opinios

The Year That Was...

2005 has probably been the biggest year of my life.

I know that is a big call, and last year was a tough one to top considering I got married (the most awesome day of my life!) and moved country (never want to do it again in my life!) but let me break it down for you. This sounds all so terribly self-indulgent, but stuff it -- it's more for me to look back on in 10 years rather than to entertain you lowly readers, sorry to break it to ya.

What, you're still here? Ok then, read on for a look back at 2005. And don't say I didn't warn you!

I wrote a list of goals at the end of last year. It was fairly optimistic but reflects what was going on in my life back then and where I was headed. I did achieve some of them, didn't come close on others, and I also chalked up a few milestones that weren't on the list.

In December 2004 I announced my intent to:

1. redesign opinios and post more often - well, the redesign hasn't happened yet. Ho hum. But posts have been much more regular of late, I hope you have appreciated that, dear reader!


2. buy a house - TICK! It needs a bit of work but basically we love our house, it is very cute and comfortable and really feels like home.


3. organise my contacts list - err, TICK in pencil that's then been rubbed out. I sort of did this but then didn't really keep it up to date. I'm going to try out HipCal to see if that helps me with this dillemma.


4. take more pictures - nope, haven't done this, but haven't really needed to considering my wife is so snap-happy and captures our lives in digital colour anyway.


5. revive the Kanji web site - half a tick. This hasn't happened, but in the last week I have actually revisited it and made some progress. With such ready access to excellent PHP books at my new job, this is something I plan to deliver on. Eventually. The SQL bug I mentioned turned out to be a bug in the database itself, not in my code, and it has since been fixed. So my recent dabblings have this site back up and running on my local machine, and now I have to think about how the site will look and operate. But the basic functionality is there which is promising.


6. learn Macromedia Flash - haven't touched it. But to be fair, work consumed much of my waking hours for the better part of the year. More on that below.


7. do some more drawing - TICK! Through my design course, the thumbnails required for many of the briefs and the visual diary we had to keep, I have definitely allowed my visual creativity some attention to flourish.

I also had a few things at the back of my mind when I wrote that list that I didn't want to announce publicly, but that I consider milestones of note. Oh, and a couple that I didn't really plan on achieving but did anyway. Bonus! These include:

• becoming a father - TICK! Well, this hasn't happened yet, but it sure aint far to go now. Less than a month, in fact. Stay up to date on the little tacker's own web site.


• finding a job that I was more passionate about - I didn't list this last year for a couple of reasons. It obviously would have been fairly career-limiting to announce to the world that I wanted to leave my job, and I didn't plan on getting dooced. Plus back then I didn't actually plan on leaving. But throughout the course of the year it definitely wore me down.

  
  However I also didn't actually expect to find a job that really captivated my interest in such a short time after returning to Australia. Being an IBM consultant paid well and was still interesting and challenging, but I wanted to be more involved with web standards and web accessibility. The job required long hours but was basically a good gig, and while it wasn't 100% aligned with my core interests I was pretty much resigned to the fact that, for now, I wouldn't have a job that I actually really cared about. Not that I would ever give less than 100%, as that is not in my work ethic (in fact at IBM I definitely gave way more than the client could have expected in the face of some serious adversity). But I had reconciled that my interests outside of work and family would be my focus, and that would be enough to get me through the day. I wasn't sure how I was going to juggle the long hours with being a dad, or what I would do if I was asked (again) to travel interstate (I had declined a couple of times already). I just figured I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

  That is, until I got chatting to the guys from SitePoint.

  About the time I was mulling over the offer, I read some thought-provoking words that in hindsight makes that kind of attitude towards work seem a bit sad. Yes, time will tell once the honeymoon period is over, but at the moment I'm rapt with the new job and enjoy waking up in the morning and actually looking forward to going to work. What a novel concept!

And so for next year, I hope I can do some or all of the following:

1. be a good dad - we are about to have our world turned completely upside down. Life will never be the same, and it is all very exciting. At some stage this year I can remember feeling a bit scared, uncertain, bewildered and probably a bit panicky, but right now with this major event just around the corner I actually can't wait to guide this little person who we are soon about to meet into the world, and to be as positive influence on their life as my father was on mine


2. learn a bit about Ruby on Rails - it seems a tad ridiculous to be mixing somewhat profound thoughts on fatherhood with aspirations to teach myself programming languages, but it's late at night and I just wanna wrap this up and get it posted, so that's what you get. It's new, it's hip, it's a bit of a head spin and requires some new ways of thinking about things. But I'll have a crack at it.


3. get the kanji web site project thingo live - again. You know, if I get round to it. See above.


4. design some t-shirts for threadless - this is a very cool concept where t-shirt designs are submitted by anyone, they are voted on and then the best designs get printed. I have a few ideas and some thumbnail sketches, and plan to put a few up for the vote.


5. be a damn good technical editor - this sounds a bit obligatory in case any of my work colleagues happen to read this, but it's true that I haven't had a chance to really prove myself at work yet. It's a fairly close-knit family and while I fit in well on a social level, the jury is probably still out on my technical writing abilities as it's only been a few weeks. I know I still have a bit to learn and I work with some very smart people so the bar is pretty high which seems to inspire everyone to achieve, but I hope to prove to them beyond any doubt that I was worth hiring.

And that's pretty much it. You know, apart from calling my parents regularly, eating healthy food, doing a bit of exercise, buying my lovely wife some flowers now and then. That sort of thing. Oh, and helping her through what will probably be the most difficult, painful (and rewarding) experience in her entire life, ever. I'm at her beck and call there.

What are your goals for 2006? Any new year resolutions or aspirations? Any goals you set yourself last year that you did or didn't meet? I'd love to hear them!

Happy new year!

Tags: 2006resolutions, retrospective, 2005, goals