January: The Iowa caucuses foreshadowed the change we were to see in November. I made my first polling joke. And I freaked out about “writing “08″ for the first time.

February: I first shared some Lawrence Lessig love, I talked Oscar nominees, and became a Reverend.

March: I wrote about IT standards, went to South by Southwest for the 3rd time, bought a Wii, and because our legislative branch is broken, became a fan of the Change Congress movement.

April: I talked about the importance of architecture, bought a car, said “Happy Birthday” to moms, and made a movie

May: I wrote about Open Source Spirituality and got hugged by a car.

June: Screw June!

July: I wrote some more about Open Source Spirituality, challenged you to “Go be a 10,” and became Scuba certified.

August: I met someone “very significant,” helped will the Royals to victory, got a man cold, gave you EXACTLY the news you needed to hear, got a running mate, and endorsed a conservative republican.

September: I became 42, talked about Ambient Awareness, lost my car, and spoke at one of the biggest conferences in the world

October: I met the governor of Kansas, and challenged you to donate to various charities.

November: I caused a stir in the startup community, put the election into perspective, met Dennis Phillips, gave new businesses ideas for useful tools, and gave voice to that for which I’m thankful.

New Years Eve

December: I enjoyed the holidays for the first time in years, volunteered for charity, talked about the type of company I want to build in 2009, and celebrated New Years Eve in style by flying over the plaza lights thanks to @joeyferreyra

Next: 2009 and my hope for the new year.

1. You really can push the point of fun overload. Either that or I’m getting old.

2. Meeting loads of new people + loads of adult beverages = forgetting lots of names. I really did love you all. It’s not you, it’s me. Honest.

3. When you throw a bunch of geeks in a room talking about all the cool new products we’re all building, the future looks completely rosy. Reality (and my SxSW hangover) tells me the future is really much bleaker than it appears.

4. The real value of social networking takes place offline. The value we bring to each other is best measured offline actually. Case in point . . . South by Southwest!

5. Speaking of offline, life is actually lived there. It’s not about taking the virtual world to its real-life counterpart, it’s the other way around. The digital world is actually more compelling when it’s expressed with real world physics. Get out and do things like this or this.

6. Contribute something. Don’t sit back and be a pundit. Build something and contribute to the conversation that way as opposed to just commenting on what other people are doing.

7. My yearly take-away: Austin is one of my favorite cities in the whole world. Great movie venues, great music, great culture. It’s also a community that supports technology.

8. Twitter is really cool. Yeah, I caught a glimpse of that last year. But connecting in real time is really special.

9. Everyone! Listen to the community! It’s smarter than you can ever hope to be!

10. If you’re going to fail, fail so big that everyone wants to twitter about it.