Here’s my 2012 blog word cloud:

I don’t think I did one for last year, so here’s that one:

For reference, older ones.

I apparently like to talk about Sam.

The rumors are true, I got a Volt.

I decided the Accord wasn’t going to be a good long-term car for me, so it was kind of pointless for me to be buying it. Dumped it to lease a Volt. Pretty happy with it so far. Going to get the 240V charger installed in my garage. Austin Energy has a 50% rebate on purchase+installation, so it works out pretty well for me.

I probably have some pics to post here. I’ll get to that eventually. =)

Well, it’s been a year since. I’ve found myself to be noticeably more emotional this past year (though perhaps not outwardly). I don’t consider that a bad thing, but here’s an emotional post for ya.

A year ago, things were pretty sucky. Despite that, I continue to have so much to be thankful for that in reflection of everything that’s happened, I consider myself extremely blessed. As I’ve previously mentioned, I view Mozilla as kind of a symbol of all the love and support I got during a dark time in my life. He was kind of a poetic gift to myself to cap off a depressing time with something positive. Maybe that’s cheesy, I don’t care. =) Sometimes you don’t see or value the gems in your life as much when everything’s peachy. My friends and family were awesome for us and whenever I have a quiet time to contemplate everything’s that’s happened, I can’t help but come out of it with a kind of solemn happiness. So, in that spirit, I’m going to cap off this dark anniversary by talking about the ladies in my life, my mother and sisters.

Before I get to my family, a quick shout out to Nancy because she’s like the big sister I don’t have and a year ago she gave me a perfect hug right when I needed it and I’ll never forget that. All of my friends were great during that time, but since Nancy’s the girl of “the group” she tends to be my emotional vent more often than not. Maybe next time I’ll talk about what my guy friends did, because they were definitely there for me too.

So… I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to buy my mom a car a few years back. She gave me no sense of obligation to do so, but it just kind of made sense. I got her a new RAV4 and while presenting it to her, she mentioned how she’s wanted a car like it so she could carry kids to/from church, and other ways she could serve others. The things that make her happy allow her to love and serve others even better and that’s why she’s awesome and we love her.

This is a picture of Oriana at her baptism back in 2007:

I’m pretty sure this was shortly after she mentioned our mom. I’m also pretty sure that before she finished her sentence, there was not a dry eye anywhere in the room. I’m not a good enough writer to even get close to describing how powerful I found this moment, but I hope you can get a glimpse of the love my mom’s given us in our lives by knowing that a young high schooler brought a room full of people to tears by barely conveying the words “mom” and “love.” Everyone who knows my mom knows that she’s a bottomless pit of love. She’s one of the biggest reasons I believe there’s a God. The love she’s given me and my siblings, not to mention the other people she’s positively touched, is too powerful, too beautiful, to merely be a result of chemistry and physics. I would not be where I am today, or the person I am today, if she wasn’t in my life. Her love gives me a glimpse of Love, and I couldn’t ask for a better reason to have faith. I’m so blessed to have her as my mom, it’s almost not even fair. ;)

Olivia is, as my mom says, “the spicy one.” As siblings two years apart, I’m sure we went through the typical love/hate relationship that many go through. I’m happy that that flip flopping ended up on the love side though. =p Olivia’s certainly the more extroverted of us, but I like to think we balance each other out pretty well. She gave me the worst present I’ve ever gotten - a sheet of half-used stickers. Her fear of E.T. allowed me to pay her back well enough though when I bought a plush toy of him off eBay and put him in the hallway facing her room. =)

We’ve both grown to be foodies, and it’s fun to enjoy and share awesome food experiences we’ve had. We also both enjoy ruining Oriana’s food. I fulfill my quota of making her angry every so often, I’m sure, but I know we love each other and it makes me happy to think about growing up together and perhaps someday in the future, having larger family reunions where I can have my kids torment hers.

