Writing this required 3 lunch breaks and a camping trip so I don\u2019t know if the end result will appear scattered but if so, it\u2019s representative of the past year.<\/p>\n
I usually start this process by reading last year\u2019s birthday post. Crap, I missed it. I have my one from age 30 but not one for 31. Thinking back to this time last year, I can see how that happened but I\u2019m still disappointed with myself that the task was skipped. Sorry everyone. Let\u2019s do a 12 months in review?<\/p>\n
i\u2019m writing finishing up this post on September 6th. The birthday post isn\u2019t one people ask for. I don\u2019t get letters from people asking why I didn\u2019t write a post last year. The fact that anyone visits this blog directly is amazing. I\u2019m grateful to have an audience. I\u2019ve had this blog for 10 years which is in itself very impressive. Doing anything for 10 whole years is unusual for me but that was the point of this domain name and this blog in particular. It was intended to be a catch-all for anything I cared about and those of you who read every post have followed the changes in me being reflected in this digital journal. That\u2019s pretty cool unlike the highly specialized blogs of the past that fade away as I lose interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t have an annual post without including that this is the end of 7 full years in New Hampshire. I moved here in September of 2010 just a few days after my birthday and once again, I sit here thinking I\u2019ve been in NH longer than I was ever in SF. I don\u2019t think SF me would ever believe I\u2019d end up here but SF me was ready to move here as soon as I interviewed at my job which I still hold today. Would I still be here if the job didn\u2019t exist? That\u2019s not really up to me. If I lost my job, one that I want to keep for a very long time, I\u2019d try to find equally paying work locally. If I was unable to find it, I\u2019d certainly look elsewhere and go where my sails take me but I would try and stay here. New Hampshire doesn\u2019t quite feel like home. SF did actually but it felt like a home which I was a tourist in but that\u2019s because SF is this city that never really welcomes you home. You get little blips of comfort but earthquakes, unemployment and traffic sort of pushes you away and then someone breaks into your car and craps in your seat and you\u2019re thinking again about moving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New Hampshire has treated me well. I met Heather here, she\u2019s up for living anywhere. I\u2019ve met some people but very few people here that I\u2019d call friends relative to who I\u2019ve met and in New Hampshire, I\u2019ve been geographically forced to let the startup world leave me behind. We still don\u2019t have great cell service, we just got Uber in our area and still no one is using Foursquare or Twitter here. Everyone uses the ListServe to communicate over more modern methods. Facebook adoption is pretty high and it\u2019s finally reaching a bit of annoyance for me. The problem with San Francisco is what they do now will be global in 5-10 years. Well, Facebook is finally a thing here\u2026.and I hate it. I left San Francisco partially because everyone was on social media. Up here, in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, people I communicate with socially are now asking why I\u2019m not on Facebook Messenger instead of just SMS. SMS works fine for me..or email, they now plan to see me through my girlfriend on Facebook. I won\u2019t re-join that place or any of the social media sites. It\u2019s annoying to me that even the rural parts of America are online and people so willingly just join these services where it used to be we were just a database table of a struggling startup that wouldn\u2019t last. Now, joining a site or connecting with your Facebook account opens the flood-gates for more advertisements. I really hate it and I wish this area was immune from there. Maybe I move into Labrador Canada or Alaska next. Get further away from progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I love technology. I use it every day but the communication means we are all using is something I won\u2019t participate in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ah, I should add more context of where I am. I\u2019m writing to you from Goshen Vermont. I\u2019m at a BMW Motorcycle Rally. I joined this club a year ago before the rally and I\u2019m back. This is the rally where I met the Quebec group which I camped with in October and joined on our Tail of the Dragon trip in March. I\u2019ve been to 10 of the last 12 months of monthly club breakfasts for the Vermont BMW Owners club and have certainly become a familiar face around these parts. Everyone here is 10-50 years old than me. All riders, good group of people but unfortunately, most are on their phones checking Facebook so I chose to grab my laptop and write by the fire. Usually the laptop stays home and the iPad is with me but I hate typing on it so I just use it for reading and nights like this would really help me whittle down on the Instapaper queue. Unfortunately, the iPad Pro 9.7\u201d has been sold for $400. I\u2019ll put that money toward a low-cost iPad Pro 2018 whenever that comes out. I noticed the downward trend of iPad prices so here we are, iPad-Less. I\u2019ve written in the past about going without the iPad for a few weeks. I hate it. I love having the iPad. I get home, dock the iPhone, grab the iPad and that\u2019s my home computing device in bred, couch and in the basement when I\u2019m working on projects. Then to get work done, I wake the iMac up from sleep.<\/p>\n
