December 31, 2022

Year in Review: 2022

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

Some highs

  • Played video games:
    • 7 Days to Die
    • Operation Tango
    • Tick Tock: A Game for Two
    • Knights and Bikes
    • Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (I’ve played through this many times, and wanted to revisit it since it has been at least five years since my last playthrough.)
    • Portal RTX (another game I’ve played multiple times but with ray tracing)
    • Stray
    • Trine 2
    • KeyWe
    • Get Packed
  • Concerts and plays
    • Viva MOMIX
    • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
    • She Kills Monsters
  • Celebrated my wedding anniversary (7 years married, 18 years together)
  • Started and completed orthodontia (Invisalign) to correct a bite issue that would cause more problems for me later if not fixed
  • Started seeing an allergist and began allergy shots
  • Finished watching all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with Gillie
  • Took 10 Danish lessons on italki.com
  • Reconnected with by best friend from elementary/middle school who I’ve searched for the past several decades
  • Completely redesigned our co-working space
  • Set up a hummingbird feeder which was very active this year
  • Upgraded the Wi-Fi router
  • Rode the Cades Cove loop on my bike (I am convinced this is the way to experience it, because by car it’s a parking lot.)
  • Voted in every election I was eligible to vote in
  • Started a new job as a software engineering manager at RegScale
  • Hosted a creative project workday with six people
  • Visited Folly Beach, SC
  • Installed a dashcam (because local police stopped responding to accidents without injury)
  • Discovered Kefi and Vida Knoxville as fantastic restaurants
  • Donated to several causes
    • International Rescue Committee (Ukraine conflict)
    • Wikimedia Foundation
    • Nick Chapsas (not really a cause; I can get his C# developer content for free on YouTube but choose to support him)

Some lows

  • Energy/time for scale modeling
  • Several national events (mass shootings, Ukraine, Roe v Wade overturned, etc.)
  • Got involved with a game group, but it became less fun because others were so far ahead of me
  • Gillie and I visited the Chattanooga aquarium for our anniversary. I cried several times thinking about what bad shape our planet is in thanks to exploitative humans.
  • Left my job at Lirio
  • With both jobs, my journal indicated how many things I started and didn’t finish
  • Someone ran into my car while parked and drove off
  • Had to completely wipe my work laptop and reinstall everything from scratch
  • Ended up in the hospital because of an asthma flare-up; also picked up an E. coli infection somewhere as well
  • Although I hadn’t been active for nearly two years, I deleted my Twitter account because of Elon Musk’s behavior
  • Near the end of the year, I struggled more with anxiety. I suspect because I scored highly on the Holmes-Rahe stress inventory, this could have influenced my hospital visit.
  • Lots of random oddities where tech would just fail for some reason and in a way I’ve never experienced/expected

Work and career

I was at a crossroads this year about where my career was headed. I’ve read plenty of articles about how linear careers are virtually a thing of the past. Helping people navigate change and finding ways to improve processes, relationships, etc. will likely be something I do wherever I go, whatever role I have.

Without going into details, things ended up not working out at Lirio. There were so many mixed emotions. I had opportunities to be involved with things that most people don’t get. The relationships were deep and genuine. I’ve never worked at a company that was so intentional about culture and truly meant it.

However, most of 2022 was spent feeling lonely and like I was a low priority. I’d almost use the word “neglected.” I did things I was never acknowledged for, my promotion to Director of Process Improvement wasn’t even announced at an all-hands meeting. I was a regular in the office and the other regulars mostly ignored me.

In September I interviewed for roles similar to Agile coaching & process improvement, as well as engineering management (what I was doing at DPRA). I was fortunate to be employee #12 at a compliance automation startup, RegScale. Having spent my career in regulated environments (healthcare, DoD), I believe in the solutions RegScale brings to its customers pain points.

