2006 is over - Best Wishes for 2007!

The last few days of 2006 are ahead, and soon a new year will begin. 2006 for me has been my first full year of living in the UK. In 2005 was a big change: new job, new country, new continent. In 2006, it was more about consolidation: moving into a (more or less) permanent home, completing and finalising the move, getting settled.

I travelled a lot this year, mostly on university business, with a few days of personal vacation attached. For this opportunity, I am very grateful - I enjoy to travel, and being there on business and not as a tourist makes me more involved, with a purpose: one gets to know local people, gets involved in local work, gets to see behind the scenes, and is not just seen as a bringer of tourist-cash. In fact, I do not really want to travel anymore anywhere as a plain tourist. Who needs vacation, when work already is so fulfilling and interesting?

Relating to the "regular" work at my job, I have secured one grant for research on Augmented Reality. More grants are needed to create a sustainable working group, and my main effort for 2007 will be to obtain such grants. The next "big thing" will be the establishing of the Leeds Met "Centre for Creative Technology Research". Initial preparations are already on their way, and in the next month we shall see the launch of this centre.

I met many new people this year, made new friendships. And I have really put a lot of effort in this blog here, as a tool for reporting and documenting parts of my life. This blogging is a new method of staying in contact. Although it is primarily a "one-way" street, I have received a lot of feedback which encourages me to go on with it.

Greetings to all of you who are following this blog, old friends and new friends. If I have not yet sent you a personal holiday greeting, then please accept my apologies. My address book has now about 1800 entries, and it is quite difficult to keep in touch with everyone.

My best wishes to you for the upcoming holidays, and for the New Year 2007!