Twenty Six

2020 is the year I turn 26. October 1st is that day! As always with every year for the past seven years now I reflect back on the past year by sharing some accomplishments and progress with life.

Travel

Given Covid-19, things have been different but manageable. Before the craziness started I travelled to Nashville in November for RubyConf (a conference for developers) with a number of teammates. We had a great time exploring the city and sampling the different foods over the few days we were there. I never realized how much of a party city Nashville is. The live music and bar scene wants me to go back again with friends. I’ll have to grab a cowboy hat next time I’m there.

In the new year there was a work trip to Montreal for a couple days. Great times were spent getting to know new colleagues from our greater team, and having fun with existing. The city never gets boring. This trip is my best celebrity claim to fame: at a speakeasy in old Montreal, Harrison Ford (of Bladerunner, Star Wars) showed up with a few people and had a discreet time. They didn’t want any attention, therefore the group I was with and myself weren’t able to actually meet him. Oh well, at least he walked around a bit so that we could try to remember him a whole lot better.

Right before things started shutting down in Ottawa at the end of February, my mom and sister gave me a surprise visit. The highlights were hitting up the town with my friends and going to some new restaurants. Recommendations are for the Duelling Pianos event at the Sens House Saturday nights, and breakfast at the Manx on Elgin.

Part way through the pandemic, I had the opportunity to travel out east to Nova Scotia with a few friends out to their family’s beach house. We had to quarantine for two weeks while out there but that wasn’t too difficult when the weather was hot, the beach was there, and light beer was plentiful. It was so great the first time that we decided to go back a second time (including a second quarantine) for an entire month. During these two trips I attended one of my best buddy’s wedding, his bachelor party, made apple cider, experienced the east coast cultural norms, and rekindled my love of rocks. Home base was Merigomish, Nova Scotia, but we also stayed in Fredericton, Moncton, Charlottetown, and French River, PEI. It was surreal to experience the relaxed Covid restrictions out in the eastern bubble. I’m thankful that I was able to work remotely while out there and it having no impact on my work. I’m glad to have been able to travel during the pandemic.

Fitness

To stay fit throughout the winter I invested in a smart trainer for my bike. Tied with the virtual cycling app, Zwift, I started crushing seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine while keeping my fitness up.

With Fridays being days off during the summer months at Shopify, this gave my friends and I a lot of great summer days to get up to trouble. Many of the days were spent cycling around Ottawa and going to different beaches in the area. We frequented Aylmer beach on the Quebec side. It was a scenic hour long cycle and great sandy beach, perfect for very hot days. One time we went out to Sablon Beach for hanging out at the large beach and camping over for a night. With all this travel and sun, it’s been satisfying to work on getting a nice, even tan.

A few friends and I signed up to run the Ottawa Race Weekend 10k. The last time I did this was in 2017! The official race was cancelled, but could still be run any time over the summer, and anywhere to still get ranked. On the last day to submit the results I was running a 5k and decided to see how much further I could go. Pacing myself and keeping good enough form allowed me to run the 10k successfully! and in a fair time, albeit with some breaks.

Work

At work my team and I have transitioned to working in a different problem space. It’s quite a refreshing feeling being immersed in a little-known area as it keeps me on my toes. There was a several month period where I was leading two teams of developers on two different projects – one being the old team and project that is wrapping up, the other being the new team and project. This was challenging as my time was split between the two teams. Prioritizing, delegating, and providing the right nudges to influence the projects were critical throughout this period, especially when one team was coming up to a big launch, and the other team was trying to get off the ground. At the end of the day, the launch was wildly successful, and the new team is just about to ship its first version of the service we’re building.

Earlier in 2020, our greater team moved from the Support org into the Trust org. We’re still solving problems for Support, but our scope has expanded to accelerate the rest of the business. This is a great opportunity for us that hasn’t fully come to fruition just yet. A lot of our services can be leveraged by other teams. The mindset we have now is building services that provide a whole lot of leverage and speed to other teams. Every year things change a whole lot on my team for the better. Three years in now and it’s still a wild ride.

Numbers

As always, here’s some numbers on what I’ve accomplished over the year:

• 110 km of running, 11 hours total
• 1,039 km of cycling, 47 hours total
• 1,010 Github contributions from work and personal projects
• 3 books read, 5 on the go
• 6 posts published on this blog, 5 unpublished
• 2,373,358 steps, 1,642.99 km, 868,256 calories recorded via my Fitbit

Looking back, my running and cycling rival my 2017 numbers. It’s been a great time outside this year!

🍻 to another year!