Although I respect good Agile coaches and change management leaders, it’s good to “have my fingers back on the keyboard” technically. I was pleasantly surprised that the tech chops hadn’t atrophied too much and that I hadn’t lost my sense of curiosity about learning how things work. At the end of each week, it’s much easier for me to have tangible evidence of the value I produce.

I won’t list all of the things on my “brag sheet” here, but I’ve done a little of everything — from doing grocery runs and booking company dinners, to mentoring new employees; from designing a performance management process, to championing Confluence as a rich knowledge base for the whole company; from reviewing pull requests for Python, C#, TypeScript, and Angular, to cleaning up Swagger API docs.

The way I describe it to others is thus: At Lirio, people said, “Geoff, you are amazing! We don’t quite know what to do with you,” and at RegScale, people said, “Geoff, you are amazing! Which of these 47 projects would you like to run with?”

Don’t misunderstand me; the world needs Lirio and I’ll root for them to succeed. My current challenge is that I want to do it all, and I can’t. RegScale offers me so many areas to bring my talent to bear, but I can’t be everywhere at once. I look forward to finding a better balance next year.

As my wife says, “Everyone needs a Geoff.”

Things I’m grateful for in 2022

  • Sharing my time, love, and friendship with my best friend, Gillie
  • Having friends to share meals, stories, laughs, and video games with every week or two
  • Having good health insurance and a fantastic primary care physician
  • Seeing my skills progress with Danish
  • Receiving a poster map of Denmark that Gillie made from scratch
  • Having a work/craft space that Gillie and I can share that lowers barriers to getting started
  • Sleep Number beds being modular (We had to replace some components that had failed, and it was so much easier than having to replace the entire bed.)

Retrospective of what I wanted to focus on in 2022

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

  • Finishing more scale models
    • 🔴 Nope; I only finished one mini figure. Four other models are works in progress. The group build on r/modelmakers was a bust — no interaction or reminders about due dates.
  • Understanding and making progress toward whatever’s next for me job-/career-wise
    • 🟢 I’ve returned to software engineering management via my new job at RegScale.
  • Finding a fitness path, whether that’s Zwift + group rides, or engaging with a different gym to continue teaching group cycling
    • 🟡 I’m still active in the weekly group rides, but those are only available when it’s warm. I still do 50-70 minutes per week on the trainer, but it’s not peak cardio by any means.
  • Making more concrete plans to visit Denmark
    • 🔴 With all the change involved in shifting careers, uncertainty about European issues (e.g., fuel prices), and general economic uncertainty, we decided to go for comfort (i.e., Folly Beach) over adventure (i.e., Denmark).
  • Continuing to become more fluent in Danish
    • 🟢 I did several italki lessons; some were helpful, others were not. If I reengage on that platform, I’ll likely choose another tutor. We’re 77% done with the third Harry Potter book, and my Anki flashcard deck has 3,152 cards now. If a show has Danish subtitles, I can understand about 75% of it. We watched James’ Køkken present a julekalender (Christmas advent calendar, one video per day) on YouTube which had no subtitles, and I understood most of them.

Things I want to focus on in 2023

  • Finishing more scale models
  • Making more concrete plans to visit Denmark
  • Finding better ways to focus at work without becoming overwhelmed
  • Continuing to become more fluent in Danish
  • Getting my anxiety better managed

Details

Pleasure reading

  • The Other Animals by Rachel Hamburg
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
  • Harry Potter og De Hemmelighedernes Kammer (HP and the Chamber of Secrets in Danish)
  • The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Dreilinger
  • Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
  • The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz
  • An Accidental Death by Peter Grainger
  • Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis
  • But for the Grace by Peter Grainger
  • Luck and Judgement by Peter Grainger
  • Persons of Interest by Peter Grainger
  • How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-world Problems by Randall Monroe
  • Troy by Stephen Fry
  • Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
  • Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein

Scale modeling

Professional development

Wrapping up

Farewell to 2022. Here’s to 2023 bringing more opportunity for learning, connection, and optimism.