2023 Recap

I asked ChatGPT to make a picture of the first paragraph in the style of a Pacific Northwest poster. Woman did publish book and maan is starting a new company.

Lots of changes on the Botel front. Cat published her book and went on book tour. I quit my job and t̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶ started a company. The kids moved to a new daycare. Despite these changes, some goals were achieved.

Complete

• Achieve normal cholesterol and vitamin D levels: Normal levels achieved. Just needed to watch what I eat (see below) and use statins, mostly I needed to use statins: they’re magic. I’m not sure about taking a pill every day until I die. I do know that future me will like not-getting-a heart-attack-in-his-50s. I want to better understand the how the side-effects of taking these drugs affect me, but I can’t easily run an A/B test.
• Reduce meat consumption to 1x day: Last year I ate 287 meat meals. I could have eaten less, but as the charts show, my discipline waned as the year progressed. I plan to continue something like this next year.

A calendar heat map of my meat consumption in 2023. Earlier in the week is better than later in the week, and there are noticeable upticks in meat consumption that align with the holiday season.

The red line indicates the number of days in each month. I managed to stay below the average of one meat meal per day for most months. However, December proved to be somewhat challenging.

• Craft a custom solution to solve a problem: There are so many annoying things about daily digital life. If you can code, most can be solved with 2–4 hours of work, the digital equivalent of buying and building shelves. Every year, I plan to create something that makes my life a little bit better. But like building shelves or organizing a closet, other things get in the way. No longer, this year I enabled AirPrint on our laser printer. It took a couple hours and learning how to use a Raspberry Pi, but now I can print from my phone. Honestly, it’s a small victory, but it feels significant, and I aim to muster more energy for such projects in 2024.
• Two family trips: We took two major trips to visit family. My sister gave birth early in the year, so we flew to see her and the new baby. Cat’s PhD graduation ceremony fell on Mother’s Day. It was a perfect opportunity to spend time with our mothers, celebrate, and visit family in New York and New Jersey. There was a third, unexpected trip where I went to my grandmother’s funeral in North Carolina. She was 96 and had been suffering from dementia for a while.
• Teach Pravin to ride a pedal bike: Pravin knows how to ride a pedal bike. It’s awesome! I can run around the lake while he pedals. But, umm, I didn’t teach him. If you have Pedalheads in your area, I strongly recommend it. It’s a magical service where you drop off a child who can’t ride a bike and, in return, you get one who can. Most of the time it’s the same kid.

Partial

• Improve knee pain: I tried this thing where they take your blood, spin it in a centrifuge, and shoot it back into where it hurts. It did not work. My knees still hurt, but they’re not worse.
• Date nights once every two weeks: We went on 23 out of 26 dates, including eight dinner dates, four movies, two bike rides, a cooking class, and dancing to bluegrass music in a square. There was a sharp drop-off in dates after Cat’s book tour began (nothing in November). Nevertheless, we persisted. We had three more dates lined up in December, but illness struck over the holidays, and our plans fell through.

Here’s a timeline of our dates for the year: blue marks the dates it was just me and Cat, and orange is for double dates. We found out that while double dates sound fun, they don’t really give us the chance to talk and connect. We stopped scheduling them halfway through the year and plan to keep it that way going forward.”

• Run 4 races: I ran three, including the Seattle half marathon. Honestly, this should have been an easy goal, but I mostly ignored it all year, and if it wasn’t for Mark Sandler I probably wouldn’t have run any races. Thanks Mark!
• Declutter and organize clothing: I vacuum-sealed most of the clothes I don’t use regularly, but I’m still a couple of boxes short of being completely decluttered. I also aimed to simplify my wardrobe for easier clothing choices but haven’t made much headway.
• Create usable attic: Cleaning the attic isn’t just cleaning the attic. You gotta have a system to organize the clutter. You gotta make space in other parts of the house. I cleaned and organized a number of areas, including the garage. This allowed me to make progress on the attic. I’ve sorted through a number of different boxes, but there is so much still to be done.
• Read 26 books, including 10 physical bools: I read 29 books, but only one physical book. It’s an awesome book by this super-talented first time author that I also happened to be married to, check her out on The Daily Show.

Not started

• Complete the photo wall: I did look at some pictures; that counts, right?Next year, I need to update my picture wall. At least there are some pictures of Leela up there — she’s starting to notice.
• Create beauty for beauty’s sake: Once again, creative endeavors take a backseat. I need to discover a fulfilling outlet for art, though I’m not quite sure what that will be yet.