My mom says that I never hit Olivia, although I do remember one time when I punched her in the head. That said, she was wearing a karate helmet, so maybe that doesn’t count? =p Instead, I resorted to psychological warfare and just annoyed her like crazy, which you can even see in this video of us fighting at a young age:

Once, I made her so angry she kicked a shoe at me. I dodged it and she ended up breaking a window. My mom didn’t punish her though, cause I guess she understood how annoying brothers can be. =) I have a lot of memories of Olivia, and I’m happy I do. She’s been my sister since as far as my memory goes back and I wouldn’t have it any other way. <3

Oriana is my baby sister, eight years younger than me. Given the large age difference, we never really fought, but we also didn’t really play with each other as much as she and Olivia did (expected, I suppose). I annoyed Olivia a lot to get even, but I do it to Oriana just for fun. ;) I once walked in her room as she was reading and just let drool fall out of my mouth onto her leg. She gave me a quite satisfying yell when she realized what was going on.

I remember trying to make her stop crying as a baby, and trying to change her diaper with Olivia. Now, she’s about to turn 21 next month and that’s crazy. Oriana likes to gives me hugs, and I appreciate that because I like hugs, but I don’t often initiate. She lives with me now as she’s going to school at UT, which is pretty cool even though most of the time we just sit quietly. We’re the introverts, so I think we understand each other there. =)

She gives me good fodder for my videos, like this one:

I hope she knows I tease her to show my love, which I guess means I love her a lot.

Life sometimes sucks, but I’m glad I went through it with these women and I was there for them and they were there for me.

<3

BV flew me out to San Fran this past week to spend some time with my BV West brethren. I didn’t do anything too crazy, but there was a mall and lots of food options around where I was (4th, between Mission and Market). Made me realize how much I like big cities and being able to walk/mass-transit my way everywhere. I walked over to the mall across the street and saw Cloud Atlas (not very good), and bought some clothes since I packed particularly light.

I have a special relationship with SF since I was born there and visited so often. I guess having that deeper history makes me wonder what my life would be like had I decided to go to UC Berkeley instead of UT Austin (which was my middle school plan). I can think of a whole crazy butterfly effect on my current life since I likely would have stayed in the bay area after graduation. What company would I have been working at? One of the hot startups of the past decade? Would I be married? Homeless? =p Where would my Austin friends be without me? How has my existence impacted their lives? Imagining an entirely different timeline post-2001 is kind of crazy. Would I be a significantly different person?

I have the itch to leave Austin sometimes, and though avoiding poop on the street on my daily commute is a mighty tempting proposition, I’ve yet to make the leap of taking off to one of the big cities I find attractive (SF/NYC). I suppose I still have too much in Austin to keep me around and vacationing suffices for now… ;)

Ultimately, I’m blessed with the life I have and certainly don’t regret going to UT, but it’s fun to think of alternate realities sometimes, eh?

Sometimes, I really enjoy watching really terrible movies. It’s even better if I can sucker friends to join me. I guess I’m kind of a masochistic troll like that. =p Last week, I saw both Red Dawn and Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2. I went to see the first one, with Sam and he got the choice between the two, so he picked Red Dawn. It was pretty terrible.

Viraj, got left with the remaining option and we saw that this past weekend. We were the only pair of guys in the theater, which was quite hilarious. The fact that my suffering through the movie included Viraj suffering through the movie made it all awesome.

Here is Viraj with his shame:

At the office, somehow I got added to the BV West office’s mailing list and I found out they were doing holiday decorations. That inspired my team (“code named” Firebird) to do our own in our little area. Here’s that:

I made the firebird-hand-turkey.

I hit my “unofficial” six year anniversary at Bazaarvoice near the end of last month (I was a contractor for the first two months). It’s certainly been a great experience for me as I’ve played multiple roles throughout the years. I’ve had the opportunity to grow immensely both technically and non-technically and have gained a lot of confidence in my own abilities.

Today (well, technically yesterday) I have the privilege of being the official team lead for one of the highest concentrations of talent and passion I’ve ever worked with. That’s saying a lot because many of my past teammates have been no slouches! I feel honored with the designation and look forward to continuing to push the envelope of what the team can accomplish. I’m super thankful to everyone who had a part in getting me here and on this team.

In other news, December brings a large mix of emotions to me. I have a hard time identifying my feelings often times, so this feels a bit like rapid spontaneous mood swings. I generally find myself listening to terrible music, then forcing Mozilla to cuddle. Seems to work well enough.