Yes, long time no update. I’m really sorry about that; as you know, I’ve been posting more and more to my Tumblelog, neglecting this weblog here in the process. So, here’s another update, and a big one it is, too.

Here’s the gist: I’m going to move to Brighton later this year. If that’s all you need to know, or of no interest to you whatsoever, you can stop reading now. If you’re interested in the whys and hows and whats, read on.

Back when I was 15, I wasn’t too happy with what was going on in my life — not entirely unlike most 15 year olds, I guess. I had already been to Brighton a couple of times as a language student, living and learning at the Cope family’s ECHO Language School in Hove, so I decided to follow this up by staying there for a year, living with the Copes, and attending BHASVIC (where, along with some A Level Business and Media Studies, I even completed my GCSE in Electronics, which doesn’t really matter much in the big scheme of things, but was fun anyway. I know how to build egg timers, yay me!) To cut a long story short, it was one of the most fun (and probably important) years in my life. Sniff.

I’ve been to Brighton four times since then; in 1994 I visited with my then-best friend Lars (where are you? Drop me a line if you’re reading this), in 1997 I dropped by together with a friend from school, and in May 2001 I was there for the farewell party for Charles, who unfortunately passed away earlier that year. The fourth time was last week, together with Daniela, who is in the process of moving to London. And what a week it was!

I need to talk about Munich for a sentence or two. Things have been somewhat weird there for the last couple of months. In the four years I’ve lived in Munich, I’ve been able to make some wonderful, wonderful friends, a lot of whom have moved or are now moving away (Daniela to London, Annette, Christoph, Anna to Berlin; and I really miss Peggy and Paul, who moved to Hamburg last year); also, although business has been good, it hasn’t been moving into a direction I was completely happy with (mostly due to the way all the shiny new “Web 2.0″ stuff is handled in Germany, but that’s another story). I had already been thinking really hard about where to go from there for a while, and something had been telling me that going to Brighton once again could be an option. This quickly developed from nagging feeling to serious thought in the days before Daniela and I boarded the plane to England… and was confirmed to me the second we exited Brighton Station; I completely fell in love again. Yes; I kind of felt home.

So, that’s basically the story so far. Daniela is moving to London, I’m moving to Brighton. There’s lots of things that need to be taken care of, from moving my work over to finding a new place to stay (and actually getting rid of or moving my stuff from Munich. I just bought a huge plasma TV, dangit…) But first of all, I’m going to spend another week there, armed with my trusty MacBook and a legion of pubs and bars offering free wireless Internet access. I will spend most of the week trying to meet people and build what will hopefully become the base of a network, possibly looking at some houses/flats/bedrooms, and exploring a new business idea I had while sipping an obscenely large hot chocolate in the Starbucks opposite of Churchill Square.

So, if you’re in Brighton, email me and maybe we can meet for a beer, coffee or both — especially if, um, you’re interested in Ruby on Rails consulting or development, hehe. I’ll be there until Friday (August 3rd) - and then again later this year, if everything works out. w00t!