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I began the year by quitting my part time job, a job which I loved, for the "security" of a full time job with more of a future. After six years of working two jobs averaging 60 to 70 hours per week, I just could not keep doing both, and a decision had to be made.

And so, with the hopes of my full time job in operations being eliminated, and a programming position waiting for me, I resigned my part time position as a para professional in adaptive technology. I was hoping to spend more time with my newly forming rock band while learning the programming language RPG/400 in preparation for the culmination of my six years in operations the long awaited move into a programming career.

Early in the year our third operator in an already short handed four person staff, found other employment. Before her two week notice was up, we were informed that she would not be replaced and that she may have been cut soon anyway. The week after she was gone, 45 people got downsized. That is when I quit the band and prepared for a lot of overtime.

I spent the next few months working, sleeping, and mudding.

Some time in mid-summer, I began to get bored with the insider politics of StarMud, and started exploring the World Wide Web. I very quickly found more sites of interest than I could possibly read in the limited time available to me, but still craved more.

In September, I created my home page mostly to organize my regular reading; a sort of personalized bookmark file. That is when, without any conscious decision, I began to take my writing more seriously. I soon started thinking of my home page as an introduction of myself to new contacts in cyberspace.

Coincidentally, the day after I decided to try writing on a regular basis, I was asked to write a story for publication in the Netly News which is an electronic magazine under Time Inc. New Media.

I got noticed before I was really ready for it, and suddenly found myself spending a great deal of time writing. The small amount of attention I received from my first published article soon diminished. After receiving e-mail from about ten people who read my piece in the Netly News, I have received no feedback at all from any of the articles published here at Greg's POV.

In the last quarter of 1996, I have learned more by accident than I could have had hoped to have learned in a year's time. I am constantly reading through a widely diverse range of subject matter in search of the answers to all my questions. For all of the answers that I find however, I find ten more questions.

I end the year better informed than any year prior though, and I look back on the year past with a sense of great growth and accomplishment as well as with a reborn thirst for knowledge.

My life did not really change in 1996; I am still working the same job that I was for the last seven years, I still maintain a gruelling schedule, and I am still waiting to see what comes next.

No, my life didn't change, but I have.

Happy New Year!