The start of a new year gives me time to reflect about the coming year and also about the year past. What went well and what didn't. The last year was a tough one for the family and I. This time last year I had a single goal, to find a new job. I accomplished that goal in the middle of July and I'm happy to be fully employed again, unlike many people in the current economy.

My creative photographic output also suffered for the first half of the year. I guess Maslow knew what he was talking about. While I was unemployed I took consulting jobs to help pay the bills and I also toyed with the idea of taking some paid photographic jobs. I shot several events and portraits last year with the idea to build up my photographic portfolio. This portfolio could be used to help launch a photo business. During these small odd jobs I quickly confirmed something that I already knew, I don't want to make a business out of my photography. I like having my photography as a hobby and creative outlet. Turning it into a business and becoming a professional photographer is just not for me. I'm happy and proud to call myself an amateur rather than an aspiring professional.

Back to my goals for this year, I have found that the goals that have the highest likelihood of being accomplished are the goals that are written down. So with that thought in mind here are my goals for Twenty 10.

One of the reasons I had for converting this website from a photography portfolio website to a blog was to give me a central location where I can post my thoughts and writing. At one point I was maintaining 3 different written blogs, a photoblog (which I'm still running at mydrive) and a static photography website. One of my goals for this year is to write more and a having a centralized location will help me to fulfill that goal.

During my day job I program and manage several websites. That provides a great deal of information that I can write about on a regular basis. So I recently created a Technology category that will I will use to record my thoughts about technology, software, hardware, and the like. Here is an ideal example lesson learned (or maybe re-learned.)

As we enter a new year and a new decade everyone starts to think about changes... changes to habits... changes to goals...  and in my case changes to websites.

I have been wanting to update the structure of my website for sometime and a new release of the Movable Type content management system gave me a good excuse to make some updates. With this change I decided to merge my 30seasons.com blog into my main manderson.com domain. This website will be my primary home for all my photography, writing, and links to my social media presences on the internet.

The first round of updates have been completed and I plan on additional changes over the coming weeks, so stay tuned.