Book Release Party After many months of working on this book, I finally had my opportunity to release it. My friends at Maki Toki were gracious enough to allow me to host my party there and we had a pretty amazing turnout. Caroline also had the coolest cake in the world made for me. It was my book cover out of some kind of icing. I have no idea where she had it made or how they did it, but she's awesome like that. I was especially flattered that all of the guys I work with made the trek from all over Austin to hang out.

Night out with Devin Caroline's good friend from Washington, DC came in town and we all met up at the Scoot Inn. Naturally I had to leave early to finish up work (as per my usual), but there was plenty of debauchery well before I left (as is evidenced).

Baby Kujda Per my continuing efforts of seeing all of my friends' children born, I made it into Houston for little D. Kujda. I had the privilege of hanging out with the grandparents in the waiting room all afternoon. All in all, it was a pretty standard afternoon in the delivery room.

Vegas Birthdays A bunch of my friends had been planning a trip to Las Vegas for Dreux and Eric's respective birthdays. I hadn't actually planned on going since I had been working so much and wanted to spend the Christmas holidays in Austin. However, after some unexpected turns, I bought a ticket the day of the trip and flew out. We had a great time as always and I was really glad to spend some time with friends out in the desert. I also won a few hundred dollars playing craps (albeit spent it all on our dinner outing).

New Years 2012/2013 We rolled in the New Year with some friends and some drinks. Nothing especially high-profile, but a fun time nevertheless.

The Kelley Ranch Tom's sister-in-law (who happens to live in Austin) invited me down to the Kelley Ranch for the evening. I hadn't seen Tom and family in quite a long time and so I was pretty excited to head down for the evening. I brought some toys with me and we taught the kids how to shoot the .22 (and the 9mm, but that was a little trickier for them).

Capitol City Trap My buddy Grant invited me out to the local trap and skeet club behind Decker Lake. We went with his buddy Craig and his father-in-law, Gary. We did the medium course and while I used to think I was decent at sporting clays, I now realize that I am not.

Trip to Northern Michigan Mark, Felip and I took an extended road trip to northern Michigan. After visiting the Sleeping Bear Dunes, we headed east to Traverse City (pronounced Travers city) and then up the various peninsulas of Michigan. We visited a very interesting architectural house for sale known as the symphonic house. It was designed with giant strings through the house that are entirely playable and resonate throughout the living room and upstairs. We tried to go swimming at one of the state parks, but unfortunately the rocky bottom hurt our feet terribly and we had to get out.

First Rebel T3 Shots I bought myself a new Canon Rebel T3 for my upcoming travels. These are the first shots I took with it. As a side note, I forgot to set the date and time on the camera before I began shooting, so the EXIF data is off.

Pacific Marlin Fishing My boss, Javier, chartered us a 72 foot yacht in the Pacific for some deep sea Marlin fishing. On our way out to the known Marlin areas we happened to hook two at nearly the same time. With both of them on the line at the same time, it became impossible to steer the boat to our advantage. Instead we had to reel them both in without moving our position.