I don’t even know what I can say happened in 2019. It’s the fucking end of the decade but I’ll see about that change in decade thing in another post. But let’s focus on 2019. This year was mainly an evolution of my relationship with Mel.

First International trip with a Partner

I used to travel solo mainly, then sometimes with groups, but somehow it worked out that I have never actually traveled internationally with a partner. That has changed! Mel and me took our first trip to Mexico City together. I had been before so we had to figure out things that would be good to repeat and visit new together. We had lots of fun, had a fight or two (and talked it out), and I learned my Spanish is shitty compared to Mel who would talk up taxi drivers. We’re going to Japan next year so we’ll be on even footing with our non-existent Japanese. It’ll also be the most time we’ve spent together continuously at 2 weeks.

Lots of firsts with Mel

We met each other’s parents
We took an international trip together
We bought tickets for an even LONGER trip together
We went to many weddings
We went camping (she likes caving!)

Switching teams

I ended up switching teams at Lyft. There’s a lot more about this in a previous (blog post)[https://blog.thelandofrohan.com/2019/03/working-too-hard/] but more importantly I’ve been working as a lead on my team while still working 40 hours. I work on Community Safety at Lyft which has been a rewarding experience and a much needed team here at Lyft. We’ve already built some big projects like Rider 911 and Driver Share Location but the big project that I’m looking forward to is the partnership with ADT. We’ll be able to help dispatch 911 immediately to a location or allow passengers (and eventually drivers) to call 911 in the app silently.

It’s been a great team though it’s easy to want to work a lot longer per week that I have to stop myself from doing. We’re going to be in own team and org so we’re gonna go from a 40+ team to a 5+ person team now. I imagine that’s going to be a dramatic switch.

Vacations

I finished up a trip to Vietnam at the beginning of the year that was mostly covered in my post about last year. Went to Mexico City. I went to Boise, Austin & Santa Barbara for weddings and all of them were super fun trips.

I also did an awesome trip to Namibia covering my 6th continent and finally doing a safari. I got to see lions hunting, wild elephants up close, and at least a hundred plus animals hanging around a watering hole. I also got to climb a giant sand dune. It was super super fun.

Resolutions from 2019

I did awfullllllllll at all of these things. Right now my record is 1/7.

500 Miles Run

I struggle to get mileage with Ryo’s walks everyday and just other summer plans and etc. So I reduced it down to 365 miles but even that was a struggle. I did get Ryoga to run with me about 4 miles 3 weeks a though which is pretty good setup for next year. I’ll just just have to wait for next year. The two things that are important is I’ll have to remember is that the only way to get better is to increase mileage. So I’ll have to run extra length on weekends.

Ryoga backpacking

We had a trip planned but a last minute shift in my on call schedule screwed it up. I did have a nice hike with Ryo in the city and realized how much Ryo loves hiking. So I’ll have to do something with him even if it’s just day trips or something.

Never eat lunch at my desk

I did a much better job about this but I wasn’t perfect.

Reduce body weight percentage down to 20%

Well… I fucked this one up. I’m actually around 170 lbs now gaining most of my weight during a trip to Namibia. I ate a lot like a vacation diet in Namibia but it was a lot of sitting in the car for most of the trip. When I came back I just kept up a bad diet and gained a few lbs.

10% more silly

I feel I’ve done this pretty well and keep it up. I discovered that stuffing a breadstick inside a breadstick is not the best idea (at least not Olive Garden ones). I pulled off a few pranks, I got a few new buttons. I celebrated an anniversary with my new rendition of Happy Anniversary to you song. These are all just stupid little silly things that I did mostly in the 2nd half of the year.

24 books in a year

I failed this miserably. I got like 10… 4 of those are book club books. Oops.

Total: 2/7 (kinda)

Resolutions 2020

I think this will be the first year that I’m not clear on my resolutions. I have lots to think about and deal with this year. This year is my 4 year anniversary with Lyft which means I need to look at whether I want to stay this year after my 4 years come up in August and it will depend heavily on what the company is willing to offer me. I’d love to stay but not willing to take a huge pay cut to stay there.

I’ve been doing this whole traveling occasionally, doing camping trips, I think I want to think about things more around evolving a skill or a craft.

Not sure what that entails but I imagine that means the regular rhythm that I’ve had for the past few years won’t work for me in the next decade.

Pay for a Tour

The one thing I’ve learned this year is that planning and coordinating trips exhausts me and doing it by myself is not fun. It really hurts a trip for me. The last trip I was on everyone was super busy and I tend to take it on myself to do the planning. I was by myself for Vietnam and that was exhausting too.

The 2nd aspect is that I also realized that I don’t want to travel without Mel as much especially on longer trips. So I will probably take shorter trips without her and maybe it’ll just be easier to do a group trip that I pay to be on. I enjoyed it a lot in Vietnam and I imagine it can be fun. Or do adventure camping trips with friends where I’ll be constantly busy.

So I’m going to look to do smaller trips and maybe more adventurous ones. I make money and I can afford to pay someone to take me canyoneering down some cliffs or ice climbing or whatever else sounds fun.

Running

I haven’t run a real race for a long time and I think this year will be another good year to run at least a half-marathon if not a full marathon. I’m going to have to start training again this year and with Ryo I should be able to get some good distances. Now that Ryo can run distances I can probably at least switch it up, run 2 miles with him. Drop him off and then finish my run. I’ll have to see how that works since I need to run at least 4.5 miles with him.

Write One Blog Post a Month

I want to write about something. Anything, it could just be exploring an idea or just talking about something I know or something cool that I’ve learned. It could be as as simple a good book summary or writing on something else. We’ll see how well this works.

Try to fill my time without TV

I’ve specifically rewatched a lot of old shows: The Office, Star Trek, Brooklyn 99. I’m trying to stop doing this and marathoning old shows unless I’m sick. I know there’s always a balance for this so I’m going to try to minimize it to 2 days a week to watch it. Then switch it over to 1 day a week. Hopefully just setting up habits against this.

Have Gatsby and Ryo Meet

If you don’t know, Mel’s dog is Gatsby and mine is Ryoga. Ryoga got bullied by other bigger dogs in parks so he’s a bit gun shy and barks at other bigger dogs to show he’s tough. But generally just plays with them afterwards. But Gatsby is reactive to other dogs barking. So this is a perfect combination for a pain in the ass. Hopefully in 2020 we’ll have the dogs meet with a trainer to help us and our back and forth Oakland / SF hopping will be less necessary in 2020. It also unlocks us living together at some point.