Holy crap, 13 hours and 29 minutes remaining on this MacBook Pro Charge. I doubt you\u2019d want to read something I wrote for 13.5 hours.<\/p>\n
Someone just asked me if I had Internet on my laptop. Infuriating because they just assume to use a computing device requires Internet service. Don\u2019t they know you can do things offline like editing photos, video, writing, number crunching? sigh. Not every machine is just a portal to Facebook.<\/p>\n
Alright, 32\u2026what have we learned other than how to be a curmudgeon?<\/p>\n
We certainly summarized how we\u2019ve moved away from technology more but not really. More specifically modern social media. I still tinker with technology, programming, I\u2019m doing a lot more with Amazon Web Services, scripting, a lot of video and photo work and I\u2019m now leading a team of 7 people, 4 of which are programmers and we\u2019re doing some great things inside of the mapping division at my job. This week, I had to upgrade my home NAS, an 8-bay Synology. It was starting to throw warnings about space. I yanked out two 6 terabyte drives and replaced them with two 8 terabyte drives. I wish the 10-12TB drives were more affordable. I now have eight 8 terabyte drives in the array with 1 drive dedicated to failover if a drive goes bad. I think by this time next year, 10TBs will finally be affordable. I hope my data-hoarding can sustain me for that long. having 48 terabytes to my disposal sounds like a lot\u2026it\u2019s really not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the liquid cooled R1200GS Adventure felt like a dream bike, it wasn\u2019t serving my needs completely. It\u2019s amazing for touring and I enjoy riding it off the beaten path but I have decided a proper enduro \/ dual sport was for me. In the last couple of years, the industry finally stopped calling BMW GS bikes \u201cdual sports\u201d and the category Adventure crept in which is far more appropriate. I did get a dual sport. A Beta 500 RR-S. It\u2019s awesome. Just needed a few small changes but I\u2019ll be able to ride it a bit this year and in the nature of adult things, I\u2019ve added a trailer hitch to heather\u2019s car and a trailer so she and I can go camping and then i can go out in the woods on the dirt bike during the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The house is doing okay. There is a lot to do still. We need to pave the driveway after smoothening it out and terra-forming our way into a 3 car driveway. There\u2019s rot happening under the wood on dirt foundation out of the 2nd bedroom which doesn\u2019t have insulation under it so it\u2019s the same temp in that room as it is outside so we think it\u2019ll be necessary to jack up that part of the house, pour concrete under it and finally get a sealed up basement from the constant 90% humidity in there. We want to get better insulation by replacing the front door and then finally after the 2nd bedroom is insulated, the driveway is paved and the front deck is built, we can finally finish the basement which involves a half bath, movie theatre and beer room. This was the plan this year but there\u2019s just too much to do that is more important from a structural level. I think this house is going to cost me another 50 grand before it\u2019s ready to be my home in a more perfect sense. Then I\u2019ll probably get stuck with 1-2 kids and have to sell it because it\u2019s too small.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year, I started dabbling in real-estate on the side. Perhaps in 10 years, this will be my career. I don\u2019t think so but anything is possible. On the nights and weekends, I help a local agent with things. Getting my feet wet. I went to classes over the Winter time and it\u2019s not high paying. It\u2019s only $9 an hour after tax, still a ways to go but the clients I have are saying good things. I think I\u2019m on the right track here. I hope everything goes okay with my day job that I don\u2019t have to do this full time until one day I decide to but for now, it\u2019s supplementary and is a lot of fun. It doesn\u2019t get into my daily job or my hobbies mostly. I\u2019m only mentioning this because maybe a year from now it\u2019s something a little more serious? We\u2019ll see.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My day job in 2018. Man, we are doing so many great things. The head hunter who brought me out to interview here said they were looking for an entrepreneur with a love of maps and an innovation spirit. They did get that but then I was placed into a lot of different silos and some managers were better than others. I\u2019m working with someone now who is asking me to be myself and do what I love and he is giving me those resources. I think there was a period of broken-ness like my spirit, excitement had fleeted a bit and it had started to just be a job. It was one I enjoyed but still just a job in an area I really liked and the job allowed me to stay there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The boss I have now noticed all of my years of small projects, ideas, non-starters with programming and incubation. He told me to go ahead and do that. I can bring on 5-10 programmers and just build what is most exciting. