It's been 4 years since I posted a holiday letter. Wow. I'll update on events over those four years with focus on more recent events.
I still work at the World Wide Web Consortium focusing on web accessibility. The focus is still on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Accessible Rich Internet Applications, but the scope has grown broader as we apply these to more technologies. A new project is Independent User Interface, which is more in early stages. Already, though, aspects of this technology is being wrapped up into other technologies—which is a common outcome of accessibility-initiated technologies. Another aspect of the job is figuring out what accessibility needs exist in new technologies. This has also grown in scope as the set of technologies that have a web presence has vastly expanded. This is an exciting role but challenging, and I increasingly realize that I know barely enough to be dangerous. It's my ability to take a gestalten view that comes in helpful here. I've also found that my cynical glass-half-empty orientation helps me to find problems others don't see, which we can then fix—which shows there is a role for pessimism in the world.
Two years ago, I finally made the move from a condominium to a house. The house is in a gentrified neighborhood about 5 km west of downtown Ottawa, in an area where I hope property values will continue to rise (i.e., where the gentrification process is still under way). It has three bedrooms, one of which is my office and the other is a guest bedroom—or roommate quarters. Aside from having Marc stay with me for a few months while he finished his degree last year, however, I haven't taken the roommate step. The main floor has a decent-sized kitchen, that opens into the dining and living room. There is a two-car garage, which didn't interest me when I bought the house. But I quickly learned the bus system is not very good outside of the downtown core, so now there is a car in the garage. I set up a small garden, though being north-facing and a corner lot has limited my opportunities there; at least it has helped me to learn that I do like gardening. On the whole it's nicer to live in a house than a condo apartment. I have realized, though, that while in a condo there are a lot of ways I couldn't control my own space, in a house there is nobody else to take responsibility for things that come up. So there's been a lot of learning about this aspect of adulthood.
The larger space has allowed expansion of hobbies, particularly food-based ones. I've gotten a lot better at sourdough bread baking, and now rarely bake with commercial yeast. 
These loaves are more rustic, with very few ingredients, free form (not baked in pans), with very good flavour and texture from the long fermentation and production. My sourdough loaves usually involve some amount of commercial bread flour, but I use a lot of whole wheat that I buy from a local grain farmer and grind on demand using the same kind of impact mill my grandfather used (though I long for a home stone mill—yes, such things exist!).
Chocolate making is another hobby that has progressed well over the past several years. I do not claim to have the skills of a true professional chocolatier, but I will say that my chocolates are better than many of the chocolate shops that have been popping up, and worlds better than the commercial stuff. My chocolates start with couverture, which is a manufactured coating chocolate made of cacao, sugar, and milk ingredients. A big part of the skill of chocolate making is melting this couverture and tempering it, which ensures that it sets up properly. Then I make the centres, which are usually ganache (an emulsion of chocolate and cream and usually flavourings), though I have some fondant and guinduja (chocolate and nut mixtures) recipes, as well as caramels and cherries. It's attractive to make my own chocolate from scratch (known as "bean-to-bar") but that requires a whole new set of skills and equipment. There is a local bean-to-bar manufacturer, and as their business grows it might make sense for me to wholesale from them at some point.
I kind of fell into alcohol fermentation as a new hobby. I started with cider (hard apple cider), partly because it can be produced from locally sourced produce. After spending a year with several batches learning the process, this year I tried my hand at wine. I would say my cider is already better than much that is available commercially (because commercial ciders tend to have artificial flavour and sweetener that ruin their character); my wine will probably have a longer learning curve but is already decent for the cost. The success with alcohol fermentation gave me confidence to try again with lactofermentation, so I've been making sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, and hot sauce.
My basement is full of the equipment and outputs of all these hobbies, so it appears as if I gained less space in the move from condo to house than I actually did. I also put in a chest freezer, which allows me to freeze my own produce, as well as farmers' market and CSA (community-supported agriculture) produce (I shared a box with Tony and Andrea). This includes locally produced lamb which is my main meat source now. I would like to find non-industrial milk and egg sources, though this is difficult because Canadian laws are extremely unfaourable to independent producers. Obviously, I have a big interest in local food, which predates the current fad but has more room for expression now. This is partly a return to the quasi independence we had when I grew up, partly a culinary interest in quality ingredients that don't have to endure long shipping, partly a desire to participate in more sustainable ways of living, and increasingly a simple desire to disengage from the corporate systems that control so much these days.
