2009 - A good year...

2009 draws to a close, and it just struck me what a phenomenal year it has been.

This year I:

• Traveled through Morocco
• Visited Paris
• Got engaged!
• Drove across the USA, from New York to California, via Nashville, New Orleans, Austin and Roswell
• Moved to San Francisco
• Helped AKQA and Fiat win loads of awards for eco:Drive
• Hung out with a supermodel, and got paid for it.
• Got interviewed by Wired Magazine, along with a cool photo shoot.
• Joined a great team at AKQA SF, and helped make it even greater
• Released FBConnectAuth, a tiny open source component for ASP.NET that helps with Facebook Connect authentication.
• Met someone who was actually using FBConnectAuth.
• Got to live in a great house in SF, in an awesome neighborhood.
• Learnt to speak American.
• Got to learn Groovy and Grails
• Worked (and still working) on a massive (and still super-secret) grails project
• Earned a new nickname ("Piping Hot" - for my terrible Halo skills)
• Made new friends with funny accents.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

I hope you all (that's you mum) have a wonderful 2010!

Happy Holidays (see, check out my American skills)

On winning...

18 months ago a few of us started work on something rather special. 12 hours ago, we won the advertising industry's biggest award.

It is sometimes the ones who shout the loudest that get the praise, so I want to take a moment to thank those that worked incredibly hard on an amazing product. To the small core of us that sat in that cosy, sunny room, developing a language of our own: Mark, Harald, Stuart (who pretty much became my wife), James, Richard S, Tristan, Martin, Zahid, Kevin - you rock! We can now, officially, get a woop woop.

To the guys who worked so closely with us the whole time, crafting words, designing t-shirts and making everything look wonderful: Chris, Richard B, Andy - you guys were the best creative team a bunch of geeks could have ever asked for.

Alison, you made the complicated simple. James and Nick, the branding was amazing - the video was a masterpiece.

Thanks to Bonnie, Eli and Livia for kicking things off and keeping them going. Deep gratitude to Neville and Miriam for all your advice.

And not forgetting our client - Luis. Without such a visionary and passionate figure sitting on the other side of the table, none of this would have happened.

That is enough gushing for now - I'm off to bed. Ciao!