For me, 2007 has been a wonderful year on pretty much all dimensions. I feel unbelievably fortunate for my health and that of my loved ones and for all the opportunities and great things that have happened to me this year.

I kicked off Pure Danger Tech in November ’06 and really started cranking it up in January of this year. I’m truly astonished at how I got here from nothing a year ago. Google Analytics reports at this moment a total of 249,979 page views and 153,688 visitors for the year. That’s beyond amazing to me. Thank you all for reading…

Some of the personal highlights of my blogging year were getting slashdotted and mentioned on two of my favorite podcasts, Drunk and Retired and the Java Posse. Those are probably meaningless to everyone else but I found it indescribably wonderful to be taking a walk, listening to the Posse on my iPod and suddenly realize they are reading from my web site…cool.

I also played around with some online ads and actually made about $250 this year. Granted, that’s chump change but it was enough to pay my hosting fees and a 6-pack and I call that a success. I don’t really care about making any serious money on this blog but I am curious to learn about different online ad models and how that’s driving the net and it was a great experience for that.

Beyond the blog itself, it has been a great opening for a lot of other things that I never imagined one year ago. Probably most importantly, it indirectly led to a new job at Terracotta, which would almost certainly not have happened without the blog. I also did my first speaking date on the No Fluff Just Stuff tour this year and that will hopefully lead to a few more dates in the next year.

Something I’ve always been interested in is writing (duh – see blog) and especially writing a book. This year I’ve participated in several book efforts. Back in March I was a technical reviewer for Next Generation Java Testing and later this year I was asked to review a proposal for a book on dependency injection. And at Terracotta, I have been writing a couple chapters for the upcoming Apress book, The Definitive Guide to Terracotta.

Beyond all that, I really value all the friendships and relationships I’ve developed via the blog, which I never expected. Some of them (like Michael Easter and Eric Burke) are local and have turned into friends. Others I’ve met via the Java 7 coverage and are people I look forward to meeting in the future. In any case, this was not something I expected and has been really rewarding.

If you had told me a year ago that all that would happen in 2007, I would have said you were loco. Can’t wait to see what will happen in 2008! I’m shooting for a guest spot on Letterman and a trip to the space station. :)