A year ago, with several aspects of my life in heavy ferment, many goals bubbled up and filtered through. How’d I do?

Health

Said I’d make significant lifestyle changes. Did. Moved away from New York and quit my high-stress job. Got a dog and walked him lots. Biked to Cowork a few times per week. In November, underwent corrective nose and sinus surgery, producing a huge functional improvement (though post-op maintenance is still more of a hobby than I’d like). Weight feels more like myself, but not completely. New work routine affords a regular exercise routine. Will start next week.

Writing

Vowed to write at least 26 articles. Wrote only 15. Compensated, somewhat, by moving this site to a more comfortable environment (see “Ikiwiki” below), making writing more likely to occur.

NetBSD

Claimed that NetBSD was my top priority for the year. Did some long overdue maintenance on my pkgsrc packages, attended BSDCan for the first time, and spoke at pkgsrcCon for the umpteenth. Didn’t accomplish much for Board. Term ends soon. If lucky, I may get another chance to apply what I’ve learned for the good of the project.

Philolexian

Sad to have missed Kilmer. Made many bad-poetry-like sounds while home recovering from nose surgery, but none where the judges could hear. Reelected to Board. Have been attempting to enlist the active members of the Society in helping refresh their ikiwiki-backed website’s design and innards.

Ikiwiki

Became an ikiwiki committer. Presented (and live-coded) at Pittsburgh Perl Workshop. And after years of running many other sites, finally migrated this site to ikiwiki.

Code

Committed to spend more of my time with people who care about what I care about. Got involved with RubySteps and did lots of mob programming, including with Alistair Cockburn and J. B. Rainsberger. Now I work alongside people who share my values.

Teams

Wrote briefly about some ingredients. Participated in Alistair’s Coaching in an Agile Context.

Work

Needed to feel greater appreciation for my work. Was willing to identify and deliver more valuable work in order to get it. Determined that helping teams make better decisions about software development would be highly valuable. Did some Agile coaching for my employer, and was going to change roles to do more. When that plan was impeded, I left. Now I’m a “Software Craftsmanship Coach” with a software consultancy that shares my values.

Home

Got a place in Bloomington together. Got a very nice dog. Got good at living together. Got engaged. Not bad!

Self

Always knew when that job ended I’d take some months off. Did. Needed the time to relearn to hear and attend to my own needs, to get right with myself before the next thing — all the more so because the next thing really did turn out to be coaching.

35-year-old me nailed it when he wrote “More than ever I know who I am, who’s for me, and who I’m for.” 36-year-old me could not possibly agree more.