2022 Year in Review

January 8, 2023

Work

This year was a milestone year as I celebrated my fifth anniversary of working with LGND and my fourth anniversary of being a full-time employee. The year started working on a lot of smaller projects and working on personal development when there were no active projects to work on. But from May to October, I had two big projects I worked on followed by a couple of 2-3 projects to end the year.

A highlight of the year was our first in-person retreat since 2019. Our team met up for three days at the Omni Grove Park Inn Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. It was a great time of connecting in person with my talented teammates.

• 24 teammates at the end of the year, 4 more joining in January 2023
• 8 teammates joined and said goodbye to 5 teammates
• 24 projects I was involved in
• 16 projects shipped
• 5 one-page builds
• 3 multi-page site builds
• 3 Gutenberg site builds
• 2 accessibility audits
• 2 WordPress client guides
• 8 interviews with potential teammates (led to 3 teammates getting hired)
• 40 PTO days. I am very grateful for the unlimited PTO policy that LGND put in place in 2022 and I took advantage of it.
• 28 LGND Campfires
• 1 Campfire presentation (accessibility audits)
• 14 days – shortest project
• 144 days – longest project

Personal

After avoiding COVID-19 for two years, two members of my family got it near the end of January. But thanks to my wife’s incredible preparation, we put a plan into place and were able to contain the sickness to just two people.

My family celebrated 2 graduations in 2022. My daughter graduated from Trevecca Nazarene University and my son graduated from high school. My son got his driver’s license after being delayed by COVID and my daughter moved into her first apartment in July.

I discovered a new favorite fast food restaurant this year, Culver’s. I visited it for the first time in February in Murray, KY while on a college visit. I also discovered one in Nashville near where my daughter lives.

• 2 graduations
• 2 children living outside the house
• 1 driver’s license
• 1 ballet intensive
• 1 Presidential Fellowship (my son was awarded a full-ride scholarship to Murray State)
• 10 visits to Culver’s (Murray and Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Nashville, Tennessee)
• 5 visits to the MinuteClinic (only one was for me)
• 1 visit to the local ER (I was not the patient)
• 23 ride-alongs with my son as he prepared to get his driver’s license

Travel

I traveled more miles this year since we relocated to Chattanooga almost ten years ago. I spent time in Kentucky for the first time other than just passing through on the way to some other destination. And I visited the state of North Carolina for the first time on my trip to Ashville. I loved driving through the Cherokee and Pisgah National Forests and enjoying the fall foliage.

• 11 road trips
• 4293 miles driven on these trips
• 11,273 miles driven total (according to Google Timeline)
• 10 multi-day trips
• Nashville – most visited destination
• 4 states
• 2 college visits (Murray State University and Western Kentucky University)

Coding

• 673 GitHub contributions
• 34 Codepens

Writing

This was one of my most productive years in writing. The 60 posts that I made to this site beat my previous best of 57 from 2005, the first year of this site.

• 60 blog posts
• 42 weeknotes
• 269 tweets
• 30 LinkedIn posts
• 186 Instagram posts
• 304 daily logs (I keep these in Evernote)
• 138 journal entries

Books

Favorite reads of the year

• The Baseball 100
• Alchemy
• Surprised by Jesus
• The Air We Breathe
• Press Reset
• Slugfest
• Marvel by Design

By the numbers

• 38 books finished (32 was my goal)
• 46 books started
• 3 abandoned
• 6 still in the process of reading
• 8 physical books bought or gifted
• 28 ebooks bought (read or started 12 of them)
• 4 books about Marvel and another book about comics
• 2 biographies or autobiographies
• 5 rereads
• 9 books that were recommended or mentioned by others I know or follow

Music

I really wish I could get my listening statistics from Spotify at the end of the year.

Favorite songs

• Still (Steven Curtis Chapman)
• Exit through the Lobby (Spider-Man: No Way Home Soundtrack)
• On That Day (CityAlight)
• Psalm 42 (I Will Praise Him Again)(CityAlight)
• Where Else Could I Go (Steven Curtis Chapman)
• Lord of the Rings (The Piano Guys)
• Even If (MercyMe)
• Seven Nation Army, The Glitch Mob Remix (The White Stripes)
• This is the Day (CityAlight)

Favorite Albums

• Still by Steven Curtis Chapman
• There is One Gospel by CityAlight
• Spider-Man: No Way Home Soundtrack

Entertainment

Favorite Sports Moments

• 4 NCAA games – 2 volleyball, 1 football, and 1 basketball, all Murray State University
• 1 NCAA championship – My KU Jayhawks won their third championship since I was a student or alumni
• 6 movies in the theater
• 5 Star Wars series (Disney+)
• 5 Marvel series (Disney+)(2 rewatches)
• 3 Grand Duke performances (son performed)
• 2 Nutcracker performances (youngest daughter performed)
• 1 visit to the Classic Arcade Pinball Museum
• 1 visit to the Biltmore Estate
• 1 visit to the Hunter Museum
• 1 visit to Corvette Lanes Bowling in Murray, KY
• 1 visit to the Tennessee Aquarium

Video Games

• 87 FIFA23 games
• 3 World Cup tournaments
• 135 MLB The Show 21 games (won World Series with the Braves)
• 164 Wordle games