In about an hour, I’m jumping in my little car with hiking kit, camera gear, and a stack of books. I’m off to a little village in the Brecon Beacons for a week of walking, eating, reading, and recharging.

So: off-grid, by and large, for a week. Can’t wait. Crossing many fingers about the weather. See you soon.

I’ve had an item in Things for about 40 days now. It says

end of year blog post

and every time I see it, I lock up, and fail to write it. And, somehow, this stops me writing anything else; it feels like my writing is a queue, and I need to write one thing to feel like I can write any of the rest. So many times I’ve had a thought in the shower, or washing up, about a tiny paragraph I could write, something to say here… and then I fail to, because something’s in the way. That something is a post where I write about 2009.

It’s traditional, I suppose, for me to write something at the beginning of the year, and this year I just failed to; no idea why. Time passed, caught up in the whirlwind that is Scenario 4 , and soon it was February. And I still feel like I hadn’t wrapped up 2009.

So now, on the tenth of February 2009 – fourteen years after Gary Kasparov lost at chess to a computer for the first time, twenty years after the first version of Photoshop was released – I’m finally overcoming my hump. Writing about last year, putting the past behind me, so I can start writing about this year.

I don’t even need hindsight to say that I really could do without a year like 2009 for quite a while. For starters, I moved house twice, which was at least once more per year than I’d be comfortable with. All manner of strain, all manner of upheaval; not the cheeriest of years.

But there was so much good stuff. Much fun with lots of friends, old and new. Lots of walking; I must have been on a decent hike every other month, on average. A week hiking in Cyprus, which was magical. Just over a year ago – a year and four days today, in fact – I started at BERG (then Schulze & Webb), and that was definitely the right move. Such great colleagues, so much good work, a studio I look forward to returning to each week; it’s been a great anchor amidst the rest of the rollercoaster.

And, in the end, we – we being I – made it through. Here I am. Everything is alright; so much is good.

And I’ve written this down – however insubstantial it may be – which means I can start posting again. I’ve been writing longer and longer comments on my delicious links, and whilst that’s nice and all, I really thing I ought to start writing more and more short posts here, and leave Delicious for links. I now see the appeal of Tumblr, but for now, we’ll keep things arranged like this. And: this’ll be easier knowing there’s nothing in the way.

A tick in a box. Now it’s properly 2010. Onwards!

Up a hill, mainly.

First holiday in a year: hiking in the Five-Finger mountains in Northern Cyprus (the Turkish bit). Really excellent: sun and skies and outdoors and lots of photographs I am currently processing. Recharged batteries that were more run-down than I realised.

And, before that, I moved house again. Could have done without that, but on the plus side, the new place is lovely.

The links have still been chugging along, as you can see, and there’s been lots more stuff from me over at the BERG blog.

There should be some stuff here quite soon, though – something on loot and Borderlands (ah, Borderlands, how I love you), not to mention a few other things – so in the meantime, I hope you haven’t minded the cavalcade of links.

Onwards!

Two short notes about work.

A little over six months ago I joined Schulze & Webb on a six-month contract, working four days a week, as a developer and writer.

That turned out pretty well, both for me, and for the company. So much so that, as of the end of that contract, I am both full-time and permanent. I am both pleased and excited by this.

That was note one.

Note two: as of today, we are no longer called Schulze & Webb.

We are BERG.

Matt’s written an excellent blog post on the new site detailing a little history, and a little of the present, which should explain the rationale behind the rebrand, and which, I think, marks the change very well. I am very happy and very proud to be part of this.

Exciting times ahead. I’m looking forward to them a lot.

(photo by Fiona Romeo)

Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule, as reproduced on Flickr by Nick Bilton. There are worse ways to structure your time than this, that’s for sure.

I should spend more time addressing Powerful Goodness. That’s where I’m going wrong, I think

Back from Develop. It was very good; some good sessions, some great banter, some new friends, and my sessions didn’t go too badly. Winning all round, I think. There were two sessions I want to write some more about on Infovore when I get a chance, and I’ll also upload a tidied version of my talk in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime: I’m off to another conference on Tuesday morning. I’m going to TEDGlobal in Oxford.

Blimey.

This all came about rather surprisingly and quick; I was invited along by Nokia, one of the sponsors of the event, who are covering my ticket. It’s highly generous of them, and to be honest, I’m not sure what criteria led to my selection.

But it’s not an offer you turn down; just look at the programme! I’d never afford the $4500 (yes, really) myself for a ticket, but it’s also an opportunity I’d never turn down if I got the chance.

So that’s next week, then: off to Oxford with a notebook and a camera, to have my mind filled, and, I hope, a little blown. Exciting times.

Just a quick note to acknowledge that things have been quiet here recently; even the torrent of links has become a steady stream. Personal life in 2009 has been rather hectic and consuming most of my available cycles. Come April, that should be over, but until then, service will be slightly sporadic and reduced. Which is a shame, as I have loads of notes and half-written posts to put live.

Until then: please remain patient, rather than unsubscribing. Thank you for your time.

Today is my final day working at Headshift. I don’t talk about work much on this blog, but this felt worth a post.

I’ve been here nearly a year and a half, and it’s been a fun ride: my first job in an agency/consultancy environment, rather than an internal role. That’s been a learning experience in and of itself. There have been lots of good projects, some of which are live already, and others which should be live very, very soon; looking forward to being able to point at one of them in particular. There was also a lot of good skills-learning, too; really getting on top of Rails, levelling up in sysadminning a bit, and lots of opportunities to balance all the code with some great interaction design work. It’s been great to have such a flexible position, and work on most of the levels the application stack, from initial design to code.

And, of course, there are the people; Headshift’s greatest assest really is its people, all of whom are fantastic in many ways, and all of whom have lots left to give. I’m going to miss them a lot; it’s always hard leaving a small company.

So what’s next?

What’s next is very exciting. Next week, I’m going to be joining Schulze & Webb, where I’ll be making and writing. More on the specifics of what I mean by “making and writing” will be coming shortly: it’s a really interesting role, and it’s the details of it that make it so.

Suffice to say, I’m very excited; Matt and Jack’s reputation precedes them, and I hope we’re going to make a lot of good stuff (and perhaps a little trouble) together.

The other interesting part of all this: although I’m a proper employee at S&W, my contract with them is for four days a week, and so I’m going to have a “spare” day, which I’m hoping to fill with all sorts of things: time to tinker on the many projects that I just can’t fit into the evenings; time to work on interesting things for interesting people; time to play. That’s going to be exciting, too. More on that another time, because the real focus for now is on the new job.

This, for me, is where 2009 really begins. It’s going to be exciting, I’m telling you.

Like a surprisingly large number of folks on the internet, the nice folks over at CBC‘s Spark saw my transcription of If Gamers Ran The World, and asked me if I wouldn’t mind doing a short interview for their radio show.

That’s due for broadcast in Canada today, but in the rest of the world, you can listen to the show online. They’ve also put up the uncut interview I did, which goes into a bit more detail. Everyone on the show was lovely to talk to, and I hope I did a reasonable job of explaining some of the thinking behind the talk to a general, public-radio audience.

It’s been a long while since I’ve pulled a post from this site. If you missed the post in question don’t worry. If you did see it and can’t find it… sorry about that. I’ve decided I’m not happy joining thoughts from an incomplete experience with phrases that can only be hypothetical; it’s cheap and lazy. Better to wait for a full product – only a week away – to pass judgment. So in 10-14 days, I imagine I’ll be talking about Momentum again. And I think I’ll be happier with the results. The thinking won’t go away – it’ll just be constructed a bit better in future.

Sorry about that.