2022 into 2023

Resolutions?

I gained a little more weight this year than I'd like, so I made a dashboard for tracking progress - weight, waist measurement, calories, BMI, alcohol intake, etc. Here's Weight Loss Dashboard (and Sandbox ) if you think that's helpful and would like to do something similar.

I figure it's best to focus on one thing at a time, so I'm focusing on health/fitness/diet/exercise right now. My plan is to focus on one thing per month, so maybe one month will be all music, one month all drawing, one month all coding/learning, etc. We'll see!

It's easy to say January 1st is an arbitrary date and doesn't mean anything, but honestly perception can be powerful. For me personally, it was really hard to start any goal in December with all the parties and get togethers and routine disruption, and a nice, cold, boring January is a good time to start a new routine. It also gave me time to plan exactly what I want to do, which can also contribute to success.

It wasn't an amazingly writing heavy year for me but! I wrote a few good ones. Five of them were written in December - I'm getting back into the swing of things! (It's actually 11, but one that I wrote for DigitalOcean has not been published yet.)

The commit metric is fun to track. The vast majority of my coding has been work-related. So as you can see, I've been busy M-F basically every week this year except for two small vacations! Still, on the personal side I managed to get a few demos/projects in this year, a redesign, and some posts.

My project this year wasKeyboardAccordion.com , which I made to be able to practice the accordion at night and not bother anyone. The write-up for this project is the Musical Instrument/Web Audio API article.

I also started a Baba Is You game implemention earlier in the year that I abandoned for a bit, I'd like to finish that up this year.

I've been making fewer updates here, but working as much or more than ever. I actually really enjoy my job and the people I work with, and greatly appreciate that I have a good work-life balance. I was recently promoted to Principal Software Engineer, after a few years working as a Staff Software Engineer. I've really come a long way in the past eight or nine years of working as a developer, and still have a long way to go!

I bought a tablet this year! I made an Illustration page to keep track of what I draw. My plan to get back into the swing of things was to draw all 150 Pokémon. I haven't made it that far yet, but it's a start.

I recorded one song this year, after a two year break.

• Let It Be

I also got an awesome wooden chromatic button accordion I'm very excited about learning. I'm slowly teaching myself to play, but I'm completely self-taught when it comes to any kind of music and I can't really read sheet music, so it's slow going. I'm currently wondering if I can find a teacher in my area, but it's a pretty niche instrument so we'll see.

I learned a few songs on it already though - Korobeiniki (Tetris theme), Shostakovich Waltz No. 2, La Noyee, La Valse des Monstres, Sonic Accordion Song, and Final Fantasy VI Wedding Waltz.

My entire life up until now, I never really cared much about my environment: I lived in small, cheap apartments with cheap furniture and little to no art. I'm not sure why exactly - I was frugal, but also it felt like the apartments were just supposed to be temporary, so why would I put time and effort into decorating them?

I've stepped away from the minimalism mindset lately. I spent a lot of time this year buying art and furniture for my latest apartment, and making a cool battlestation for WFH + play.

Now I have art on the walls from the Chicago transit system, Cowboy Bebop, Animorphs, Harry Potter, russian propaganda, space, my own paintings, and small designs from artists around the city. For once I really enjoy my environment and I'm glad I put the time and effort into it.

A few topics I have ideas about and would like to write about in the coming year:

• WebSocket API, BroadcastChannel API, SharedWorker API
• Swagger/OpenAPI
• Common array/object tasks
• Redux + Immer
• Drawing in Photoshop
• Logical fallacies
• Existentialism
• Internet in the '90s

A few topics I'd like to learn more about in the coming year:

• Redis
• Pub/Sub
• Why everyone loves Tailwind
• Server-side rendering (NextJS?)
• Python environment setup
• CSS animations (This is on my list of things to learn from 2016...)
• Data structures (On my list from 2019...)

Sometimes it's hard for me to realize how much I've learned over the last several years, but the list is actually getting quite long. It's not quite so obvious what I should learn next, suggestions are appreciated!

Maybe Rome, Deno, WebAssembly, web components, newer CSS concepts, in-depth exploration of DevTools, or Rust?

This year I started writing a bit more about personal stuff - my friend, my childhood Animorphs obsession, burnout. It's been good practice for me to write in a format that isn't just an A-to-B tutorial. It's actually quite a struggle for me to focus and do reseach, which is why I haven't written so much of those types of posts, but we'll see what interests me in 2023.

I think over the last few years, I've become much less of a "known entity" in the JavaScript/front end world. I write less, the topics I do write about tend to be more focused and advanced, and I don't participate much in online discussion. Unfortunately, that means my connections with other people dwindle, so I hope in 2023 I can make some more good, genuine, human connections through this website, and in the real world as well.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you have a great 2023!