I put my Christmas tree up at work today.

The last month has been a l-o-n-g stretch. Not a day went by when I wasn't in the office or at least perched in front of my laptop, pounding away at work's big project. I was stuck in my own little world of work/twitter/eat/sleep for the last month...totally detached from just about everything non-work related (I did manage to catch a sneak preview of Ratatouille last weekend - cute, cute, CUTE!) We finally hit our beta milestone last week, so I got to enjoy a free weekend hanging out at the family farm, playing Wii with my youngest niece most of the time.

Tucked into the crazy month, a promotion and salary bump came my way - Associate Creative Director, Web & Media. Wooohooo! To celebrate, I'm planning to make my way out to San Francisco for the iPhoneDevCamp event. Any other LJ geeks attending?

Also, I currently use a pair of Sony MDR-EX51 headphones. They're great for complete isolation, but it's too easy for people to sneak up on me (a fav. pastime of cow-orkers.) I'm looking for a good monitor-style set. Recommendations?

In March '06, I got to attend my very first SXSW Interactive conference...a huge confab of web geeks, digital creatives, visionaries, etc. In other words, my professional peeps. Saying the event was an amazing experience would be selling it short.

The bargain I'd made with my boss was that one of the guys from my team and I would hit SXSW in '06, followed by the other half of my team in '07. After having such a great time there, I was bummed that I'd miss the '07 event. I was considering paying my own way, since I really, really didn't want to miss it (yeah, it was THAT good!) Guess I did a good job of conveying all the great stuff we experienced to the boss. Today, he gave thumbs-up for the entire team, plus our two remote folks, to go in '07! w00t!

Austin's an awesome city and I fully intend to enjoy more of it on this next trip (and I am so craving some Rudy's BBQ right now!) Plus, I'm totally looking forward to seeing my buddy Andy (pupcubtx2k) again! March won't come soon enough!

Anyone else hitting SXSW Interactive in '07?