In the same vein as what other family members of mine do (family can check our Mark’s here: 2012 Christmas Letter), I would like to write a Christmas letter for those in my life as a way to both distill down what happened to me this year, and give some insight on the things I consider to be personal successes.

Starting in January, I took a trip to Cuba with my roommate. We went to Varadero, and I had a great time. It was my first time going there, and it was super inexpensive. I took many great photos and met some amazing people. While I haven’t really stayed in touch with any of them, they left an indelible mark on my life.

Soon after coming back, I found out that my job with Charity Marketing Group was going to end. Thankfully, the folks at rocketgenius decided to hire me, and my transition was super smooth. I’m grateful to them, as they are primarily a company filled with developers, and while I can do some coding, I’m not all that great at it. I had been a fan of their since before the product launched, and I have been doing a great deal of support, and a little social media marketing for them. I hope in the coming year to do much more marketing and content development for their product, Gravity Forms.

During the summer, I helped some friends with a web series they were working on called Scream All You Want. While it isn’t out yet, I am happy to have had the experience working with them on it. I will even probably appear in some short sequences, not that most people will recognize me, as I have a heavy beard going on, and I’m always wearing a hoodie. I’ll be posting about it on my blog once the series comes out.

Also in the summer, I attended three different conferences relating to geek culture: one in Ottawa, one in Toronto and one in Montreal. During my experience in Toronto, I attended a speed dating session where I met my girlfriend Annie. We have been together for a few months now, and I’m planning on spending some time with her during the holidays. Unfortunately, she lives a few hours away, so I don’t get to see her as much as I would like. I have been fortunate enough to meet all of her family and they all seem to like me well enough, but she hasn’t had a chance to come down and be introduced to all of mine. She works as an educational assistant at a school, and, as such, doesn’t have as much flexibility as I have for traveling.

During the summer, I also kicked up my photography to the next level, doing some photo shoots, and taking some serious time to buy higher tier equipment and whatnot. I got some great shots, but my love of photography quickly dried up. The heavy gear, and the pre-planning really weren’t my style, and I’ve since sold off most of my gear, and I’m using a smaller camera now.

Continuing on into the fall, before I had even met Annie, I had started rolling an idea around in my mind: being a digital nomad. When I was last working remotely, I didn’t really take advantage of the fact that I could work from anywhere, and so this time, I decided to push myself to do just that. I gave my notice and moved my stuff into storage. I currently don’t have a home of my own. For the holidays, I’m staying in Kingston and visiting with family. After all this is over, I’m not sure what I’m doing just yet.

What else did I do this year that I’m proud of? Well, I read over a dozen novels thanks to some poking and prodding from one of my best friends, Tom and my girlfriend, Annie. In 2011, I didn’t even finish a single one, and probably only read one or two over the last five years. I also ballooned up to the heaviest I have ever been, and decided that it was at the point of being ridiculous. Working hard, I was able to drop thirty pounds. While I have another thirty to go before I’m at my own goal size, I am still happy that I’ve made some progress in the right direction.

The last thing I’ll mention is that I wrote over one hundred blog posts on this blog during 2012. I hope to do the same or better in 2013. So I hope you’ll all continue reading, and commenting as I do so. I appreciate that you all take the time. I want to especially point out Tom, my Mom, Andrea, Stephanie, and Barry as the top commenters on this site. It means so much to me.