2015 was mostly more of the same with no big news, but brought minor improvements to my focus and energy. The weight I lost last year came back, and I haven't wanted to deny myself baking in order to lose it again. I did a little cross country skiing in the winter, and kept the running up once the snows cleared, resuming weekly trail running and building long runs back up to 18 km distance. The hot summer knocked me back though, so for the rest of the year I tried to maintain a minimal base. I still go to the gym with an expensive personal trainer, so my overall health has been good.
February brought my first adventure with a vacation trip to Scotland, Ireland, and England. I started in Glasgow with Erin and Marc, and after a day there we rented a car and drove to the Isle of Skye. 
It's a remote windswept place with some striking geography. Marc was primarily interested in putting foot to as much of the landscape as he could, though we were limited by rains and winds that literally could blow you off a cliff. I was excited to tour the Talisker distillery, my first real whiskey distillery visit. (Unfortunately the Scotch I bought there didn't make it home, due to arcane customs rules combined with bad faith from the shipper.) We drove through the Scottish highlands, a legendary region and quite different than I expected because of the geology, clear-cutting of forests, and ubiquitous red heather. This was my first time behind the wheel driving on the left side of the road, and on far narrower roads than we have in North America, so that alone was an experience.
From Glasgow I went to Dublin and stayed a night with a colleague and his family. His young son took quite a shining to me, which was disconcerting as I have very little experience with children (in spite of having intended to be a teacher). But the son firmly instructed me in how I should interact with him, so that mostly worked out. After staying with them I took a day in Dublin and mainly saw Trinity College and the Guinness Storehouse to learn about that beer. Then on to London to see Colin and Anthony. We did the usual London thing, including seeing the detailed WWI exhibit at the Imperial War Museum and seeing My Night with Reg at the famous Apollo Theatre.
The next trip was a business trip to San Diego, and I took my usual side trip to Tucson to visit my mother. We went to Tombstone, famous for the O.K. Corral fight, which in reality was pretty short for all the historical imagination it has sparked. 
Tombstone now is nothing but a tourist town riding on that history, but it's interesting history. One thing that struck me was how all the men would always be armed, and a fight to the death could happen spur-of-the-moment. I can't imagine living with death right around the corner like that, though I think all those "gun rights" advocates want to do exactly that--yeesh. Another thing that struck me was how the carousing that captures the modern imagination--drinking, gambling, and prostitution--was a very ordinary part of life. At the Bird Cage Theater all that stuff would happen, but it was also where you'd go for more ordinary entertainment, just a night out and a show. From the perspective of a modern world infected by "family values" teaching it's hard to imagine that people really did live another way so recently in history. After Tombstone we visited Old Tucson Studios, movie set for lots of old westerns. That had tourist activities but do still operate part time as a genuine movie set, and it was interesting to see how all that works, even though I've not seen many westerns.
In June I went to North Carolina for Noreen and Tam's wedding. I've never been there, though my cousin had gone to undergraduate college there. It was amazing how much more prolific the vegetation is than places I've lived, and at night how many animal sounds there are, mostly frogs I think but way outside my experience. It was an outdoor wedding, but the weather didn't cooperate and the ceremony took place in drenching rain. Of all days to wear my fanciest suit. The wedding was the day after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a federal right for same-sex couples to marry, so people were extra joyful.
For the rest of the summer I stayed in Ottawa and mostly enjoyed doing my thing. I made lots more jam with Tony and Andrea, made wine and some infused spirits, got more lactoferments going, and kept up the bread baking. Sourdough bread is really good with aged cheese and I'm in serious danger of starting cheesemaking as a new hobby, but have held off on obtaining tools and supplies for a bit. My brother came for a short visit, we did a bit of Ottawa tourism and went to Prince Edward County, a wine-making region on Lake Ontario, and visited a (too) new distillery, 66 Gilead; it was interesting to contrast their small operation to the much larger ones I saw this year.
