It's been a rollercoaster of a year. I traveled more than in previous years, earning enough Southwest points to get a discount on flights later this winter. Our former toddler is fully in "pre-school mode" now, hitting personal milestones like riding her bike with training wheels without needing us right there. She's becoming more independent, which brings new challenges—but they're the kind we're happy to face. We're looking ahead to kindergarten next fall and working on improving our morning routine.

I expect 2025 to be another year of transition, as we start to feel the effects of everything that happened in 2024. The election has shifted us away from the relative calm of recent years, plunging us back into the over-caffeinated national news cycle of one outrage after another. The world feels more precarious, and there's little confidence that anyone will meet the moment for the greater good. Even our workplaces have gone through upheavals that will take time to resolve.

Despite all of that, I'm still grateful for the blessings of this past year—troubles and all. Happy New Year!

  • Started the new year with a major, by Nashville standards, snow storm.
  • Had a video of a car crash in said snow storm featured on the news.
  • Went to Las Vegas for a company event to celebrate a revenue milestone and took a new headshot.
  • Unintentionally started sporting varying degrees of facial hair, mainly to fit in with the sysadmins.
  • Attended several birthday parties for four and five year-olds around town.
  • Had a contractor renovate our enclosed garage to improve the floor-plan (and to get rid of a persistent odor caused by a previous homeowner's goof).[1]
  • Spent several nights at the local laundromat during the renovation.
  • Walked Indy, who turned seven, at least once a day that I home, continuing a streak of closing my watch's Move Ring.
  • Facilitated a SigEp Carlson Leadership Academy in Oklahoma City for the second year in a row for the VP of Finance track.
  • Made lots of trips to playgrounds and bike trails around the city.
  • Marked two years at my current job.
  • Saw my in-laws a few times each month while they traveled to town for my father-in-law's cancer treatment.
  • Learned to live with the AI craze that really took hold in 2024, with every company doing something with it.[2]
  • Went to Cheekwood for an Easter event, and again for Holiday Lights.
  • Marked a year as a committee chair for SigEp.
  • Watched the total solar eclipse from a Dairy Queen parking lot in Marion, Illinois.
  • Chased after a few auroras that somehow made it all the way to Tennessee.
  • Hosted the child's birthday party at the neighborhood community center.
  • Replaced my Mac Mini with a MacBook Air.
  • Played entirely too much Retro Bowl on my phone after Apple Arcade lost the Chess.com app.
  • Took our daughter to Frozen at TPAC and actually learned the plot of the movie.[3]
  • Attended the funeral of a friend we lost way too soon.
  • Went to our first track practice before realizing it was way too hot to be out there.
  • Bought the dog a small couch at IKEA to make up for getting rid of his futon.
  • Went to Dallas, Texas for my second biannual District Governor Summit.
  • Appeared in my tenth issue of the Nashville Scene's "You're So Nashville If" issue.
  • Spent a bit longer at the Tomato Arts Fest because the weather was cooler than usual.
  • Celebrated 18 years of marriage at a Mexican restaurant.
  • Supported our local Girl Scout troop through their parent's night out program.
  • Trick-or-treated in the neighborhood for the third year in a row.
  • Took our daughter to her second hockey game, where she watched slightly more of it this year.[4]
  • Survived a substantial layoff in the middle of a big team project.
  • Toured the neighborhood elementary school and met the likely kindergarten teachers.
  • Marked ten 20 years of blogging, with the posts you can't see better left to history.[5]
  • Voted for a brighter future for Nashville transit and celebrated the win.
  • Voted for a brighter future for the country and then found out folks in most of the swing states had a different idea.
  • Built a clone of some of NHL.com's functionality to learn a bit about Next.js.
  • Celebrated Thanksgiving in Knoxville with child and dog in tow.
  • Went to Christmas Eve service at our church.
  • Built a child-sized adjustable desk from IKEA late into the evening.
  • Converted this website from Jekyll to 11ty.
  • Rang in the new year with pizza at home with our daughter and dog.

  1. We learned what a Studor vent was, and how they are not optional if you vent a pipe in a wall. ↩︎

  2. Useful, yes, but the way it is being shoved into every product reminds me of the NFT craze. ↩︎

  3. I now understand why Let It Go is the power ballad of preschoolers, and how difficult it is to get an earworm out. ↩︎

  4. We did discover a kids area near fan relations, so I got to stay in the building if not actually able to see the game. ↩︎

  5. Look, it was back before social media took hold so the mundane stuff got on here too. ↩︎