Duffbert's Random Musings :: My year in review...

Category Everything Else

In many ways, this blog is like a daily "status report" of what's happened to me during the year. I keep weekly status reports at work (my choice, not required) that allow me to easily go back and recap what I've done at the end of some period of time. Let me take a look back over the last 12 months and see what happened to me based on my blog entries...

January... It started out with a nasty snow and ice storm here in Portland that virtually shut down the city for a number of days. While I like snow, the whole thing got to be a little old after awhile.
I also got my first "print" article published in January with e-Pro. That was a significant accomplishment for me in my fledgling writing career.
My friend Joe Litton moved to Tampa to take a consulting job. It bummed me out to lose his companionship, but it had positive implications for my career (more in a second).
I started concentrating on reviewing books for Amazon and my blog. I started out with a reviewer ranking of around 25000. In January, I made it into the 12000 area.
Lotusphere 2004 and my first speaking gig in front of 600+ people. Joe and I had a blast, and the reviews were very positive. It's amazing what fluoxetine will do for killing nerves and fear. :-)
February... I hit my first year anniversary of blogging.
Joe's departure leads to me landing a new job taking over his place there. It was tough to leave Boom Vang/Marquam Group, but it was a positive action for everyone.
Our Saturn was broken into and Ian's stereo was ripped out. That's the first break-in of any type I've gone through. It does have a sense of violation to it.
March... I did my first webinar for e-Pro and their online conference for Lotus technologies.
April... I released iWatch to the OpenNTF website (thanks to Marquam Group for letting me open source it).
My Amazon reviewer rank is now up to 2500.
May... Ian graduates from high school and is now officially an adult.
June... I take over the technical editor role for the new e-ProWire: Lotus Developer Tips newsletter! I now have monthly deadlines and an audience.
I got to attend the Penton editorial conference in Westminster, Colorado. It's great to be a part of that publishing family.
August... The Radicati incident plays out in the blog world...
I join the world of PDA users with an iPaq. I can now sniff out wi-fi access points anywhere.
September... I break into the top 1000 reviewers at Amazon.
Ian starts college... I'm getting old.
October... The high school hockey season starts again, and Cam is the starting goalie. Little would we expect, but they end up with only a single loss on their record by the end of the year.
November... Another webinar with e-Pro. This time it's A Domino Developer Looks At Eclipse.
My Amazon goal is reached... I break into the top 500.
We're part of a chain-reaction accident on Thanksgiving Day. We were car #2 in a string of 8 cars, and it looks like car #5 (and Geico) will end up paying the damages for all the involved cars.
December... We get official notification that we (Joe Litton and I) will be presenting again at Lotusphere 2005! Whoo-hoo!
We finish the year with a Caribbean cruise and DisneyWorld vacation for the last 14 days of the year.

747 entries in the blog for 2004 (wordy little twit, aren't I?). Books read over the year? 182. Yes, that's a record. Yes, I'm a little embarrassed.

2004 was a very good year for me. A lot of professional and personal development, and I'm pretty happy with where I'm at right now. If I could only drop about 75 pounds... :-)

And how was *your* year?