joestump.net

1. I started the year announcing that I’d taken a position at Digg.com as a software developer.
2. In January I found out that my nagging back injury was a herniated disc. I’ll be starting out this year by going under the knife to get it fixed. More on that to come I’m sure.
3. I finished all of my renovations on my condo in Seattle just in time to move down to San Francisco in February to start working at Digg.com.
4. In March Rebecca and I broke up. She’s now living in Antarctica (how crazy is that?!). Around the same time I turned 27.
5. In April I booked a plane ticket bound for Bangkok, Thailand. It would have been my first international trip of my life.
6. I also began a love affair with test driven development in April.
7. In May I attended Google Developer Day 2007 and blogged the whole thing.
8. I launched correlate.us in May.
9. In late June my first major project at Digg, the new comments system, launched to much fanfare. Note the sarcasm in my voice. We’re currently planning on redoing the comment system.
10. On June 18th I flew up to Seattle to help John and Carly celebrate their wedding. Due to Garren and I’s shenanigans from the night before it was a rough day for me, but I made it through and will soon join John and Garren in Vail for some snowboarding.
11. In early July I bet Kevin that I could write an iPhone version of Digg in less than 48 hours. Being the hater he is he said I couldn’t and said he’d buy me an 8GB iPhone if I could. I did. I wrote up a review like everyone else about the single greatest consumer electronics device created in the past decade.
12. Around this time my alma mater fired long time friend and beloved faculty member, Jim Vick, over the cover up of the murder of student Laura Dickinson.
13. In September my long time best friend, Dorkboy, was married in Ann Arbor, MI. I served as the Best Man, a title I still find unfitting. Considering it was me serving the post it should have been World’s Greatest Buddy or simply The Guy Who’ll Probably End Up Drinking Too Much Beer and Slurring His Speech. Much to Dorkboy and Mrs. Dorkboy’s relief I kept things together and delivered the world’s shortest and sweetest best man’s speech.
14. In October Kevin talked me into flying out to London, England for FOWA. I visited many of the normal sites along with a day trip up to Stone Henge.
15. In November I took a two week trip to Thailand. I spent four nights in Bangkok and seven nights in Koh Phangan. I had a great time and can’t recommend visiting that country enough.
16. In late December Garren and I took a trip up to Whistler for some fun in the snow. Whistler didn’t disappoint. I spent the last day in about 1 - 2 feet of powder on Blackcomb’s aptly named 7th Heaven.
17. I rang in New Year’s Eve with friends in Portland.

1. I started the year by telling everyone that Lauren and I were ending our marriage.
2. I visited Dana down in San Diego, CA. The first of two trips to see my good friend and eat copious amounts of burritos.
3. In February I released Framework and DB_Virtual unto the world. Not much rejoicing ensued, but many people are using the software and apparently quite happy with it.
4. I found out that I have a herniated L5 disc in my back, which has happily escalated into full blown Sciatica.
5. On March 14th Lauren and I were officially divorced. On March 15th I celebrated my 26th birthday.
6. In April I attended MySQL UC and blogged the whole thing.
7. I bought a road bike and started riding a lot.
8. I ran in my very first 5k logging a time of 0:27:29.0.
9. In July I declared Operation Fat Ass a success and started training for my first sprint triathlon.
10. I bought the love of my life.
11. Towards the end of August I ran in another 5k in Lynnwood logging a time of 23:44, which was good enough for 3rd place in my age division (20-29 Males) and 12th out of a field of 77.
12. On September 17th, 2006 I participated in the Kirkland Tri-It Sprint Triathlon. I ended up taking first place out of the beginner’s heat with a time of 1:19:40.
13. I pulled double duty and flew down to San Diego a scant two weeks later to participate in the Jamba Juice Sprint Triathlon. This time I placed 450th out of 1,480 participants with a time of 1:06:30.
14. In late October I flew back to Michigan to attend Eastern Michigan University’s homecoming festivities.
15. In early November my employment at Enotes.com came to a close. I haven’t mentioned this until now, but I’m no longer working for Enotes.com and am currently doing consulting for a number of clients.
16. I spent Christmas and rang in the New Year with Rebecca in Seattle, WA.
17. Towards the end of December my Sciatica found its stride and now keeps me from doing the most minimal of tasks.

