2011 reflections

Wow, what a year! 2011 has certainly speed past in a blur. When I started putting this post together, I never realised how much of a truly epic year it has been. There’s been lots of food, travel, conferences, adventures and did I mention food?!

Work

Work has been absolutely flat-out for me as usual, but despite that, it’s been a very enjoyable year with lots of interesting projects. I attended less conferences and work related events this year but had great fun at the ones I did make it to.

My workmate Kim and I presented Dealing with the different attitudes to accessibility at the OZeWAI conference at La Trobe University. The presentation was a fun look at culture change involving the Attitude Adjusters game cards that we did up.

UX Australia is one of my favourite conferences – it’s the once-a-year catch up with all my User Experience (UX) family.

Family & friends

My brother turned 21, our friends Craig (and his twin Wesley) and Caronne celebrated special birthdays this year, my mum came to visit and Alastair’s mum also came to spend xmas with us. Our friends Joel and Kelly got married and we got to share in their special day by being their photographers. I played paintball for the first time when my youngest sister celebrated her 19^th birthday.

Events & other social things

Lots of organising over 2011 – I helped to organise either in the lead-up or on the day: BarCampCanberra, TEDxCanberra, Sydney SkepticCamp and the Make Hack Void xmas party.

Hubby and I were one of the lucky 50 that attended the very first CSIROtweetup, to celebrate the launch of the Mars Rover Curiosity.

Making stuff

2011 was the year for making things. I made my first laser-cut jewellery, which will be available under the CrankyBot label in 2012; learned to sew (badly); got dressed up in various costumes, mainly the Lady Mechanika comic con costume which was the main impetus for learning to sew.

Hubby and I also made our first sausages with my KitchenAid sausage maker attachment! They were utterly delicious, particularly as the meat was flavoured with fresh herbs from our garden.

Travel

Hubby and I visited the United States in July. The main reason was to attend The Amazing Meeting (TAM) in Vegas, but we also discovered that Comic Con, the BIG (and I mean big) pop culture convention, was on around the same time. The US trip was huge – we visited our friend Bob and his wife in Dallas, Texas, then headed off to Las Vegas for to check out the sights, followed by TAM, then on to San Diego for LEGOLand, followed by Comic Con and New York. I love New York.

On the last day as we started the very eventful journey home to Canberra from New York (crisscrossing the country and seeing many airports!), we discovered that our flight was cancelled due to weather conditions. Fortunately Qantas upgraded us to Business Class and we made it home to Australia in the lap of luxury (I didn’t want the flight to end!).

Looking forward

2011 on the whole has been a good year. I had some health issues (getting addressed in early 2012), I’ve attempted to address my fear of vegetables (and learned a lot about myself in the process), and I learned a lot of new things. I look forward to 2012 – getting CrankyBot off the ground, working on a number of exciting UX and accessibility projects and learning to take it a bit easier. Here’s to 2012!