A Happy New Year to friends, family and all the readers of my weblog.

Looking Back - 2009

After a difficult start to the year as a result of the lingering financial crisis, 2009 has been a year of moderate recovery.  While many who are retired or close to retirement age are still concerned about their pensions, the situation has improved for most people, as we slowly crawl out of recession.

For me 2009 was another good year.  My employer, DNN Corp grew in leaps and bounds, from 6 employees at the end of 2008 to about 30 employees (or contractors) at the end of December.  At the end of 2008 we obtained Series “A” investment capital, and our investors August Capital and Sierra Ventures must be quite pleased with our success last year - in a difficult climate for startup companies - as we achieved all of our business targets for the year.

On January 1st 2009, I received notice that I was being renewed as a Microsoft ASP.Net MVP (my third year) and in Spring of 2009 I attended my 3rd MVP summit in Seattle, where I was able to network with all my peers.  While these summits are important for Microsoft to get feedback from the MVPs, for me the networking opportunities are the real reward.

In June, Andrew our son graduated from Simon Fraser University (right), and as proud parents we attended a wonderful ceremony on Burnaby Mountain.  In October he moved to Seattle to start his career at Microsoft as an SDE (Software Development Engineer) in the ASP.NET team.  It is strange not having him around at home, but it is time for him to establish his own life.

During the summer our daughter Jen worked for DNN Corp at our Abbotsford Engineering office as an intern – its great when the kids both follow in your footsteps. :)

In August we all went to England to visit my parents and sister.  While we were there we spent a week on the continent (3 days in Paris and 3 days in Amsterdam).

With the financial stability that the investment brought to DNN Corp, we decided to get a new car – actually we are leasing – when the lease on our 2005 Honda Accord matured in March.  After much fun test driving cars we decided on the Lexus IS 250 (see below).

Looking Forward – 2010

This morning I received an email from Microsoft with a renewal of my MVP for 2010 – that’s four years now.  I feel tremendously honoured to be an MVP. Now I can start to plan seriously for the annual summit in February.

In February the Olympics will be in Vancouver.  It is a great honour for our city but its going to be crazy for those two weeks.

I didn’t blog as much as I would have liked in 2009, so one of my New Year’s resolutions is to increase my blogging frequency – especially in DotNetNuke related blogs.  DotNetNuke has been great for my career, and I need to give back my experience and knowledge to the community.  So the plan is to blog once a week at least.

I also made a resolution to speak at conferences and user groups more this year.  So in January I will be speaking at the Seattle DotNetNuke User Group on Module Development and in March I will be speaking at the .NET BC User Group about Windows Azure development.  And of course I hope to be able to attend the two Open Force conferences in Holland and Vegas in the fall.

We haven’t made any travel plans yet for 2010, but I expect we will spend a week or two in Atlantic Canada and/or New England in June.  My wife Eileen was elected as a delegate to the 2010 Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod being held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in early June so it makes sense to take advantage of that to spend some vacation time in that part of the world. 

I have visited all the provinces from Quebec west (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and of course my home province British Columbia), but I have not visited any of the Atlantic provinces, so I am hoping to at least visit New Brunswick and PEI in addition to Nova Scotia this June – any DotNetNuke User Group in that area want me to speak??

To conclude, I wish everybody a Happy New Year.  If 2009 was bad for you, I hope 2010 will be better.  If 2009 was good for you, I hope 2009 will continue that trend.

It is dinner time on New Years Eve, here on the Wet Coast.  Most of the world is already celebrating the New Year, but as in many things we are a bit late here in North America.

Looking Back

2008 has been a challenging year for many people as the financial crisis struck.  Many retired people or people approaching retirement took a big hit in their income as their savings were decimated.  Thankfully, I still have a few years to go, for my retirement savings to recover.

For me 2008 was quite a good year.  In January, my Microsoft MVP award was renewed for a 2nd year, and a month later I was nominated to the prestigious ASPInsiders group.  Both of these “groups” held summits in Seattle and I met a lot of other ASP.NET developers who I respect. 

In June, my wife Eileen and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary by travelling to Italy for 17 days.  I have blogged about this in some depth.

The fall was full of speaking engagements.  It began with Open Force Europe in the Netherlands in early October, followed by a trip to England to visit family.  In November I spoke at the .NET BC User Group meeting at BCIT and at Open Force North America/DevConnections in Las Vegas.

Finally, in late November, DotNetNuke Corporation received Series A Venture Financing which hopefully will allow us to grow, both the company and the community.

Looking Forward – 2009

2009 starts tomorrow.  For me, January 1st sees me start a new job as I become a salaried employee of DotNetNuke Corporation (I had previously been working on a personal services contract).  We have already hired a few new developers that will also be starting early in the new year, and in February or March we should be able to open an office, somewhere in the Fraser Valley, just east of Vancouver. 

It will feel strange to go back to commuting to work again – I have worked from home since 1995 – but I am looking forward to working closely with a team of excellent programmers as we grow DotNetNuke.

We don’t have any travel plans (yet) this year, although I expect I will be at one or both Open Force conferences.  I would really like to travel to Australia (hint, hint).

To conclude, I wish everybody a Happy New Year.  If 2008 was bad for you, I hope 2009 will be better.  If 2008 was good for you, I hope 2009 will continue that trend.