Happy New Year! A new year brings sharp emphasis on new: new beginnings, new resolutions, new ventures; everything new carrying with it revived optimism for life and the possibilities it offers. The passing of the previous year also brings a bit of retrospection that asks, “what have I done this year” or “how have I spent my time?” I will briefly indulge in both accountings, since here I now face the first post, akin to the first blank page in a new pristine journal.

First, the retrospective: I can say that I passed 2013 doing many of the things I love both personally and professionally. I visited two new countries and made multiple repeat visits to another two that I enjoy very much and have only begun to explore. In a corner of the British Museum, I stared into the blank masks of mummified cats that I had only seen before in classroom presentations long ago. In Fiji, I got to dive at a coral reef for the first time. In Thailand, I learned to cook new dishes with a renowned chef. All that was on breaks from my day job, where I got to work on some ground-breaking technology services, and met two brilliant technologists whose work I admire and whom I’m now happy to call friends.

Now to the new: Chronicling my own life has never been a priority; I habitually allowed just enough time to sneak in a little fun between obligations. Like most other folks, I have taken to the use of social media as a matter of convenience, especially the piggybacking on network effects inherent in those media. One just has to accept on some level that one is the product, that the convenience and distribution are worth trading for one’s own data.

I have either not given myself the time or not made the commitment to build a site with this domain that I have owned and used for email since 1996–yes, for 18 years. I hang my head in shame as I admit that mine was a classic case of the cobbler’s kids with no shoes, except here I was the cobbler who made haute couture shoes AND the kid wrapped up in one.

The truth is that I could have made a quick and simple pair of sandals, instead of trying to make the ultimate pair of dress shoes. In this case, I let the perfect get in the way of the good, persistently so. If I ever have a child, I must remember to do better, both in the shoe and tech/personal website department!

This year I anticipate will be one of many changes, along many dimensions of my life. This new site is the first visible change. While I intend to continue posting new and (I hope) better photographs of things I see and enjoy in my travels and everyday life, I intend also to share more detailed thoughts about various topics that I hope will interest you.

Now we will just have to see how long I take to stop dating things <MONTH> <DAY>, 2013…