2007: Roller coaster of a Year

It started off with a trip to Egypt with my wife and a few friends. We went on a diving holiday in the Red Sea. Three of my friends learnt to dive out there. The last day we all feared that the boat would capsize as it was pushed around by the large waves. The crew managed to crash into two boats on the way back from our failed dive trip! Apparently that was OK according to the Pirates Diving manager as we had done some dives already... Won't be using them again

I came back from that trip disappointed I had missed out on diving the Thistlegorm. In March we attended the London International Dive Show. Louise didn't really want to go but I made her. The day was fairly fun but the biggest shock came the day after when we found out Louise had won the main prize for the show - a two week holiday in the Dutch Caribbean. We got a week in Curacao and a week in Bonaire with the hotels, diving and flights all paid for! We didn't believe it at first, I had just assumed people didn't really win these things.

All this time I was working on completing my doctoral thesis. I spotted the Google Summer of Code was running again and I had considered applying previously but hadn't been able to due to bad timing in previous summers. This time I spotted a project that looked like it had been made just for me - 3D molecular editor for Kalzium. I applied and was later accepted. As this was the last summer in my life I was ever likely to be a student I was very pleased.

The same day that happened my family also suffered from the sudden loss of my sister. I can never decide whether to talk about things like this on an open forum such as this but there you have it. It was obviously very tough for all of us and very much unexpected. It will always be a very surreal day in my memories finding out about my acceptance into the Google Summer of Code in the morning and then this in the afternoon of the same day.

It was after this I found out just how many friends I had around me. I also found just how understanding the people I was working with in the Kalzium/Avogadro communities could be for someone they had never worked with or met before. This I really appreciated and if I forgot I wanted to say thanks to you guys.

Due to events my timelines were somewhat changed and the completion of my thesis overlapped with my Summer of Code more than I had anticipated. I think it went well and we got some excellent features added to Kalzium and Avogadro over the summer. I also had the opportunity to meet many KDE hackers at aKademy and Benoit in Paris.

In there somewhere I was also offered a postdoctoral position out here in Pittsburgh. It was pretty much exactly what I had been looking for in order to progress my professional career working with Geoffrey Hutchison on some really interesting science. It was great to get the opportunity to work for someone who understands and has worked on open source himself.

As I completed my Summer of Code all looked good but then came for a very hectic month. My external examiner for my thesis was unavailable until September. My viva voce was set for two days before Louise and I left for our holiday she had won in the Caribbean. Everything went very well in my viva and I was able to make the minor corrections requested the following day and submit my thesis the day before we left.

Then we had two amazing weeks on two different beautiful islands. We had as many tanks as we wanted to go diving whenever we pleased. Over those two weeks I think I did just under 40 dives, saw turtles up close, moray eels, tarpins and lots of other beautiful life in and amongst the corals on the house reefs and the boat dives.

I could have stayed out there forever. The only downside was the bugs that ate you despite piling on the repellant. We stayed in Habitat on Curacao and Captain Don's Habitat on Bonaire - both were beautiful resorts although I preferred Bonaire in many ways. Curacao was more secluded though and the dive sites seemed to have more life on them.

When it came time to head back we only had three full days in Sheffield I think before heading back to Manchester airport to make our way out to Pittsburgh. The hours of waiting at the US embassy a distant memory as we almost missed our flights due to terrible traffic in Manchester. We get there though and made our connection at JFK.

We basically had a week to try and find an apartment when we got out to Pittsburgh. Geoff had helped by picking us up from the airport and we had a week in a hotel to use as a base. At first we were beginning to give up as we were shown apartments with sloping floors, holes in the ceilings etc... Then we found two places on our last day of looking before Louise returned home and it was time to check out of the hotel.

We picked one, have a great neighbour and live in a really nice area of the city - Squirrel Hill. Next was trying to get Dax, my overgrown German Shepherd out here. The overgrown part presented lots of problems as the cost spiraled and they couldn't even get him to Pittsburgh. Instead I got to go on a road trip to a place called Dulles. Sounded like Dallas on the phone when I almost had kittens of my own

I was out here for nearly three months before Louise could come and join me at Christmas. We had our first Christmas and New Year in Pittsburgh which was pretty fun. I missed all my family and friends. I think this is the first year in about five we haven't had a party at our house and had lots of friends over between Christmas and New Year.

Just before Christmas our lab at work was finally finished too and we could begin moving in. I have been able to attend quite a few talks and made some new friends already. Things were pretty tough and lonely at first. My laptop also fried itself at some point in there too (luckily I was able to borrow one until my desktop gets out here). I am still really missing sofas - our stuff has been shipped but won't be here until late January. I have made quite a few new friends already but am looking forward to going to Sheffield, graduating, meeting up with friends and family before getting a week of diving in!

This may be my longest post yet. As you can see it has been a real roller coaster of a year. Some really great things happened as well as some really bad things. I am hoping that 2008 is going to be a good year. Looking forward to getting my stuff back, having my computer and furniture. Being reunited with Louise again. Life is certainly an adventure! Happy New Year (belatedly)!