Return of the Greatest Hits

Usually, I've tried to do this post on April 1st, the actual anniversary of the blog. (BTW, it's 4 years old.) Didn't actually make that date this year... in fact, I missed it by 20 days. (That's what we in the blogging business call "a wide margin of error.") Anyway, we've had four years now of deep thoughts, random musings, adorable pictures of my two sons, and just a wee bit of discussion of games.

Those of you who follow this blog realize that I did a post very much like this last year and the year before that... which, frankly, I copied & pasted to provide the meat of this post. However, I've added the last year (2008-2009) of "highlight" posts down at the bottom of the list.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I've picked a post (or two or three) from each month that I think is a "highlight" (you are welcome to disagree - but you'll be wrong with a capital "Wr").

• April 2005 - 12:13 pm - Collin is born!
• May 2005 - How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? - the stories of my ministry life (yes, I still need to write a couple more posts in this series)
• June 2005 - Dig Hay Zoose - this story still blows me away...
• July 2005 - Interview #2 - wherein Tom Vasel does an e-mail interview with me & I manage (I think!) to get my thoughts straight about the crossroads between being a Christ-follower & being a gamer
• August 2005 - Welcome to Pat's World - which explains why the catchphrase "Be Like Pat" is never going to gain traction
• September 2005 - Enter Pastor Man - the history of my musical tastes & a pretty decent summary of how I deal with art from a Christian perspective
• October 2005 - The Tale of the Pig (And How His Influence Still Touches My Life) - ah, the Pig... I wonder where he is now?
• November 2005 - Small Soldiers Big Battle - I'm finally figuring out how to write a review that sounds like me
• December 2005 - Blasts From The Past - gaming & autobiography... a theme I'd return to with a vengance during the summer of 2006 for my series about D&D
• January 2006 - Unpacking the Baggage - one of my most painfully honest posts
• February 2006 - Five & Dime 2005 - where I finally find a good way to showcase all the data I've been collecting over the years
• March 2006 - Come Back To The One Hundred, Blog Reader, Blog Reader - which is a signpost pointing to another blog I created with Stephen Glenn & 65 of our closest friends about the best games ever...
• April 2006 - Pastoral Advice For Engaged Meeples, Minefield, Minefield Spawns a Question, & 9 Years Ago - April was one of those months where I was writing lots of good stuff... so, I picked four.
• May 2006 - Minefield, Part Deux & The "M" Word - Cuz you really shouldn't read all that stuff I wrote in April without reading the follow-up stuff in May
• June 2006 - Stay Out Of Range Of The Giant: Descent - Journeys in the Dark, The Day I Quit Playing D&D, & Say It With Me: "Non-Binding Resolution" - D&D and alcohol... June was evidently a dark month or my attempt to write a rebuttal to Chez Geek
• July 2006 - DW, Bill Cosby & Evercrack - the "Return of the King/Return of the Jedi" of my D&D trilogy
• August 2006 - Three Geeks... er, Caballeros - a surprise reunion of high school friends
• September 2006 - Underwear & the Four Gods - one of the weirder analogies I've made... in print and/or while preaching
• October 2006 - I Don't Want To Be Some Kind of Nutjob - in which I talk about spiritual warfare & how I'm scared of being a holy roller
• November 2006 - Crackpipe Remote OR Yes, As a Matter of Fact, I Do Watch Too Much Network Television - the title says it all
• December 2006 - Asleep on the... Hershey Bar? - I'm still weirded out by this one...
• January 2007 - This is News? - Obviously, Chris Herndon & his flying monkeys did not live near this lady...
• February 2007 - The Mouse Gave Me The Bum's Rush - how I got thrown out of Disneyland
• March 2007 - Peanut Butter & Karo Syrup - I had some of this just the other night... it's still very yummy.
• April 2007 - Soundtrack of My Life: Steve Taylor - the first (and so far - sigh - only) post in a planned series on the music that has dug deep into my soul.
• May 2007 - I wrote a set of posts about my trip to SoCal for The Origins Experience: Yelo, More Yelo, Origins Experience: Tuesday & If Everyone Jumped Off A Cliff. Not a big blogging month, but a pretty profound one in my pilgrimage as a leader.
• June 2007 - We played games at Braeden's birthday party... and he got games... and somehow the post Birthday Gaming has become one of the more commented upon posts in the history of this blog.
• July 2007 - After four years here in Fresno, I ended up meditating on the nature of my profession & how easy it is to live the Christian life like a magic trick in a post entitled Shattering the Illusion.
• August 2007 - In response to questions I got as part of an Open Mic series at my church, I began answering some of them with the blog, starting with Open Mic: Sex, Lies & Videotape.
• September 2007 - For some reason, I got inspired in September & pumped out some more really good stuff in the Open Mic series (Knock Knock Knockin', All Day Singin' & Dinner on the Grounds, and The New World Slang) as well as a post on the game, The Settlers of Catan, that I feel real good about (The Unofficial Guide to Catan, Part I).
• October 2007 - I answered a question no one asked (Open Mic: The Question Nobody Asked) about why we homeschool and also wrote a really good game review entitled 1492/Ocean Blue (about Mayer's game, Columbus).
• November 2007 - As we close in our Disneyland vacation, I launch into an extended theological musing about DLR I called The Hypnotic Power of a Bug Zapper & the Happiest Place on Earth... and I also managed to finish my guide to all things Catan (The Unofficial Guide to Catan, Part II).
• December 2007 - Two posts stick out in December: my plea for sanity in the face of a potentially anti-church film (Three Requests) and my plea for sanity in the face of sub-standard Monopoly play (Giving Away Your Own (Monopoly) Money).
• January 2008 - Less pleading this month... instead, I wrote a lot about religion & politics. The best of the bunch was Religion & Politics: Oil & Water.
• February 2008 - Of course, there was a chunk of Five & Dime posts... but the highlight of the non-statistical/gaming stuff was Evangelical Does NOT Equal "Right Wing Nut Job".
• March 2008 - Take Me Out To The (Ball) Game... where I ruminate about baseball & board games
• April 2008 - Klutz & Konsulting... the story of how I ended up as a consultant for a board game book for kids
• May 2008 - I wrote a series of posts on the emerging church: Emerging?: 13th Gen to Pomo, Emerging?: Pomo to Emergent, and Emerging: Celebrity Death Match.
• June 2008 - The Kid Games 100 began... but the individual post I'm proudest of was Swingtown, White Guilt & Splitsville.
• July 2008 - I wrote a number of different posts last year about marriage... Framing the Conversation: It's Got A Good Beat & I Can Dance To It - I'll Give It An 85 is one of the best of them in that it managed to offend both sides.
• August 2008 - It was a good month for writing long semi-autobiographical posts that turned into theological/ethical musings: Against All Odds We're Living Separate Lives and Mental Pinball & the Hamster Wheel.
• September 2008 - Camping At Limekiln is how pictures recaps should be done... and not how I end up doing them most of the time.
• October 2008 - A great political post (Religion & Politics: When Atheists Attack) as well as two posts chronicling the biggest Heroscape battle we've had to date (Battle Royale & Battle Royale: National Heroscape Day.)
• November 2008 - The end of the election prompted a couple of posts: Framing the Conversation: How To Get Tossed Out of a Game Group & The Wrong Glass.
• December 2008 - This reminds me... I need to write the last post of this trio about Disneyland: DLR in a Day: Morning & DLR in a Day: Afternoon.
• January 2009 - Both Moral/Ethical/Legal and Memory Is A Funny Thing are great examples of what I call "trigger" posts... where something happens that sparks deep thoughts about something completely different.
• February 2009 - Graceland ruminates on music & memories while Warning Signs is my plea for people to avoid close-minded liberals & conservatives, regardless of their religious persuasion.
• March 2009 - If you want something serious: Brother, Can You Spare A Definition?; something silly: Keep Your Godless Commie Pinko Hands Off My Candy!....