2011 In Review

I'm bored and have a slight headache so I'm restricting myself to some lightweight tasks and save the meatier stuff for tomorrow...

Work:

• I made trips to the corporate mothership in January, May and November.
  
• My team grew by two bodies; this has helped with my overall workload although I'm still the only guy at the production data center in the DC area. At least my time on-call is reduced and the workload while on-call is much improved.
  
• My employer is still hiring software engineers.
  
• I've racked up a huge boatload of new servers and retired a handful of others. My data center cage is quite full but additional racks should be arriving soon.
  
• The office is sending me to Bangalore in India early in 2012. With some cross-training, we can have the India office help support our systems during our off-hours and we can support their during their off-hours. The visa application is still in process as I write this.
  
• No USENIX or LISA conferences for me again this year. My employer doesn't have a training budget which I could use to attend a conference so I only get to attend on my own dime and such dimes were few & far between this lean year.
  
• On the whole, business is good, the company is expanding and I'm feeling very secure in my employment and future.

Square Dancing:

• My C2 dancing is improving steadily. While we talked about a C3A class, nothing came of it because of various scheduling conflicts.
  
• I called guest spots at fly-ins hosted by the DC Lambda Squares, Independence Squares, Chesapeake Squares and at the IAGSDC convention in Atlanta. In addition, I'm still doing regular club night gigs with the Chesapeake Squares, DC Lambda Squares, Barkley Squares, Zig Zaggers and Ettseteras, calling Mainstream through C1.
  
• DC Lambda Squares purchased an MA-150 amp/mixer which is certainly much lighter to carry around than a Hilton turntable.
  
• I co-taught a Mainstream class for the Chesapeake Squares, as well as called a number of open house events. I've also called a number of Plus and Advanced workshops at various events.
  
• I was a panelist at the recent annual CALLERLAB convention in Las Vegas.
  
• The Atlanta IAGSDC convention was great fun. I received my 10 year medallion, called a few guest spots and generally danced as much as I wanted. Good times!
  
• I'm no longer on the GCA board. Or on any IAGSDC committee. Or any other board or committee. I'm free!
  
• I've created a separate FaceBook fan page for my square dance calling and am beefing up my Twitter presence.

Self, Health & Geekiness:

• I got new glasses in February. I'm not wearing contact lenses much these days. Old age is taking its toll so I would need reading glasses nearly constantly with the contacts so I might as well stick to my regular glasses. Bifocals are in my future.
  
• No kidney stone attacks.
  
• I finally retired my tried & true Blackberry Storm for a Motorola Droid Bionic. The new phone is fantastic, but I wish it had better battery life.
  
• I bought a gently used ViewSonic gTablet, a 10" Android 2.2-based tablet, as an experiment. I thought I'd use it as a portable web toy but I'm actually spending vastly more time using it as an e-reader. As such, I'm not planning to upgrade to newer & faster as there's no profit in newer or faster.
  
• I've opened a dreamwidth account for my blog postings since LJ seems to spend a vast amount of time being driven into the dirt by DDOS attacks. I'm also on Google+ these days.
  
• I've retired my email/web hosting home Linux box in favor of outsourcing the hosting operations.
  The house has been upgraded to FiOS for Internet, television and telephone. It was stalled by the Verizon strike, but once installed, it worked flawlessly.
  
• I survived xmas. It's been a tribulation but mercifully it doesn't last forever and my mood vastly improves after new year's.
  
• I haven't been back to Canada at all in 2011 but hope to make three separate trips in 2012 if our budget will support it.

Home:

• There hasn't been much done in the way of household renovations. We had some minor storm damage in late January; we were snowed in for a couple of days but were comfortable the entire time.
  
• We had an earthquake. No damage but it was a novel change to our routine. Some DC structures are still being repaired.
  
• Our stately magnolia in our front yard didn't survive the winter and was removed in the late spring. Our yard still feels every empty.
  
• Hurricane Irene came & went. Yawn.
  
• We got rid of our rented storage locker. I feel the savings every time I look at my credit card statement.
  
• Our furnace died just before xmas, about 13 months after it was installed. Even as I write this, we've had no heat for five days but we're managing to stay comfortable with electric heaters and mild weather. We should have it repaired this afternoon.

Family:

• Our former roomie & big sis Rhomylly passed away unexpectedly in the spring; we joined her family to scatter her ashes in Berea, KY, in early July.
  
• Step-daughter Maurita and her fiance Lucas were married in May. That's the last family wedding for which I need to cough up money. From here on in, I'm just paying for divorces or funerals.
  
• The son-in-law Lucas has been living with us nearly the entire year while he works in Bethesda, MD. He & Maurita are working on moving to the greater DC area but it's turning out to be a lot harder than anyone would have believed.
  
• While Mom is still taking medication as a follow-up for last year's breast cancer, she's in fine shape. Dad, however, had severe gastro-intestinal issues and was finally diagnosed as having Crohn's Disease. Gentler interventions (changes in diet, steroids, etc.) haven't made much of an improvement so surgery is likely early in 2012.
  
• Far too many friends have spent time in hospital or physiotherapy this year. Y'all stop that now, OK?
  
• Kent was unemployed for two months which put a dent in our household finances, but not severely. He's back at work temping at the moment and we hope for a full time position for him soon.
  
• Michael has managed to endure us without either going insane or killing us. Miracles do happen.

Misc:

• We made several very nice trips to Roseland Resort this season. I've enjoyed many quiet weekends napping, eating & reading: I really treasure the quiet times to center myself and re-evaluate my current & future projects.
  
• I especially loved having a ten day span at the trailer after Labor Day. We're planning to do that again in 2012.
  
• The trailer was leveled this summer. Indeed, the entire trailer was raised and positioned on blocks & pads so it is vastly more stable than it was previously. We should have done this years ago.
  
• I'm working on a project to extend the wifi from the nearby dining hall to our trailer. We're just a little out of range so I'm hoping that an improvised antenna will boost our signal just enough.
  
• I put a lot of money into my car this year. The Civic has been a good soldier and I had been delaying many items for a while until I had my credit cards entirely under control. I stretched the work over three months to easy the pain a little, but the total was still north of $4k for new tires, timing belt, exhaust manifold, water pump, etc.. On the other hand, my car is running very smoothly and should be on the road at least for another five years.
  
• We visited Chicago with friends across the Columbus Day weekend/Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Fun!