We’re now entering the third week of 2017, so in traditional procrastinated fashion it’s time for me to post my goals for the year. But first I thought it might be instructive/painful to revisit the 2016 goals and see what was achieved and what fell, for whatever reason, by the wayside

This reflection is mainly for my own benefit, but if you feel like following along probably you should first take a peek at the goals post from last January.

So how did I do?

  1. Continue getting back into great shape. I would give myself a 6/10 though in the last quarter of 2016 it would rise to a 7/10. I’ve started a new circuit training regime at the local gym,and it is hard. Many is the morning I am now getting crushed into shape. In general I feel much healthier. Would love to find a way to start swimming more again.

  2. Get my financial situation in order. Not quite finished but good progress made. Happily just earlier this week my friend Albert’s new book has arrived to lead me forward.

  3. Improve my Spanish. No bueno, frankly. My day to day requires very little Spanish interaction. I put in serious time on duolingo, getting 60 and 80 day streaks going, and my passive Spanish is slowly improving, but verbal communication continues to be my downfall. When Spanish people speak I grasp nothing. So still some ways to go. Frankly I am almost at the point of embracing Catalan for a fresh start. More on this in my 2017 post.

  4. Figure out what’s next professionally. Great progress made, my thanks to everyone who gave me advice. I toyed with the idea of getting a job, but frankly am having fun and learning a lot running OpenCage and working with all the various start-ups it’s my pleasure to be invested in (not least as that now includes great start-ups like AVUXI and Hubtype here in BCN) The best parts are the diversity of stuff I get exposed to and I’m able to spend far more time with my kids than any of my peers. So for the foreseeable future it will be more of the same.

  5. Record my reading. Started strong, then at some point stopped recording each book. Main topics for the year were WWI, Ernst Junger, Amitav Ghosh, Le Carre’s new book and biography, Raymond Chandler, and a dive back into science fiction. I remain on the hunt for fiction that grabs me like Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy did in 2015. Not sure if I’ll do a detailed post about 2016 reading. Probably should.

  6. Have a great summer. Done, spent five weeks auf dem Eichsfeld in Thüringen (pic). Loved it, will repeat.

  7. Spend more time outside in nature. Much more than 2015, but still not enough. Happily every day the kids get older and more able to do bigger things.

  8. Teach my son (5) to read and my daughter (2) to speak. While neither is yet perfect, great progress made.

  9. More building and doing. Most of my “making” energies have been spent on OpenCage where I am learning a lot. I have not yet learned perl6, but did back the successful kickstarter for a perl6 O’Reilly book, which will someday arrive, so it remains on the todo list. In more minor tech learnings I moved this blog to jekyll. The OpenCage learning will continue, but I need to find more offline hobbies for the future.

  10. Map the neighborhood. Great progress made, including finding several badly mapped roads. Added tons of house numbers. Nevertheless, there is always more to do. Frankly much of BCN, including Sarria, is badly mapped. Am debating starting a new push in the spring.

That’s it for looking back. My post on goals for 2017 will be up in a few days.