As is our want, we must look back over the past year to see what happened. While I normally focus on work related items, this year was a crazy year for our family as well as my career. So let’s have a look at what happened this year.

Traveling Family

2014 was a year that saw our family do a bunch of traveling. Although our trips were not all done together, it was travel all over the world. Here are some of our highlights:

• My two oldest children, Kristy and Alex, went on a tour of Italy with the Burnsville High School Band. They saw Venice, Rome, and a few other cities. They were able to perform with the band during that trip.
• Kristy journeyed to Israel with Grace Church right before the missiles started being launched. She was doing a Holy Land tour which she enjoyed a lot. However, as parents, getting a text that said, we left before the missiles landed around Bethlehem did make us a bit nervous.
• Alex worked in an orphanage in Romania. He was significantly impacted with the conditions there and is looking for his opportunity to return and serve some more.
• Andrew and Mikayla went to a town in Indiana for a weeklong trip with Teenserve and our church. They had the opportunity to join teens from around the country and perform repairs and general maintenance for a town in need.
• Alex visited colleges in LA and Lynchburg
• Andrew traveled to Chicago with band and a church group.
• Our entire family enjoyed a true break in Cancun, Mexico. Truly a lot of fun and great downtime.
• We followed the Cancun trip up with a cross country trip to Los Angeles to drop my oldest, Kristy, off at Biola College for her freshman year.
• Andrew and I went to Key West with the Boy Scouts and sailed around the Keys for a week. That was truly enjoyable. I loved being on a boat.
• Sheila and I enjoyed our company Holiday party in the One Ocean Resort in Florida
• We wrapped up the year visiting family for the holidays in Kentucky.

Overall, we were all over the country and even the world. We were blessed to have the opportunities to experience so much this year.

Changing Employers

In the middle of all the travel, I celebrated 10 years at Magenic in March and transitioned to Pragmatic Works in October. I loved working at Magenic. During this year, I came to the realization that I wanted to focus more on data and BI solutions, so I made the move to Pragmatic Works. I enjoy my new company as much as my old one which is very good. Thanks to everyone at both places for supporting me and my career.

More…

This past year, I also contributed to my third book. Hopefully you found it helpful. I also did a first for me this year, I reblogged a post from a friend and fellow Scouter, Jim Larson. His PowerShell work is awesome and I wanted to share it with my readers as well.

Thanks to My Readers

Finally, I wanted to thank all my readers. I appreciate your support. It has been cool to see my readership increase this year. I hope you find value in the technical content here. I look forward to hearing from you or even better, seeing you at SQL Saturdays and other events throughout the year.

Here’s to a great year in 2015!