2023 Roundup
A look back
Weight management strategy really tanked... I wanted to go from 240 to 220 this year, but instead I went up to 270... while my strength has really gone up this past year (deadlifting over 400 lbs.), I need to focus on staying away from sugar during the next year.
Similar to that last bullet point, my ability to do pullups really struggled. Obvious with the weight gain, I wasn’t able to do as many because I need to pull more weight.
Had a fair bit of health challenges around restless leg and stomach that I have been working with medical professionals to improve. Really makes me extremely thankful that my health is as good as it is because when you feel good physically, your quality of life significantly improves!
Touched java for the first time since college and I was surprisingly happy with the experience I have had with the technology thus far.
I am migrating more and more to team Apple. I have had so many problems with Windows 10 and WSL 2 lately that I want to get to the Unix side of things. Likely won’t resolve all of my problems, but I have heard others have less problems in the Linux/Apple ecosystem.
I have fully embraced the shorts year-round life style. At this point, I only wear long pants to church and meetings/coffees.
Still a bit on the fence around blogging. While nice to get my ideas and thoughts out to the rest of the world, it can take a while to get them put together with a high enough quality.
Been trying to incorporate Neovim into my daily development workflow, while I really struggled with it at first, setting it up using the NvChad configuration really helped me to adapt the tool. I still use VS Code quite a bit, but it is no longer my primary development IDE.
Got to learn a little bit of Ruby on Rails as part of a side project. Super interesting project and I learned a lot being a part of it.
A look forward
Need to stay away from sugar and dial in my diet in this next year. Focusing a lot more on centering my diet around chicken and rice. Need to find “healthy snacks” that offer the protein I need, without the large number of calories.
I really want to continue to improve my ability to write code. I am looking into a couple of different options to achieve this goal (Leetcode, Hackerrank, and some guided projects).
Trying to limit my use of technologies to a few core technologies that I can excel in. Right now I am thinking about focusing on Java, Go, and Typescript.
Been thinking more and more about career goals this year. Because of this reflection, and some great resources, I have been thinking more about targeting the staff engineer type position. I think this really hits the right balance for me between technical knowledge and leadership. I could change my mind again and get back to management, but we will see what God has for me in the future.