me to post the things I find interesting. I WILL put out a product in 2010.
2010 will be a good year, but I think I need to motivate myself to work harder for it to happen, things aren’t just going to fall in my lap.
Happy New Year everyone and be safe!
-Nick (NOIS29)
