I really love my life. I realized this, maybe for the first time, last weekend. I was huddled in a sleeping bag on the side of a mountain in Southwestern New Brunswick. The fog was rolling in off of the bay of Fundy, it was well below zero, and I had my head buried inside the down jacket I had wrapped around my head. It was pitch dark, the tent was rustling in the wind, and I remember smiling to myself. My buddy Mike walked by at that point and I yelled out to him, “Hey Mike, I love my life.” He laughed.

I’m pretty glad that I’ve reached this milestone. I’ve become pretty adept at seeing distractions, side tracks, detours, things that might detract from whatever it is that I’m trying to build. I carve away and pick at my life, removing stuff that gets in the way of being happy. Maybe this makes me selfish. Perhaps there is a certain amount of detour required. Detours can make life interesting. They make for frustrating driving, but often times getting lost is the best part of travel. Am I am in danger of having some sort of supermodel life? Pretty to look at, desirable, but ultimately without substance? Michelangelo once said that “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” That’s pretty cool.

I just have to be mindful of not carving off too much. Can you put back bits that you decide that you want? Can you re-attach bits of stone to the Statue of David? Did they have Krazy glue in the 16th century?

Another year in the books. I don’t usually look back because looking back implies a wish to return there, to dwell on the past. Well, maybe that isn’t true. It’s probably useful to look back and see where things went right, where they went wrong, what can be improved. Etcetera.

2011 was a pretty good year. Travelled to San Francisco with a friend, hiked in the Sierra Madre mountains, went to Europe again, started a new job that has so far been awesome, and spent months in the Middle East. Wrote a short story. Did some volunteer work with a cat rescue organization. It might be hard to top 2011, but I’m gonna try. Do more. Bike more, travel more, read more, write more. Improve my photography. Discover some new bands, maybe. Obviously, I also need to work on personal relationships. Friends, what not. I think I still spent too much time alone. Now that I am working from home I do need to continue to make sure that I leave time for other activities. I’m really good at keeping myself busy, and I often just forget.

I always do a “top ten” post for my music listening habits. 2011 was a surprise. For the first time in a while, Iron Maiden’s “Wasted Years” was not at the top. Not even top ten! Instead, we have:

1. Inis Mona, by Eluveitie
2. K.I.N.G., by Satyricon
3. An Honest Mistake, from The Bravery
4. Friends of the Suncross, Amon Amarth
5. Dead End, Johnossi
6. Tenderoni, from Kele
7. Falling Snow, by Agalloch
8. Head Up High, Firewind
9. Darker Days, Woods of Desolation
10. Barricade, Interpol

What’s cool about this is that there are bands on there that aren’t death metal, or even metal at all. Yeah, there are some pretty dark bands on there (I’m looking at you, Satyricon), but still. Kele? Cool. Not surprised that Agalloch is there — I must have had “The Mantle” album on repeat the whole time I was in Egypt. And there are some bands that I’ve recently discovered that will probably push some of those off for 2012.

Anyway, this post turned out a bit lame so I am going to end it. Generally, happy with the way life is moving. I suppose that is what is important. You don’t want to re-invent the wheel. Just add more of them to the ride you’re in.

Two weeks until Christmas. While I have no official plans this season, I am looking forward to a bit of down time. The last month has been pretty crazy with the job switch and getting back into the routine after two months on the road. I have a stack of books to get through, some work to do, and (hopefully) some time spent watching movies, hiking, and maybe a bit of camping. I was supposed to be camping this weekend but I made the dumb mistake of breaking in new boots a few days before I was supposed to go, and my feet have paid dearly for that. I look agonizingly at the boots each time I go into the living room, and know that I have future dates with pain before they are comfortable enough to wear on a multi-day hike.

The new job continues to go well. I enjoy the work, even when I don’t enjoy it. I’ve found myself spending time hunting for obscurities in the massive code base, which can be frustrating, but then becoming absolutely elated when I find what I want, fix what I had to fix, and commit code. The roller coaster is addictive.

I continue to push through a few of Connie Willis’ offerings. I’ve finished Blackout, and I am now almost through All Clear, which is the second in the duology. I am not sure if I like her yet. She seems to spend an inordinate amount of time rehashing things that have already been discussed, throwing in more examples of facts already known, and I am not sure why. It makes the book longer. Get to the point.

Speaking of writing, my short story “Lock Step” is now finished. I’ve had someone read it and I am pleased that the trusted opinion I sought seems positive. Short stories are a lot of fun to write but they can be challenging due to the word length restrictions. I am not sure what I will do next.

Anyway. I have stuff to do this fine day, and so I leave with my parting track. After almost 15 years, I pulled out a really old CD the other day and realized that I should have not put it away. Here’s Down to the Wire, by Fates Warning. Old school prog rock. Enjoy.