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been working on since January. Next year, we\u2019ll get to grow a bit more and then I\u2019ll be put on a special projects team of on-site events and a little bit of culture officer work. I hope things continue but more importantly, I hope that the work I\u2019m doing contributes to the technology arm of our company and saves us money in the process. I believe this is going to work. It\u2019s not turn-key. It is exciting though. The incubation itself has an end date that is completely up to me meaning if I squander the time and resources and we ship nothing, the project goes away. If we do well, this could be something huge. A massive maps R&D unit I get to lead innovating on our core technologies and keeping us competitive in a very fast-growing industry. If you want directions on your phone, autonomous driving, real-time maps, we need to build what we are setting out to and do it well. It\u2019s very exciting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last winter, from December – March, I completely tore down my BMW motorcycle and built it up stronger. That bike is done save for an exhaust system and new luggage boxes and tires,. My dirt bike will be done in a week. It\u2019s at the dealer getting $1400 of work done to it on top of what Ive already done. This Winter, I\u2019m ordering a negative-film scanner and I\u2019m setting out to digitize all of the photos from my family before digital cameras. Family members have been sending me photos from before I was born and I\u2019ll be scanning them in, trying to add a date-tag to each of these and some of them will go up on Flickr.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year definitely flew by. I was in the basement every night until March then down to Asheville and tail of the dragon with the Quebec club then I was working every day 7-4 then Saturdays at real-estate classes and 3 hours a day serving those clients in addition to the 2 hours a day I average editing videos, photos, writing and reading RSS feeds. I was able to upload YouTube videos at least 4 days a week this year and at one point, I was making $400 a month on YouTube. It has been $209 a month since June which is still impressive although I won\u2019t keep up this schedule forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before you know it, summer is here and I went camping 10 different weekends this year, then road 3,600 miles to Labrador Canada and back and since I bought the GS after my birthday last year, I\u2019ve put 14,000 miles on the bike. Not bad for one year with a 5 month long winter.<\/p>\n
The Golf R. IT\u2019s doing great! I\u2019ve driven it 2,000 miles since April. I gave it an oil change even though it didn\u2019t need one. I will hit 40,000 miles at some point this Winter. I do currently have an insurance claim out because someone dinged it up pretty bad when it was parked. I\u2019ll get that buffed out and re-painted and then re-OptiCoat on those 2 door panels. 40,000 miles in 3.5 years is a lot but 20K of the twas in the first year then I bought a motorcycle and everything changed. It\u2019ll be paid off next year I think. Close to done and then I\u201dll have an extra $590 a month to save or put toward a vehicle that\u2019s more practical. The Golf R is worth $30K at the current mileage. Paid off, it\u2019ll still be around 24K. These Golf Rs really hold their value. It certainly makes me feel compelled to grab another one in 2020 even though they\u2019re just not practical for my needs which is hauling a dirt bike around and going on road trips to the middle of nowhere. I keep saying I\u2019ll keep this car forever. It\u2019ll be my fast far and it\u2019ll stay with Heather\u2019s parents with basic insurance and every few months, I\u2019ll take it out for a fun drive and just hang on to it for the next decade. We\u2019ll see. I\u2019m back and forth on it. The fact I have equity in both of my bikes, my car and my house though does make me feel good. It\u2019s good to know that if I needed to, I could get rid of everything, have enough to buy a Prius and move to wherever I needed to next that had a job I wanted to do. It\u2019d be a full re-set on everything but at least I\u2019m not underwater and struggling to breathe. It makes work feel like work and I want to do things that I love.<\/p>\n
If I go on much longer, we\u2019ll be at 3,000 words. If you\u2019re still reading, thank you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Where is this all going to be in a year. Despite being more stable than ever, I feel like the next year is going to have a ton of changes. I don\u2019t dare make any guesses this time around. Who knows what\u2019s going to happen? I do know it\u2019s going to be interesting. I just wish things were more certain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m happy though where things are. No complaints here. Have to stop\u2026we\u2019re close to 3,000. thanks for taking the time to read and explore where I\u2019ve been. I hope this was interesting to all of you. See you next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writing this required 3 lunch breaks and a camping trip so I don\u2019t know if the end result…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-09-08T22:45:24Z","apple_news_api_id":"1f7db0e2-6306-4ea8-bdbb-a5a64611728d","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-09-08T22:45:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AH32w4mMGTqi9u6WmRhFyjQ","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-1Y4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6595,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/01\/15\/porters-1st-birthday\/","url_meta":{"origin":7568,"position":0},"title":"Porter’s 1st Birthday","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Porter is now a year old. 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