OK, Since I don’t send out a Christmas letter, here’s my life update in case anyone is interested! If you aren’t, then have a Happy New Year, I hope 2011 is an awesome year for you!
Anyway, the year started a bit slow and cold. Karey and I ringed in the new year sitting in our apartment watching the ball drop, in Times Square, a place we’d gotten quite acquainted with in 2009 (The first thing most of our visitors wanted to see was Times Sq., and we had previously been there at the end of Dec. 09 to see the tree in nearby Rockefeller Plaza).
In February, I went to my third Microsoft MVP Summit, and hung out with a lot of great people, including Darius Wey, who I met for the first time. I also spent quite a few hours with a few characters laughing ourselves silly in the Courtyard’s lobby while watching Curling. In case you ever wanted to know another name for your cell phone’s SIM card, you can thank this session of general giddiness for the term “essence” and a bunch of evil hand gestures.
March was fairly uneventful, save for the fact that I started supervising my first intern, who has since left Columbia and is now studying at NYU (I don’t think I had anything to do with that choice 
). In April, a good friend started work at Google, after having been stolen away from us at CDS. Late in that month Karey & her mom went to a Stamping convention in Akron (Who knew stampers had conventions?), and the weather finally started to get nicer.
In May I started writing my novel, Mandate, which I’d finish in mid-August. A fun experience that helped me understand the fiction writing process as I jumped into it. Mid-month my parents came up to visit our humble Peekskill dwelling, which marked my father’s first trip on a commuter train and first trip on the m60 bus in Harlem. He was quite amused.
In June Karey, myself, Martine, and Ye drove down from NY to Pittsburgh for the BDRM conference (Karey didn’t go, she had serious mother-daughter type things to do with her mom over the weekend). Martine stayed with us at Karey’s home, and got to see a part of America she hadn’t previously (e.g., rural life!)
In July the most memorable thing was how hot it was in NY. I also travelled up to Boston for a Boston Pocket PC Meeting, and Karey took me to the movies to see Eclipse (she likes the sparkly vampires). Early in the month we spent some time in Ohio (Over the 4th), and later in the month I wrote a few reviews. In general a busy month.
In August I both finished Mandate and got to see Jimmy Buffett in concert for the second time! The summer slowly slipped away as we enjoyed a few final hot days, and moved into September.
And boy was September busy! I was in Austin for a few days visiting the company that does cell phone antenna testing. I was in Seattle for a few days in prep for the Windows Phone 7 launch, AND I was asked to write a book on Windows Phone 7! My second book took a few months to write, and was a great but busy experience! Sepetember also saw my intern, Cindy, start working with us at CDS.
October and November were filled with a lot of book writing, a visit from my parents, Thanksgiving, and SJDM in St. Louis. I also gave a guest lecture in Elke’s Decision making course, had a phone interview for a real job, and had breakfast with Tony as he passed through the area from Albany. Finally that brings us to December, in which I had a flat tire on my birthday, and spent Christmas (plus a few days more) in Ohio having an awesome time with family and friends.
Along the way this year I also started teaching CCD again and began lectoring fairly often at my church. Had some really high points and some low ones, and was overall pretty content. I hope 2011 proves to be no worse, and that this time next year all of you can share with me some awesome 2011 stories as I write up my next year in review!
Happy New Year!
