2010 – The Year I make Contact

It’s another new year again

I told myself I was going to watch 2010: The Year We Make Contact on New Years Eve weekend, but I didn’t.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s movie based on Arthur C. Clare’s second part of his 4 part Odyssey series beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey. (I’ve read all four parts of the series, and they’re definitely worth the read btw).  The reason I bring this up, is that I always love  watching movies that predict where we’ll be at a given point in time.  They always seem to predict we’ll be further along than where we actually wind up.  The same goes for me over the past few years and where I predicted I would be at this point in my life.

What I’m about to say, is not to attract people to a perceived pity party, because that’s definitely not what this post is all about.  I’m just giving some background on what’s happened and what I plan to do about it :); to set things in motion for myself; to reflect on where I’ve been;where I plan to go, and to predict where I’ll be in the future.

Pre 2007

Working for Microsoft was an absolute pleasure, and my decision to move to SharePoint vs. Exchange/Outlook was probably the most important decision I ever made in my professional career.   I absolutely loved working with this product.  It gave me the opportunity to to slowly move back into a development “Like” position which was something I truly missed.  So many great things were going on such as:

• My oldest daughter had recently graduated High School, and was attending College. 
• My Wife at the time, and I had recently adopted a second child. 
• I began to realize the impact that some of the technical contributions I made to the community was quite larger than I had anticipated
• I finally got back to writing/composing music and publishing a few CD’s
• Ideas for blog posts; helping the community; and inspiration was plentiful.

There were great things happening, and I think 2005/2006 were probably the best years of my life up to that time.

Mind you, there were certainly things I was NOT happy for such as

• Working literally an average of 70 hours a week most times
• Life’s own dramatic interruptions
• Trying to launch a new Church

2007

My desire to get back into full time development was really making me consider what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and eventually I made the decision to leave Microsoft, and then a flood of life impacting things occurred.

• My oldest daughter decided to Join the Army.  Something I’m VERY PROUD OF, but was truly a scary time;
• My marriage technically ended, and I began the process of going through a divorce
• My oldest daughter was deployed to IRAQ
• What I thought was going to be an amazing career move for me, turned out not to be quite so; I could see myself drifting further and further away from SharePoint.
• People I thought were “True” friends, basically showed their true colors.  When you confide in someone and they immediately turn around and disclose things to others, is the absolute worst thing you can do, and when you do it to me, well….. Don’t bother speaking to me again buddy :).
• People I “Knew” were “True” friends, also confirmed their true colors.  They proved themselves to be true friends; and my list of friends grew smaller, but also closer and more tight.
• My desires and aspirations and love of life were at an all time low.
• Most people didn’t have encouraging things to say; and I was constantly brought down rather than being encouraged.

Where 2005/2006 were the best years of my life, 2007 was probably the worst.

This was NOT where I predicted myself to be.

2008

2008 wasn’t entirely horrible; but it was certainly a close runner up to 2007.

• My mothers health began to deteriorate
• I was doing literally NO SharePoint work.
• I was living in a home I did not want to be at nor even wanted, but due to the economy, couldn’t do a thing about.
• Other pathetic things I don’t even care to mention 🙂
• My divorce was finalized
• I did however begin to make some new close friendships, but learned to keep my guard up even higher.

So again I’m not saying these things to attract people to a perceived pity party.  I’m just simply putting them out there to lead up to something later.

2009

Finally, things started turning around.  I had plenty of time to do plenty of thinking in the previous years and did the following things

• Took time to inspect and choose a job I felt I could really excel at.
• Moved out of my house for a brief period.  Initially to sell it; but primarily to just start anew.
• Moved “back” to my house :).
• Started investing back into “Me, something I had not had the opportunity to do for a very, very long time.
• Refurnished a majority of my home, to make it more “me”.
• Buried a closet full of hatchets.
• Made lots of new friends who believe in “Joy” and “Humor” like myself and that sometimes you just can’t take some things in life so darn seriously!.

Things were getting better, and I began to make predictions about the future again.

2010

Well now 2010 is upon us.  Although I’m not completely where I wanted to be at this stage in my life, I have a new found hope and belief in the future.

Moving forward I plan to get back to what I once was

• A Joyful; Helpful; Community Oriented and driven SharePoint expert.
• Get back into my music once again
• Continue to be the best father to two great children I can possibly be.

Things were not great in the past, but it’s time to put those things aside and move on!  I want this year to be “The year that I make Contact” once again, and let you know  I’m still here and quite alive!

– Keith