Peace Out 2016, Don't Let the Door Hit Ya
Happy New Year!
Hope everyone had a great New Years Eve and start to the new year. Dani and I had a great quiet night at home with the pups.
I should have known this year wasn't gong to go out quietly. Walking to the train the other morning I caught my foot and took a tumble on the sidewalk. I landed on my left knee, my right elbow, and.... my iPhone. And so I pretty much destroyed the screen. A nice little end of year expense I didn't expect. But hey, bright side, I upgraded to the 7.
So with 2016, the world around us has been filled with way too much bad stuff. From the many beloved celebrities who passed on, the tragedy at Pulse nightclub, the fact that our country elected a orange faced, facist, man-baby to be our next president, the tragedies in Syria, and many other tragedies around the world . It's been a shitty year.
But with the bad, there's also good. Looking back over the year, Dani and I had some pretty great adventures this year.
Went to Disneyland & Dani completed the Star Wars Light Side Challenge
Chicago Visit and Dani's first Comic Con - C2E2
Received my Associates Degree in general studies
Went to Disney World & Completed the RunDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge
Attended my First PAX Ever!
Visited "Comic Book Men's" Comic shop in NJ and met couple of the guys from the show.
Attended 3 Weddings
Built Companimals at the Microsoft Hololens Hackathon
Built a gaming rig and entered the world of VR with my Oculus Rift
Dani Completed her Ultra Marathon
Saw Billy Joel in concert at Fenway Park
Finally got Dani to take me to King Richards Faire
Philadelphia Trip
Montreal Trip (first time in Canada)
Attended our first BU Hockey Game
Another trip to Disney World and the Wine and Dine Festival / Race Weekend
Star Wars Rogue One! (I love Star Wars)
The other big change that happened this year, was taking the jump back into the start-up world again. At the end of July I took a new position as the lead front-end developer / architect with Indico Data Solutions. It's been a great move for me, allowing me to be a lot more creative and work to improve my leadership skills. And in my field, there's always more technology to learn and stay up to date on.
But what about 2017 you ask? I'm not much of a person for resolutions, mostly because I'm not good at keeping them and I think that New Year's is an arbitrary point in time for self improvement. But it's as good a time as any to take stock of where you are and set some new goals. I have a few in mind I'd like to work towards in the coming months.
First off, I vow to keep fighting. This country is going to need people to keep fighting for the rights of women, minorities, and immigrants under the incoming administration. I could go on and on about how terrified I am that the progress we've made over the past few years could be rolled back and then some. But I think most people who have been paying attention understand. The only thing we can do is to keep fighting and show up at the next elections in 2 and 4 years.
Project: I'm planning to build a "droid". It's a multi-disciplinary project that I think will take me the better part of a year. But I'm very excited to take the plunge. The plan is to build a motorized life size Chopper from Star wars rebels. For an idea of what I'm talking about, check out this amazing build by "Darth Will", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4SFNwV-Po. I'm hoping to build something similar.
Continue Learning. I bought a ukulele in Hawaii several years back when Dani and honeymooned. And I've not found the time to learn how to play. I'm going to try to prioritize time to learn. I also plan to devote more time to working on and learning more game development. I'm very excited to be attending the Game Developer / Virtual Reality Developer conference this year.
Give myself an Attitude Adjustment. So we've been living in Somerville for pretty close to five years now. While I moved here with an open mind and even a bit of excitement, I've never really fallen in love with the Boston area to put it kindly. I'm going to try to suck it up, deal with the overcrowding and horrible public transit and try to be somewhat positive about living here for now.
I'm looking forward to the next year. I'm also terrified about what effects the Trump presidency will have on the world and on my life, but nothing to do but forge ahead and get ready to fight. And play some hockey. Yeah, I'm gonna play a lot of hockey.