In October I took a quick trip to Halifax to meet up with Anthony. I had never seen the Maritimes and it was interesting, but definitely more provincial than I'm used to. We did tourist stuff including seeing Peggy's Cove and the Grand-Pré National Historic Site where we learned about Acadian history and the story of their expulsion. It was striking how, hundreds of years ago, these people had reclaimed marsh land by building dikes and set up a strong cultural identity rather quickly.
The final trip of the year was a business trip to Sapporo, Japan. This is the largest city on Hokkaido island, quite industrial and populated, but much less crowded than Tokyo. The meeting was in a nondescript conference centre in an inner suburb, but my hotel was smack downtown. I learned to navigate the subway, partly on principle and partly because the shuttle service they had arranged was quite awkward so it was good to be independent. This also gave me more confidence in navigating around for tourism after the meeting was over.
Mostly meals were at the conference centre and quite unmemorable, though for one dinner we were bused to the Sapporo Beer Garden, where Sapporo Beer was originally made. Here we had what seemed like a cross between Korean barbecue and shabu-shabu in which would cook portions of sliced mutton and vegetables on super hot cast iron domes. Another night a group of us got out for sushi, and it was the best I've ever had. Sushi fish sold in North America must be deep frozen to kill off any parasites, but I think this fish wasn't, and it had a much more sumptuous texture, presumably from not having water driven off due to ice crystal formation. We also had wonderful sake served in a cedar box called a sake masu in which a sake cup was placed, filled, and allowed to overflow into the box. The overflow shows generosity, and you drink from the cup and then drink what's in the box; the cedar added a fascinating top note to the sake flavour. The next night we went to Ramen Alley, a street in the nightclub district, for ramen. This isn't the cheap student food we know in North America, it's good noodles in a flavourful broth with interesting garnishes. The Hokkaido island style is miso raman, meaning the broth is made with miso, much like miso soup, but darker and with other ingredients as well. I'm no ramen connoisseur, but I'd count that as my best ramen experience as well.
I had arranged to stay a couple days after the meeting was over to be a tourist. 
First on the list was the Nikka Yoichi distillery, where whiskey similar to Scotch is made. Getting there involved a train ride to the coast, then transfer to the smallest train I've ever been on where we ambled for another half hour to arrive at this remote town. The location was picked because of its climatic similarity to Scotland, and having been to both this year I could really see it. 
The tour was self-guided and in some ways more open than the Talisker distillery, though there were lots of areas we couldn't go. It was exciting to see the still room where they still heat the stills with coal, with a person moving from still to still shoveling coal in as needed. There was a malting building which I couldn't enter, but gathered that they still do floor malting (a practice mostly abandoned in Scotland in favour of centralized industrial malting). The malting and stills exemplify what I've observed about Japan on other occasions—the country seems to have made its way in the modern world by adopting practices brought from other countries, replicating them precisely, putting a lot of emphasis on quality control, and never adopting shortcuts that change quality in the long term.
I saw this same principle at work in my next destination, the chocolate factory at Shiroi Koibito Park. Shiroi Koibito are a sandwich cookie with a chocolate wafer in the middle, usually white chocolate, and a specialty of the region. They had a well-structured tour with windows onto some parts of the factory floor. I could again see the precision and care about all aspects of the process at work.
I returned from Japan to a busy time at work as we wrap up the year and prepare for new work in the upcoming year. We will start work on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 extensions to increase the amount of coverage on particular accessibility needs. Work is active now in the areas of mobile devices, cognitive and learning disabilities, and low vision. The Accessible Rich Internet Applications technology continues to grow and is now addressing digital publishing and graphics in addition to HTML; work on the 1.1 version is approaching wrap-up stages. The Independent User Interface work is being moved and incorporated into other projects, but in its place I expect to have a greater focus on helping maintain accessibility across the organization.
That brings us up to the present. As always, I've wanted to do a gingerbread house over the holidays but found it hard to find time in the busy period leading up, but this time seem to have managed and have it well underway. Aside from that I plan to relax in anticipation of a busy year. There are more travel adventures planned, and the kitchen crafts can only keep growing. I expect my travels will let me visit many friends and family so I hope to see many of you soon!
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