Yesterday I was cycling along the fancy new mountain bike track at McLeans Island (which is, incidentally, not an island anymore due to earthworks in the Waimakariri River to stop it flooding the city) and I was thinking about various things.

Often in moments like this I think about some code I'm working on from a new perspective. I realised that I needed to create a more thorough infrastructure for the forum application I am writing because even if in the first release users are unable to delete their messages, administrators will still need to do that. Often in writing code I start to cut corners like this then realise that I need to take the time to do things properly.

One other time on the Mount Somers Track I was pondering version handling in an application. There are many different ways you can approach the problem of retaining all different prior versions of an object for an indefinite time, and doing so in an efficient way. The right solution is the one that makes future requirements easier rather than harder to implement. Unless you consult standardised design patterns, this can be very much a gut instinct. Of course instinct is really the weight of experience. In this case I had made several starts on a solution but become uncomfortable with it and backtracked. I finally got it clear in my head when I was up in the hills. An environment like that forces you to think things through rather than simply launch into something.

I was just watching a Jack Johnson DVD. He said that when he wanted to write a song, sitting down with a pen and paper didn't work for him. Instead, he would go surfing, and the melody would come to him out there on a wave. Brains don't like to be forced.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about the differences between the last house I lived in and this one. That one was ugly and characterless. I didn't put any pictures on the wall or anything. It was like a shoebox with a mouse inside. In contrast, I have decorated this house quite intensively, with pictures and lights and a mobile and plants and rocks and candles. The living room is quite busy.

So I was wondering what had happened here, what the difference was. It's very simple. I have always tended to live "for the future" rather than "in the present" — always thinking how much better tomorrow could be rather than trying to improve or simply enjoy today. I think this is my natural bent, but financial circumstances have encouraged it too.

But I have been working on it in 2006. I sold a house and was no longer burdened with debt which made the present a better place, and that helped.  

I didn't decorate that last house because I didn't want to be there. The irony is that I stayed there almost two years. If I had been a little more conscious, I might have moved out sooner.

It's been a tradition of mine ever since last year, so here it is: time for me to look back on the year and say "um."

It's been a lifestyle year. I've spent time on friends, money and toys, and effort on my living environment. For too long I have been living for the future instead of living in the present.

•  I've bought a mountain bike, a new PC, a new camera, tramping boots.
• I've moved from a characterless apartment in a squalid street out to the beach, the waves and the birds, and realised how much of a difference environment makes.
• I've listened to a lot of music courtesy of the public library and its "hold" service; and I've made really quite a few mix CDs.
• My life has been revolutionised by portable music players, and I've become hooked on podcasts, listening to the BBC, Scientific American, National Radio, particularly on those long road trips.
• I spent a week on Maud Island with some fascinating people and one eccentric kakapo with a fine swimming stroke.
• I ran a couple of 10km runs and I'm doing another in about a month.
• I spent a week in Australia, the highlights of which were sitting on a cycleway watching tiny fairy wrens, and photographing kangaroos at a mental hospital.  
• I've had another brief relationship that was in a way over before it began.
• I've driven several times to Dunedin, spent some time on the peninsula and watched the sea lions.
• I finished a writing course and watched the number of people attending drop week by week as if there was something nasty circulating. However I haven't managed to turn the course into action.
• I saw my sister get married.
• I spent several months in relationship counselling for an old relationship, and learned a few things such as that it wasn't necessarily always me who was the screw up.
• I helped a friend through a painful break up.
• I spent some good times with new people and wrote a lot of email.
• My work changed so that I spend more time managing and planning and less time programming.
• I hung out with rock stars but nothing rubbed off.
• I decorated, framed some pictures and made three photo mobiles.
• Got a photo on a bottle of wine and some other pictures in a photo library.
• Taught another class to high school students.
• Tried indoor rock climbing, and participated in a yacht race.
• The biggest fright of the year was flying into Christchurch yesterday. I wouldn't like to overdramatise — it's been a fairly safe year. Nevertheless, it was alarming.

Next year I really need to focus.

I've just flown back from a family Christmas in Wellington where I have no family. Far below, I saw my neighbourhood go by as we flew over the coast and descended back into Christchurch. However, the adventure was just beginning. There was some major turbulence on the final approach. There were concerned looks, gripped armrests, screams and a few tears — and I think the other passengers were concerned too. So after one aborted approach we tried our luck on a different runway (one intended for planes that don't need long runways). That worked out much better and the pilot got a round of applause.

I still feel a little queasy.   

On Saturday I left my credit card in a shop. On Sunday I went and picked it up before going to the library, whereupon I promptly abandoned my library card. I discovered this today when I went to a different library and fussed awkwardly in my wallet.

I go to altogether too many libraries but that's what happens when you put things on hold then move house. This week I plan to leave my driver's licence wedged in a parking meter. Wish me luck.

I took the photograph on this label a couple of years ago in Lindis Pass. It was a quick moment in time which is now off living a life of its own. The wine is the Woollaston Estates 2006 Tussock Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

 Glenn Milne got up on stage and shouted "You are an absolute disgrace" to an awards presenter repeatedly on live television. First Michael Richards and now this: clearly people will do anything to get on YouTube.

It's the way of the world today that everybody has an excuse for their crazy outbursts. Personal responsibility is dead.