Most visited: Ride Across America | Hodgkin's Disease | Trainster | Pam's Ride Across America Fundraiser | Urldiff

I signed up for a Treasury Direct account this month (so I can buy I Bonds). They have the most impressive online security I've ever seen on a site designed for consumers.

When you sign up for your account, you enter your email address and pick a password. Then they send your account number to your email. You still can't login, though. They also send you in the postal mail a personalized decoder ring card. It has 10 columns and 5 rows of letters, presumably different from everyone else's.

When you go to log in to treasurydirect.gov, you punch in your account number as you would on any site. Then you use a virtual on-screen keyboard to enter your password. Many banking sites do this (such as HSBC), but Treasury Direct is the first I've seen that randomizes the order of the keys on the virtual keyboard. This is important because the whole point of the virtual keyboard is to prevent a program from logging the key strokes or mouse clicks of your password. If the on-screen keyboard is always the same, then having the virtual keyboard doesn't help at all against that sort of attack and is just an annoyance to the user.

The final login step involves the decoder card you received in the mail. The site gives you a list of coordinates (such as B2, G5, etc.) and you have to enter the letters at those coordinates. Entry of these letters is also done with the randomized virtual keyboard.

Very, very impressive. In this case, the government is the vanguard and a role model for the private sector. Let's hope the rest of the financial industry wakes up some day and follows the Treasury Department's lead.

Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food *** : These are essentially the same theme, so I'm rating them together. A compelling history and exploration of the food industry that should convince most readers to change the way they eat. Unfortunately, it's preachy at times and maligns science unjustly, so I deducted one star from the rating.

My 2009 in cities (in approximate chronological order):

• Sunriver, Oregon
• Lost Rocks, California
• Adirondacks, New York
• New York City
• Santa Clara, California
• San Francisco
• Bacharach, Germany
• Baden-Baden, Germany
• Freiberg, Germany
• Murren, Switzerland
• Lucerne, Switzerland
• Munich, Germany
• Saltzburg, Austria
• Vienna
• Government Camp, Oregon

One or more nights spent in each place. I changed jobs last year which, combined with the recession, meant that I travelled a lot less than last year.

Happy holidays, friends and family!

We are so grateful that 2009 was another wonderful year for us. We are both healthy and happy--and thankful for our blessings.

Some of the biggest and most fabulous news this year was that Preston reached his five-year cancer-free anniversary. This is a big deal for any cancer survivor, and statistically, things just look better and better from here on out. We threw a party to celebrate, jamming more friends than we ever have had into our condo. Our friend E Ben wrote and sang a touching and clever guitar song about Preston's battle against Hodgkin's disease.

Despite the good news on the cancer front, Preston did have a big health downer this year when he crashed his bicycle while riding to work. He took a shortcut through a parking lot and hit a poorly-marked speed bump. The fall cracked his helmet and broke his right collarbone and left wrist. A very guilty-feeling Aimee picked him up at the emergency room several hours later (after re-charging her cell phone and listening to the messages). While he is pretty much healed up now, the crash did put a damper on the rest of the summer. He wasn't able to partake in his favorite outdoor activities, such as cycling, hiking, and surfing.

In the health department, Aimee clobbered one of her biggest fears by getting all of her wisdom teeth removed. Despite the dental surgeon's predictions that she would be on the couch for four days because this was serious surgery for his "geriatric" patient, she was up on her feet by the second day.

When we weren't getting hurt or recovering, we made a big effort to go to yoga classes at least once a week. We are both more flexible and better at balancing for it. Aimee can finally do "airplane" and Preston figured out a proper "sun salute."

We took two big vacations this year, the first being a week-long trip to upstate New York where we had the honor of staying at Baekeland Camp, renowned in the area as one of the great Adirondack camps. Freed from the influence of cell phone service, television, radio, and newspapers, we enjoyed a week of serene isolation and the time-honored lake traditions of canoeing, lying on the dock counting stars, and backgammon with friends.

In September, we spent 17 days in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Preston was still healing from his bike crash, thus relegating Aimee to Sherpa duty, toting all of the luggage between the various airports, cars, hotels, and train stations. Aimee noticed people staring at us--a tall and fit-looking man walking next to a woman wearing two backpacks, carrying a duffel bag, and pulling a rolling suitcase. Sometimes Aimee would blurt out "He broke his collarbone and can't carry anything!"

The euros seemed to fly out of our money belt, but we had some terrific experiences. While driving on the autobahn, we each summoned the courage to reach 100 MPH and avoided becoming autoschlangen ("car snakes"), people who hold up traffic in the fast lane. We also visited Oktoberfest and marveled at the rows of circus-style tents that each hold up to 5,000 jolly Germans. Aimee was astonished that there wasn't a water glass in sight. The Bavarians we spoke with told us water was unnecessary when there was beer to be had.

Hiking amidst the valleys and peaks of the Swiss Alps was a highlight of our trip and the site of this year's holiday photo. Although Switzerland has some of the most expensive food we've ever encountered, the lush, cow-filled pastures ensured that the chocolate and cheese were plentiful and cheap.

Back home from our travels and healed from the year's physical challenges, we are looking forward to a quiet holiday season in Portland, catching up on home projects, and reading. Preston signed us up for a New York Times subscription. We've been overloaded with articles to read from the Times, The Oregonian, and a Financial Times subscription from a neighbor who moved but forgot to cancel it. We are feeling much more worldly. (Do you know who the first Green party member of the European Parliament was? Neither did we until now!)

Related Links

• Last year's letter, 2008 Year in Review
• Europe 2009 pictures
• My 2009 in Cities

I upgraded the heat sink on my home desktop this weekend to a Zalman CNPS9500. In addition to looking awesome, it is way quieter than my old heat sink... bordering on mute! I realize most people out there have probably moved on to laptops these days, but if you are still harboring a trusty desktop, definitely consider a heat sink upgrade!

Ecotopia **** : Thought-provoking "politics fiction". In the author's words, the book tries to convey "that there are real alternatives to our present corporatist, militarist, ultracompetitive, oil-obsessed course." One reviewer wrote, "it looks obvious--like the wheel", a prescient remark given that the book was written 35 years ago yet confronts issues that we still face today. It does have many flaws, but the story stays with you and is worthwhile reading for everybody!