I've been utterly crap at keeping the blog up to date recently, so what better time to look back on the year, and also conveniently put everything that I've not put on here already, er, on here.

December is, as is now standard for me, panto season. It's been a little bit more busy this year as December also saw the first data return to the Welsh Assembly Government for the University. This was a little bit stressful as most of the providers had either forgotten, sent in incorrect data, or submitted their data late. Lots of late nights and whatnot, and it was in on time, and I'm pretty happy with what we've sent. I'm also working on some new stuff for the website which includes media management and a Health & Safety system. All of this will only be visible to the providers, so not something for the general public. This is all tying in to a presentation I'm going to be doing to the other University techies on what I've been doing for the past year, how it's all come together, how it works and whatnot. I've got a few ideas for the presentation, but not started writing it yet. Panto - I said I wouldn't take that many shows this year as I'm fairly tired, and also it's not really financially viable at the moment for me (I get paid less at the theatre than I can justify). So I only ended up taking 20 shows this year (I think I did about 40 last year). Sioned still thinks that this is far too much. Ho hum. Only a few more left to go, then that's it for another year. Christmas was spent at my Mum & Dad's, and was rather enjoyable this year. Sioned & myself received some very nice gifts, there was excellent food, and the company was good.

October and November saw me working on an interesting project for another department in the University which caused a hefty political argument, eventually seeing the whole project canceled. Fortunately, I think I've come out on the other side without too many battle scars.

The department within the University that I was seconded away from (Work based learning within the School of Lifelong Learning) has slowly been making more and more people redundant. The have a contract with the Welsh Assembly Government which is typically renewed each August. This year (August 2007) the renewal was, financially, much lower than in previous years. This put a large amount of pressure on to the department. As a result, in March, the department will begin the final wind down. Students currently on program will be moved to other providers, and remaining staff will either be made redundant, or, where possible, be re-housed elsewhere within the institution. What does this mean for me? The department I'm now working for (Canolfan Cymraeg i Oedolion) has funding for a further three years. After this time, we either get more funding or I'm looking at redundancy. We're in a pretty good position within the institution, and within the country as a whole. Hopefully it should be ok.

The summer saw Sioned finding out that she's pregnant. We're going to be having a baby in late February/early March. Sioned is feeling poorly pretty much constantly, and seems to have a pretty much endless set of appointments with various people within the medical profession.

Also over the summer, we got rid of the Saab and now have a BMW 3 series diesel. In some ways, I still prefer the Saab, in others (especially the economy), the BMW is a nicer car. Ok, it hasn't got the pickup that the Saab had, nor the top speed, but it's still just as nice.

March this year saw us getting married, and then heading around Western Europe in the car. Absolutely brilliant time, really enjoyed it. Germany is a brilliant place, especially the Nurburgring.

I've also started playing in the Bangor pool league - I've got a win rate of 50% which is pretty decent, I think, for someone who's only just started playing. We're a new team to the league, so to also not be rooted to the bottom of the table is pretty decent, too.

As posted on the blog, I changed from my slightly-long-in-the-tooth Nikon D100 to a D2X. I've used the new body in anger a few times now, and it's a joy to use. Over the last week, I did just over 1000 exposures in a few hours and the battery is still over half full. The images it produced, in quite a few cases, required very little processing/colour correction. It's a brilliant piece of kit, although as you'd expect, the noise at anything above ISO500 is noticeable. I gather this is well corrected in the Nikon D3. Hmm... ;-)

This year also saw the purchase of my Macbook Pro. I'm really getting on well with it now - there's quite a few shortcuts and the like which, once you get to know them really do increase productivity. The machine was, within a few days, my main development/production machine, and has since stayed there. It's a brilliant bit of kit. It's been dropped once and - as you'd expect, hasn't suffered any illness as a result of it.

I think next year is going to be a whole lot different.