Let’s be honest. It’s been quite a while since I last posted, and it’s gotten to a point where I’m no longer being lazy, or forgetful; rather entirely complacent about this blog. It’s embarrassing and I apologize.

2010 was a helluva year. It had remarkable peaks and horrific lows, and on both counts I am not exaggerating. I have a new job, one that is infinitely more satisfying, invigorating, interesting and promising. We moved to and now live in a new city – one that I truly love and adore. One that causes me to stop, breathe and realize where I am on a more-than-weekly basis. My wife and I traveled extensively, visiting Europe for the first time. Visiting countries whose populous speaks a language that I don’t know for the first time.

In my new job I took on greater responsibilities than ever before in my career, including managing staff, and endured harder work and more stress than ever before as well. I feel somehow better for it, though I’d rather not encounter it again. My next skill set will include learning to delegate responsibilities and knowing when enough is enough on certain things.

In 2010 I lost an extended family member far too early in life. It’s been troubling and difficult to deal with, and is forever life-affecting. I’ve been a caretaker and support giver to those who were closer to the deceased and as tragedies go, we’ve all bonded closer together, which while great is for all the wrong reasons. We’ll learn to manage the loss into our new reality, but I’ve discovered that we’ll never get over it. Less significantly, we worried over our previously no-maintenance dog who became sick of various maladies for the final four months of the year.

I entered 2010 knee-deep in political involvement: donating to my riding, a party and a leader; taking official pictures on call and following the stories quite closely. I’ve always been fond of and interested in politics, as you might have discovered or guessed. But unfortunately as the year progressed and since we moved, my involvement and general interest each took traumatizing blows and I’m basically no longer participating. Obviously I moved, so my riding affiliation ended, and I’ve grown so entirely frustrated with the theatre, spectacle and overarching ineptitude of politics’ players that I’ve lost all motivation to even care about it most of the time. My time, effort and money felt wasted and therefore it ended.

Looking back on 2010, I offered some lofty resolutions at the beginning of the year and several of them bombed. One included an intention to blog more than I did in 2009. In fact, I blogged a great deal less. That said, I will effort to blog more in 2011 but I will promise nothing. I expect my posts will be smaller so as to present less of a self-imposed obstacle to their genesis.

I am looking forward to integrating myself in the city a bit more. I’m interested more physical activities to help me get back into shape and moderate my stress levels. One activity is skiing – I’m hoping to go once a week beginning next Saturday. I’m going to join a rowing club this year – an activity that I think I’ll like, one that’s on the water and is peaceful and closer to nature. And I want to get back into golf again, though I don’t know how to go about that in Vancouver. I’ll find out.

We have some other goals and targets, and I’m sure that as they take place I’ll post them here for you.

Happy new year everyone. Best of the season to you, and here’s hoping that we get to spend some time together.