Another hobby that came and went (for now) over the past four years was pottery making. I had wanted to learn it for years, and finally decided to sign up for a city class. Like chocolate making and bread baking, I found that while I could make visible progress in the skills, I also constantly saw room for improvement, which kept me wanting to try again. I enjoyed working on pottery for a couple years, but then reached a point where I felt I had learned as much as I could from city classes. My hope was to continue practicing at home, but I haven't yet taken the step of buying a wheel and kiln necessary for that, and there aren't many community resources available. So for the moment pottery has been set aside, but I hope to make my way back to it.
Pottery got set aside at a time I had too many things going on and was feeling overwhelmed. Another casualty of that was music. I felt that the satisfaction I got from the community orchestra was less than the investment I was required to put into it, so I decided to pull out after finding a replacement player. Some months after that, circumstances were favourable for the formation of a woodwind quintet, something I've wanted to return to for a long time. We had a good time rehearsing and it kept my musical skills in much better shape than the orchestra had. But with different life paths, the ensemble never re-formed after a summer hiatus this year, so for the moment I'm not involved in music either.
Running has ebbed and flowed for me over the past several years, as I battled injury and laziness. I left the running club in which I was a member for nearly a decade, and found that this freed me to focus on doing what I needed for my own progression without worrying about matching distance and speed goals to others. Over the past three years I have worked on a gait change, transitioning from the heel-strike form to the forefoot-strike form. Some scientists and proponents believe this is more natural for human biomechanics, in which the feet and ankles gradually cushion the footfall and spring back to power the next step. While many people run just fine with the heel-strike gait, I had persistent plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the tendon in the foot) that many different medical and non-medical interventions had failed to resolve. The gait change required learning a new way of moving, and required careful building of muscle and tendon strength and flexibility to perform that movement properly, but has had more positive impact on the injury recovery than any of the other approaches did. This year I felt comfortable increasing my distance past the 10 km that was my max for several years, and built up to 20 km runs by the end of the summer. I hope to keep some of that fitness through the winter and continue the build next year, towards the goal of being able to do a marathon again.
I continue to travel reasonably regularly, though less than a few years ago. In addition to semi usual trips to Boston, London, Lyon, San Diego, and San Francisco have also been to Shenzhen (near Hong Kong), Stockholm, and Bilbao. I usually manage to take a side trip to Tucson to visit my mother. 
Cousin weddings also were all the rage; I went to David and Alex's wedding in Philadelphia this year, John and Autumn's in San Francisco last year, and Josie and Codie's in Washington DC the year before that. Nick and Sara are pending so at least one more wedding to attend.
For myself, there is no sign that a long-term relationship is in my future, and even if that happens I am not likely to try marriage even if I remain in a jurisdiction where it's supported. While I do wish there were someone in my life, I am pretty used to living alone and doing my own thing, and it would be hard to give up some of those hobbies to make room for a relationship. My cat Manji keeps me company, and is assertive about seeking lots of lap time. 
I think he would appreciate the company of another cat, but I've resisted, partly because it might be difficult to find care for multiple cats when I travel (usually Nick and Jonathan generously look in on him when I'm away), and partly because I don't want to start on the path to be the crazy cat lady. So we sit around a lot together and try to control our weight (or, I try to do it for both of us). The cat and I have both lost weight this year, at the cost of lots of complaining from both of us, but there is still more we each could stand to lose.
It has to be acknowledged at this point that I am now well into my 40's. It's strange, I certainly don't feel like it. Partly that's because I have kept myself in pretty good shape and also have most of my hair still, with only a little grey, though the condition of the skin does give me away. I think a big reason I don't feel so old is I haven't gone through two of the life transitions most have by now—marriage and kids. I have seen a lot of people go through those transitions and remarked on how it changed their personalities. So certain aspects of my personality are maybe still stuck in my 20's. I certainly don't want to be one of those people dressed in clothes that kids half their age are wearing and pretending it's not obvious all their bits are hanging out, so it is my challenge going forward to learn to grow into my proper age.
Anyway, that's the catch-up for the past four years, for those who mainly get the news from these occasional updates. Hopefully there will be continued interesting things to report next year!
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