It didn’t take long for me to let blogging slide again. To be fair, I don’t think I’m the only one who’s run into this. But as I’ve mostly stopped Twitter (but I still see at-mentions, and respond when appropriate), and haven’t paid real attention to Facebook in years, I feel like I should put myself out there in some way involving words (I keep Instagram around because some of you post pretty pictures sometimes, and I like posting pictures of things I cook outside).

So hey, what’s up. As you may recall, I set a few goals for myself for 2017, and posted an early status report back in January from a hotel room in Alton, Illinois, then didn’t talk about them anymore. But I do have progress to report since then.

Run my first 5K

I did this! I ran in the Rexy Run 5K in August. Technically, I ran/walked, but I ran more than I walked. I finished somewhere in the middle, and didn’t die, and that’s all I really wanted. I continue to do the Galloway thing three times a week, and have two more races planned this year. Not sure when that Disney/Star Wars run is going to happen, but still hoping for someday. For now, I continue to train.

Speak at a technical conference

I did this, too! I gave my talk, “The Git Historian,” at Kansas Linuxfest in May. It went well, or at least I thought it did. I reprised it in August at my company’s engineering unconference, along with a friend/coworker. It went well there, too. I’m totally open to giving this talk elsewhere. If you’re interested, or know of an event I should submit it to, please let me know. At the moment, I’m working on an idea I want to pitch to Railsconf 2018 and any remaining regional Ruby conferences in the United States or Canada.

Rebuild passive income streams

Still working on this. I announced the first batch of updates to my Rails testing book in June, and have been releasing updates chapter-by-chapter since then. The penultimate chapter is close at this point, and I think the final chapter will be comparatively quick to get out the door.

Overall, I’m really happy with the changes, but to be honest, the updates aren’t drawing the interest (or income) I hoped they would. Part of that could be that I’ve already reached who I’m going to reach. Part could be that Rails isn’t the hotness it was when I first wrote the book. Part could be that people don’t read anymore. But as a result of the new content, I did finally get past the 6,000 reader mark. And I had to/have to get this out of my system–but then I’m probably moving on to new projects. I read Tyler Tringas’s writings on creating a micro-SaaS, and I’m mighty intrigued. All I’ll say about that for now.

In the meantime, onward and upward.