The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you're gonna hear about it!

I guess I'm a few days late for Fetivus ("It's a Festivus Miracle!") but given the theme of my writings on this site I had to include the Seinfeld reference. I really don't have a lot of problems with you people (despite my trouble with keeping in touch with everyone, but that's mostly my fault...)

I know the email and website thing is a little impersonal. But 2003 was a big year for me: I realized I made it through the entire year without using a stamp, not one! So as much as I know everyone enjoys getting a real letter in the mail, I didn't want to ruin my streak so late in the year. Plus writing something online makes it really easy to link to pictures or longer descriptions of the events I'm talking about.

Overall I'm still doing really well. I continue to work for Microsoft, but at the start of the year I switched from my old job in Driver Quality to my new job working on Visio. We shipped Visio 2003 over the summer which was a great experience since it was the first time I was working closely with a large scale software product trying to get it to market. The whole process went shockingly well and our user's are responding positively. With that one out the door we're hard at work on making the next version of Visio and Office which will ship in a few years.

Outside of work I've had a couple of fun developments. The first big one is I became a whitewater raft guide! I've always loved rivers and have really enjoyed rafting every time I go. In summer 2002 I went out on a trip and got to talking with the guide. He said that he and most of the other guides have regular jobs and just guide part time on the weekends, mostly for fun. This sounded great to me since it would give me a reason to get out on the river a lot over the summer. So I looked into guide training programs and went through one last spring. Then I spent a bunch of weekends out on the river. Guiding is great, I get to meet interesting people, get exercise and sun, and perhaps most importantly be in charge of the boat. :)

I have some pictures posted of one of my poorer days. You can get a quick description of the day and see the pictures here. And if you ever find yourself in Washington and wanting to go rafting let me know, it's good clean fun for all ages.

Then the other big event of the year came in October. The Women's World Cup was played in the United States this year (for those not in the know the World Cup is the premier world soccer championship, played once every four years.) Portland was one of the sites for matches and the whole tournement was looking for volunteers. I signed up and got one of the coolest jobs ever. I took a week off work and spent it in Portland being the local laison for the German National team. My job was to help them find whatever they needed in Portland. This meant I hung out at the hotel, went to practices, helped them get to and from games, directed people to the closest mall, all kinds of stuff.

This was an amazing experince for me. The German's were wonderful and really accepted me as part of their team. I made some good friends and will be a fan of the team for years to come. The German's went on to win the world cup and I went down to LA to watch that game and celebrate with them. It was very cool to be talking with people at a party who all had gold medals around their necks.

The other neat thing about being with the team is just seeing world class athletes at work. I sort of expected that when they weren't practicing or playing they would want to see the town a bit. But no, during their free time (and they had a lot of it) they mostly just sat around and mentally prepared for their games. Their job was to play soccer, and nothing distracted them from that. Their focus was impressive, and ultimately paid off with a world championship.

You can see my comments from the time here. You're looking for the 10/6, 10/12, and 10/13 entries.

Those are the big events in my life this year. Hopefully 2004 will be just as eventful and interesting. I'd love to hear from each of you, so feel free to write or call any time. Until then, have a wonderful holiday and a great start to the new year.