I am back from my annual week of rest for the holidays which many Autodesk employees take each year.

This year I spent more time offline which felt refreshing and more time with family, friends, and outdoors. I even started small scale wine making by fermenting some white and red wines and hard apple cider which has made for a very fragrant home with the loud sounds of burping wine fermenting vessels. Perhaps I will use my good friend Bill Adams' wine brand name he made for me a few years ago, the "Between the Vines" wine.

2013 was an amazing year both personally and professionally, here are a few highlights:

• Several exciting 3D reality capture projects such as the Smithsonian X 3D & USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor Hawaii.
   
     
  I have a blog post on my personal experience of the cutting edge 3D capture of the USS Arizona planned for the near future.
• Back managing the Autodesk Beta Community as well as remaining a Technologist in the Office of the CTO (OCTO).
• Several new amazing Autodesk products and Autodesk Labs Technologies. One of my favorites and what I feel will be one of the most exciting in the future was Running Autodesk Applications in My Web Browser.
• I attended Burning Man with 68,000 other people, and I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Burning Man was not what I had expected and instead found a world devoid of negativity or judgment filled with amazing cutting edge art & design. I was amazed how many Autodesk employees and customers participate in Burning Man. 
    
• Remained very active at the gym and mountain hiking trails with my FitBit logging 4.81 million steps, 2,264 miles, and 108,175 vertical feet climbed!
  
• Of course another Autodesk University with my creative team orchestrating the main stage keynote sessions and Innovation forums as well as evolving the AU experience. Look for more exciting changes at AU 2014.
  

In 2013 I lost some amazing people in my life like my grandmother and a dear friend and longtime Autodesk colleague Tony Peach.

I am looking forward to an amazing 2014 and sincerely thank you for reading Between the Lines.
-Shaan