If I have called you—and continue to do so—my friend, you do know that I have the best things to say about you. Know that I appreciate you in my life for reasons that I make aware to you on a regular basis. If you feel I’ve been in remiss in doing so, I am sorry. I want to thank you all for the love you have shown me. It’s kept me going through some very tough times.

Some of you are going through the worst of times at this season of the year. You are in my prayers.

I have learned early in school that Christmas is the fulfillment of God’s promise to his people. The story of the Christmas miracle is one that transcends faiths. Treat it as a fairy tale that teaches a lesson, if you want. If you’re of the Body Of Christ, this day is the foundation of half of our theology. May it inspire you to do good. May you be in the company of people who love you.

And if you need me: you know how to reach me. You already know I am here for you.

I’ve had friends online for the longest time; some of them I’ve known from my very earliest days of blogging. When I was invited to a CPAC after-party my Melissa Clouthier, I was prepared to meet some familiar faces. Some people I’ve known online for years but never met until then were James Joyner and Michelle Malkin. However, I was not prepared to meet my long-time friend, Val Prieto. I was just stretching my design muscles back in 2002, and I was glad to have someone I can give a free design to while helping me practice. To this day, his site design has remained unchanged. Meeting him and hearing the appreciation from him directly made me more confident with meeting people in real life.

To its credit, Twitter has a lot to do with the expansion of my social circle. For one, you cannot survive on Twitter without being authentic. Even manufactured authenticity is easy to see through in that medium. You have to be who you are, because if you meet with people after what they know of you online, there’s a kind of mental accounting that happens. There has to be a generous overlap, or else you’re a faker.

I enjoyed visiting friends, especially Ryan Duff in Harrisburg, as he has become a good friend and close professional compatriot. This year was also the year I attended three WordCamps: Raleigh, MidAtlantic, and Philly. Each of those events held their own unique significance.

WordCamp Raleigh was the first conference I spoke in; I was very nervous at first, especially with regards to the relevance of my talk, but I carried through and more than a few people have expressed their appreciation. The trip to Raleigh was also the longest road trip I’ve done so far, with me driving Aaron Brazell and Ryan Duff. It was where I was introduced to Matt Danner and Cory Miller of iThemes, and where I met Travis Ballard. I hung out with Brad Williams and the rest of the WebDev Studios crew. Professionally, Raleigh held a huge lesson in navigating what has become the thornier side of WordPress politics. It was a lesson in the power of ideas going negatively viral, where my thoughts could be taken by others and ran into a direction I never imagined nor intended.

My favorite moment of WordCamp Raleigh was finally—after knowing her for almost eight years online—meeting Lisa Sabin Wilson. My one regret is that I didn’t hug her long enough for all the times I owed her hugs over the time I’ve known her. The greatest of thanks, too, to Michael Torbert, who’s been a great friend over the past two years. He’s been the source of great perspective and has helped me keep my feet on the ground when I needed it the most.

Summer’s highlights included the Newsbusters Nerdprom, which celebrated its 5th anniversary. Another was the Glenn Beck Restoring Honor rally. I didn’t attend—I really wasn’t all that interested—the rally itself, but hanging out after at Rocket Billiards in DuPont with some of my best Twitter friends was one to remember. It was also great finally having a short hour or two at Julian Sanchez‘ place.

It was also great expanding my presence in Baltimore; mainly thanks to the Beer and Bacon Happy Hours at Bad Decisions. I’ve made some really great friends in the city and I’ve grown to like Baltimore’s vibe. Because of my visits I’ve resolved to make an effort to steer my professional life towards that area moreso than DC.

A year’s worth of memories cannot be fully recapped in one long, rambling blog post. It wouldn’t be fair to the people and events I’ve left out, and the more I try I know the more that those who’ve been passed over will be more prominent in their absence. In forgetting to mention some, I mean no insult. I do not hang on to the hope that a year will be better than the last; every day is an opportunity to do better, to break your personal records, whether in weightlifting or your career. I do know that while life will always throw challenges my way, 2010 has helped me be ready for many things.

I’m so ready for 2011. Bring it on.

That said, I have to confess: more days than I do not, I hate going to the gym.

There, I said it. It’s a lot of work. I have an elbow issue that has hampered my progress with some lifts (including the bench press, the yardstick by which all manly strength is measured). I wake up sore the next day, and the DOMS is worse two days after a hard workout. I do a split routine that hits my entire body such that I barely recover until the rest days. On rest days, I do some cardio. I don’t burn out, but my body is never alloweed to fully rest. I have calluses on the palms that were at one time so soft, hands that were predestined by some to be a surgeon’s.

