Friday, November 24, 2006 - Fri, 24 Nov 2006

Today is my 50′th birthday and I couldn’t be happier.

Cheryl and I have had 25 wonderful years together. Brenna and Brittany are two superb daughters. My parents are doing well at 82. My sister and sister-in-law and their families all live here in Winnipeg with us and we all get together weekly.

I’ve lived all my life in Winnipeg. I’ll probably spend my next 50 living here as well.

Since grade 4, I have had a best friend, Carl, who helped me to achieve my potential. Carl and his family live in Vancouver, but we are still as close as ever.

I’ve worked at Manitoba Hydro for 30 years and love my work. I’m doing important work in a Department of amazing people, delving into databases, model development, forecasting and keeping up in the forefront of technology, I look forward to going to work every day. In a year we move into a brand new $188 million office downtown, and that is really exciting.

I have played squash at lunch hours three times a week, 1000 games a year for the past 12 years. I love the game and I feel like I’m still playing as well or better than I ever did.

This year marked the reacquaintance of me and the other 30 students I went through Grades 4 to 9 with. It was a surreal event as we got together on the September Labor Day weekend and our Grade 5 teacher drove in to be with us.

20 years ago, Cheryl and I went on our best vacation ever to the Bahamas. I grew my beard there and never shaved it off since.

27 years ago, I went on an eight week International Student Exchange trip through Europe. That was a life experience and the 47 people that I met will always be lifelong friends.

28 years ago, I entered my 2nd North American Computer Chess championship. Programming was in my lifeblood.

Two days ago, I had my last meeting as a Board member of our Heritage Centre. I’ve been a Board member for 14 years, led the cemetery photography project, headed the Archives committee, developed the database search tool, built and maintained the website, became Vice President, then President, then Past President. I’m resigning the Board to spend more time working on Behold, but I’ll still be involved maintaining the website and working on the digitization project.

My website is now 10 years old! Two fun projects Brenna, Brittany and I did over the years were Mummies Alive and the New Addams Family. My site has had over 2.3 million hits.

I’ve been researching my genealogy for over 30 years. I was lucky at a young age to have had the opportunity to talk to all of my great aunts and uncles and cousins, and gather family stories that would otherwise have been lost. I’ll be able to share these with future generations.

But the real excitement for me is the development of my genealogy software program, Behold. Conceptualized 30 years ago, and prototyped about 10 years ago, it is now approaching beta and Version 1 release. There is no other program like it and it truly may be a paradigm shift in genealogy programs as Rich Crooks, one of my Behold purchasers, has suggested.

The next ten years will be even more exciting, and I look forward to them all.

Happy Birthday to Me!