interesting and sometimes terrifying

in 45 minutes 2012 will be history.. and I’m searching my mind for a way to sum up the year. .. its funny.. i was incredibly busy, but I can’t figure out how to characterize the year. My family is doing well/… life is good. Max is making it in NYC as a technical artist/videographer and lives a rich and interesting life, gabe is doing great in school and sports and diane is wonderful as always. Its another year without sam which is always hard… though I’m proud that we’re all out in the world with fun and love in our lives. Work wise.. I started a a new job in a new field in a new organization after doing more or less the same thing for 30 years.. I spent the year learning new stuff, new people, new politics. and managed to survive. Actually.. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.. thought its taking me far longer to learn these new tricks than I’d anticipated.. I guess I’m an old dog. One thing I have done with work is double down on the senior statesman part of my job.. This year took me to more customers, and more ibm sites than I’ve every visited in a year.. Believe it or not, I’ve been in 17 countries this year and given talks to 10’s of thousands of folks.. Some of them were technical talks.. but many were on other topics close to my heart like the importance of play, and how it feeds innovation.

It was an eventful time for the world.. an election, crazy weather, tragedies, triumphs.the same sort of blend that makes life wonderful, interesting and terrifying…

i guess I’d have to sum up the year as that… wonderful, interesting and sometimes terrifying.. I wouldn’t have it any other way…

today was a a great end to the year.. we got in from new york last night after a great visit to max and jac…onn the boat

I woke late still running a little fever , but not so sick that I could stray inside on such a pretty day.. Diane and the dogs and I did our first snowshoe of the winter… there was at least 2 feet of powder out in honey hollow as we trecked through the quiet woods.. it reminds me how lucky we are to live here

we spent the rest of the day getting the house ready for a ton of kids … there must be 60 or 70 of them here now…

My contribution was a small burning man to usher out the year. Gabe and I ignited him with a drop of water on a mix of Ammonium Nitrate, Zinc dust, and iodine.. on a bed of zinc and sulfer… very cool…