# What I'm Doing in 2011

By Randall Degges · December 23, 2010 · https://rdegges.com/2010/what-im-doing-in-2011/

> My goals for 2011: build reading and exercise habits, quit soda, lose 1lb a week, launch a paid service, give a tech talk, and travel more.

![Wolf Sketch][]


Another new year is quickly approaching (time seems to fly, doesn't it)?  I
thought it would be appropriate to do a brain dump of my plans and ideas for
2011.


## Goals

I've never been a very "goal oriented" person, instead I tend to just live in
the moment and let things happen naturally.  However, this year I'm going to be
trying a lot of new things, and want to hold myself accountable using goals.

-   Start a new reading habit.  By the end of the year I want to be in the
    habit of reading for at least 30 minutes a day.
-   Start a new exercise habit.  By the end of the year I want to be in the
    habit of exercising for at least 30 minutes 5 times a week.
-   Completely stop consuming all sodas and energy drinks.  I've already been
    soda free for around 4 months, but I want to completely remove them from my
    diet.
-   Continue losing weight at a rate of 1lb per week minimum (with a few
    exceptions allowed for holidays and what not).
-   Build and launch at least one public website that offers some sort of paid
    service.
-   Make the RCG and RCI teleconferencing systems the best in the world.  We've
    got some competition, and I want to completely eliminate it.
-   Successfully launch [http://globalroute.net/][] (my work's new VoIP
    provider).
-   Give at least one technical presentation at a programming meet up.  I'm
    normally a pretty shy guy, but would like to make myself step out of my
    normal element.

I'm sure that I will do other things too (at least, I hope!), but these are my
*main* goals for 2011.  These are the things that, if I finish, will allow me
to sleep easily at night.


## Tech Stuff

2010 was a big year for me in terms of learning and using tech stuff.  In 2011
I plan to spend a lot of time mastering the tech stuff that I use daily, namely
[PostgreSQL][], [Django][], [OpenSIPS][], [Asterisk][], [python][],
[jenkins][], [fabric][], [puppet][], [memcached][], and [celery][].  In an
ideal situation, I will be able to rapidly deploy, scale, and develop high
performance applications and have full knowledge of all parts of the stack.

Right now I am very familiar with these tools, but not at a "master" level.
This is something I hope to achieve through the coming year.

Other than my wife, the real love of my life is programming.  Since I was a
young teenager, I've been programming (or playing around on the computer) every
single day.  Over the next year, I'm looking forward to doing a lot of coding,
interacting with other programmers, and having tech fun.


## Travel

I don't think a lot of people close to me know this, but I really enjoy
traveling. I'm finally at a point where I can do a bit of travel casually, and
in 2011 I plan on doing some.

I'm not going to be flying anywhere (fuck the TSA!), but I will be doing some
alternate forms of travel.  I've also been looking for a new home recently (I'm
outgrowing LA), and will be traveling to some of my possible future homes to see
how I like them.

Some of the places I'd like to visit in 2011 are (in no particular order):

-   Santa Barbara
-   San Francisco
-   Santa Cruz
-   Hawaii
-   Portland
-   Seattle

I'm also planning on taking a cruise to Alaska with my wife at some point, as
we have both really been wanting to see the frozen tundra for quite some time
:)


## Other Thoughts

2010 was a good year.  I'm looking forward to doing cool stuff in 2011, and
having fun.


[Wolf Sketch]: wolf-sketch.png "Wolf Sketch"
  [http://globalroute.net/]: https://web.archive.org/web/20101230013623/http://globalroute.net/ "GlobalRoute"
  [PostgreSQL]: http://www.postgresql.org/ "PostgreSQL"
  [Django]: http://www.djangoproject.com/ "Django"
  [OpenSIPS]: http://www.opensips.org/ "OpenSIPS"
  [Asterisk]: http://www.asterisk.org/ "Asterisk"
  [python]: http://python.org/ "Python"
  [jenkins]: http://jenkins-ci.org/ "jenkins"
  [fabric]: http://docs.fabfile.org/en/latest/ "fabric"
  [puppet]: https://www.puppet.com/ "puppe"
  [memcached]: http://memcached.org/ "memcached"
  [celery]: http://celeryproject.org/ "celery"