It’s January 7, 2007 and it’s finally snowing.  The last time we saw snow was before Thanksgiving.

I doubt we’ll see any real accumulation or that it’ll stick around, but hey.

IT’S SNOWING!

I started a new blog that’s focused on World of Warcraft: Confessions of a WoW Junkie

Dan tagged me.

Five things you didn’t know about me.  Well, considering there are a whole 10 of you out there that read my blog (and most of you actually know me outside of this blog) this is gonna be tough.

1. I have an Associate degree in Law Enforcement and am about 8 classes shy of my BS in Criminal Justice.  I’ve taken maybe 5 computer-related classes in college.  Maybe one day I’ll go back and finish.

2. A career in software development was NOT option 1.  Hell, it wasn’t even option #2.  After I was unable to join the military (medically DQ’d), I figured being a cop would do it for me.  Not even close.  As I was attending college to receive my degree / state law enforcement certification, I started programming.  After working as a local reserve officer for awhile, I decided I’d rather write code.  It’s safer and the money is MUCH better.

3. I’ve known my wife since kindergarten.  We didn’t start dating until our Junior year in high school though.

4. To steal one from Jason Follas — I can’t swim and had a bad experience when I was younger, but unlike Jason I don’t really have any desire to learn either.  My wife and kids can swim though, so I figure it’s all good.

5. I’m 34 and have never flown.  I haven’t had a compelling reason to step foot on a plane and fly anywhere.  To be honest, it scares the bejeezus out of me.

Now I’m supposed to tag 5 others.  After looking through all the blogs I read, I think everyone has been tagged, so it looks like my part in propogating this meme has ended.

After a relatively rough 2006, I’m looking forward to 2007.

If you’ll recall, my resolution for 2006 was to be happier.  To that end, I left a pretty decent W2 position to regain my independance.  While I’ve been able to maintain that independance, it has come at a cost.

When I left the W2 position, I had a really nice sub-contracting gig which was supposed to be multi-year.  Unfortunately, not too long after I started, the client had a change in management who wanted fewer contractors working on the project.  Since I was the “newest” sub-contractor on the project, my work dwindled down to nothing pretty quickly.

The tough part of the whole thing is that the sub-contracting gig ended at the end of August.  Anyone that’s been in this business knows that things really start to slow down in the final few months of the year (Sept-Dec).  I did manage to pick up a couple of short-term contracts in October / November.

So, I am defintely ready for 2007!

My resolution from last year will continue into this year – be happy. 
I’m also going to add two things:
- be busy (this means new clients and new projects – BTW, did I mention I’m available?)
- and this

BTW, I will mention that there were some high points in 2006:

• Celebrated 9 years of marriage
• Our daughter started kindergarten
• Our son started pre-school
• I attended the Dayton-Cinci Code Camp and can’t wait to go this year!
• I attended The Day of .NET in Ann Arbor (and met Jason Follas and Dan Hounshell)
• Spent some time in Maryland again
• Got my character in World of Warcraft to level 60.