The personal disquiet of

Mark Boulton

December 20th, 2005

2005 has been quite a year

What a year. What. A. Year.

From launch­ing this site, being ill and get­ting to meet so many new friends — it’s been event­ful that’s for sure.

I don’t really know where to start, so much stuff has happened but I’ll try and be brief.

2005: Early on

The year star­ted off with the launch of version5 of this web­site, the primary driver being the new ver­sion of Expres­sion Engine and my new found enthu­si­asm for this pub­lish­ing software. 

Within a month or so it was great to see this site on Styleg­ala and CSS Vault and I was invited to part of the 9rules Net­work. I wrote a couple of art­icles in the first few months, one of them for Design In Flight and from there things pretty much snowballed.

2005: The Middle

Dur­ing early sum­mer, Emma and I cel­eb­rated our first wed­ding anniversary with a trip to Rome which was fant­astic — we even saw the Pope! On our return I spent a couple of days in Lon­don at the @media con­fer­ence. It was great to finally meet some of the people whose blogs I’ve been read­ing for a couple of years.

After com­ing back from @media things went down­hill. I lost over a stone in weight and was really quite ill. After a few of hours in hos­pital, I was dia­gnosed with an Inflam­mat­ory Bowel Dis­ease called Ulcer­at­ive Colitis. I’ll have it for the rest of my life and have to take daily med­ic­a­tion to try and keep it in check. It could have been worse though and since August I’ve been pretty well.

It was dur­ing this time I wrote two series of art­icles which have proved to be the most pop­u­lar on this site. Five Simple Steps to bet­ter typo­graphy and Five Simple Steps to design­ing grid sys­tems.

2005: The last four months

Things have been really hec­tic in the lat­ter part of 2005. I’ve had my largest freel­ance pro­ject com­ing to a close, and what with jug­gling that, a full time job and try­ing to be a hus­band, i’ve had my work cut out.

I made it down to the Car­son Work­shop with Andy and Molly, which was superb (write-up is here). Fol­low­ing that I went on hol­i­day, nearly learnt to dive and sprained my wrist.

Some lists

Here’s some lists for you:

Not­able mentions

These range from the people who con­tinue to inspire me to those who con­tinu­ally bring a smile to my face. Without them, 2005 would have been slightly less inspir­ing and not as funny.

Stuff that I couldn’t get by without in 2005

On a lighter note

High­lights from markboulton.co.uk in 2005

2006 prom­ises to be a biggy

2006 prom­ises to be quite a year already. 

Em and I are off to Aus­tralia for three weeks in April for a friends wed­ding amongst other things. I’ll be speak­ing at SXSWi ’06 with Jason, Khoi and Toni and also for those lovely Aus­trali­ans at Port 80. Add to that a couple of big per­sonal pro­jects in the first half of the year, the day job and con­tinu­ing to be the lov­ing hus­band I am :). 

Oh, and I’m doing my best to stay fit and healthy as well.

A big thank you to every­one who reads, com­ments and con­trib­utes to this site. I really wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for you. Soppy eh? Have a merry Christ­mas and a happy New Year.

Right, is that the kettle I can smell? I’m off, tea beck­ons. See you in 2006!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Personal, markboulton.co.uk.

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18 Responses to “2005 has been quite a year”

  1. Mike D. said on: December 20th, 2005 at 6:51 pm

    It takes quite a man to talk about his bowels on the air. Good show!

  2. Mark Boulton said on: December 20th, 2005 at 7:19 pm

    None of that Brit­ish reserve here! :)

  3. The Wife said on: December 20th, 2005 at 10:19 pm

    “Stuff that I couldn’t get by without in 2005

    Tea

    My new car

    My Wife and fam­ily”

    I love it that I’m third behind your stom­ach and the car!! I love you too hus­band ;0)

  4. Ben Spicer said on: December 21st, 2005 at 12:14 am

    Con­grats on ‘mak­ing it’ in 2005! 

