So what has 2012 been like so far? In a word – dramatic. I’ve made more changes to my life in the past three months, than I have in close to three years. It’s been scary, but it has been everything I’ve wanted it to be.

I started off 2012 by jumping head-first into a fabulous new role at Sprouter. Ever since I started talking to people whose job title was “Community Manager” I felt that it was a role that really spoke to me. Equal parts writing, event-planning and event-attending, it seemed like the perfect fit. And it is. Life is busy, as the predecessor of my role left pretty big shoes to fill, but it’s also challenging, fun, and gives me the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs all day, so it’s just about as perfect as perfect gets.

In mid-March, after almost eight years of dating, I proposed to the love of my life. The lovely miss Jenn has been with me through everything, and I stopped imagining a future for myself without her in it. My dreams of what I will accomplish in this world changed from ‘me’ to ‘we’ a long, long time ago, and I’m looking forward to planning the biggest party of my life with her, and celebrating what we have with our friends and family. JS-Squared will live on for many, many years to come.

While those are by far the biggest milestones of 2012, I’ve managed to sneak in some amazing experiences in between that are worth remembering. I attended SXSW for the second time, and met some extraordinary people. I shook hands with Nardwuar, which pretty much made everything worth it. I gave a talk on Social Media as part of CommuniTech’s P2P speaker series. I got to see Toronto FC tie the LA Galaxy from great seats in one of the few occasions when the Skydome became a soccer field (thanks again @ FreshBooks for the tickets!)

All in all, 2012 has been pretty incredible so far. Now – how have you been?

Since 2012 is really going to be a big transition year for me, I don’t really want to dwell on 2011 to the point of repeating past blog posts. All I can say is that I have learned an incredible amount about myself this year, and I will be forever grateful to the people who helped me. Thank you. All of you.

Since I absolutely love remixes in every way, here’s one by DJ Earworm that mashes up a bunch of my favourite songs from the past year. I think it’s a fitting send-off to 2011:

Before I scrap this mini-project all together, here’s a few articles that caught my eye last week:

1. 10 Steps to Better Blogging by Dan Frommer at SplatF. As someone who writes for both the FreshBooks Blog, and the fine personal publication you see here, this was a great read for me. My biggest take-away was to write the site you want to read, and to try new things. My most-read post as of today? This post on Twinsday as part of Jon Spenceley Week. It was also the most fun to write – I think there’s a correlation between the two.
2. The Done Manifesto via LifeHacker. I have to admit – I don’t read LifeHacker as much as I used to. Their posts are always great, but I find the things that are relevant to me sometimes get lost in the volume of posts they put up every day. This one stood out to me because I’m always on the lookout for ways to be more efficient in my day-to-day activities. Getting stuff done is extremely important, but sometimes it’s hard to finish projects when I’m constantly starting them. I like the idea that you should accept everything is a draft – and to laugh at perfection. I can sometimes get too focused on refining something until it’s ‘perfect’ that a project will just sit in limbo until its no longer relevant. I also have to accept, as they put it, that “Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.” Being willing to fail is the key to trying new things.
3. There is a Lego Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. There is also a tiny version. If these were real lego sets, I would own them. Fun Fact: I am actually 9 years old most of the time.

So these are a few articles I’ve been reading over the past few days. I hope you enjoy reading them as well. If you have suggestions for things you have been reading, let me know! Post it in the comments, or email me.

25 is a big year. It’s not a “shit or get off the pot” year like 40, but it’s still up there. The Life Expectancy for males according to StatsCan is 79, so by that measure, I’m now finished 32% of my natural life. Failing the advent of futuristic life-sustaining technology, I ain’t getting any younger.

At the risk of making this a Livejournal-esque diatribe on the effect of ‘growing old’ on a mind that still finds fart noises funny, I’ll refrain from making any sweeping judgments about my own mental state. Let’s stick to the facts – what I am doing with my life now is not what I thought I would be doing when I “grew up.” And I’m 100% okay with that.

I remember being asked in high school, by a guidance counselor who cared about my future about as much as she cared whether there was milk or cream in the break room, “Where do you see yourself at 25?” It was a tough question to answer. At the time, I really didn’t want to do anything more ambitious with my life than sit in my friends basement and play his hacked XBox until we ran out of Bugles, and then hop in his parents minivan because, like damn – those were good Bugles. Hardly what I would call a career.

I ended up going with Computer Science. Why? Well, aside from the fact that I was kind of nerdy, I really just scanned my report card and picked the thing I had the highest mark in. Computer Programming 3U – Grade 11 code-slappin’. I don’t want to say that this was a bad choice – at the time it seemed great – but it did point to a fundamental flaw in our high school guidance system. Nobody actually asked me what I enjoy doing – just what I thought I was ‘good at’. For the entirety of my academic career, I was not graded on things by how much personal satisfaction I took from them, or how I enlightened the lives of those around me. I was simply given a numerical measure for whether or not I aligned my level of skill with what the provincial requirements were for my grade level.