1. Seattle, WA
2. San Diego, CA
3. Las Vegas, NV
4. San Jose, CA
5. San Francisco, CA
6. Seaside, OR
7. Portland, OR
8. Yakima, WA
9. Ypsilanti, MI
10. Whistler, BC
11. Vancouver, BC

This year has been filled with amazing highs and amazing lows. I’m looking forward to what 2006 has to offer. I’m looking forward to looking forward and moving on, but let’s take a look back at what happened in 2005.

1. I started the year as a newlywed.
2. I learned a few things about my new home Seattle.
3. Lauren and I moved into a larger condo.
4. I started working for Enotes.com on a full time basis
5. After much lusting I bought a fat new plasma TV.
6. I spoke about MySQL’s FULLTEXT indexes at MySQL UC and visited Las Vegas for the first time.
7. I watched in amazement as my dog had intimate relations with my cat. I, of course, took video and posted it to my blog.
8. My first visit to Vegas ended badly.
9. Not everyone though Anthony Federov sucked as bad as I thought he did.
10. I started hacking on my condo with mostly positive results.
11. I briefly thought about returning to school, but was stopped dead in my tracks by a horrific GMAT score. More studying and another go at the GMAT is currently on my horizon.
12. My dad got a huge promotion at work.
13. Enotes.com launches the first AJAX based dictionary lookup on the web.
14. I tell the world just how badly Detroit, my former hometown, sucks. Subsequently, I am now in the top five on Google for “detroit sucks”.
15. I lost another 25lbs (11.3kg).
16. I completely renovated my kitchen.
17. Enotes.com bought a Google Search Appliance, which is possibly the ugliest box ever put in a colo facility.
18. We launched Enotes 6.0 after about 1.5 man years of work. This will go down as one of my greatest work accomplishments to date. I’m still amazed at how well it came together and how well the team worked to get this out the door.
19. Lauren and I end our marriage.

It’s amazing how much can happen in a single year isn’t it? This year I started a new job, traveled to two countries and five states, renovated my condo and ended a nine month old marriage.

Here’s to 2006!

2004 was a busy year for me. The year, sort of, started with me asking Lauren to marry me on December 23^rd. From there the year snowballed.

1. I played competitive hoops for the first time in years
2. Operation Fat Ass commenced and is still conducting maneuvers
3. Operation Kitty Poo Poo started and, eventually, failed due to Crash’s inability to poop in the toilet (though he would pee without issues)
4. I switched to VoIP and haven’t looked back since
5. I got addicted to ITMS
6. Bush and his war in Iraq continued to suck
7. Not really from this year, but use this to debate your Christrian Fundie friends
8. We visited (part 1) New York City (part 2)
9. I bought a powerbook, which I’m using to create this entry
10. I got addicted to American Idol and, as a result of my AI posts, a bunch of idiots flooded my site
11. Cameron Barrett and I worked together on a few projects
12. I learned bitmasks
13. I redesigned the site
14. I visited Brad in Seattle and Dana in San Diego
15. Lauren and I moved to Seattle
16. Lauren and I bought a condo in Seattle
17. I left independent consulting, sort of, to work for Blue Frog Mobile
18. We bought a new car, a Mazda 6i
19. We got a dog
20. I broke a bone, my first (unless you count me blowing out my knee, which wasn’t really a bone)
21. I switched out my glasses for contacts, which I affectionally refer to as my devil children
22. Went snowboarding in BC with Josh, Ali and Lauren
23. I spotted a few celebs during my travels back to Michigan
24. Lauren and I, after a year of anticipation, were married on December 18^th, 2004

All in all it was quite an exciting year for me. I’m no married, a home owner and live in Seattle. Just more proof that a LOT can happen in a mere 12 months. Hope your year was as good as mine!