    Carry on the good work, and happy new Chrimbo

  5. Ben Spicer said on: December 21st, 2005 at 12:21 am

    errr, Chrimbo, not new Chrimbo :)

    (I was going to say new year, but its wayyyy too early for that)

  6. Galen said on: December 21st, 2005 at 1:04 am

    Keep up the good work. I’ve enjoyed read­ing your art­icles. Cheers, Galen

  7. Reuben Whitehouse said on: December 21st, 2005 at 11:02 am

    Nice motor!  Wanna swap it for an old Capri?  Just for the winter?  Go on!

  8. Anthony said on: December 21st, 2005 at 11:19 am

    Ulcer­at­ive Colitis really is a pain in the arse isn’t it. 

    Wel­come to the club! 

    I was dia­gnosed prop­erly on Septem­ber the 11th 2001 — yes that Septem­ber 11th. 

    Which was 2 months after I had been to NY. 

    Definately the most sur­real day of my life, com­ing around from the sed­at­ives (I’m sure you are famil­iar with that… *shud­der*) to see the World Trade Centre fall­ing down.

    It’s no won­der I went into shock!

  9. Lindsay said on: December 22nd, 2005 at 3:33 am

    You went to Rome and saw the pope? I was in V.C. when Bene­dict got ‘elec­ted’. Saw the black smoke and everything—even caught him on tape. :)

  10. Mark Boulton said on: December 22nd, 2005 at 10:14 am

    Reuben — Only if it’s a ‘Ghia’ ;)

    Anthony — Yeah, UC is rub­bish. Looks like I’m hav­ing a flare just in time for Christ­mas which is nice. :( 

    Lind­say — Yeah, Emma and I saw him give his Sunday address in St Peter’s Square. It was pretty amazing.

  11. The Jones said on: December 22nd, 2005 at 12:51 pm

    My my you’ve been a busy fella up there! 

    Merry Christ­mas old son. 

    PJ 

    x

  12. Mark Boulton said on: December 22nd, 2005 at 1:02 pm

    Cheers Jon­sey, it’s been a very busy year! Merry Christ­mas and love to the family!

  13. Graham Sanders said on: December 23rd, 2005 at 9:57 am

    Happy Christ­mas to the Boulton fam­ily. Hope the new year is more kinder to you. 

    Gra­ham

    .…..

  14. Sally Carson said on: January 2nd, 2006 at 7:31 pm

    I’ve really enjoyed read­ing your blog this year. Hope 2006 is a good year for you. Sorry about the UC. I had a false UC dia­gnosis last sum­mer, turned out I had Sal­mon­ella for 3 months and it just about killed me, but I learned a lot about UC in the pro­cess. There’s this guy Nich­olas Per­ricone that writes books about hav­ing an anti-inflammatory diet that I think might be really help­ful, since inflam­ma­tion seems to be the key to the flare-ups. Here’s his book on acne, but it all applies to any kind of inflammation: 

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060188782/qid=1136226486/sr=8–8/ref=pd_bbs_8/002–4515495-1390466?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

  15. Kitta said on: January 2nd, 2006 at 9:37 pm

    I hope to keep provid­ing you with Aus­sie wit in 2006. ;o)

  16. Jon Hicks said on: January 4th, 2006 at 10:26 am

    Now then Boulton, time you redesigned so that I can nick this cur­rent design!

  17. Mark Boulton said on: January 5th, 2006 at 6:22 pm

    Ah, well now you come to men­tion it Jon I was think­ing about adding some trees, the odd bit of cheese… 

    Fancy swapping?

  18. Joshua Jones said on: January 20th, 2006 at 10:23 am

    I enjoyed read­ing your stuff. Cool site. when Chips is Cards it will Loose Chips: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ , Make Give Play — that is all that Cards is cap­able of to Give Cos­mos you should be very Black , Green, Curi­ous, Green noth­ing com­par­at­ive to Green Bet Play Hope — that is all that Game is cap­able of

  • Me

    Hello. My name is Mark Boulton. I’m a designer, an author, a speaker and I run a small design agency where we work with lovely cli­ents and pub­lish books as we go. This is my blog.

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