With apologies to those who cringe at the “holiday letter”, here comes……the blog equivalent.

I can’t remember another year in my, ahem, 45 year life that was marked by more change.  I changed jobs.  We moved to Europe.  My dad died.

All of this before April!

In January, I found myself in lovely, freezing, windy Overland Park, Kansas helping to consummate an acquisition of Archer Technologies by RSA.  Weekly trips for the rest of the year were in order from my home in Boston.

Something managed to interrupt that plan, though the seeds were sown in November 2009.  A random call from a search firm started a conversation about a company I had never heard of – AVG – and their interest to hire someone in Prague.  By December 2009, I had decided this wasn’t for me.

Fast forward to February, and my wife and I are in Prague to visit AVG and check out the city.  I guess the opportunity grew on me (us).

By March, I had resigned from RSA and agreed to move to Prague in April.

I landed in Frankfurt on the 16^th of April to an airport closed by volcanic ash.  I had a cat and a briefcase.  Lufthansa decided to hang on to my luggage, as I continued on my planes, trains and automobiles buses journey to get to Prague that evening with my cat (now covered in pee after 20 hours in a crate).

I spent the weekend shopping like crazy as if my luggage would never arrive.  New eyeglasses (contact lenses left in suitcase, d’oh!), kitchen tools, underwear, socks, work shirts.  You name it.

Without a cell phone, I had to wait until Monday to call my wife and my family.  The second call I made was to my sister, to inquire about how my dad was doing in the hospital. He died 10 minutes prior.  Read more about him here.

Fast-forward to July and the arrival of my wife and son to Prague.  After 3 furious months of work, it was time to re-balance one’s life and re-connect with those who are most important.  Oh yeah, and to find a home.

In September, we returned to Boston and Nova Scotia to visit family and friends.  Surreal sense of “not belonging here” while not belonging to Prague yet either.  Though this will pass.

By October, my wife was throwing a gala Halloween party for 90 adults and kids.  Life was back to (the new) normal.  Which leads us to today.

I have the habit of writing blog posts about specific stories, then summing them up with some sort of “truisms” or “reflections”.  When reviewing the events of an entire year, how can I resist this time?

The conclusion? It all comes back to change.  How do you react to it?  With resistance, fear and anger?  Or do you seek it out?  Do you control it, lest it control you?  To enjoy it, even.

My persona at work is often perceived as a conformist.  Yet I would like to think I’m one to initiate change.  I suppose this makes me confusing to others at times.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Change on….