I spent almost all of my high-school career running events for Student Council, speaking in front of packed auditoriums, and judging talent shows. The spotlight was my baby – yet at the time nobody really pointed this out. So I went into Computer Science, and lo and behold – ended up having pretty much the same experience.

I rocked my program. Graduated top of my class – legit – but I walked away from it feeling like I was never really hooked. I didn’t program in my spare time, and I never met a computing puzzle I actually liked. What I did like was my extra-curricular activities: I ran events for my student council, and spoke to packed classrooms about interesting things, and I rallied support for important causes. I worked for the IT Help Desk and taught courses on how to use Microsoft Word.

Hindsight is such a kick in the pants.

What is the moral of this story? It’s hard to say – this was one of those times I just decided to start typing and see where it got me. If I had to peg it down to one, it would be the same lesson I hear from a lot of the customers I work with every day: It’s never to late to have an epiphany about doing what you actually love.

When I was 17, and asked to decide the future of my life, I did exactly as I was told. I went with what I was – numerically – best at instead of what I was passionate about. Hindsight sucks, but it’s never too late to figure that out.

My big, sloppy insight after 25 years? Try to do something every week that makes you happy. Then do two things. And keep adding more and more (as many as you can) until the gap between the things love doing, and what you do every day just vanishes.

I’m a bit of a closet soccer geek, and playing a myriad of FIFA games in my spare time is a hidden obsession of mine. Not having too many friends that are willing to tolerate my tiny television, I rarely get the chance to play these against anyone but the online set of die-hard players that play at a level that I can only describe as “haunting”. To rectify this, I hauled my XBox into the office with a stack of soccer titles, and hooked it up to the large teevee screen we usually use to watch movies and show general company info.

We played from 4pm to 6pm, and folks from all parts of the FreshBooks crew came out to join me. It was fun watching developers throw down against our marketing team, and seeing some support-team versus support-team soccer rivalries born. My camera is, as always, a handicap, but you can witness the fun here:

Day 4 was a pretty important day. Jon Spenceley Week would be a hollow shell without Jon Spenceley Day, and I definitely felt the love. FreshBooks has a policy of taking folks out for lunch on their birthday (avec their team) but I decided to spice things up a bit and use my birthday lunch money to buy shawarmas for the entire office. I pulled a similar stunt last year with fantastic results, so I figured I would try it again this year. Our office manager, Asmita, works wonders with the local restaurants, and these were absolutely delicious. Some pics of the happy Jon Spenceley Day food festivities:

The nightcap on this amazing evening was dinner with my ladyfriend Jenn. Normally we would hit up our favourite chop house for some grilled bovine, but this time I wanted to try something special. I had heard a lot of people talk about Fune, a sushi restaurant downtown that had a wonderfully playful sushi bar. They take the ‘conveyor belt sushi’ idea and spice it up by trading a flat conveyor belt for a series of wooden sushi boats propelled around a small moat. It sounds cheesy, but it’s actually really classy, and super fun. Jenn and I had a blast:

All in all, the best birthday I could have asked for. To top it all off, Jenn got me one of the best gifts I have ever received:

For those who are passionate about Tiki kitsch culture, there is one book, and one book alone that truly captures everything you need to know about the history of this fun design and lifestyle aesthetic. It came out in 2003, they printed painfully few copies, it’s pretty much the Tiki bible, and it’s ungodly expensive. I’ve wanted it for months, but just couldn’t justify buying it for myself.

Unwrapping it brought tears to my eyes. I plan to have it framed when I’m done reading it, or at least find a creative way of putting it on display.

So, even though Jon Spenceley Week still has 2 more days left, it’s already been one of the most fun weeks of my entire life. I have truly, truly special friends, and I can’t say enough how much they mean to me. It’s an honour and a privilege to have such amazing people in my life. Fo real.

And the promise of more fun posts later – I’ve been swamped with awesomeness at home and at FreshBooks this week. Gotta do a writeup on Day 3 and Day 4 at some point – good times had by all! Thanks again for all the love – my friends are superstars!

The event had another positive going for it – it was held at the Brickworks, which is a venue I have been dying to visit. Something about converted factory space always appeals to me, and the Brickworks took not only an ecological take on this, but chose to preserve almost all of the original structure. Sold.

My first few minutes of TUM time weren’t happy. I was waiting outside Broadview station for a shuttle bus at 7pm that the Brickworks website told me stopped at 5pm. As the crowd grew to 75+ people I was growing restless, and tweeted my first (of a few) epic whiny tweets:

A few minutes later, I got my first taste of the the kind of great service and tasty food I was looking for:

No tweet from TUM’s official account on when the bus would come, but one of the vendors was ready. I like this.

We finally made it to the event, and the Brickworks completely floored me with how amazing it is as an events space. Here’s a few pics I managed to grab amid eating, but they do NOT do this facility justice:

My first stop was to visit La Comida del Pueblo to try the Jalapeño Corn Bread Grilled Cheese. While I waited in line, Jenn helped herself to some perogies from a less busy (but still wildly delicious) vendor:

When my time finally came to buy my grilled cheese, I was rewarded with another surprise – shrimp tamales! I grabbed one of each:

We then worked our way around, and ended up trying some Italian treats from the Thistletown High School Chefs. Unfortunately they don’t have a site, otherwise I’d link to them in a heartbeat. Their food was delicious.