No self respecting blogger would end a year without blogging a review of the previous year. The good things, the bad things, and the memorable things. So, without further ado, here is what happened in my life in the last year.

1. I moved for the fourth time in a year into the fraternity house that I lived in during my freshman year of college.
2. I spent spring break of 2003 with Lauren in Sanabel Island, Florida.
3. Upon returning from Florida it became apparent that Lauren’s father, Joel, was not winning his fight with cancer - he died in the middle of March leaving behind two daughters and his wife.
4. Shortly after Joel’s passing Lauren and I attempted to celebrate our one year anniversary.
5. In April I (finally) graduated with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Eastern Michigan University.
6. My cousin Gino got married to his long-time crush, who he had been pursuing since High School!
7. This last summer I took the plunge and went off on my own doing private consulting. If you are interested in a webpage contact me! (shameless plug)
8. In August I decided that, at 262 lbs (119 kg), I was too fat and went on the Atkins. I lost about 30 lbs with much fanfare. 
9. I started reading again for my own pleasure. I’ve stuck mostly with political books, but managed to read two of the years best sellers: Lovely Bones and Runnin with Scissors.
10. In late October Lauren, her mom and I all went to San Francisco. I was there to talk at PHP-Con West, while Lauren and here mom were there to shop and catch som rays.
11. This fall I launched my first major website since going into consulting. GoLoad.com offers load brokering and has been doing quite well.
12. I gained back much of the weight I lost on my diet after quitting Atkins in October.
13. On December 23rd, 2003 I popped the question to Lauren and, thankfully, she said yes.
14. On December 31st, 2003 I spent the entire night attacking the open bar at Bottoms Up of Cleveland celebrating the new year with Lauren, Linda and Marc.

Yup, it’s been a great year. I’m currently already working hard on my new years resolutions as well. For those of you who are interested, here are my new years resolutions.

1. Lauren and I are officially back on the Atkins diet. We’ve discovered a low carb store in the area that sells bread and tortilla shells, which should help keep us on the diet.
2. I’m going to refocus on getting some hosting accounts to boost monthly revenue.
3. I’m going to redouble my efforts to save up for our upcoming California move.

I hope everyone else’s year has gone as well as mine. There have been good times, bad times and in-between times, but I feel I came out on top.

Following Paul’s lead I’m doing a quick year in review. This has been a great year for me overall. I met the girl of my dreams, was elected president of my fraternity, was elected IFC president, quit Care2, and started working at ACI.

I changed the format of this blog a few times. I’ve grown immensely as an individual. My goals haven’t changed much; world domination is still in the cards. Hope everyone else’s year was good as well.

Taking the lead from my boss I decided to spend a little time reflecting on this last year. Here goes …

The following is a short list of the things that changed my life, for better or worse, this year.

To begin with I made the decision to go part time at Care2.com and back to school fulltime. This decision was based on a few things … Melissa (my girlfriend at the time), fraternity, and my desire to graduate college - not necessarily in that order.

March brought a trip to Mexico - the only other country I’ve visited besides Canada - for Spring Break. Needless to say I had a ton of fun. It was one of the high points of my year for sure.

Next came an aweful breakup with Melissa and a very odd summer for me. I spent a lot of time working with moonie and hanging out with Lynn.

School Time! Near the middle of August I took over as VP of Finance for Sigma Tau Gamma and got us out of debt with National (a first), breaking things off with Lynn, winning Lynn back, and becoming elected President of my Fraternity.

During all of this I also managed to somehow pull a 3.7 - a personal best for myself. Not sure how I did this - between bar nights, Fraternity, and coding I found time to study apparently.

This year finds me at the helm of my Fraternity, taking a whopping 9 credit hours, and coding even more for Care2 (I started working a little more) among other things. As Matt pointed out many have thought this year was a total bust. While my stock portfolio might agree with the others, I agree with Matt in that every year has good points - some of us would rather focus on the good stuff.

Goodbye 2001 - Hello 2002!