It started with a cold. The year, the month, the first day of the year was filled with what the doctor called severe bronchitus, and the whole possibility of breathing. Eventually, I start to find more things to get involved in with my life, after a neatly depressive phase after the immobility offered by the cold.

The things I got infactuated with included the movie Shakespeare In Love, real Japanese ramen with fresh noodles, and various types of writing instruments with intriquing and intricate note taking systems from Levenger. The interest in these things gradually distracted me from all the insanity of the fact that Xilinx had bought our technical expertese and that John and I were going to have to move from the Great NorthWet to this sunny and dry place called Boulder, Colorado.

The infactuations were, in part, distractions, but the reality eventually rolled in and we started dealing with the thousand and one things we had to deal with before we moved. Including cleaning out all the things we no longer needed from our life and planning all the things that we did have to get done before we finally were done. It hits me, near the end, that this is going to be really hard.