Reflecting back on the past year

It has been really crazy at holiday time this year.  I seem to have gone to more parties, more dinners, more visits than usual and I am reminded that I have a limited tolerance for them.  It’s not that I don’t like going out to eat, visiting with friends and family and all that.  It’s just that I need a lot more on my own time than most people.  Fortunately most people who know me are very tolerant.  I am blessed that way.If we are all happily singing carols at the piano and I wander off after a while or we are having a lovely meal and I decide I have to go walkies, they forgive me.

I did get a few excellent presents but the best one was a camera setup so that I can have teleconferences with my daughter and her family in Vancouver.  Here I am testing out my new equipment.  The smile means that it was easy to use.

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As we are getting very close to the New Year I have been thinking about all the things that have happened in the past year.  Things may not always have gone exactly as we would like but the world is still an amazing place and exciting and wonderful things are happening all the time.  I thought I was a bit ahead of the times when I suggested that we start working on ebooks.  Now I am thinking that are timing is perfect.  My friend Margaret just got an ebook reader for Christmas.  Margaret is a cool lady but she isn’t that much ahead of the mainstream.  Ray and I were fascinated by the Sony reader when we saw one recently.  I read some material about the Amazon Kindle today.  You can download books at any time to your reader.  It operates like a cellphone so you don’t even need WI-FI available.  How awesome is that?   As we are creating our ebooks we can add extra features like hyperlinks which make the book even better than the paper version.  Maybe we won’t all find paper books quite as cuddily as we used to think.  Maybe we will be happy to cuddle up to our readers and feel good that we are saving a bunch of trees at the same time.

I had a chance to fall in love with Australia and New Zealand all over again in 2008 and I really look forward to some great trips in 2009.  It didn’t quite make up for losing the Canadian women’s team trial but it almost did.  One way or another I have spent a fair bit of time thinking about bridge this year, writing, teaching, reading, blogging and playing.  I have experimented with a lot of different systems.  I realize that I am still learning.  I think I am playing better  – maybe better than I have ever played.

2008 was really the year of the blog.  Judy Kay-Wolff has been talking about how great it is to have bridgeblogging site and how much fun she has been having.  Me too.  We have a lot of ideas for new things for next year and we would love to hear from you about what you would like to see.  I vote Judy the blogging star of the year.

I have been thinking about what’s new in bridge in the last couple of years.  Some times it seems like nothing really changes but then you look back and see that things have changed quite a bit over longer periods of time.  Perhaps the biggest thing to affect the game is the use of technology especially online technology in so many ways.  It is a wonderful tool to be able to look at all the hands and all the results in the Sydney bridge tournament we played in or reviewing results of top players at important tournaments. finding information about conventions and systems instantly, using deep finesse to see if you missed anything in a hand and so many other things.

I was intrigued but what Stacy Jacobs mentioned in one of her blogs Stacy’s Blog about suit combination flash cards.  I asked her to tell me more about them.  It sounds like a good idea.  Stacy’s blogs are always interesting with lots of comments and discussion.