Happy New Year!

The year 2014 is rollin’ in already.  It’s still a few hours away from where I am, so this is a good time to take a few minutes and reflect on what 2013 was like.  I’m not gonna do a lengthy post, like the last year, so here is a quick summary of what it was for me and what happened (with links to archive for more details).

• January.  Mostly spent at work, launching the huge project, tying up loose ends and dotting all the i’s.
• February.  More work, with a little break to watch all the coverage of Chelyabinsk meteorite.
• March.  That month was busy with a few highlights.  Cyprus banking system collapse was the biggest news around, which coincided with my trip to Amsterdam for the RT training.  The announcement of the Google Reader decommissioning sent me on a quest for the alternative.  Earlier the same month I’ve attended TEDxNicosia, which was awesome.
• April. This is traditionally the month I celebrate my birthday.  This year I became 35.  Also, there was a one million views milestone for my blog, according to WordPress.com stats.  Work-wise, there was the largest git merge ever.  I’ve also discovered something that I will enjoy tonight.
• May.  I finally got fed up with both Gnome 3 and KDE 4 and switched both my work and home desktop environments to MATE.  This was the best decision ever – I’ve never had a desktop in my way since, yet.
• June. Played Quake 3 after a really long break.  Then more work.
• July. Another business trip to Tel Aviv, Israel.  A new team member at work and a new area to learn a lot about – Quality Assurance (QA).  Pretty much reading and reviewing software all month.  Work extends even to my personal projects with HashBackup and Amazon S3.  The highlight of the month though was the workshop I attended for work.  Eye-opening!
• August.  In terms of this blog’s archives, there were plenty posts into my Music category.
• September. I’ve been given a new title at work – Director of Web Development, for pretty much the same work I’ve been doing so far under Team Leader and Senior Developer.
• October.  This was a month to learn new things, which are out of my daily scope.  At first, I attended the First Aid training, which got me prepared for emergency situations and accidents.  And second, I’ve became a trained Fire Marshal.  Also, flew back to Tel Aviv, Israel for another business trip.  And learned to cook sushi at home – the first try was horrible, but the second one was way better.  Oh, and there was yet another workshop even from work, for which I stayed in Aphrodite’s Hills for a couple of days.
• November.  I’m on the cover of Forbes.  Just kidding.  Started taking some of the annual leaves I had accumulated at work.  Relaxing, resting, not doing too much.
• December.   More resting and relaxing, slowing down for the holiday season and Christmas magic.

And if that list is not enough, here are a few more overall bullet points:

• Place of the year: Alio Olio, Limassol.  I’ve spent hundreds of hours in there, enjoying the company of many cool people, drinking probably a truck-full load of beer and enjoying some food.
• TV show of the year: Homeland.  The best TV show I’ve ever seen.  Period.
• Movie of the year: In the loop.  Even though it was released back in 2009, this was the year when I watched it.  Made me laugh out loud a few times, and it’s a smart comedy – something that I haven’t seen in a long while.
• Drink of the year: Beer.  Obvious, of course, but I thought I’d throw it in anyway.
• Dish of the year: kebab in Tel Aviv.  Those things are awesomeness out of this world.

There you go.  These are the highlights of my 2013.  There were more, of course, with friends, family, projects that are still in progress or didn’t make it, jokes, videos, music, gaming, fooling around, and so forth.

Here is to an even richer 2014!  Happy New Year and best wishes to you and your family.  Have a great one!