Tempus fugit. I can tell you. Even more so, if you have a baby. I must confess I somewhat underestimated the impact the baby would have on my spare time. In some weird mindset I really thought I could continue working as usual on my open source projects... as we know now I couldn't. I completely lost track and have to catch up with all changes that happened over the last 6 months.
The first bunch of weeks with the baby were really demanding. I mean, really. She screamed a lot and could only sleep in our arms. Boy, were we tired. We carried her around so much we have Schwarzenegger arms now. But it's great to see her developing, err... growing up, of course. With 6 months now she is a very interested baby, eager to learn new things and always trying to become more mobile.
Luckily both my wife and me are self-employed. It so much easier when you can skip some hours at the usual start of the workday and also at the usual end. Of course, the work needs to be done, so we have to compensate when she's in bed. But still, it's very satisfying being able to see her twice a day for a couple of hours -- not all families have this luxury. Plus the existence of our two invaluable grandmas... it's great.
Company-wise, the Lauer & Teuber GbR had an amazing year with many interesting iOS (and some Android) projects. We have reached the maximum we can do with the two guys we are, so we decided to grow and hire our first regular employee who's going to start in 2012. We also rented another office and are already moving.
I'm slowly getting back into some of my beloved open source projects... it's great that work on e.g. FSO did not stall at all, but continued while I was "away". Last week, I attended the 3rd installment of the Open Hard- and Software Workshop in munich, where the latest development of the very promising GTA04 mobile phone was presented. I had a talk about Vala which was well received. By the way, my Vala-book plans are not dead yet... just in parking position :)
Next week I'm attending the FSOSHRCON, a joined conference with the people working on the freesmartphone.org middleware and the SHR software. It's going to be great seeing all the folks again, concentrating a full weekend to agree on some important issues laying the path forward for the next year. Can't wait to be there.
What's left is the feeling that an extremely busy year has passed by, spiced with incredibly intense emotions. I'm a happy man and I love my life. I'm given exciting opportunities, but also challenges – and I plan to accept everything :)
All the best to you guys!