December 31, 2021

Year in Review: 2021

I continue to be amazed by how much I accomplish personally and professionally each year.

Some highs

  • Served as a panelist for a Scrum Master panel session hosted by Clayton Mobile Homes
  • Played new video games:
    • Warhammer: Vermintide II
    • Nine Parchments
    • Deep Rock Galactic
    • Valheim
    • Human Fall Flat
    • It Takes Two
    • Viscera Cleanup Detail
    • Dungeon Defenders
    • Bee Simulator
    • Back 4 Blood
    • Trine 4
    • No Man’s Sky
    • Splitgate
    • Regular Human Basketball
    • Project Winter
    • Duck Game
    • Mount Your Friends
    • 7 Days to Die
  • Finished a co-op project with Gillie for our six-year anniversary (see “Sam’s Study” below)
  • Worked with an attorney to create wills, advance directives, and powers of attorney in place for me and my family
  • Got vaccinated for COVID-19 in the spring (and a booster in December)
  • Switched to a different primary care physician who is much more attentive, thorough, and a better advocate for my health than my previous physician
  • Started seeing a therapist
  • Joined a group of cyclists that met Tuesday evenings to ride together on the Knoxville greenways and through downtown
  • Resumed teaching RPM (briefly in the summer)
  • Took some updated headshots of myself for avatars etc. (last update was 2013)
  • Joined the People and Culture team after my supervisor became CEO of Lirio
  • Upgraded to a newer laptop (from a ten-year-old laptop and EOL Chromebook)
  • Donated to several causes
    • Dress for Success
    • National Network of Abortion Funds
    • Friends of Literacy
    • Wikimedia Foundation
    • Second Harvest
    • Building Educated Leaders for Life
  • Completed the Danish curriculum on Babbel, consisting of 37 modules and a vocabulary of nearly three thousand words.
  • Helped my mom get a new laptop and migrated her important files to the cloud; I also helped her get a new phone
  • Visited Folly Beach; this was the first time Gillie and I have been to the beach on our own (and the first time we’ve been on a “real” vacation since 2018)
  • Replaced most of my worn-out wardrobe with higher quality items
  • Signed up for Zwift so that I can do cycling without a gym or on the road during the colder months

Some lows

  • Stopped teaching RPM because of COVID-19 Delta; I’m considering a longer leave of absence given the imbalance of return/effort I get for teaching group fitness
  • Enjoying scale modeling as a hobby, but resenting how “solo” it is
  • Had two hospital stays due to unexplained pneumonia
  • Lost a good friend (temporarily) because of a misunderstanding at work
  • Continued to witness the decline/regression of society in the United States
  • Lacked a “home” at work and a clear direction of what’s next for my career (feeling stalled/stuck)
  • Spent the majority of time at work by myself

Things I’m grateful for in 2021

  • Sharing my time, love, and friendship with my best friend, Gillie
  • Being in good health, and for my family being in good health
  • Having good health insurance and steady employment
  • Making progress learning Danish; I can watch Denmark’s national news and read articles with much less frustration than last year
  • Finding Zwift as a way to replace the gym and stay engaged in cycling
  • Having friends to share meals, stories, laughs, and video games with every week

Retrospective of what I wanted to focus on in 2021

This year I looked back at my post from last year to see if things materialized.

  • Doing more cycling… doing group rides in Knoxville, maybe attempt a century ride, riding with coworkers. When the weather warms up, I look forward to commuting to work by bike.
    • 🟢 Group rides happened, and I did cycle once with two coworkers. Commutes turned out to be impractical (wardrobe changes, lack of safe riding spaces).
  • Getting a better idea for what’s next in my career. My “career lattice” is less certain, and I don’t think I want to play the Agile certification game (i.e., getting certs or becoming a trainer).
    • 🔴 No real progress here, although I did have some conversations with people outside of Lirio.
  • Growing my Danish fluency. One goal is to be able to comprehend most written Danish. A second goal is to be able to watch (or rewatch) a Danish program on Netflix with no captions or subtitles and understand what’s being said. A third goal is to work on conversational Danish with native speakers.
    • 🟢 I met the first goal; I can read news articles without having to look up too many words. I sort of met the second goal — I can listen to Danish national TV news (which doesn’t have captions) and more or less understand it, and I rewatched a Danish show with subtitles without stopping. The third wasn’t met because there aren’t many Danish speakers to practice with around here.
  • Visit Denmark with Gillie. Even with a different government administration and some form of end in sight for COVID-19, we want to learn more about what it would take to live and work outside the US. The more we’ve learned about Danish culture, the more attractive it becomes.
    • 🔴 We haven’t visited, which seems like the most likely next action.
  • Have more time to work on scale modeling. I’m not sure where this energy and time will come from given there are so many other things I do that enrich my life. I don’t want to give up on this hobby just yet.
    • 🟡 This one is hit or miss, but I do have more active projects now, and I’m doing my first group build which will maybe give me some accountability.
  • Get around to those important-but-not-urgent life things for me and my family (e.g., living will, advance directive).
    • 🟢 Done!

Things I want to focus on in 2022

  • Finishing more scale models
  • Understanding and making progress toward whatever’s next for me job-/career-wise
  • Finding a fitness path, whether that’s Zwift + group rides, or engaging with a different gym to continue teaching group cycling
  • Making more concrete plans to visit Denmark
  • Continuing to become more fluent in Danish

Details

Pleasure reading

  • The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord
  • The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers
  • Getting Started in Scale Modeling by AK Interactive
  • The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  • Harry Potter og De Vises Sten by J.K. Rowling (Danish version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)
  • Warbound by Larry Correia
  • Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone
  • The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny
  • The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Dirk Maggs
  • Harry Potter og Hemmerlighedernes Kammer by J.K. Rowling (Danish version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
  • Philosophical Discussions by Steve Attridge

Scale modeling

I got burned out on the Revell 1:32 F-4 Phantom II, so I started several other smaller/simpler projects. Currently on the bench, I have a Tamiya Mazda MX-5, Tamiya Lamborghini Countach, Warhammer Light of Eltharion, and joined (first time!) a /r/modelmakers group build with an Academy 1:35 USMC AH-1Z helicopter (see AH-1Z tagged posts).

Sam’s Study

Here are some picture threads of a scale model kit Gillie and I assembled for our six-year wedding anniversary. It took us around 20-30 hours together to complete.

Professional development

I wrote 52 weekly summary posts of articles relevant to my career; although I didn’t sum them up, my estimate is that I’ve shared over 600 articles, books, or videos.

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: Level Up Your Core Programming Skills (Book Club)

Working Effectively with Legacy Code (Book Club)

  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • (As of summer 2021, the book club was put on hiatus.)

Writing a Resume (via LinkedIn Learning)

Rock Your LinkedIn Profile (via LinkedIn Learning)

Learning Lucidchart (via LinkedIn Learning)

Group exercise continuing education

The Agile Coaching DNA by Manoel Pimentel

A World without Email by Cal Newport

Emerging leadership training (via The Work Institute)

  • DiSC assessment
  • Driving Forces assessment
  • Presentation skills
  • Change management
  • Finance for non-finance people
  • Better communication through email
  • Navigating conflict
  • Negotiation
  • Emotional intelligence
  • CliftonStrengths

Lucid Connect

The Future Is Faster Than You Think (via Emily Moses)