I took an extended holiday break this year to match my family’s school vacations. That means I’m currently bracing for a return to reality after the Christmas holiday, a New Year for the world, and a new year for me (44!) Here’s what has been top of mind as January makes its presence known.

2023

• Junior High - my son started junior high this year which has been exciting and new for all of us. He’s also been doing well playing drums in the band and running for the cross-country team. It has also turned out to be pretty useful to be married to a school psychologist that works in a junior high school.

• More of my mouth broke - I got a root canal after a crown went bad in early 2023. Not my first, but still not fun. Just hoping for no mouth related changes this year.

• Big new things around the house! After threatening to do so for a number of years, we got a small above ground pool. Led to some fun times with neighborhood friends, and some great Sunday afternoon floats. Also, as an early family Christmas gift we got a Lovesac to replace our long broken basement couch. Much easier to get all humans and cats in the same place now, which makes a big difference.

• Ongoing Decoupled CMS work - I wasn’t able to attend DrupalCon Pittsburgh, but I did submit the Drupal API Client Project to the Pitch-burgh Innovation Contest. We were selected as a finalist by the judging panel, and then funded by a community vote. In my day-to-day I was also continuing to lead the Decoupled Kit project and generally helping support Front-End Sites at Pantheon.

• Tech Related Travel - scaled down my conference travel last year, but still made it to Florida Drupal Camp, MidCamp, Twin Cities Drupal Camp, and New England Drupal Camp. I also visited Pantheon’s San Francisco headquarters for the first time.

• Tons of Tears of the Kingdom - I’ve played 150 hours of Tears of The Kingdom and counting. Similar to Breath of the Wild I was obsessed in the beginning, and then went through cycles of playing and taking extended breaks. Crazy how much game there is here. Still a lot that I’m hoping to do - expecting that I’ll wrap up around 200 hours.

• A Terrible Patriots Season - truly terrible, but still somehow managed to be fun and interesting to follow.

• Saw Some Fun Shows - finally made it to The Fest in Gainesville, FL for the first time. Had a blast, but may have exceeded the limits of what my then 43 year old ass could handle. Huge thanks to Mike Herchel for hosting me. Also saw the sketch comedy group The State reunited, which was a blast.

2024

• A New Website! - made a long gestating migration of this site to Astro in the new year. There is quite a bit more that I’d like to do with the site in 2024 - we’ll see if I can keep the momentum going.

• Drupal API Client 1.0 - I’ll be ramping back up after the holidays for a focused effort on our 1.0 scope to close out our commitment to Pitch-burgh funding. The 1.0 release will also open up a number of new possibilities for using the client. I have an idea for a new open source project building on this work that I’m excited about.

• Brushing Up on TypeScript - both this website and the API Client are written in TypeScript, but I feel like much of my TS learning thus far has been on the job training, which has left some gaps. As a result, I’ve been brushing up over the break with the courses at Execute Program, which I think are really great. On top of that, hopefully having multiple ongoing TypeScript projects will help me stay fresh.

• Charting New Territory Professionally - after multiple years focusing on a specific long-term project at my day job, I’ll be dedicated to something new and different as 2024 starts. Perhaps that will click for me. If not, it might be time for something even newer. Either way, this year is sure to be filled with new professional challenges.

• Traditional New Years Fitness Goals - need to stay focused fitness wise as it gets harder and harder to keep this ancient body in shape. Related to that, I’m going to be trying out a dry-ish January (-ish because I’m cheating and starting at the end of my vacation and the Patriot’s season.) I’m hoping that cutting out beer will make maintaining my weight after the holidays a little easier.

• Steam Deck - I broke down on my birthday and ordered myself a Steam Deck OLED. This is partly motivated by hearing endless positive things about the Steam Deck in 2023. But possibly even more motivated by starting Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox over break and wanting a reliable way to play it handheld. Could see myself putting Zelda-level hours into that one in 2024.

• Golf Lessons - I’ve played a little more frequently over the past few years and it’s time to start sucking less. Tempted to get new clubs, but I think the smarter move is to get lessons first, and then reward myself with some new equipment if I make some positive progress.