Took a look back at the post I made almost a year ago about my intended goals for 2004...thought I would review those and see how I did and see where I need to improve for 2005.
- Becoming a better father and husband - Well I like to think I've done better. I have tried and feel like I've grown closer with my family as a whole. Also, though unexpected, my wife is due with our fourth child in early April of 2005. So I'll have even more opportunities to improve!
- Learn and grow in my faith - While this is a neverending process of growing stronger in my faith in Christ, I feel that I have grown stronger.
- Growing my consulting business - Well the first half of the year was pretty tough. Things were pretty slow here in Ohio and my existing clients didn't really need much new work, so I worked in maintenance / support mode for the first 6 months, which kept us fed, but by no means left any over for much more than just food. Then came August, where I landed a huge contract that lasts at least until June 2005, and it looks like it will be extended past that. And as is typically, as soon as I got busy with that contract, all kinds of other work came and now I'm so busy I don't have time for much else. When it rain it pours (or as is the case lately in Ohio, when it snows it really snows!)
- Form new partnerships - While this was pretty vague, the partnerships I had in mind when I originally wrote this fell through, however the partnerships I already had have grown stronger and there are a few things on the horizon that look promising.
- Growing in my skill / knowledge of .NET - Well I've definitely achieved this. I've been developing almost exclusively in .NET (mostly in C#, some in Vb.net) and have learned tons. Of course my blog reading has grown leaps and bounds with the tons of wisdom that is out there (here on dotnetjunkies and elsewhere). And of course this is a never ending process that will continue.
- Do more posting here - Well, I've failed here. Only a handful of posts this past year. Seems I just never find the time to do much more than read. I would like to say that I would improve this in 2005, but who knows. I'll try as I would like to give back to the communities that have given me so much.
Things I was looking forward to in 2004:
- .NET 2.0 - Well it's not out yet and I haven't found the time to do much more than read about it. Still looking forward to that.
- Half-Life 2.0 - My lovely wife got that for me for Christmas, so I've been spending too much time already with that. Great game!
- Baseball / Football seasons for my son - Well we had very successful seasons, especially in football which is my son's favorite. This year he was our Quarterback and did a fine job and learned a lot about the game. I learned a lot about coaching and am looking forward to next years seasons.
- New business relationship with a released product - Well that fell through and didn't happen. Hopefully coming up in 2005...working on stuff now.
Overall a successful year and 2005 looks to improve on that as well!