I was not able to send this to all of my friends her via email because iof the restrictions on the length of the email, so I decided to post it here and then just send all of you the link. 

This year I am going back to doing something that I used to do when I was in the Army.  I think that the holiday season is a really good time for connecting with people that you have somewhat lost touch with over the year.  Whenever I was away in the Army I would write letters to all my family and friends and let them know what has been going on in my life.  I saw it as a way of reconnecting and letting everyone know what I was up to and that they could still contact me if they so desired.  So here goes this year’s letter.

I have been up to a lot over the past year.  In December of last year, Heidi and I separated and filed for divorce.  She left California to go back to Germany for good in January of this year.  The divorce was tough on me, but was also a relief in a way.  I began to see things a little differently, and I began to realize what I was really destined to do with my life.  I began to grow by leaps and bounds.  The divorce was final (by CA law) in June, and I am still dealing with some of the mental baggage left over from the experience.  Heidi and I also learned that because we were married in Germany the German government had to have the final say over the dissolution of our marriage.  That paperwork is still pending.

After Heidi left I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to keep myself busy.  So to that end, I reapplied myself to finishing the work for my final classes towards an associate’s degree in Applied Computer Science.  My final project is almost complete, and I will have to take a final exam and I will be done.  Then I can move on to the next step in the plan for my education, which is to get a few technical certifications under my belt.  Then I will have the certifications, my associate’s degree, and my life experience evaluated in an attempt to obtain a bachelors degree in Information Systems Technology.  It will all come together in time.

As you may know, I have also been working hard putting together a book of my photography for publication.  This labor of love is in its near final stages, and I am hoping that my book will be available to the public on 15 December 06.  I will certainly be informing you when the book is ready.  I have posted several samples of my photography online, and I will be providing a link to all my websites at the end of this letter.

As the year draws to a close, I am also in a rush to put and end to some of the things that I have been working on during the year.  My employer is also using year end funds to provide training which, while it is a good thing, takes up a lot of my time.  This has forced me to readjust my timeline for some of the things that I wanted to accomplish.

I have a lot planned for the coming year as well.  I plan to finally be free of all the mental and emotional baggage that I picked up during my marriage.  I plan to attend an Artists’ Way seminar in an attempt to improve my writing and photography.  I am not sure how this will play out, but it is something that I really want to do.  I also plan on gathering material for at least two more photo book projects, and possibly developing some beginning photography classes.

Of course I plan to keep on blogging and sharing with all of my friends and family.  I am an open book, come read my story.

http://360.yahoo.com/wmccave
Stream of consciousness blogging, photography samples, and reviews that I have written can be found here.

http://tagworld.com/wmccave
Here you will find some of my all time best writing in my blogs, photography slideshows, and RSS feeds to some of the internet talk radio shows that I listen to.  Feel free to subscribe to my blog if you have not already done so.

http://www.myspace.com/linksnmore
This is the site where I do most of my writing.  My blog is pretty popular, and I run a group that I post technology related topics to every week.

http://blog.myspace.com/linksnmore
This is my MySpace blog.  If you click on older, you will be taken back through the archives.  I have been writing blogs 14 May 2005.  If you are not a subscriber of my blog, feel free to click on the subscribe link in the top right of the page.  While you are at my blog page, please check out my blog group.  Just click on the Anything And Everything Blog Group link somewhere under my subscriptions.  Feel free to join this fine group of bloggers if you are a myspace member.

http://groups.myspace.com/LinksNMore
This is the technology related group that I moderate.  I try to post a new internet or technology related topic every week.  Sometime I have a set format that I follow, other times, I write just whatever comes to mind.  Feel free to look around the group.  I feel that I have done a lot of good writing here.  If you are not yet a member, feel free to join.

http://www.squidoo.com/linksnmore/

This is a new site and developers of pages add content to there personal sites called lenses.  Here you can see all of my blogs in one place.  Once my book is published, you will also be able to find my Amazon and Café Press pages here.  Please add this site to your favorites, and check back often.  It is the easiest way to keep up on all of my blogging activities.

http://groups.tagworld.com/linksnmore/

This is a relatively new site where I also post technology related content.  I have a different audience here, so I try to gear my weekly post to whatever they ask me to write about.  It is slow going, but I hope that the interaction on the site will increase soon.  If you are a Tagworld member, and not yet a member of my group, feel free to join.

If I don't get a chance to talk with you for a while, I would like to wish you a happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas, and a happy new year.  Please keep in touch, and I will try to do the same.

Bill