2010 Highlights

2010 was a year packed with many things… random highlights that come to mind include:

  • London Calling & Green Park: After years of enjoying and visiting London, I got a business visa and a flat with Maria and spent about 5 months here working, meeting with clients, traveling to other places in Europe, etc. My flat is just a few blocks from Buckingham Palace and is surrounded by history. The winters are terrible though. This change had several consequences, including…
  • switching from US Airways to British Airways as my primary airline. I now have preferred status on both. It also helps that SitePen won an amazing business opportunity grant from BA. After years of poor experiences with BA, I learned first-hand what a great airline BA can actually be.
  • I found myself not getting out enough in the tech scene, and with no perfect JavaScript or Ajax group, I started the London Ajax User Group with Piotr Zalewa (of MooTools and JSFiddle). The group is up to nearly 300 members, has had 9 events to date, including a one-day conference.
  • We also hosted a Dojo Mobile Summit in London which was good from a proximity perspective with many of the Dojo Foundation’s mobile projects being based on this side of the pond. Besides progress on mobile efforts, the result is also a Dojo Foundation Mobile Roadmap.
  • SitePen hosted a Dojo Workshop in London, with attendees from Germany, Norway, and all over England.
  • I had more people visit me in one year in London than in 3+ years in Arizona, with house guests from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa! London truly is the center of the world. It was great to see a lot of friends and show them the sights. It also encouraged me to take time and be a tourist.
  • I was in London for the start of the World Cup, with the USA tying England much to the disappointment of all of London, especially on the queen’s birthday. And I was around to see Spain win its first ever championship, including crazy celebrations at Piccadilly Circus. Update: And I got to catch a match at Wembley Stadium with Robin Bowes, with York City taking on Oxford. Robin was interviewed by his local news after York’s disappointing loss.
  • I had the great opportunity to be on the first episode of JSConf Live. Thanks Rey and Chris!
  • Maverick (my dog) moved to Nevada to live with my parents, and he’s very happy to have a new playmate, Buster

2010 was also a year of significant give and take:

  • I’m a proud uncle for the first time, with my sister and her husband having an adorable new niece Alanna,
  • but I’m saddened with the loss of my amazing Grandpa Otto, who passed away right before Thanksgiving.
  • My Arizona home was robbed, but almost everything was recovered because the thieves were busted for smoking pot, stole a suitcase, and left my tags on it.
  • I lost an external hard drive on a BA flight, but it was found and since recovered.
  • Maria’s uncle had brought her a carrier unlocked Nokia white smart phone from Spain, but it was stolen from his luggage. A few weeks later I was at a charity auction/party where I met many great people, I bought £5 worth of raffle tickets and won the same phone model back, but in black. Thanks for the invite Hermione and Kristy (who also went to high school in Sparks, Nevada… small world)!

I’ve been advised to buy a lottery ticket, lose it, and then those numbers will win, and then I’ll find the tickets.

I did a significant amount of traveling again, some for work, some for play, including:

  • Five weeks in Thailand and Cambodia, including elephants, temples, near daily massages, first attempts at yoga, and so very much more. Flat Stanley also came along providing great stories for my cousin Katie.
  • Oslo to help lead an HTML5 CodeCamp at a great spa, and talk with KLP about Dojo.
  • Rennes and Paris, France, for amazing crepes and to meet with great teams at Orange Labs.
  • Stockholm for SWDC 2010 where I finally met Daniel Glazman after 10 years of knowing him online, and got to celebrate Nikolai’s birthday.
  • Copenhagen to visit Mark Wubben and have a Dojo Beer event
  • Brussels for FOSDEM where I gave a talk on Dojo and spent time with Nikolai from Uxebu and two of the guys from Facebook’s open source team
  • Munich for Dojo Connect. I guess it somewhat defeats the purpose of an online conference, but it was a great excuse to stay with Tobias and Sonja
  • San Francisco and the bay area several times, most recently for the Dojo Developer Day at Palm (thanks Ben and Dion) and got to meet a very generous group from RIM/Blackberry. I also had the chance to visit with Michael Carter (Hookbox), Atif of Kupoz, my Mom & Dad, and so many more.
  • New York a few times for various meetings and fun
  • Amsterdam with the great people from Uniface and Hermione Way of Newspepper and The Next Web for iCU 2010 and Bad Ass Squares 3. Uniface was also nice enough to invite me to speak at their UK user group event.
  • And while I was away, az-javascript was started and I gave a talk on Dojo at one of their events.

Finally so much of what’s listed above would not have been possible without the hard work and success we’ve had with Dojo Toolkit, Dojo Foundation, Persevere, and SitePen, and I’m extremely grateful to get the opportunity to work with extraordinary people every day. Thanks to everyone for being part of my 2010!

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