The Good Life... a weblog about life, technology, and the Opera web browser

This has been one of the most significant years of my life. There've been so many wonderful changes, I'm having trouble recalling all of them. Here's some of the highlights, in no particular order:

• Rebekah and I celebrated eight months together on December 27th. Of course, that means that we started dating again this year. We were apart for a bit more than two and a half years after dating for a bit more than one and a quarter years before college. Things are going very well and this change is one of the things that truly made this year great.
• I graduated from college. I don't think I doubted that it'd happen, but it's still quite a nice accomplishment. There were plenty of hurdles along the way, too. Obviously this is a large change in life, as it means I'm now a part of The Real World.
• I got a job with my dream company. After spending the summer in Oslo, Norway working for Opera Software, I was offered a job working from home for them. I've just renewed my contract for another six months and I'll be heading back to Oslo in about two weeks for over two months. My summer trip to Oslo was my first voyage off the North American continent and gave me my first passport stamp.
• I got my braces off. It was a day eleven and a half years in the making, but it's finally happened. I'm still getting used to my retainers and I have not yet had my surgery, which probably means I'll get braces again. But at least I've entered another phase of my orthodontic treatment.

If I missed something that you were involved in or think was significant, I apologize. Just let me know.

Change can be good. Yet, I hope next year gives me more time to enjoy the changes of this year and do more with them. Maybe I'll get engaged and married. Maybe I'll get a more permanent position with Opera. Maybe I'll get my oral surgery. Or maybe things that I have a hard time imagining right now will happen. I surely didn't expect all that happened last year to occur.

In any case, thanks for sticking around through the many transitions. Hopefully I'll make a bit more of my web site in the new year for y'all to enjoy. As for now, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Who would have thought? Believe it or not, it happened today; a 4.5 on the Richter scale, to boot. Shortly before 4pm, I was sitting on my bed, taking a quick break from work. I was petting one of my cats (Tessie) and the pot holding my bamboo plant started rattling against the marble top of my night stand. The bed shook ever-so-slightly underneath me. Our house is situated somewhat in the flight path for Baltimore-Washington International airport, so we sometimes have planes or helicopters that'll shake the house a bit, so I didn't think much about it. It continued for about ten seconds before I stood up and unconsciously walked to the door way to stand against the door frame. My cat was sitting up, looking every which way, obviously disturbed by something.

As quickly as it started, the rattling stopped. I couldn't decide if it had been an earthquake or not. Years and years ago, I remember feeling an earthquake in this area, so I knew it was a possibility. I sat down and quickly checked WashingtonPost.com for any confirmation, but found none. A quick Google search for earthquake turned up the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, which gives maps of recent quakes and other pertinent information. However, I couldn't find anything there. I searched around a bit more, found nothing, and figured I was just imagining it.

A few minutes later, a friend from school came online and asked myself and someone in Virginia, did y'all just have a small earthquake?

You felt that too?!? I thought I was nuts, I responded.

Further searches at the USGS turned up information about the quake. WTOPnews.com was first with the story. The WashingtonPost.com quickly got their own story online. Reports of the quake flooded in to the USGS from all over the region. The Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory shows seismograph data.

It's not really a big deal, I'm just glad I'm not nuts.

I should probably mention that I got the date(s) Rebekah and I started dating again wrong in my previous post. The whole thing started on April 26th, not the 27th. And we started dating on the 27th, not the 28th. Hopefully I'll have all this straight by the time April rolls around next year.

I think there's a point in a person's life when everyone else decides that person can't be changed. Certain character traits simply and permanently become part of who they are. There must be some cut-off when parents give up in shaping their children and just accept the way they turned out, hopefully deciding they did a good job. Young adults permanently become bullies or jerks or unreliable or whatnot.

I believe there's always room to grow. I believe that no matter how old or set in their ways a person is, they can change if they want to. Maybe I need to believe that because of some of the people I know and love or because of who I am and traits in myself that I don't care for. Or maybe sometimes there are things/people that are too important to give up on. Whatever the case, I don't think there's ever a point when we can write a person off. You have to have faith in them and care enough to help them change, if they want to.

I'm home. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Good night.

Note to self: Never travel through London's Heathrow airport, if at all possible. And remember to thank yourself later for this advice.

It occurred to me that I should probably tell people what I've been up to for the past two or so months, considering all the important, life changing things that have occurred. And I write this from my desk in Oslo, where I've been working for nine weeks now, if that's any indication of some of my adventures. It all really started at the end of April, on the 27th 26th to be exact.

On that night (well, technically, it was the early morning of the 28th 27th), Rebekah and I started dating again. You could say it had been in the works for the two and a halfish years since we broke up after I arrived at LC. Back in February at the annual InterVarsity winter conference, we sat down and talked. Eventually, I told her I was interested in dating her again (I had been for a while, but the timing wasn't right). Over the next two and a half months, we rekindled our friendship. And then, on the 27th/28th 26th/27th, while watching a movie, we told each other that we wanted to be together again. And then we were.

It's still really wild to me that we're together again. After two and half years of never knowing what the state of our friendship was, not knowing if she still thought about me as much as I thought about her, being nervous every time I was in the same room as her, and wanting so many times to pour my heart out to her, but having to hold back, all those things are suddenly non-issues. I don't have to force myself not to reach out to hold her hand when I'm sitting next to her. I don't need an excuse to look at her and enjoy her beauty. I don't need a reason to call. Really, it's quite blissful. And it also makes being together again so much more meaningful because I know how much we went through to get where we are now.

And just a bit over a month since we started dating, I said goodbye to her for the summer. And over the past week, I've been considering leaving the US to start a career in Norway at Opera Software, where I've been interning. I was offered a very attractive contract to stay in Norway doing the same Quality Assurance, Testing, and Documentation work I've been doing (and really enjoying). But leaving behind my family, friends, and really everything I know in the US just isn't an option. People always say that the time to see the world is right after graduating, but I feel that I've done enough and I'm ready to get down to the business of work and starting a life.

There's obviously lots of stories for me to tell about my time in Norway. They'll come in time, bit by bit, don't worry. I also have tons of pictures. I've already got a Gallery site put together and I'll link to it once I have some more work done.

So, for everyone that's wondering, I'm doing well, I'm basking in God's blessings, and I'm coming home soon. It'll be great to see everyone again.

Oh, and I drove cross-country with Jeremy at the beginning of June. He moved to San Diego, CA with his girlfriend and a friend from school. I've got plenty to tell from that, too. All in due time.

And typing with Norwegian keyboards is seriously annoying!

I've been forced to remove my e-mail address from the site because I started getting spam at that address. At some point, I'll create a form to send e-mails. Until then, sorry.

I realize that I don't update my weblog very often. Most of the time it's not a conscious thing, it's just another thing that slips through the cracks. Sometimes people ask me to update my weblog. I'm not implying that these people have ulterior motives, but I wonder why it is they want me to update. Do they like my writing style? Do they like hearing about my life? Or, because they have weblogs, they want to know that it's as important to other people as it is to them. I hope it's one/both of the first two, but I just don't know sometimes. Why not just ask me about what's going on in my life instead of asking me to update my weblog? Send me an e-mail (and be patient for a reply).

Just something I've been thinking about recently.

Note: I am Juneyour. Ian is Hixie_. Tidy is an HTML cleaner. After being Tidy'd, HTML comes out all nice and squeaky clean (read: well formed). And the following consists of geeks at work talking about their toys.

* Juneyour runs Hixie through Tidy
* Hixie_ comes out well formed
<Juneyour> HAH
<Hixie_> wonder if girls prefer well formed guys over whatever i was before you ran me through tidy