Nils's Unthemed Christmas Letter

It seems like the last couple of years, I've had a little theme for my Christmas letter. Well this year's theme is, ironically enough, unthemed. Nothing. Plain vanilla. Not a lick of theme to be found. And that of course is the theme, which threatens to have my Christmas letter collapse into a existential paradox that will generate a black hole and consume our planet and the entire solar system around it. Let it not be said that I am not a risktaker. I just figure that things are so dressed up these days. Nothing is ever just what it is. It is always an extreme, chipotle ranch, hybrid, Spiderman-themed experience endorsed by Martha Stewart or something like that. Not this year. This Christmas letter is guaranteed to not be extreme or chipotle ranch-flavored. It is just a Christmas letter. I even dropped the corporate sponsorship deal from DuPont, just to make it clear this is an unthemed, bland, run-of-the-mill, prosaic Christmas letter. However, if 7-Up (the Uncola) wanted to strike a deal, that'd work pretty well with the Untheme.

So, I guess we'd begin in January, because that is the generic, unthemed way to go, eh? Honestly, I'm not sure if anything really happened for me in January. It's hard to say, and besides, a calendar-based approached strikes me as a bit too thematic, so we'll just go willy-nilly through the year and see what I can remember. Well, one big thing was that in March I quit my job at the Orange County Library System in Orlando to move back to Denver and to work at RealEyes Media for one of my professors from the University of Denver. This in no way constitutes a theme. Let us be clear on that, okay? I am now an ActionScript Developer for them and developing web applications in Flash and Flex. If you have been reading my blog, then you'll know that one of its themes is griping about Flex, but that is not a theme of this letter, because, you know, it's unthemed. My relationship with the Flex program has gotten better. I no longer have desires to flip over my desk, just the desire to throw my laptop across the room.

I evidently started at RealEyes at the right time, because in April we went on a company vacation to Lake Powell in Arizona and rented a house boat. They also sent me to Boston in June to become a certified instructor in a web conferencing program called Connect. In August I earned my certification as a Flash developer. In October, I went with the company to Adobe's MAX conference in Chicago, but I had better stop talking about the neat things I've gotten to do at RealEyes, because it is starting to be a wee bit too thematic for my taste.

When I moved to Denver, I got an apartment downtown that allows me to ride my bike to work and inspired me to become highly interested in places to park my car. Daria (my car) is doing well, though she is a bit grimy from the recent snow and lack of a place to wash her. My place is nice, though lacking a dishwasher and garbage disposal. It is nice that it is within walking distance of the heart of downtown and many of my favorite restaurants. Unfortunately, it is also right behind a nightclub. After much searching, I did find a church, but it is down in Littleton, where I would have lived if I didn't mind a long commute. I do mind long commutes, so I opted to live downtown. However, between friends and church, I find myself driving to Littleton almost 5 times a week anyway.

Moving themelessly along, I'll mention that I did get out and hike two 14ers (mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation) this summer with friends. I hiked Mount Bierstadt first, which lulled me into a sense of ease about these things and tricked me into hiking Mount Elbert, which is the tallest mountain in Colorado. In October, I also went back down to Florida for the wedding of two of my friends, Erin and Chad. I also had Corrie and my parents come out to Denver and visit me in May. I think it was June when I went with a group of friends to the amazing Sand Dunes National Monument in southern Colorado. I am currently down in Arizona spending Christmas with my folks in the Phoenix area surrounded by saguaro and listening to coyotes and ATVs.

This Fall, I started dating a girl named Laura, who was a friend of a friend. I've had a blast hanging out with her. I've also purchased an XBox 360 video game console, which means that Laura has to vie for my attention more than she should have to. I should point out that this letter is still unthemed. I could have made it pie-themed, you know. I certainly baked lots of pies this year and I had a couple of pie parties (Apiecalypse Now and the Anger Pie Challenge). But that's not enough for a theme, and I'm sticking to my unthemed theme. Just to be safe, I'd better end this letter before longwindedness becomes a theme in this letter in addition to being a theme of my life. Oh, and if you'd like to see more pictures, I've got a bunch of nice ones in my gallery.

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Nils