Yea, so I haven't posted anything personal since July 1st.  What can I say but "Sorry, been busy"?  Both the personal and professional sides of my life have been bursting at the seams lately.  So let's catch up, shall we?

Personal

Most important – yes, Wayne and I are still together and going strong.  We haven't had a fight yet – sure, we get annoyed with each other from time to time, but that's life.  I have no significant complaints, and he doesn't have any either (that he's willing to admit to, anyway :).  It embarrasses him to no end when I say this but I still feel like a knight in shining armor rode up on his white steed and swept me away…

A fair amount of time (and money) has gone into our RV.  Mike had gotten it in the divorce, but he hasn't been working and couldn't afford it anymore, so now it's mine.  Wayne and I have gone on a few trips with the dogs and a good time has been had by all.  We've done a bit of traveling around Oregon, to the beach and the mountains, and we'll be taking it to Nevada to spend Christmas with his dad.

Wayne's 40th birthday was October 21st, and I made sure that was a Big Deal.  Originally all I had planned was a big party with all of our friends, but then fate intervened – the guy I do contract iPhone work for called us all to New York for a week of training and it happened to be Wayne's birthday week.  So we spent the week staying at Alex's place in Manhattan, three blocks from Central Park and one block from a subway station.  We had dinner on the 21st at an awesome restaurant , and then came back just in time for the original party, complete with limo ride.  I'm guessing he'll be remembering this birthday for a good long while! :)

Pet-wise, we still have the two dogs, and are now up to four cats.  Mike had found a new home for Angel;  she likes to pee in inappropriate places, which makes her somewhat unsuitable as a house pet.  We had hoped she would stop doing it if she was the only cat in the home but no, she continued until they finally gave her back, which meant she came straight back to me (don't ask).  She now lives in a decent-sized kitty cage in my office.  I don't like confining her like this, especially since she's getting *really* fat, but I don't know what else to do with her.  In the past the only option vets have had was to give her kitty Valium, which works but makes her groggy all the time.  At this point I'm not exactly sure I know which is worse, sleeping all day due to a medication, or due to being stuck in a cage with nothing to do…

Professional

Speaking of my office (how's that for a segue?), a few months ago I upgraded a bit.  I had been in the back bedroom since we moved here in 2005 and I decided it was time for a change.  So I got a new, much larger desk from Ikea and a super-duper powerful Mac Pro computer with dual monitors.  It's an awesome work space.  In order to fit all this, I moved my office up front, into the living room, which we never used for anything else.  It's a bit odd to walk in the front door and have my office be right there, but I've always been one to arrange things around how I use them more than how they look (though being able to accommodate both is nice when it works out).  

It's a bit odd at night, when I have the lights on and I know that everyone walking by can see me through the front windows, but I've learned to adjust.  The next challenge will be figuring out what to do with the Christmas tree;  it's usually in the front window, but that's not necessarily going to work this year.  Although having the tree there blinking colorfully in front of me could be very festive…. or it could drive me nuts, I'm not sure.

I won't get into too much work detail – I'd lose most of you.  The short summary is that I've lost a bunch of old clients this year, but have picked up new ones.  It remains to be seen if I will be able to completely replace what was lost, but we're doing fine at the moment.  Subject to change… the big difference is that my previous income came mostly from hosting websites, which is free money most of the time, punctuated by the occasional total panic requiring 24/7 effort until things are fixed.  My new work is mostly hourly, or fixed-price contract.  It's going to require me working a lot more hours to make the same amount of money in the new world order.  I can't say I like that, but it's not exactly unreasonable.  I've had kind of a free ride for a long time, and I always knew it would not last forever.

The main thing to know is that I'm now building iPhone applications, which is fun, though hard, work, and is about as cocktail-party buzzword compliant as you can get right now in this industry. :)  Right now I do all my work as a subcontractor for Codefab, run by my friend and colleague Alex Cone, but eventually I plan to pick up some clients of my own, and I also have a few ideas up my own sleeve that I would like to build and sell myself.  It's an exciting time to be a programmer who likes Apple products, that's for sure.

I think that's it for me – how are *you* all doing???