Just when you thought it was safe...

Yeah, thought I had given up on this thing, didn't you? You should be so lucky! I've been around, I just haven't been around... here... if you know what I mean.

I've actually been doing some editing of my life over the past couple months, if you will. The stress of work had been growing steadily, and I reached a point where it was time to scale some things back, reprioritize, and start enjoying things more again on a day to day basis.

After a good deal of adjustment, work is still quite painful, but everything else is better. My RC projects have been getting a lot more love lately, and one I started over 4 years ago finally seems complete and is tearing up the road something terrible. The sites have been doing well since I finished moving them to their new servers, ending a long stretch of technical problems there. The forums have been mostly running themselves lately, so there's really been no stress from the hobby, just more fun and accomplishment then I've had in about 2 years now.

My "to-do" list is now delightfully devoid of any "must do" items and nothing has a date next to it. The most longstanding and difficult item on there is even close to completion. My financial plan is right on track and I haven't even spent any petty cash from my Q1 bonus yet. I've become progressively less inaccessible to friends, too, thanks to more free time opening up.

Far & away the best thing in my life recently, though, has been my girlfriend. We've been going out for 5 months now and I can't point to anything that's really gone wrong the whole time. She's down to earth, unselfish, funny, caring, sharp, plus hot & scrumptious (bonus!). Having a special someone is great. Having a special someone who you feel comfortable with able to share any feelings at any time, and who you know always has your best interests in mind is just heavenly. Thank you, life, for this gift.

Right now, I feel like a really, really lucky guy. I've just got to be careful not to "f" anything up.