Thursday 29 May 2003

On the Year That Was

To those keenly-eyed among you, who also deign to read my webpage, you will have noticed that exactly 366 days have elapsed since I last scribbled new, incisive and witty prose on this page. Of course, my use of the word new implies that the former content was incisive and witty. This is very much open to debate.

To Amy, to whom I promised a 1-year update... 366 days is still a year. Yes, it's a leap year, and this isn't; but you weren't that specific. So I win.

And what an interesting year it has been. I have watched the Earth journey from wartime to peace and back to war; I've seen relationships flourish and wilt away; I've watched from afar, powerless, as hearts were broken, and trust lost, and I've had my faith restored as I've seen enduring friendships formed.

I started working at the User Support Centre in October, though it doesn't feel like I've been there for a year - it feels like I've been there for ten years. :-)

I've gone to Halifax more times than I can count; I've been to Maine twice, once for the heck of it, and once to see the National Touring Company of Rent, Jonathan Larson's musical, and perhaps one of the best pieces of musical theatre ever devised, for both it's wonderful melodies, and it's message, "...no day but today."

I've been involved in two car accidents; one with a police truck (the police truck's fault), and one with a deer. I allege that it's the deer's fault, but others disagree, citing that my car is heavier, made of metal, and has brakes. To each their own, I suppose.

The Branflakesmobile, in it's original incarnation, a maroon 1988 Chrysler Dynasty with painted-over deer-shaped dents, has gone on to sail better seas. In my driveway at home. Full of all the stuff from my apartment that I didn't really feel like dragging into the house. What a life [for the car].

It's successor, Branflakesmobile: The Next Generation, a 1994 Nissan Altima, is truly a piece of vehicular beauty. With too many miles on it. But you can't have everything.

Employment-wise, the South Shore Regional Library continues to own me. Over the past year, I have undertaken another redesign of their website, migrated them from Windows NT to Slackware Linux to Debian GNU/Linux, and from a government-run mail system which made us feel not unlike Oliver Twist from Dickens' novel of the same title*, to an in-house system.

Career-wise, I return to Acadia University for a fifth year in September. Eight precious months to finish my degree, and give me some breathing room to determine where to go afterward. Librarian? Or minister? Cast your vote today!

On the topic of ministers... having recently returned from the 78th Annual Meeting of the United Church's Maritime Conference, I must say I find myself shocked by the acrimony present in a gymnasium full of allegedly like-minded clergy and other faithful. That having been said, I admire the outward decorum that most showed.

In the year to come, I hope to have the boy update the webpage more often than in the past twelve months, and some-odd hours.

The boy, sir?

*He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: 'Please, sir, I want some more.'