This Year

I spent a few minutes this morning reading new posts from my old blog friends.  I miss that connectivity, hearing what is on the minds of people below the mundane surface.  Facebook has pretty much destroyed that interaction for me.  I now know 10 times more useless information about 10 times more people, most of whom I don’t even remember that well.  The relationships forged through blogging starting 8 years ago have stood the test of time.  Even though I don’t talk to all of them regularly, I would feel more comfortable going to them in a crisis than 98% of my Facebook “friends”.

But my point here isn’t to air grievances about Facebook.  It’s to have a space to get underneath the mundane for a few minutes…to write about what is on my mind, not what I ate for breakfast. Last year, I basically took a sabbatical from writing.  Finishing the book in 2008 was a great accomplishment, but it didn’t leave me with much energy for writing.  In reality, there wasn’t much time or much that I felt that I could write about.  In many ways I am back in a deep learning phase, experimenting and quietly thinking.  I filled up a notebook this year which is a good indication of the kind of year it’s been.  Amber and I are broadening our network and putting our energy into new community growth.  It’s been a good year for tilling new ground, but there has also been the effort and pain that goes along with that.

This week I began studying for the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.  It’s the first step in attaining my professional engineering license.  Most engineers took the F.E. during their last year of college, but industrial engineers (like me) did not.  So I’m re-learning things I first learned more than 15 years ago for the test in April.  I wanted to quit about 5 times this week…it’s brutal.  So that will be my life for the next three months, whatever the outcome.

Long story short, there will be no writing until after the test.  Will I blog again on a regular basis?  I hope so.  I do have some new things to say and maybe even another book to write at some point.  Until then, I’ll have my nose in a study book and maybe scratch a thought in my notebook once in a while.  See you in May.