We’re now a full three weeks into 2017. I set about a half-dozen goals for myself this year. Some are more realized than others. Here’s where I am to date on some of the bigger things I hope to accomplish this year:

Run my first 5K

This was originally to be able to run a ten-minute mile for the first time since high school, on my treadmill. This officially changed pretty quickly; the new goal is to have a casual 5K under my belt by the end of summer-ish. The long-term goal is to participate in one of Disney’s Star Wars 5K races in 2018. I’m a couple of weeks into Jeff Galloway’s Run/Walk/Run program, and while I may be holding myself back a bit in the early going, I think it’s going to be a good fit for me as the weeks progress. I wish I’d known about this program a couple of decades ago.

Speak at a technical conference

I’ve spoken at a number of education-focused events in the past, but never a conference geared more specifically toward programmers and system administrator-types. This will officially change in a few months, as I’ve been accepted to give a talk called “The Git Historian” at a regional tech conference in May. I’m really excited! Also, now I need to write the actual talk! More details as they’re available, but in the meantime, I’ll be doing a practice run at Lawrence Coders in March.

Rebuild passive income streams

I’ll admit, making royalties from my book is awfully nice. I like it much more than consulting, as many developers do to generate side income. In that light, I’ve been updating the book to (a) bring it more up-to-date with current versions of Rails and RSpec (not that the techniques are that out of date, but unfortunately, version numbers have proven to be too good as marketing tools), and (b) structure it in a way that’s easier to update going forward. I’ll admit this is taking more time than I’d hoped, mainly because I’m taking the opportunity to really think through each code sample. I’ve axed sections from the previous addition, and added content elsewhere. So it’s still in the works; stay tuned for more updates (probably more on Everyday Rails than here).