Going Forward...Knowing who you are

First off...


I wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.

Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.

and to everyone else...

 Happy New Year!

Thanks to my life-long friend Kirk Ellsworth for that Politically Correct New Years greeting.  If some of you feel I am poking fun at political correctness...

Bingo.  You win the stuffed panda.

Manufactured in China and probably containing highly flammable stuffing and the remnants of some endangered rain forest. Probably.

But Seriously...

I don't "do" New Year's Eve.

Not saying I haven't ever.  Fact is, I've celebrated New Year's Eve on five continents...Imbibing my share of new year cheer...and waking up feeling like I had been hit with a blivit.

I just choose not to do that anymore.  I choose to acknowledge the new year by reflecting, by outlining new goals...replacing weaknesses with strengths.  What I did on New Year's Eve is spend time with a few close friends gathered around a roaring fire out in the middle of their back yard.  We roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, and talked.

We talked about you for a good part of that evening.

Yes you.

All of you.

Not particularly by name, although a couple dozen were mentioned...we talked about you as a single entity...as a force, a factor-of-change...

We talked about you.

I told them about a year of mixed results.  A year of roaring success, a year of horrible illness and a year of revelation.

I told them about how you had made it possible to do what we do at The HeliOS Project.  While we didn't have our greatest year...

It wasn't that bad all things considered.

I told them about how a global community came together and helped me heal from an illness that could have easily killed me.  I told them about a global effort to bring computing freedom to people who before now, had no idea they had a choice.

I told them of your warmth, your passion, your dedication...

And your humor.

So if the new year has come and gone and you still haven't decided on that New Year's resolution...

Don't sweat it.

Personally, I like you just the way you are.

All-Righty Then...