2015+2016

2015 was an interesting year. Last year I talked about changes in my professional career and social friends, and this year continued that trend. When I think again about was this year my best ever, the answer is no, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I think I grew more this year than I have since college, which is pretty awesome. Much of my attention was again focused largely on work, as my team got involved with much more complex projects. I also started taking courses at Landmark, which was a big source of my personal development and brought me into a new community of pretty amazing people.

The beginning of this year was punctuated by a reorganization at eBay, which changed our team from working largely on the site homepage by ourselves to working to support the start page/screen on all platforms. I also went to San Jose in February for a management boot camp, where I got to meet a number of the managers at my level and went through some training to be better managers.

Later in April, my team started working in partnership with another team in San Jose and Portland, and I got to travel to Portland for a long period of time for the first time. The architecture in Portland is kind of funky and pretty interesting - I got some neat photos you can see here. I also went to Haystack Rock for the first time, which was super neat!

I also took a trip to Iceland with my friend Keyan in April. We saw the northern lights on the flight in, and spent a few days in Reykjavik doing some sight seeing in the town and a couple day trips to the country outside. Plus, lots of checking out the late-night party scene. It was an awesome trip. 

I had a quick few days back at work before heading off again in May to travel around Costa Rica with Kyle and Bonnie. It was another fantastic trip. We toured the northwest part of the country, hiking a dormant volcano, going on a zip line adventure, learning to surf, yoga, swimming in pools under natural waterfalls, and so many birds and animals. Learning to surf was probably the highlight of the trip, along with basically every sunrise and sunset.

The vacations came at a really great time. I had been getting frustrated with work and how difficult I felt that it was to make progress on some of the important political problems facing my team. While I was on vacation, I took stock of what the challenges really were, and realized that there are some very interesting leadership and organizational challenges to work through that would serve me well in my long term goal of become CTO or CEO of a company. This new outlook gave me a lot more energy and a much better attitude about what I was doing and it was a great perspective shift. Oh yeah, and my sister got engaged!

In June I started taking Landmark courses with the weekend long Forum, with the intention of working on my career (hoping to get a breakthrough on those interesting challenges) as well as my love life. While I didn’t get a major breakthrough that weekend, I did in my relationship with my mom and my friends. The tools and perspective that Landmark teaches provide a great framework for feeling more empowered and powerful, and the community I found there is amazing and provides great support in helping you be better and make a difference in the things that matter to you. Since June, I’ve consistently been taking their programs with my current one finishing next week. I’ve had further breakthroughs with my relationship to my job and the people I work with, with my dad (who I called after not talking in seven years), as well as my love life.

The last half of the year went by a lot quicker. I traveled a lot more for work, with several more trips to San Jose, another to Portland, and a quick one to Pittsburgh. I visited my friend Ashley in North Carolina, and took a day trip to Charleston, getting to states 45 and 46 that I’ve visited, and a trip home to Colorado over Thanksgiving. I went to an adult summer camp in upstate NY with WeWork. I saw some of my favorite bands play, going to Disclosure, CHVRCHES, Chromeo, and Vacationer shows. I also joined the Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Council, which has given some great opportunities to get more involved in the arts around the city. I got an interview with TalentBuddy about working with Node.JS at Ebay that brought some traffic (and led to this post), as well as being briefly featured on the Today Show promoting a friend’s app. And my mom visited NYC for the first time for Christmas!

Last year was interesting in that I was facing a lot of new challenges and sometimes struggling to keep up, whereas this year I felt my confidence growing throughout the year and am excited for the things to come this next year. I will also be traveling as much next year, between another trip to Sri Lanka with Daisy Office Yoga, a Europe adventure with my roommates, a wedding in Chicago, and visiting the last four states (AK, HI, MT, ND). I’m starting to hit that curve after you move to a new city where you feel more stabilized and start deepening your roots, and I can’t wait for that. Here we go 2016!

Resolutions from 2015

This is not going to be good.

Nope. I read four books last year, and this year read one: The Martian. Great book, quick page turner, but didn’t come close to what I read last year.

Partial complete on this one. Destiny was my go-to game, and thanks to some help from Kyle I’ve managed to keep pace with the new expansions and my characters rolling pretty stacked.

I did play through Bioshock: Infinite, which was really amazing. The Bioshock series always have a twist, and the one in this was incredibly and gut-wrenching all at the same time. I didn’t see it coming, but if you haven’t played this definitely give it a chance. The gameplay is about the same as the other Bioshock games (which is to say good but nothing groundbreaking).

The other games I’ll probably carry through to next year. I’ve also downloaded the other Telltale games (Game of Thrones, the Wolf Among Us, and the Minecraft Story Mode) that I’m excited to play, as well as Life is Strange and some of the other indie breakouts this year.

Another partial complete. I did join a gym, as a New York Sports Club opened up a few blocks from my apartment in March, and I did start going there regularly until all my travel in April/May. Unfortunately, this kicked me off my schedule and I never really got back on. I did start running more in preparation for the NYC 10K in October, but that was about it.

Not really close. I did make some progress, bringing my to-do’s from somewhere in the 100s to the 90s, and checked out some awesome new places. My favorites have generally been speakeasies, with Mayahuel, Nitecap, and Raines Law Room leading the pack. For food, Tuome and Joseph Leonard’s were great surprises.

Some Statistics

I earned 1,206,830 Nike Fuel (up from 982,953 last year and the most in a year ever) and hit my goal 204 times (up from 153 times in 2014). I ran 103.1 miles (down a bit from 110.5 in 2014), with an average pace of 8’04”/mi (same as last year). I did set a new PR for a 10K with 49′09, down a full 1′16″ from last year.

5 Most Viewed Posts

This blog got 731 visitors with 1,089 pageviews (down from 1,862 for 2014). I made 26 posts (down from 292 posts). I blogged a whole lot less this year, but did a better job marketing it.

Top 3 Top Gun Thursday Posts

The majority of my reblogs and likes are still TGT. I’m not upset about it.

Commit History

This is from our company GitHub. My contributions are down from 2,835 the year before, which is probably a good thing. I shouldn’t be coding as much as a manager. You can also clearly see the vacations I took in April/May, and the end of the year.

Music Stats

Disclosure moved up into the lead this year, with St Lucia still making a strong showing. CHVRCHES also moved up a lot, largely due to their amazing new album. And there’s more new artists this year (thanks Spotify!). In general though, I listed to a lot less music. I blame more meetings, less coding, and less listening at home.

Resolutions for 2016

Read more books than last year (so...at least two).

Finish some specific games (the list above and the Assassin’s Creed games).

Develop a regular workout routine and stick to it.

Visit the remaining four states I have not visited (AK, HI, MT, ND).

Here’s to 2016.