Five Years in Cali

Tuesday marked five years of living in California for me. Yep, I moved here on February 24, 1999, and started work at Apple five days later, on March 1. So it's a landmark time of year for me all around.

Since then, I've:

• Rented an apartment (for 2-1/2 years).
• Dated both Adrienne and Monique.
• Started dating Debbi, whom I'm still with after nearly 3 years.
• Transferred to another department at Apple.
• Bought a house.
• Bought a new bicycle and ridden it to work and elsewhere quite a bit.
• Vacationed on Hawaii.

...and probably not played with the cats enough for their preference!

It's been a good time. My old employers, Epic Systems, sent me a letter in November asking me if I'd be interested in returning. In theory, I'd be interested, but I don't want to leave the area and I like my present job, so a return to Madison and Epic is not in the foreseeable future (flattering that they'd ask, though; getting solicited for any job in this economy is not a bad thing).

Sometimes I feel like I haven't done a lot with my life over the last few years. And in some ways that's true. But I've had a lot of fun and have achieved some goals I'd set for myself. And neither of those are small things.

So, I've done okay.