I spend at least two hours at the gym per visit, and I drive ten miles each way to get there. This is gas that commutes one way to work. This is time I could be spending doing a design project, or something useless all together. I’ve avoided athlete’s foot from the locker room by wisely using slippers, but I’m pretty sure I picked up the flu there at least once. I’m certain I’ve estranged friends by spending too much time at the gym.

That’s a lot of discomfort, and actual losses over two years. There’s much reason to hate going to the gym. But there’s so much that I hate more than that.

I hate being out of shape at thirty years old. I’ve sat on my ass for years living a life of the mind, working in a livelihood of the mind (sales, but still), and I’ve neglected my body and my health. Despite what popular culture might say about “acceptance” and “confidence,” our bodies reflect what we do to it, and we are judged by others about what we’ve done to our bodies.

I hate that the media has reached an irreconcilable point where one show on the same channel talks about dangerous body images, and yet another of their shows is littered with images of the very bodies we shouldn’t aspire to because we might hurt ourselves trying, or because it’s too frustrating and time-consuming. I hate that a news outlet would feature an “obesity epidemic” yet obligingly take advertising dollars from the very same companies whose subhuman ingredients and nutritional compositions are making so many of us sick and fat in the first place.

I could sit all day, blog and tweet and watch more TV in a week than what a household used to watch in a year. I could eat at each step of the way. But I hate being overweight: I hate that I have to wear what amounts to a man’s muumuu so I can hide my unsightly curves in public, while being bombarded with the reality that so few among us have taken the time and made the effort to stay healthy. I hate that despite my current weight and body composition, I am still ahead of the curve for most men in my age group, because my current state isn’t really all that. I hate the fact that jeans, those durable denim pants that were built to last practically a lifetime, would have to be replaced every year if I maintained a sedentary, overly consumptive lifestyle. I hate having to buy new shirts every year because the XL that I wore three times last year doesn’t fit right any more. I hate having to buy new pants, of all things, as I suffer the indignity of the fact that in 2007 I wore size 32 and now am finding size 34 a little too tight, but here I cling to the hope that the effort I make at least four days a week will pay off and I won’t have to go to Old Navy next year to buy another pair of pants, which by then would be size 36.

I hate that fat comes hand-in-hand with ugly, and that behind it closely rides its younger, bastard brother, apathy. There are very, very few truly zaft people. Most people who could lose a few pounds could also use a haircut, a better scrubbing in the shower, fuck it, a daily fucking shower, and some better-fitting clothes. I hate that we out-of-shape people come with all sorts of sterotypes that impugn our honor. Fat people are lazy, or neglectful of family, or “eat too much.” I hate that once you’re stuck in an apathetic rut, even getting dressed for the gym can be such a chore. I hate that the beautiful people could at least pass off as having perfect lives. I want that kind of ironic invisibility, that benefit of the doubt that a fit guy or sexy girl gets during a job interview.

I know I may never meet the standards that popular culture might impose, I want my body to reflect the respect and care I give it. I may hate going to the gym, but what I will go through when I choose to quit the gym all together is something I hate more.

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…Okay. I got nothing. It’s just right past midnight anyway. I’ll be writing a more personal post later but tonight I’m just funning as usual.

Not that anyone is really spending the weekend in grave mortification. There are ways around the sheer boredom and proscriptions against conducting business. In Pampanga, where I came from, kids played in street. Deprived of regular television viewing except for religious-oriented films such as The Ten Commandments, we had to get creative with what we did. Video games in my household were forbidden during this time. When I was tired, I would read.

I would go to the makeshift chapels where they would read the Pasyon (an extended narrative poem about the life and times of Jesus Christ). These were centers for activity. The prayerful would spend most of the time there. Outside, children would frolic while their parents prayed and gossiped. Penitents—anonymous in their faces covered with cloth and dragging large wooden crosses the way Christ has been depicted—would visit a chapel for a small drink of water and a ceremonial whipping at its floor, in front of the altar. Equally anonymous flagellants—their backs intentionally and shallowly wounded for the visual effect of blood that the cat o’ nine tails can’t draw—would walk the streets. As a youngster I never understood why these people would silently re-enact the suffering of Christ, some, all the way to a crucifixion—modified for non-lethal effect—on Good Friday. The practice bewilders non-Filipinos, and every now and then I have to explain, without myself being a participant, why it’s done.

