After wandering over to the Apple Store, and somehow getting interviewed by VentureBeat, I had eventually arrived home while Sarah was putting Adela to bed and was sitting on the couch when she came out of the nursery.

“Pretty shaken up, huh?” she asked. I nodded.

“Thinking about your legacy… what you’ll leave to the world?” she asked. I nodded again.

“You have Adela. You’ll leave a wonderful daughter.” I nodded again.

This is true. Even as she said it, I was thinking, “And Adela will bury me one day. What will she say? When she looks around at the world I’ve given her, will it be better? Will she even think I tried?”

It’s not like I need a level of impact equal to Steve Jobs for that answer to be yes. My mother was a school teacher for decades and every time a former student would say hello at the grocery store—their own kid waddling behind them—they’d say, “This was daddy’s 1st grade teacher. She taught daddy how to read.” Likewise, my father was in state government for many years and now runs a non-profit trying to increase college graduation rates. His organization has recently enjoyed a bit of media success, featured in everything from the New York Times to Gawker. Between the two of them, literally hundreds if not thousands of people are going to be better educated.

My parents are older than me. They’re even older than Steve was yesterday. There is time left. As friends forward around inspiring quotes like…

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

…I’m reminded how lucky I am. I love my profession. Web design marries the creative and analytical parts of my mind like nothing else I know (maybe music?) and I truly believe the Internet is the second—spoken language being first and the printing press third—most powerful force for bringing humanity closer together. It is truly an amazing time to be alive.

I hope that Adela will be able to see that these pixels I push around all day are about that. Not just snippets of code or sexy gradients but about illuminating information and spreading ideas, about nurturing a new medium that will one day supplant everything from television to radio to books, about democratizing communication until anyone can talk to anyone about anything and the planet begins to understand that we’re all in it together.

That is a worthy legacy.

I’ve been blogging off-and-on since 2002, lately more off than on. Despite a few, “I’m back!” posts over the last few years, it’s become clear to me that I don’t really have a blog anymore. There’s some pretty damning evidence in support of that hypothesis:

In September 2009, I got married. Did you know that? Yeah, you probably did. But certainly not from reading this blog. No mention of it anywhere and definitely no photo galleries of the occasion.

Last summer, my wife (see above) and I discovered we were expecting a baby. I was shaving and she kicked me out of the bathroom, 90 seconds later we were jumping up and down in the hallway holding a little pink wand. Then I finished shaving. Again, you probably knew that already but you didn’t learn it here.

About seven weeks ago, my daughter Adela Beatrice was born. She’s incredible, adorable, and highly photogenic. You’d think that—maybe—I’d mention that somewhere. Even post a photo? Nope.

So yeah, I don’t think I really have a blog anymore. I mean, it’s not like I’m totally silent on the Internet, but there’s a balance or even synergy (sorry!) to be found between the micro- and macro-blogging. I’ll keep sniffing around the edges and, who knows, maybe have a blog again someday.

I’ve been writing and rewriting annual goals religiously since the ball dropped in 2000, back when I was a senior in college. I take them seriously. A decade later I’ve thrown raves (2001), gone vegetarian (2003), moved to San Francisco (also 2003), and have my own business (2008). Despite such achievements, every year has the same leftovers. Make more art. Exercise more. Spend less. Stay in better touch with family and friends.

A new strategy was called for. Despite Sarah’s success with intentions over resolutions, I have clung to my SMART goals like a wobbly buoy. Wildly successful at life-changing leaps, they admittedly leave behind daily behaviors. Now fully comfortable in my own life, I no longer need transformation. I need grace. I need focus. I need intention. And so my intentions for 2010 are “Less Waste, More Life”.

Less Waste

Worried that my intentions were ambiguous bordering on glib, I almost wrote this as, “Less Dicking Around on the Internet” but as I reread my Tao Te Ching…

So, as ever hidden, we should look at its inner essence:
As always manifest, we should look at its outer aspects.

…I decided that keeping the specifics unnamed might actually let them remain more specific.

Either way, “dicking around on the Internet” had to go. I unsubscribed from all the blogs that consisted entirely of crap entitled “10 Essential Mac Apps for Simplifying Your Workflow” or “25 Vital WordPress Plug-ins for Converting Traffic” or “[number] [superlative] [nouns] for [desirable outcome]“. Every single one made me mad to read, because I either already knew everything it mentioned or—worse—I didn’t… and then had to evaluate each hyperbolic claim as either worthy or worthless. All those feeds are gone. Bye.

Also, blogs written by Hipsters making fun of other Hipsters. Even ironically. Gone.

One step further, my laptop now lives at the office during the week. Yes, I will be sans computas post-six o’clock every day. It will still make it home on the weekends, for purposes of copying torrented content to our media server and whimsical side projects, but otherwise is 100% property of Diligent Creative (who owns it anyway, for legal reasons).

These behaviors have already demonstrated their potential. As Sarah returned from her haircut on Sunday, I sat in the kitchen making DIY moonjars while baking homemade bread (cracked pepper and Gruyere) with the old solar panel primed for installation on our new back porch. Solar projects (Less Wasted Energy!) and home baking (Less Wasted Money!) aside, moments where—merely a week before—I would be reading about things to do had become doing things. Gently setting down my 4-in-1 screwdriver, I looked up and said, “my life used to be like this all the time.”

More Life

It becomes an inevitability that the holes abandoned by retreating waste are filled by something. In my case, I’m resolving for that something to be life. I don’t mean this in the socially normative “Choose Life” sense, but in the literal sense. Plants. Animals. People. Life.

For someone with so many hobbies, I rarely enjoy them in the company of others. San Francisco has a fantastic electronic music scene, but I’ve sat on my ass as great artists have come and gone, weekly events went under for lack of attendance, and acquaintances that could’ve become fast friends have moved on to other cities.

Likewise, I hang out with only a handful of other web designers. Yes, we’re solitary creatures requiring only coffee and the warm glow of Apple logos for survival, but still… we could at least get coffee together. I’m talking the IRL meatspace.

Speaking of, I tried El Diablo at CoffeeBar today. Chipotle-chocolate cappucino. Would’ve loved a wing man.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the biggest example of “More Life” of all:

Sarah’s desire for the pitter-patter of little feet around the house.

By which I mean a kitten. What did you think I meant? Oh, the thumbnail for this post? That’s from the poster for “2010: The Year We Make Contact“. Not a science-fiction fan, I guess?