I hold on clutching to the hope that I’ll be strong
When it comes down to the wire
I’ll hold on to with every ounce of strength within me
When it comes down to the wire

… is now stuck in your head.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist, that was too easy. But yes, I am entering the last week of work with the University of New Brunswick. Three more days. What will be said has been said, things that had to happen have now happened, and I’m ready for the change now. Since coming back from the Middle East I’ve drifted from periods of quiet contemplation and thoughts of “it will be fine”, to bouts of abject terror. The last few days have been pretty good, I’ve made contributions again, and I think that was the biggest hurdle when I came back. There were times when I had forgotten what it is that I do. I’m a software developer and it is time to develop, really develop. To write code.

It’s not starting over. It’s not a big deal. It’ll be fine. God damn right.

A funny track for this post, then. I watched Restrepo yesterday, a movie by the late Tim Heatherington (the film director who was killed in Libya earlier this year). This is a scene where the soldiers at the Restrepo outpost dance to a mix of Samantha Fox’s “Touch Me”, by the German techno artist Gunter. I laugh every time.

Well, days one and two are now passed. In the last 48 hours I’ve flown across an ocean and wandered through a really big little city. It’s big, and yet really compact. The U- and S-Bahn transit system is great. I picked up a 5 day transit card for 30€, which gives me unlimited mobility on the local network. After getting into the hotel this morning, which turned out to be fantastically located — about a 2 minute walk from Checkpoint Charlie and a 15 minute walk from Brandeburger Tor and the Reichstag, I wandered around the town, had a couple of good coffees, some decent Thai food, and took a stack of photos.

I managed to also visit the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, a free memorial/museum site near Mitte. Visiting that made me think back to my visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau when I was in Poland a few years ago, and having the extra information from the German perspective was both heartbreaking and eye opening. I have photos, and will go through and post them at some point.

Tomorrow I want to get into the Reichstag and perhaps get down to Potsdam. Potsdam is a solid day to do right, though, so that may get its own day.

Still no word on anyone else from the conference. I know a few folks are in town. But where are they? Picked up a cell phone on a local carrier here for 20€, which gives me enough text and talk coverage to do stuff here.

Also — Not especially because I dislike Air Canada (I don’t!), I think from now on my flights to Europe are going to be Lufthansa, exclusively. The service from them each time I’ve flown has been incredibly good.

Sometimes, making a choice between a concrete good thing and a potentially better thing is hard. Life is full of little idioms and cliches about choosing the concrete over the possible, going with the certainty of the ‘pretty good’ instead of the possibility of the ‘awesome’. One of my favourite quotes from General Patton is such a quote. To paraphrase, he said that a good plan, executed immediately is always better than an excellent plan executed some time later on. For the most part, I completely agree.

Except that yesterday I did the opposite. I had a job offer. It was mine, all I needed to do was commit and my ‘Fredericton experiment’ would have been over. I had an out. It’s been something I’ve been seeking out for years now. But it meant moving to Toronto.

Excellent company. Good bunch of people, doing something I would have really been into. Except, what happens when you’re not at work? Toronto is one of those places where a person would have a hard time being bored, especially if they enjoyed dense urban living, and the social scene that accompanies it. And I realized that those things are not important to me, and I’d rather be in a place where I had an out. Parks. Greenery. A lower cost of living. Not being tethered to an office chair. Maybe working remotely from several different places, like I used to. Those were really good times, and I was obviously productive during them. The logistics were probably not going to work either. I’m not sure how quickly I would have been able to get up there. While I don’t have family in Fredericton, I have family close to Fredericton, and TO would have put me farther away, in some ways.

And so, here we are. I do wish things work out with this company, maybe in some other way, perhaps. Much respect for them.

Anyway, what else. Lots of reading these days. My goal of digging through several books on software design patterns was derailed by a moment of weakness when I discovered a stack of classic sci-fi novels on sale at a local book shop, and so now my queue is full again, but with fiction rather than fact. Finished reading ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ again, which never ceases to amuse me. Heinlein managed to get away with a lot when he wrote that book. Some of the things that Jubal says are shocking. Also finished reading ‘A Cambodian Prison Portrait, One year in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21′, by Vann Nath. Nath was one of only seven inmates to emerge alive from S-21, the infamous prison where Deuch (Kaing Guek Eav) had almost 14 thousand Cambodians killed. The work is a translation of Nath’s stories, and minces no words. It is published by White Lotus press and is worth a read.

The track for this post is about the uncertainty of journey. I’m looking back to one of my favourite Finnish metal bands, Insomnium, with In the Groves of Death.

At the dawn of a quiet day
I strolled from the woods, returned to the hearth
And with a restful mind I roamed
The dreary shores, the darkling wilds
Greeting all the days that befall
Taking life as it comes