Resolutions 2020

Pay off new furniture and buy a new clothes washer/dryer.

I used my tax return to purchase a washer/dryer and paid off my furniture. Amanda even gave me her old deep freeze so I have one of them too.

Speak at 4 conferences this year.

CodeMash, Codeland, We Rock IT!, Music City Tech, Atlanta Code Camp. I submitted for several others where I didn’t get accepted. I’ve made several friends on the speaking circuit and will continue to submit.

Create and build a connected yet portable smart home system for my new place.

About half way through the year I met this amazing woman and I’ve spend most of my time with her and not tinkering with IoT stuff. I’ve also put a lot of focus into other creative endeavors. I joined the creatives and media (photography/videography) teams at church. So while this is something I still want to do I’ve had a change of focus.

Get down to the size I was in college.

I not only got to the size I was when I started but I’m down to the pant size I was when I was the most healthy. I haven’t lost much weight but my waist is thinner and my arms are thicker.

Build a home gym in my garage.

So I overestimated the amount of space in the garage. Once I put the washer/dryer in and cleared a space for my motorcycle, deep freeze, and bicycles there just isn’t enough space for any regular gym equipment. Also Amanda and I go to PF together and run into friends there all the time. The extrovert in me loves the social aspect of working out at the gym.

Write the story of my journey into development.

I turned it into a talk that I gave at Codeland and Music City Tech. My friend Alysha let me use her artwork as the slides for the presentation. It was great. I’ve started working on writing out a longer version of the story but may not restrict it to my journey into development. I want to make development a part of my story not the whole of the story.

Write and publish another book

Finished the draft the day before Thanksgiving. It’s a toss-up whether it will be “done, done” by the end of the year, but I did my part. My second book is on remote work and is being published through SimpleProgrammer.

Speak again at a conference this year.

Spoke at Microconf.

Get reasonably competent at .net core.

Used it at work – a lot. Currently using it now. Once Microsoft gets a couple of revisions out on something, it’s usually pretty easy to pick up.

Switch to linux completely.

Didn’t do it. There are a few things that don’t work for me and are preventing a move to Linux. One of those is that I’m concerned about drivers for the Scarlett I use to record. The other is I need support infrastructure – if something breaks, I need to be able to pay someone to fix it, rather than burning hours messing with configs.

Get back into wine making.

I have five gallons of pear wine and five gallons of dry red that I’ll be bottling soon.

Visit and call my parents more frequently.

This one didn’t work out as well. Mainly because they are still only barely moved in. It’s a bit rough getting up there as well.

Publish our Recruiter book.

We did nothing on this book. We are likely to go back and review it possibly adding more to it and revising it. Will got a book deal and spent most of his time working on that. He also changed jobs. Beej got a girlfriend and was heavily focused on school.

Sponsorship for CDP.

We’ve had several sponsors but have a regular one since September.

Mentor program for Developer Launchpad.

We have been working on restructuring DL to focus more on the purpose of helping developers grow in their careers. More exciting things are coming this year.

Update our Live shows.

We updated it…by canceling it. Well canceling the regular show and only having live shows on special occasions.

BJ’s Resolutions

• Finish the prereqs for grad school and start taking actual graduate level classes.
• Go on a long motorcycle ride.
• Find a mentor at work.
• Get on the worship team at church.
• Create and give a technical talk.
• Increase my artistic endeavors.

Will’s Resolutions

• Build something else.
• Get one or more of the Amazon or Azure cloud certifications.
• Continue with my writing habit.
• Get my angular skills up to par.
• Relax more.
• Try to get more money coming in from sources that other people don’t control as much.

Complete Developer Network

• Get our business license.
• Work more on our systems.
• Put more emphasis on the business side and interviewing in Developer Launchpad.
• Build up our mailing list.

Finish graduate school.

My first long term goal is to complete graduate school. That means obtaining the master’s degree for which I’m currently attending and then going on to get a Ph.D. in Computer Science.

Move into some form of leadership or supervisory capacity.

I already assist my lead developer in a lot of capacities. I’m watching what all she does and what her manager does as well. While I see myself moving into more data science and predictive algorithms than line of business development I plan to be on the path to management.

Travel.

In the next ten years I plan to become full remote and use that freedom to travel around the world. I’ve known a few people who have done this. The goal is to work during the day and the sight see at night and weekends.

Get back to self-employment and stay there.

0% of my problems in the last few years have been due to someone else having too much control.

Get back to writing fiction and publish a book.

Move more out of day-to-day tech and more into an advisory role.

While I still enjoy slinging code, I can do a lot more good looking at business processes and the like, rather than only focusing on code issues.

Develop a training program for those interested in advancing their careers.

While the podcast will remain free we plan to develop coursework and tutorials that we can sell to those interested.

More joint ventures.

We want to set things up so that useful material can be had by our listeners at a discount.