2005, a year in review
I'd like to thank everyone who came by Question House the other night and helped make it one of our most successful parties ever. Particularly those of you who took our silly theme and ran with it.
Hosting is a strange thing. I find aspects of it very stressful sometimes and I can get a little bit -- ok, a lot -- manic about it. I worry -- will anyone show up? Will too many people show up? Is the cheese being eaten? Are we out of crackers? Blah blah blah, run around all night, don't get to spend any quality time with the guests.
And that's fine -- first of all, stress isn't necessarily bad. There's good stress -- stress makes adrenaline, and that can be fun when everything is actually pretty much under control. Second, I take a lot of pleasure out of getting a large group of disparate people together and making a space in which they can see old friends and make new ones.
But for some reason, this New Year's Eve people seemed to be taking care of themselves pretty well. It was wonderful to be able to see old friends and make new friends. It was a wonderful combination of the pleasure of hosting and the pleasure of actually being at the party.
It always strikes me as a little odd that we choose January 1st as an arbitrary point to mark a new solar year. This was Julius Caesar's decision and we've stuck with it ever since. Before Caesar, western civilization generally marked the new year as beginning on the spring equinox. It seems like the beginning of spring would be a better time to look back over the last year and forward to the next. But, whatever. 2005 was an extremely good year, in which I:
* shipped Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 2.0, the culmination of three years of work by thousands of people. An incredible product that I am so proud to have played my small part in.
* published a 900-page book
* got a good start on seismically retrofitting the house and building a media room
* made some amazing new friends, incredibly wonderful people whom I am looking forward to getting to know better over the rest of my life
* deepened existing friendships with incredibly wonderful people whom I am looking forward to getting to know better over the rest of my life
* planned and executed a wedding that went off fabulously, despite last-minute legal nonsense
* and most importantly, embarked upon a marriage to someone so smart, funny, sexy, honest, loyal, kind, patient, adventurous and strong that it amazes me every day how privileged I am to be here. We started dating five years ago yesterday and it has been the best five years of my life and seems to only be getting better.
Coming up in 2006:
* travel. Lots and lots of travel. Leah has a 10 year reunion on the east coast, we owe her parents in Pennsylvania a visit, my cousin is getting married in Ontario in June, I'd like to spend some time at the beach. Burning Man in August. I'd like to see my family at Christmas again, but that might not happen. We haven't had a hot-climate winter vacation in a long time, so we might visit a friend of Leah's in Hawaii at the end of 2006. That's a lot of vacation time and a lot of plane tickets, so something might have to give in there. We'll figure something out though.
* house stuff. Finish up the media room. One of the housemates has bought a condo, so we will be losing her in March and missing her terribly (but enjoying her closet space). Perhaps replace the rotten south side of the house. Not cheap, but needs to be done.
* Three words: language integrated query. I've wanted to have a properly architected language tool like this since I first saw the wretched hack that was WATCOM SQL's query-embedding system back in 1991. To have an opportunity to help implement the language end is a dream come true.
* and most importantly, like I said above, I see 2006 as being a great year for really getting to know some wonderful people better. You all enrich my life tremendously. Thank you.
Hosting is a strange thing. I find aspects of it very stressful sometimes and I can get a little bit -- ok, a lot -- manic about it. I worry -- will anyone show up? Will too many people show up? Is the cheese being eaten? Are we out of crackers? Blah blah blah, run around all night, don't get to spend any quality time with the guests.
And that's fine -- first of all, stress isn't necessarily bad. There's good stress -- stress makes adrenaline, and that can be fun when everything is actually pretty much under control. Second, I take a lot of pleasure out of getting a large group of disparate people together and making a space in which they can see old friends and make new ones.
But for some reason, this New Year's Eve people seemed to be taking care of themselves pretty well. It was wonderful to be able to see old friends and make new friends. It was a wonderful combination of the pleasure of hosting and the pleasure of actually being at the party.
It always strikes me as a little odd that we choose January 1st as an arbitrary point to mark a new solar year. This was Julius Caesar's decision and we've stuck with it ever since. Before Caesar, western civilization generally marked the new year as beginning on the spring equinox. It seems like the beginning of spring would be a better time to look back over the last year and forward to the next. But, whatever. 2005 was an extremely good year, in which I:
* shipped Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 2.0, the culmination of three years of work by thousands of people. An incredible product that I am so proud to have played my small part in.
* published a 900-page book
* got a good start on seismically retrofitting the house and building a media room
* made some amazing new friends, incredibly wonderful people whom I am looking forward to getting to know better over the rest of my life
* deepened existing friendships with incredibly wonderful people whom I am looking forward to getting to know better over the rest of my life
* planned and executed a wedding that went off fabulously, despite last-minute legal nonsense
* and most importantly, embarked upon a marriage to someone so smart, funny, sexy, honest, loyal, kind, patient, adventurous and strong that it amazes me every day how privileged I am to be here. We started dating five years ago yesterday and it has been the best five years of my life and seems to only be getting better.
Coming up in 2006:
* travel. Lots and lots of travel. Leah has a 10 year reunion on the east coast, we owe her parents in Pennsylvania a visit, my cousin is getting married in Ontario in June, I'd like to spend some time at the beach. Burning Man in August. I'd like to see my family at Christmas again, but that might not happen. We haven't had a hot-climate winter vacation in a long time, so we might visit a friend of Leah's in Hawaii at the end of 2006. That's a lot of vacation time and a lot of plane tickets, so something might have to give in there. We'll figure something out though.
* house stuff. Finish up the media room. One of the housemates has bought a condo, so we will be losing her in March and missing her terribly (but enjoying her closet space). Perhaps replace the rotten south side of the house. Not cheap, but needs to be done.
* Three words: language integrated query. I've wanted to have a properly architected language tool like this since I first saw the wretched hack that was WATCOM SQL's query-embedding system back in 1991. To have an opportunity to help implement the language end is a dream come true.
* and most importantly, like I said above, I see 2006 as being a great year for really getting to know some wonderful people better. You all enrich my life tremendously. Thank you.