An Open Source Christmas Letter

I have been sending out Christmas letters for many years.

I got the idea from Lamont Wood, a writer and friend whose annual reports of Conglomerated Woodco are always filled with fun, and details of his family’s life in Texas.

Lamont and I co-wrote a book early in the 1990s, called "Bulletin Board Systems for Business." It described the online tools of the period, and suggested that people harness them. Unfortunately it came out two years before the Web was spun.

Since then Lamont has gone on to write many books, on a wide variety of subjects. He is a brilliant writer and a very good man. Merry Christmas, Lamont. To the right is your Christmas present. I found it on the Web. It’s a park in Australia. I hope you can take your family there some day.

My own attempts to create something like the Woodco report have been frustrated by talent and, more important, by technology. I wanted to do it in HTML, but found it never worked. The editors I used couldn’t translate to a Web page, and were a disaster in print. For a long time I used Microsoft Word and printed the results. But copies, at $1 and more for color, were prohibitively expensive.

A year ago, as part of my work at ZDNet, I got OpenOffice. It didn’t work either. Then, this fall, I downloaded another version, Version 2.3.1.

Finally, success. I was able to edit pictures to size using The Gimp, another open source product, and the result printed quite nicely.

Transferring it to the Web, where it appears as the extended body to this post, took several minutes. The pictures didn’t follow the HTML code, and had to be manually inserted. Not a problem because they had already been sized. But since the original code had left room for them, the original code for the pictures had to be edited, and the pictures inserted manually. This sounds harder than it was. It took me all of five minutes.

So, finally, with great humility and joy after 13 years of hard work on the Web, our family’s first Web Christmas letter:

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2007:
Maturity Hard Won

Welcome
to the 2007 Christmas letter of Dana, Jenni, Robin and John
Blankenhorn.

I
turn 53 next month. I thought that was old once. Last week a little
kid asked if I was Santa. I fight aging in every way I can, and
usually feel pretty good. The heart disease that killed my dad I
fight with medicine. The eye problems of my mother I just fought with
surgery. My own demons I’ve fought with therapy. The battle never
ends for any of us.

Writing
continues to go well. ZDNet gave me a second blog,
and added a second writer to my first.
I found an in-house magazine publisher who honored me with some
assignments, and my own blog
drew more readers. It has been the best year this century for me,
and the work grows increasingly interesting.

Jenni
spent several weeks in Texas, helping her family cope with her
father’s health issues. Her mom has grown stronger. She and her
siblings have grown closer. None of us knows where our story will
end. We can only hope to be as blessed at that time as the
Steinhausers.

Jenni’s
co-workers and employer love her. They treat her well. They honor her
commitment. It is gratifying to her, to be seen as an expert, to
deliver on that promise, to know you’re earning your pay.
This
is our hope for Robin and John, that they find lives as fulfilling
and rewarding as the lives we have made together.

Robin’s
path has taken her to Georgia Perimeter College, our local junior
college

There she is taking her time, and taking a variety of
courses. She has done surprisingly well in some, not so well in
others. But the tuition is low, and when she finishes she’ll know
enough about herself to succeed.

This
month Robin learned she will take a summer semester next year in
Italy. In preparation, she’s taking Italian next semester. She’s very
excited. All of us are.

John
has had the longest year. He began it as a 15-year old kid. He ends
it as a 16 year old man.

Along the way he has had many challenges.
Most are the result of ADHD, something I have also struggled with.
John has done many things to deal with ADHD’s anger and impatience.
He has used therapy. He keeps a notepad with him. He has faith.

Today
we give thanks for our blessings, as we give thanks for yours.

Hug
your kids, your parents and each other. Stay well. Stay in touch.

Dana
Blankenhorn

December
2007