Holy sleep deprivation, Batman, I have been busy! My last life-update-type blog entry was a month ago and it feels like three.

A few weeks ago I made weekend trip to the Bay Area to visit and catch up with some dear friends, including my brother Will. I got to see the house that my friends purchased last year (their first), was treated to some awesome homemade vegan chili, and also got to visit many fine felines. Oh, and the weather was fantastic, as in mid-70s. So nice to have a break from Portland’s grey chill, even if I did come back with half a dozen mosquito bites.

Thanksgiving was really nice. Sherri and I spent it here in Portland and hosted for the first time as a married couple. About a dozen people participated, including ourselves. Sherri and I prepared an entire Thanksgiving spread ourselves, and then each of the guests brought something as well, so there was plenty of food and many leftovers. Having a long weekend to do not much of anything was really nice. As is our new tradition, Sherri and I went to the Red Cross on Black Friday to donate blood. My donation and recovery went much better this time. I delivered my pint a bit slower this time, which might have had something to do with it (5.5 minutes instead of 4.5). We also managed, somehow, to watch the first six Harry Potter movies. This was done in preparation of seeing the seventh, which we plan to catch in the theater soon.

I’ve been very focused at work developing a new feature set that we’re releasing next month. The office is getting more and more crowded as we continue to hire. I’ve been trying to go in earlier to get some work in before the din really gets going. Pretty soon I’m going to need to upgrade my headphones to some noise-cancelling ones. All in all, I’m finding life at this startup to be manageable, which I’m thankful for. Though I still can’t decide if introducing the office to nerf gun warfare was a good idea or not.

Another bit of news this week is that Legion of Tech announced a resolution to last year’s embezellment. I’ve put in a considerable amount of time over the last couple of months working toward closure on the situation, so it feels good to have it finally wrapped up.

The Stumptown Syndicate is now up and running. We’ve filed articles of incorporation, have a PO Box and a bank account. This allowed us to open registration for Open Source Bridge, months earlier than we ever have been able to before. We still have a lot of work to do on the Syndicate (bylaws, strategic planning, fundraising, etc.), but just getting the organization up and running in a bare-bones sense feels really good.

Work on the house continues. The contractors wrapped up just before Thanksgiving (yay!). We’ve picked out paint, in lots of colors, all no-VOC paint from Yolo Colorhouse that we purchased from Ecohaus. We have all the painting supplies (sand paper, brushes, rollers, tarps). Now all we need to do is paint! Oh, and we’ve managed to pull up the carpet from two rooms (my office and living room).

In between other projects, I’ve started scanning old photographs. This is one of my favorites:

I think I’m around 3 years old in that photo. My mom looks so, so young. I’m older now (by more than a few years) than she was in this photograph.