The new year is upon us...

This has been a heck of a year for me.

In late 2004 I started a new job, but essentially didn't gain traction until early 2005 (as you might expect, it was kind of slow from December 13 to the end of the year). The new job marks a departure for me in some respects. Prior technology jobs I focused most of my effort in the technology direction.

This time I spent my efforts in a more complicated, but wiser direction; I decided that communicating what I was doing was more important than the solution at hand. Which, if you've ever done enterprise-class work, you would understand is often not as relevant upon your talents as might be expected. This is a hard fact to swallow -- technology people like to pride themselves upon their prowess.

I realized, somewhere in this time frame, that I had turned a corner. I'm not a geek anymore -- I'm a suit. Yes, dear fans, Paul Ferris still codes shell, c, Perl, expect and so on -- but that's not my primary focus. Value, return on investment and so on -- these terms come to mind (and mouth) more and more in my day to day work.

It was a hard fact to swallow.

2005 was a good year for me. I learned a lot about me. Some of it, if you've been reading, came as a result of my own quest to understand just what the heck makes me the creative guy, and just what has kept me somewhat sane (somewhat being the operative word here -- there's a fine line between creativity and insanity -- some might even argue that the line itself doesn't exist). I'm going to focus more energy in that direction in 2006.

We mark 6 years from the new millennium -- remember the Y2K scare? We're not supposed to have running electricity and working computers, remember? I still remember new years eve 1999, when it was all supposed to go down in a big, smoldering pile of ashes. Didn't happen. My wife called a friend right at the dawn of 2000, and said "Hey, the lights are on here!"

The friend replied something to the effect that one of the major newscasters had said that nothing was safe until March 2000. Yeah, paranoia will destroy ya...

I have a lot to be thankful for. I'm going to spend some time in reflection and try and be grateful for it all.

Thanks to all of the friends who made this moment happen. Thanks to the angels in my life (you know who you are). You were there at key moments to pull me back from the fire, and I'll never forget it.

Happy New Years everyone -- God Bless you all.
-=FeriCyde=-