After grabbing a beer, Jenn and I worked our way over to the Empanada stand (cannot remember their name, and they don’t appear to be listed on the program). Jenn and I thoroughly enjoyed these, and they were 2 for $5:

Our next stop was Elements for some Pork & Crab Vermicelli. This soup hit the spot (we were getting cold) and had just the right amount of kick:

This wasn’t our last stop, but we did decide to take a breather and just sit for a bit. I had eaten a lot of food in a short period of time.

Once we had rested up we decided to follow the tweet from the West Side Beef crew and try some of this chili. I managed to grab a bowl (and thank their social media team) before we hung out next to the great bonfire in the new “Chimney Court” space at the Brickworks:

My chili was delicious, but the pizza oven stole the show for Jenn. She and I are both pretty big fans of pizza, so we decided to finish our night eating whatever deliciousness came out of the amazing wood-fired pizza oven they had built. The results were pretty spectacular:

After hanging out by the fire for a bit longer, we strolled around the Brickworks for a few minutes before catching the shuttle bus back. This time we didn’t have to wait for too long – the bus was waiting for us, and departed after it filled up.

All in all, an extremely great experience at a wonderful venue. I’m looking forward to the next TUM, and am highly saddened that we won’t have the opportunity to grab this tasty food until early 2012. I was almost tempted by a Tacos and Tequila party hosted at the Drake on the 21st, featuring the one and only La Carnita, but unfortunately I had spent my ‘amazing food’ budget at TUM, so I’ll have to wait for another opportunity to sample the Voltron Fish Tacos.

First off, we have Rich & Levi sporting their FreshBooks threads:

Next, Steve and I ran with the Purple Pirate theme:

Kasey & Gary looking out unto the new world in their nautical digs:

Betty & Dick popped a collar for Jon Spenceley Week:

Sarah & Jane are all business:

Betty, Erin, Jeremy, Shey and Sandy became the first quintuplets at FreshBooks:

Jamaal, Daniel and Tim are abs-olutely the most ripped triplets on Twinsday:

Jesse tries to understand why Scott is so happy with this empty coffee cup:

Grace & Avrum get too cool for school:

Kasey makes a 2nd appearance, rocking the stripes with Theresa:

And finally, Grace & Sandy share a mirror moment:

All-in-all, a fantastic Twinsday that made my entire day 100% more awesome. As aways, check out our Tumblr for an ongoing look at the FreshBooks good times!

Today’s event ties into the larger, Tiki-theme I have created for my life as a whole. First, I unveiled my ambitious desktop construction project in its full glory:

I was totally enthralled by Frankie’s Tiki Room while I was in Las Vegas, so I decided to at least attempt to create that feeling here in our office. With winter on its way, I figured some tropical vibes might be nice. So far the response has been unanimous – never take it down!

I also decided to whip up some Pina Coladas for the afternoon to share in the tropical festivities. Normally I would walk these around on a bamboo tray and just hand them out, but today was for charity, so a $2 donation was required to redeem one. The event was a pretty resounding success – I handed out 35 drinks, and raised $70 dollars for Movember! Not bad! Here’s some pics of the festivities:

Once I was down to my last 5, I decided to walk the beat with the Movember box:

Managed to sell them before I had even made it past the first meeting room. There goes my exercise!

Tomorrow is Twinsday, so everyone who wants to participate has to dress just like another office member. I am highly familiar with the ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ motif of the interwebs, so I’ll do my best to get the photos uploaded here when it’s all said and done!

Fun Fact – If you want to follow all of the antics of the FreshBooks crew, just check out our Tumblr!

The Poken tag we all received was supplied by Monster.ca, and looks like this:

The little gray dot on the end of the ‘hand’ part of the tag is what you touch to other people’s tags to swap info. The best part is that you don’t have to sign up before using the device – you just start high-fiving people, and when you get home, pop the Poken tag into your computer (via USB). After you sign up for your account, your info gets automatically populated to anyone else who signs up for a Poken account and high-fived your device. Fun times!

I was a bit worried about people not really wanting to sign up, but of the 25 people that I high-fived with my Poken tag, 19 actually signed up for an account.

It’s been great for following up with people I spoke to, and even though I handed out some physical business cards, having a digital one is kind of fun too. Right now my account is pretty basic, but I’d like to look into the customization options for templates, and some of the social media integrations.

They also have an iPhone application that you can use to swap contact info, but I’m not sure whether this is really all that different from Bump. One nice difference between Poken and Bump from an iPhone standpoint is that contacts are also automatically added to your online database as well. Neat stuff!

Is this any better than Hashable, or other digital business card options? That I don’t know. But I do like having my Poken tag, and I’d love to investigate having one of the Poken stickers cut for my contact info so that anyone can just tap the sticker and know who I am. Alternatively, I also get a QR code with my account that I can use to get people to visit my digital business card as well.

Digital Narcissism at its finest! On that note, I give you, my Poken card: