2012: The Year of the Chickens!

In this, the last of this blog's measly 26 posts in 2012, I'll recap the stuff I've covered over the previous year, along with some things I didn't address. For starters, in February, Eliza and I installed a chicken coop in our backyard, and then brought home four two-month-old pullets: Rocky, Dolly, Rhodey, and Li'l Sweetie (above, shot by Eliza). Sadly, Rocky and Dolly succumbed to Marek's Disease, but Sweetie and Rhodey have thrived - since May, those gals have pumped out a whopping 334 eggs!

In other bird news, a day after Rocky was put to sleep, three robins were hatched in a nest by our back porch. Here are two of the eggs...

Within a day, all three robin chicks were eaten by some goddamn crows.

In non-bird deaths, in 2012 we said goodbye to the Beastie Boys and Ween, Ralph McQuarrie, and John Belushi (albeit 30 years after the fact). Also passing this year, but unacknowledged by this blog, were Matt Groening's Life in Hell, and the Seattle TV clown who inspired Krusty the Clown on Groening's The Simpsons, JP Patches... In July was I driving through the U-District when I happened upon the demolition of the UW's Lander Hall, a dormitory where I lived for a couple years in my late teens and did many grown-up, um, things, that I never done before...

Celebrating birthdays in 2012 were Paul Stanley and Muhammad Ali, as well as the 50th anniversaries of Mad, the Rolling Stones, the Seattle Monorail, the Seattle World's Fair and Spider-Man, along with the 25th anniversaries of Pleased to Meet Me and the 1987 NBA All-Star Game.

On top of this being the sixth full calendar year of the SteveMandich.com blog, I continued to maintain two other blogs -- Super Ichiro Crazy! (where the big news was his trade from Seattle to the Yankees) and Bigfoot is Real (which I just put on "temporary hiatus"). Upon the (galaxy) golden anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair, I started a commemorative blog. It was soon aborted, due to lack of both interest and inspiration. Still, I came away with this cool photo of some Space Needle models, taken at an art gallery near the Needle itself...

I visited Minnesota and New Mexico in 2012, though I didn't blog about my April SoCal trip -- in San Diego I met up with another Steve Mandich, a swell guy who's a credit to our name...

In Anaheim, my pal JP and I saw the Edmonton Oilers beat the Ducks, and the next night, we saw the eventual Stanley Cup-winning Kings beat the Oilers in L.A. I stupidly lost all my photos from those games, so here's a picture I took of the Watts Towers...

Earlier, and closer to home, I rode the Amtrak Cascades up to Vancouver, where I witnessed the Canucks beat the Coyotes in an overtime shootout. While in town, I attended the Vancouver International Boat Show, if only to see the insides of the revamped BC Place Stadium...

Here's another Vancouver photo, taken in Stanley Park...

In medical news, my Morton's toe that I viciously stubbed in 2004 finally got fixed in October -- the good foot doctor shaved away some arthritic bone and inserted a temporary three-inch pin. Here's a gnarly pic of how it looked a week after surgery...

Though 2012 was the Year of the Chickens, Eliza and I figure 2013 will be the Year of the Babies -- we're expecting fraternal twin girls on January 9! Here we are in our backyard on Thanksgiving...

Going into the new year, if I'm not blogging about it here, I'll be posting it on facebook.

As always, thanks for reading!
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