Blog Post

Resolutions 2015

So 2014 has been a super busy year. So here’s the quick rundown of what happened in 2014 for me.

Travelling

I spent a ridiculous amount of time traveling to other cities and countries:

• 7 days in New Orleans
• 9 days in Japan (Tokyo and Nikko)
• 8 days in India (Mumbai and Goa)
• 10 days traveling to Portland and Seattle
• 17 days traveling to Boston, NYC and Washington DC.
• 7 Days at Burning Man
• 5 Days at Lava Beds National Park

I spent 63 days outside of my own city which makes it about 17% of my year traveling. Also discovered I absolutely hate red eye flights, even with prescription sleep medicine I can’t go to sleep.

I go on a semi regular trip to Lava Beds National Park to go spelunking out there but this is the first year that we did real wild caves and even repelled down into a cave. We also did our first effort at mapping out caves, and learned a lot. I really can’t remember the last time I was so excited to keep going even as my fellow explorers were exhausted from the heat, I wanted to continue exploring and finding new caves.

Career

I switched jobs. From ApartmentList where I’ve worked for almost 2.5 years to a new company called Ginger.io. From the consumer space focusing on SEO/SEM, I’ve switched to a HealthCare company which requires more deliberate care as you progress. The recklessness of an ever turning user base is gone, less risk can be taken but the upside is you’re helping someone in a way that seems more real.

Started teaching at General Assembly. I’m teaching Front-End Web Development to group of 15 people over 10 weeks. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and both the experience and money is good. So I’ll be trying to improve the process as I go along. I’ll be taking a break but I’ll 100% be doing it again.

Love

I fell in love with a beautiful girl Kendra and we had an amazing relationship for the 6 months that we were together. Coming into the relationship in March I knew she was headed to grad school in October but we pursued both felt such a strong connection that we both decided to pursue the relationship. We did eventually break up though as she wanted a fresh start in Los Angeles and the idea of 2 years apart without any guarantee of being together again is unfortunate.

Adventure

My Burning Man camp was formed! Camp EAT ME is on the docket! Instead of a rag tag team surviving we formed infrastructure, formalized our camp, starting working collectively on bigger projects. Part of Burning Man is the preparation and work before hand, the building of a community both inside and outside of camp and I think this year it was far more interesting and fun than the years before.

I planned my first major camping adventure! Over the New Years I planned, organized (with some help from John, Jared, Kim, and Laura) a 5 day camping trip to Death Valley with a short stop at Pinnacles National Park. The trip was stupendous and amazing way to ring in 2015.

Resolutions from 2014

Under 8 minute mile on 10K & App in the App Store will continue to be resolutions

This one was a crapshoot. I basically stopped running this year. 2012 I did almost 300 miles, 200 miles in 2013, and a barely 80 miles in 2014. Unfortunately as I got busier with more active social life and General Assembly it took significant more time. The impedes to read books and listen to the book is also gone as I have switched to self-contained podcasts.

No app in the app store to my own name though I did launch a small tool for runners: http://run.thelandofrohan.com/

Get a domain and set up a personal website

Done! I’m hosting projects on heroku and moving them to their own subdomains but the personal site is up. Though I’ve only written 4 blog posts this year I’ve had a few in my notes that I haven’t formally posted.

Net reduction TV Shows I’m watching

I’m down from 15 shows to about 13 shows. This year I added Girls, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Parks and Recreation, and Rick and Morty. But I removed a lot of shows that basically got finished up including Legend of Korra.

My current list: Archer, Black Mirror, Community, Game of Thrones, Girls, Gravity Falls, House of Cards, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Orange is the New Black, Parks and Recreation, Rick and Morty, Robot Chicken, and Sherlock.

### Learn to Swim ###

I actually took a class late in December of 2013 into January of 2014 and basically didn’t pass the course, not enough practice and a deeper fear of being under the water that I’m trying to resolve.

Stop being so negative

Not sure about this, pretty positive now but I’m still a bit of complainer.

River Rafting

This year was so dry in California that it never came up, any river that we went was so shallow that we could basically walk through it. Probably not the best year for it.

East Coast Visit

Did this one, I got a feel for the east coast and saw my first fall season with a true change of colors in the trees. It was really beautiful, going on the bus between cities was also a great and cheaper experience than doing it by plane.

Resolutions for 2015

Run a marathon

I’ve always loved running and while I don’t really want to do a marathon distance in a normal pace, I feel like I need to go for it finally and do a very long run. I still prefer the 10K for overall “how interesting is this” and pace wise and a half-marathon distance for a very long run if I choose to do a long run but I want a marathon under my belt.

Travel to a non first-world country

Almost all the countries I’ve traveled to except for India have been first world nations. I’ve never been to a place that’s not just a variation of the things I’ve already done. Just to try out different experiences and I know I’ve been tepid about it because primarily scared about not having modern amenities. India doesn’t count though because I always spend time with relatives, so it’s usually very posh.

Get rid of things

I feel I have way too many things kept around my place. I want to simplify my life and just get rid of a lot of things that I never use or need or do anything with. Just simplifying my entire life so that way I know exactly my sum total of all my possessions.

App Store

I want a fully published app in the app store and I’m going to do it this time. I have some ideas for some personal ones that matter to me that I believe I can do. They won’t make any money but it will be a fun show off drawing and skills.

Become a better teacher

I’m signing up to become a General Assembly instructor again, I’m going to become an even better teach than before. I’m not sure what the measurement of this will be.

Mountaineering

I’ve never gone more than 9,000 ft (2,700m) climb and I’ve always talked about doing Shasta and Whitney and other mountains, so I’m going to learn mountaineering and travel up to the top of one of these mountains. Not sure which one but it’s happening this year.