Everyone else seems to be doing these big end-of-year posts, summarizing their years, their learning, achievements, setbacks, joys, and sorrows. I’m not sure when it happened, but I’ve largely lost the patience to go on and on about my life (I guess Twitter kind of takes care of that for me any more), so I’ll keep this short (if not sweet).

2008 was a year. We had a miserable few months of illness and sleeplessness, followed by a good long stretch of absolute, utter joy with our daughter, Claire. I read less than I like to, but greatly enjoyed what I did. I wrote far less code for myself than I like to, but I was able to instigate a quantum leap in the level of Javascript written at work, as well as contributing a number of fixes back to the Dojo framework. I played an awful, awful lot of Rock Band. I enjoyed PyCon and Velocity, in spite of their flaws, and I wish that work and family allowed me more time to contribute to the community. I continued to grow as a photographer, though I was frustrated by several months of inaction and lack of inspiration from which I’m still trying to play catch-up. And in these rocky economic times, I’m happy to remain in my position at American Greetings.

I’m overwhelmingly proud of my wife’s accomplishments, both academic and parental. I’m ridiculously happy to be my daughter’s father–the role of Daddy suits me just fine; she amazes me daily and has truly transformed my emotional well-being.

I am immensely grateful for my friends, for my family, and my good fortune. I hope for a better, more peaceful future in 2009, that we may all heal the hurts of these mad days and enjoy the fruits of the life we’re given.

To all who may read this, here’s a quick little toast to the passing of the old year and the dawning of the new. Cheers!