Here I am again, writing yet another journal at deviantART. I wonder how many of these I've written over the years? I know I deleted a huge amount a while back, but I was writing one a day for a while there. Back when I was active when the community was small enough to be involved and be noticed.

These days, I check in maybe once a month, read the odd journal from the few people (all ten of them) I still have on my watch, delete the fav messages from my message centre, then go back to whatever I was doing. It's nice that people still like my stuff and want to fav it, but quietly I giggle to myself when someone adds me to their watch-list because I know I'll never submit anything here again. I've well & truly moved on.

There's no interest here for me anymore. There's nothing to keep my interested - the "community" is ridiculously massive and the sheer volume of submissions makes it so overwhelming to even consider diving into like I once did. My passions lie elsewhere now - my friendships, interests (while still mostly the same as when I was active here) and likes have moved along on the intarwebz these days. My website is a good starting point if you're looking for updates on me, as well as My Flickr gallery. I'm also cruising around Twitter a lot these days so if you're interested, you can follow my ramblings about life, work and other shit on there. I'm on Facebook too, but I'm more protective about who I add as a friend there. So if I've declined your friendship request lately, don't take it personally. I just keep a tight grip on who sees that much information about me these days. I play a bit of Call Of Duty (MW & MW2) on the PC - my nickname is bigbadadam. If you see me in a multiplayer game, say hi.

I'm not hard to find, you just have to know where to look.

I've stored all my submissions for now - haven't quite built up the courage to delete them all yet. They've been on here since July 2001, so there's still a lot of history attached to them. I've left my prints up for now - seems the odd person likes to buy one now & then. But I'll see what happens with that side down the line.

So I guess now is the time to slip off into the ether and get on with living again. It's been fun, I've made some awesome friends (one of whom I even went to the other side of the planet to meet - thanks again, Tommy!) and of course met the love of my life here. But it's time to shuffle off and focus on other things, rather than hold on to a long-dormant part of my life, that was fun but really these days doesn't interest me anymore. If you remember me from days gone by, it's a safe bet I remember you - I don't forget those who made an impact on me.

Take care of yourself and those important to you, and just enjoy your life. It's not a race or a competition. It's about the experiences and savouring them. It's about living, not rushing. That's what I plan to do next year. This year was about fixing my body - I've lost 31kg since January - so next year will be about enjoying the changes and moving onwards and upwards.

And just remember, every time you burp, think of my little contribution to the emoticon list:



A.