My year 2005 in review

Work this year had its high and low points. After completing a very successful project at the end of 2004, and successfully selling it to our customers, life settled down to more mundane things, such as model development. And although the model development resulted in a very competent, simple to use, yet sophisticated model, not everyone appreciates the amount of work that went into making it so simple to use.

My daughter had a wonderful year of ballet, and she was the most popular student at the end-of-year ballet concert. As she received her second certificate of the evening, she held it up for the audience to see. They all cheered her on, so she held it up again. And to an even louder cheer, she walked back to her seat. And by the way, my daughter is still three years old.

We bought a house this year, even smaller than the place we were renting (again). Our last two moves have been to smaller places, and every time we had to part with precious pieces of furniture. If you purchased a nice piece of furniture from the Salvation Army this year, who knows, maybe it once belonged to us.

At the end of 2004 I took up music again, after 11 years of drought. And that has been great fun. I still have not performed live on stage, but even that has worked out well. The year has been quite busy at work, and many weekends I just wanted to do nothing. And after playing with my daughter, there was precious little energy left to do anything else.

It has also now been 15 months since I last exercised. I did purchase a bicycle a few months ago, but seldomly use it.

I wanted to exercise yesterday (Christmas day), but had no takers. Some idiots were playing cricket in a park, with a proper cricket ball. And there were many people sitting in close proximity, and enjoying the sunshine. So the ball came toward our group once. And then a second time. And that was where I lost my temper. Such irresponsibility. No thought or consideration of the safety of others. With the ball in my hand, and ready to indulge in fisticuffs, the person collecting the ball soon lost his sense of humour, and the cricket game did not last for too long after that. And all this in front of our friends. Must have been quite a shock to them to see me behave like a hooligan. But if somebody does not stand up, someone innocent (like my daughter) may get hurt by a stray cricket ball. But why does it always have to be me?

And this makes me think about what 2006 as a year will hold in store for us as a family. We will hopefully become Australian citizens, I will hopefully get on stage, my current large project at work will most likely make or break my career, and I will hopefully travel a bit less.

There are so many more things I want to write, but some things are better left unsaid...