What a year!
The highlight to the beginning of the year was the best Lotusphere I ever had out five trips to Orlando. All of the moons aligned for that conference. Can 2008 top that conference? It will be hard to do. My wife and sister-in-law made the trip with me and we did the backstage tour of Magic Kingdom. They had an absolute ball at Disney World with small crowds and no one to hold them up. I totally enjoyed the company of my fellow Lotusphere buds and we had a ball at the parties and sessions. I got some great content I was able to use during the year at work. I was pleasantly surprised at how great the Robert Cray band was. I always wanted to see a show at the House of Blues and they delivered. My admin from work joined me there and we also made a point to take in some shows back home. Seems we have similar music interests. We took in RatDog and Gov't Mule/Little Feat during the year. My oldest son, who plays guitar, joined us for Gov't Mule. I thought he'd enjoy seeing a real guitar hero in Warren Haynes. He did!
Spring time brings Little League baseball. My team last year went 3-3 and then did not lose a game the rest of the year. This included a very exciting championship game that we won on the last play. 2007 opened with my totally new team winning it's first 8 games. We stayed in first and second place the whole year as one team went undefeated. We had two tough loses to that team. We were actually ahead of them in the first game after scoring 8 runs to take the lead only to get rained out. By rule, the inning didn't count and we lost. In the playoff game, my son hit an in the park home run to give us a 4-3 lead. They came back and went ahead 5-4. Again, my son got on base in the last inning with my best two hitters up with one out. They both grounded out and we lost. I've coached for over 10 years with my kids and the last two have been the very best. I've had great kids and supportive parents. Hope 2008 will bring more fun in our last Little League year.
In July, I had a very moving, uplifting and spiritual event. I joined my church youth, including my oldest son, on a trip to Niagara Falls, NY for a workcamp. It was great to get to know the youth of my church. I found the entire experience to be extremely rewarding. I had a great crew and I was so glad we finished our project for our neighbor. She was very happy and it felt good to give back a little.
My daughter and young son went on a trip with our Puppettude gang to Chicago for a national conference on puppetry. I'm very proud of their work in this ministry. In December, we visited 6 nursing homes and the local soup kitchen to do a Christmas show. The show brings great joy to the residents. It's such a unique thing and the kids do a great job. My daughter is very talented and has won first place in a regional competition. She also did well in the national competition for being one of the youngest competitors.
In June, we took a vacation to Wildwood, NJ. It was great to return after missing the trip last year. Many highlights to the trip. We took two cars and six kids on the trip. My parents and sister were there too. It was the first time for my parents and it was cool to see them enjoying themselves. They plan to return this coming year. The kids behaved great and a good time was had by all.
I had a really good year at work. Early in the year, we brought on some help for me. It's given me some breathing room to explore some other things. I did a brown bag session a couple times on 'Social Computing'. It was challenging to do some presenting in front of my peers. I don't get the chance too much and hope to do more next year. I received a 'Special Achievement Award' for one of my projects. It was nice to get the recognition from my business partner. Using some knowledge from Lotusphere, I built a new Domino application combining workflow and CSS techniques. A nice project combining MS Word integration and Oracle integration was well appreciated by the business. This will save the business a ton of time in creating and storing some required documents. From the 'Thank You' card program, I won three times. It was a really good year!
How can I forget about two trips to see the Yanks? First was a surprise by a neighbor who called me the day before. We took our sons and they had a great time seeing a winning game. Second, Chris contacted me and I was able to get tickets for a Yanks/Red Sox game. We won again! This all lead to my son teaching my wife about baseball and she's taken an interest in the Yankees. She even watches classic games on the YES channel. Looking forward to enjoying next season with them.
Also, I was voted on to our Church council. It's an honor and it's been fun working with some great people
My wife and I finish the year by losing 10 lbs. The holiday's have been tough but now the goal is to lose some more weight before our trip to Lotusphere 2008.
We are blessed with a talented and healthy family! I thank God every day.
Here's to a great 2007 and looking forward to a great 2008!

# posted by Curt @ 6:30 AM