While gory theatre they may be, it is still theatre. The Good Friday crucifixions performed in Pampanga are mere shadows of the real Roman crucifixions. But why subject oneself to even the shadow of that pain? Why would a woman go through this fourteen times, despite the objections of the diocese? The priesthood discourages the practice but really cannot forbid it, because these penitents are doing something that so many religions teach in one form or another: rejection of the Flesh, ahorrence of pleasure—suffering, pain, discomfort and sacrifice—which lead to an altered state of consciousness. Starvation led the prophets of old to great insight. Psychoactive drugs were used by others to see into a truth obscured by daily living. The penitents who have themselves crucified suffer as a matter of choice because—at least for the truly penitent—they feel the weight of their sins on their consciences. This clarity, this insight earned through pain and suffering, can be so stark that it leads people to want more. It’s just like a drug. It starts with bearing that cross that first time. Then it just escalates.

Alas, growing up, the practice has changed a little. It used to be that the crucified penitents were shrouded as they stayed up there. Now, it looks like their faces are out for people to see. There’s an element of theatre and recognition that mars the solemnity and casts doubts of the sincerity of such an act.

What does ritual mortification have to do with modern, American life? I grew up in a slightly more comfortable environment than my two siblings, who were born ten and nine years before me. I never knew true hunger, never knew true suffering. My mother saw to that. Personal difficulties are not worth nothing, even if compared against the hardships of others. It is when we are faced with the gravest of problems that we are challenged to be at our best. We may not bear wooden crosses, but we have challenges ahead of us.

Here in the States, Good Friday is yet another workday for so many in the private sector. Easter has become a secular holiday—well, what else is new—emblemized by a mythical rabbit, colored eggs and plenty of candy. Just like Christmas, the religious background goes backstage. This is America, right? But honestly, I’m not really mourning the way Americans celebrate Easter, for as long as it’s a holiday well-spent and not wasted, to be with family and friends. I really can’t say you guys are missing the point, but boy are you guys missing out.

I took my time working on this. It’s been a while since I’ve approached something with such childlike wonder. Tonight I had fun.

Before then, I was wary of attending blogger meetups. We learned about people based on what they were writing, a few email conversations and not much else. Maintaining a steady line of communication amongst locals was not easy, given that most bloggers in my area of interest—politics—live far apart. We also tend to look within ourselves, our at the world from within our windows. My participation in Twitter broke me out of my shell. So, a few highlights:

A springtime bus trip to NYC with my best friend, his sister and his girlfriend. For fear of attracting the worst of theives and muggers, I suggested against bringing our DSLRs. Bringing pocket cameras in their stead was the biggest regret of the trip.

May brought WordCamp Mid-Atlantic, which was the first conference I attended. Organized by Aaron Brazell, the event gave me a chance to meet long-time online friend Stephan Segraves, and WordPress lead developer Mark Jaquith.

I also went to a number of local meetups organized through Twitter. Some of them in Baltimore, and I’ve gone to monthly meetups in Columbia, MD. The last big event of the year was TEDx MidAtlantic (recap).

The year in news is marred with a general sense of dissatisfaction. It’s led to a general sentiment of “good riddance to bad rubbish,” and in that respect, I agree. However, the past year was one of great personal growth and challenges for me. It was not one to forget.

I left the laptop at home despite the fact that I had the privelege of being able to liveblog the event. I took plenty of notes. I hung out with people I knew. I met people I know online for the first time. I made new friends. We were well-fed in mind and body. In the days to come, I will be posting commentary on most of the talks themselves, along with scans from my Moleskine.

[1020]: I’ve been around since the early days of the Movable Type vs. WordPress conflict, and having listened to Anil Dash speak today about ongoing evolution in SixApart’s operations makes me feel like I’ve grown up as a blogger. My best takeaway from the talk is his emphasis on convergence of networks. He spoke about the closed nature of Facebook, for example, and how networks need to evolve in a more open manner. Two words: “Ice melts.”

[1359]: Had a great lunch with a panel of nine guys, lively discussion. I spent a lot of time listening. I’ve hung out at the atrium area and bouncing off ideas with people more than listened to the talks.

[0020]: Just got home from the event. I decided to stay unplugged and just rock the place. Recap tomorrow.