Antarctica Starts Here.

Well, my body turned 29 a couple of hours ago, and here I sit with a full stomach looking back on the year just gone by. Orthaevelve and Lyssa took me out for dinner at the China Star for my birthday tonight, and afterward we hit up Whole Paycheque for a tasty German chocolate cake that I've been sharing with everyone that came over tonight after we got home (that'd be Hasufin, who was kind enough to bring a shovel to help me free the TARDIS again) to hang out.

Since last year, life's taken a decidedly good turn for the better, no matter how you cut it. I got to go travelling more with Lyssa, vis a vis to Walking the Thresholds, which was where I held my first seminar. I got to make a lot of new friends there, too, namely Heron61, Amberite, Teaotter, and MMSword. I even got to meet some nifty folks within spitting distance of my lair (yeah, I'm looking at you, Orthaevelve, Tenshi, and Raven). I've been getting out a lot more, now that I think of it - Saloncon, visiting the Ferrett and Gini, going to HOPE 2006 with Lyssa, my first train ride... In November of 2006 I got to teach my first class on information security - wireless security, no less. I got a new job which let me work from home for five months, and doesn't mind my writing open source software for fun.

Lyssa and I saved the masquerade at Saloncon with our laptops and iPods. We cleaned this year, and got rid of an amazing number of books that I hope have gone to good homes.

I started serious fun-hacking in Perl. I've been working on a long-running project that I hope will get somewhere interesting by the time summer starts.

I've also started reading like a fiend again, and I'm almost back to my old regeime of two or three books in a weeks' time.

Did I mention that Lyssa's been getting me out of the office and apartment more? Dinners, visiting people, driving to other states to hang out with people I don't really know (not that this is a bad thing), and of course the joys of sitting on one's ass and watching the world go by.

Sure, there were some shaky parts, too, like getting into two car crashes in the same year, but I'm not going to dwell on those. Nothing's perfect no matter how hard we try to make them that way, and it's the flaws that make things the most interesting - bugs give things character, after all.

On the whole, it's been a good year, and it's finally sinking in that I've turned 29. It's also sinking in that I should get my biomechanical butt to bed so that I can get up in time for work tomorrow. I'll write more coherently in the morning.