For last year’s check-in, I foreshadowed a year of changes for ol’ Dave Rupert and boy was I not kidding. New job, new car, new pets. But before we get into all that – for accountability’s sake – let’s check in on my resolutions from last year and see how I did…

Final score: 50%-ish. That’s better than I expected. What did I do with the other 50% of my time if I wasn’t crushing it on my SMART goals? Let’s see…

A month-by-month recap

  • Jan-April - Unemployed, interviewing for jobs 👎
  • April - Saw the solar eclipse 👍
  • May - Went to South Dakota for my nephew’s graduation 👍
  • May - Started my new job at Microsoft 👍
  • July - Went to San Diego - first week 👍, second week whole family got sick 👎
  • Aug - Adopted two dogs 👍, they are a handful and I’m allergic 👎
  • Aug - Frostapalooza 👍
  • Sept - Wife had knee surgery 👎
  • Oct - Deleted my Twitter account 👍
  • Nov - Went to Redmond and met my coworkers IRL for the first time 👍
  • Nov - Bought a new car 👍
  • Nov - Moogs passed away 👎
  • Nov - Diagnosed with ADHD 👌

Finding a job dominated the first half of my year. After some ups and downs I ended up in a good place at Microsoft. There’s a lot of positives going from self-employment to the corporate world (hey! actual benefits! stocks even!) but also a lot of organizational bureaucracy that I’m not used to navigating. I’m happy with the work I’m doing and feel lucky to get to work on web components each day.

My wife and I’s trip to Pittsburgh for Frostapalooza was a big crescendo for the year. Months and months of practicing culminating in one big night. It’s hard to describe it other than some kind of nerd-flavored camp reunion but with guitars instead of computers. We had such a good time and the amount of music filling our house on a daily basis has increased ten-fold this year. For that I’m thankful.

I often judge years based on if we hit our health insurance deductible and we hit it again this year. A lot of medium grade background stress: job hunt stress, new job stress, healthcare stress, election stress, etc. Thankfully – and I could be basking in the limelight of a good Christmas holiday and a week off from work – I hardly remember that stress anymore. It feels like I’ve shedded those layers of anxiety.

Stats for 2024

With all the qualitative out of the way, let’s get more quantitative about what we did this year…

  • 52 books - Still in the book-a-week club. I’m comfortable here but need to mix it up. I’m becoming cynical when I hear the same ten facts and sociological studies regurgitated to meet some new popular science zeitgeist. Political biographies are all the same five liberal or conservative party tent poles supported by some personal anecdote. I think I’m going to lean hard into sci-fi “snacks” – short, easy books – for the next year while supplementing with beefier book recommendations from trusted peers.
  • 61 blog posts - Not a record but I’m happy with that number. Over a post a week is a good pace for me, doubly so if you consider that I fell off a blogging cliff since going corporate.
  • 9 gunpla - Way down from my 2023 peak.
  • 3 releases - Mundango, Pentablaster, and Hard Code & Soft Skills. My previous record was one, so this is stellar.
  • 49 episodes of ShopTalk - I love hanging out with my friend Chris.
  • 3 guest appearances - Bad @ CSS, Smashing Hour, and Changelog & Friends.

A pretty good year for me and it’d be great to maintain that pace next year. To be totally honest, my actual goal would be to do less next year. Sounds crazy, I know, numbers should only go up and to the right. But hear me out… what if they didn’t? Have we considered that option?

I didn’t play video games as much as I would have liked to this year, so I’ll need to remedy that. I’ve got a backlog brewing but I’m having a good time making games and that’s a time tradeoff I’m okay with. But from a “great writers read” perspective, I should play more games. Related, I had to quit late night gaming with the boys because it effected my sleep and stress levels, but I want to get back to that. AAA gaming is in a rough state though.

Hopes for 2025

There’s five focus areas I’d like to pursue next year and I already have traction on most of these feel achievable, But I’ve been wrong about that in the past.

Seize work opportunities - It’s been a great first 7 months at Microsoft but I have some big projects shipping in the next quarter so I need to shift out of my “learning the ropes” mode into a more melee combat ready position.

Hunker down and be creative - I’m not excited about the state of the union right now, so I’m going to trust my instinct to burrow. I’ve got some apps, games, and shitty sci-fi ideas that I’d be happy to work on instead of doomscrolling the news. I feel okay about pursuing those ideas rather than getting mired in political headlines.

Slow down to 1x mode - The ability to consume books, podcasts, and videos at 2x is a super power but I feel a nudge to take life slower. Slowing down would hopefully increase the time-cost and make me more discerning about what I choose to consume. The fact that I view listening at 1x as a challenge tells me I should probably pursue it.

Join a club - Inspired by the documentary Join or Die, I think I need to join a club and participate in IRL more. Clubs give me an opportunity to burst my personal/internet bubble and meet people who don’t share my background, income, or political beliefs. But I can’t even think of what I’d want to do. Perhaps something hobby-related? Join a lodge? Volunteer at a food bank? I feel woefully unprepared that I don’t even have the beginning of an answer here.

Understand myself - Beyond work and side projects, the biggest project I’ll be undertaking in 2025 is going to be… me. Since the Summer, I’ve been on a mission to understand myself at a clinical level. Last year I lost a lot of weight, more than half of it has come back without much change in diet. I want to know what’s in this mountain of flesh and bones and brains that God gave me. I want to begin to untangle the Gordian Knot of Anxiety, Weight, and ADHD. This has meant seeing a new doctor, getting blood work done, seeing a therapist, evaluating medication, and a whole lot more. I even made it a “Project” in Notion so I’d actually follow through on it. My ideal outcome is to come up with a plan to get through the next five, ten, fifteen, thirty years and beyond. In the immediate future an unexpected medical malady has presented itself and I’ll probably have to undergo surgery next year.

We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne

I know some had an awful 2024. I’d say mine was hard but good over the long haul. 2025 seems primed to bring its own existential challenges and I hope you find shelter. Tech is still in shambles right now but I’m starting to see hints of the icy job market thawing, but I’m unsure if it will ever go back to “normal”. And politics… oof. We’re already seeing the outputs of the self-inflicted chaos machine. Keep in mind that chaos is the goal; chaos to exhaust and disarm us, to flood the zone with shit. So hold fast to your principles and conserve energy for the long haul. Keep your hand on the plow and keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on.