New Year's Eve tonight was quite amazing to me in its contrast to last time.

My main memory of last New Year's Eve is of standing on the back deck of the ferry I was working on that night, watching the fireworks go up from the Sky Tower as we pulled away from the wharf, and trying to stop myself from crying. A month before, my partner of 12 years had walked out on me. A minute before, a middle-aged businessman going home from a party with his wife and friends had sworn at me because the ferry was a couple of minutes late. A minute later, the ship's engineer found out his wife was spending the night with another man, and tried to slash his wrists with a broken beer bottle. Fun fun.

Tonight it really hit home to me what a long time ago that night was. It seems like a whole lifetime away now. I didn't do much tonight. I watched a South Park marathon on TV. Five minutes before midnight I drove to a horse paddock on a hill where there is an excellent view of the Sky Tower, to watch the fireworks. I was almost there when I saw the fireworks start, hidden behind the trees I was driving through at that time, and realised my watch was out by a few minutes. By the time the city came into view, all that was left of the show was a vast plume of smoke drifting away into the night, and the faint smell of gunpowder or whatever it is they put into fireworks. So I went home again. The stars tonight are beautiful and I could see the Magellanic Clouds much more distinctly than usual.

In my whole life, I've never felt this sense of excitement and anticipation when starting a new year. Perhaps I had to go through some really bad ones first; right now I feel like there's nothing on earth that can possibly go wrong for me in 2003. My friends at Rinkworks have been part of that change during the last 12 months. Some of you have been instrumental in making it happen; others have been around while it was happening, maybe without much idea of what was going on, but you are all part of that for me. I hope the New Year brings you all the good things you could want.