Mon 31 Dec 2007

Year In Review

So... 2007 is nearly in the books. I'll give it a B-. Tried hard, lots of potential for future development, could have delivered a bit more on the promises.

I still have a roof over my head, my friends, my health and am happy with where I am. Not the greatest personal year ever, but that happens now and again. Between having some broken ribs that kept me out of the world for about 6 weeks early in the year, three largish contracts that fell through in mid-year, and a bit of a lack of enthusiasm for some of the work that did cross my plate, it was a disaster work-wise. However, that's why we have savings accounts, so I got by without too much hassle. 2008 will probably see some changes in the way I work, but nothing's confirmed yet.

Where it was a good year was in my IT development. A consequence of less paying work was more time to work on Open Source stuff, both as a user and a developer. I put some serious time into teaching myself some things I didn't know; an area I've become a bit lazy in the last couple of years. I've also worked more diligently on practising what I know. Writing code to keep skills fresh. Like a number of people, I've been working through some problems and writing the solutions in multiple, slightly different programming languages. Lots of fun.

Despite being a "quiet" year in some respects, I still did a lot of travel. Some of it was holidays, a couple of conferences and a reasonable amount of work. I enjoy that part of my life a lot and hope I can continue incorporating some travel into whatever work I end up doing for quite a few years to come. I like talking to people, whether in conference hallway conversations or via formal presentations. The give and take is immensely useful. I was able to meet a few more people who I'd previously only know via mailing lists. Still so many more to go in that area.

In retrospect, 2007 could also turn out to be the year I did something about being more creative/interesting. I actually worked a bit on my photography and drawing skills. Spent some time working out why I like certain things and not others. Some people get to that point in high school art class. I didn't particularly like art class and nothing about it stands out in my memory — good or bad. I even noticed the way I read books is starting to change. That's going to continue in 2008 (expect more book reviews here, for example).

Chess — one of my few really serious hobbies — went backwards in the last 12 months. I don't completely understand why, although increasing age and lack of work on it are two explanations. One of those is reversible. Not playing very consistently is hurting me a bit. I'm not going to suddenly develop more free time in 2008, but being more methodical wouldn't kill me here. I still enjoy playing seriously from time to time.

So, yeah, had a lot of fun. Not too much that I'll point to and say "that happened in 2007", but sometimes you have to have a period when things settle down a bit prior to the future happening. I'm happy. Here's to 2008.

Topics: life