2020 in Numbers...

I am glad 2020 ended and hopefully 2021 will be much better.  A couple of items on my list for this year got either postponed or will never happen.  I planned to go to the PASS Summit in Texas in 2020, that obviously didn't happen and it looks like it won't happen in the future either. PASS is no more :-(

Here are some numbers for 2020 that I put together looking at some sheets and journals

123,116
Calories burned running. I ran a little over 800 miles this year and burned what seems like a lot of calories. But since we are all home, the wife and kids did a lot of baking, this evened out the calories :-)

13,930
Pushups.  I try to do 100 pushups every 2 or 3 days, this is the total for the year

9,551 
Dividends. This is the total amount of dividends I received this year. All of these have been reinvested. Until I retire, I am doing a reinvestment into the same security

800.3
Miles run. My goal was 800 and I stuck to it... It's nothing major, about 4 miles 4 times a week

300

Days since I was last in the office

I told my wife when the office is open again, you won't see me for a month :-)

60
The number of books I read

Since there is no commute, I had some more time to read this year, I read about 5 books per month

Some of the book I read

Will have my 5 favorite books after the numbers list

40

Longest bike ride. 

Did this bike ride with my oldest son. We left around 6:40 AM because it went up to 95 degrees that day. I Also managed to get a flat tire 30 miles in :-(

After we came home we just sat on the couch for the rest of the day

31 

Number of pepper plants planted

We planted 31 spicy pepper plants. We picked a lot of the peppers, gave away a bunch, made pepper flakes etc etc

Here are some pics

The first one is the ghost pepper

11

Seasons of shows I watched and finished with my wife

Narcos Mexico II

Mr Robot I

Mr Robot II

Mr Robot III

Mr Robot IV

The Crown I

Succession I

Succession II

Succession III

Ozark III

Curb Your Enthusiasm X

0

Number of tables I dropped on the production database server

Best item purchased

Since I am working from home constantly, I decided to invest in a universal docking station. We got new laptops from work, they only come with 2 USB ports, and of course these are right next to the HDMI port. Using this USB docking station makes live so much easier

The one I picked is the Hiearcool USB C Hub,USB-C Laptop Docking Station,11 in 1 Triple Display Type C Adapter Compatiable for MacBook and Windows(2HDMI VGA PD3.0 SD TF Card Reader Gigabit Ethernet 4USB Ports)

And here is what it looks like, I included a mouse for scale (sorry didn't have a banana)

As you can see it comes with a nice pouch, it's really small and fits easily in your bag.

Best 5 books

Here are my favorite 5 books I read last year, I did not include books I re-read like The Stand and Fellowship of the ring

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers by Andy Greenberg 

This is even more relevant now after the SolarWind hack

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow 

I admit I did not know much about Hamilton, this was recommended by my brother in law. This is a fantastic book about a man who was part of the beginnings of the US

The Terror by Dan Simmons

I watched the show 2 years ago on AMC, the show is really good... but the book is even better

Permutation City by Greg Egan

Will this be us in 100 years?

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World by Charles Mann

There are two ways to go about things... either conserve.. or use technology to fix things.....

That's it for 2020......  I will be back in a couple of days to show my list of things for 2021....

Have a good 2021

2009 resolutions or better yet my to do list for 2009

I was working on my resolutions post yesterday and was going to post it here 

I noticed last night on my twitter feed that Jason Massie tagged me
My list is more a to-do list for the year than new year's resolutions, since I am as perfect as Chrissie1 having a list resolutions would mean I wasn’t perfect, this clearly isn’t so.

Here is what I intend to do in 2009

Reading more books (at least 2 books a month)
When I commuted to New York City from Princeton I read about 60 books a year. This was easily accomplished because my commute was about an hour each way. Now that I have a 6 minute commute this becomes a little harder. I have three kids under the age of five; two of them just entered their terrible two stage. While they are awake you cannot read because you want to spend some time with them, then there is the wife who doesn’t want to be ignored either. Luckily I don’t watch that much TV a week, maybe 3 hours max. All this leaves me with about 4 or 5 hours to read per week at home. I could read at work during lunch for 30 minutes a day and surf the other 30 minutes. I don’t know yet how this will work out but somehow I hope I can manage it.

Answering at least 10 questions a day on various sites
This should be no problem; I should be able to do this at lunch, before I start working and just before I leave to go home. I still think participating in newsgroups is one of the best ways to learn and keep up to date on a technology

Learning Powershell
I have played around for a little with PowerShell lately and must say that I really like it, since it now also comes with SQL Server 2008 there is no reason not to learn it. I can already see where I can use it for a couple of different things

Mastering C#
I admit I am not nearly as good in C# as in SQL; this is of course because 90% of the time I am using SQL Server and not C#. I would like to change that by diving deeper into the language itself, I purchased 3 C# books last month and will read them and do all the examples. Just in case you wonder what those 3 books are, they are listed below
C# in Depth
More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#
The C# Programming Language (3rd Edition)


Finishing the SQL admin hacks
This is another thing I just can’t seem to finish, I wrote the SQL Server Programming Hacks in the first half of this year; I started the SQL Server Admin Hacks the second half of this year but I am just pushing it off. just like Peter in Office Space I am thinking "Where is the motivation Bob?"

Eating better foods and not skipping meals
Sometimes during weekends I skip breakfast because I get too involved with the kids and just forget to eat. Of course later on I am famished and eat way more than I should and ruin my lunch. I also like to snack on empty calorie foods because I am too lazy to cut up an apple or make something to eat instead. This has to stop; I am not 20 anymore and have to improve by getting rid of some bad habits.


Starting to work out again
I have not worked out since the twins were born; so that means almost two and a half years. This is pathetic but there was just no way to do it, if you only sleep 5 hours a night and this sleep interrupted then you don’t want to work out period.

Having more patience with kids + wife
I am a pretty impatient person, I don’t like to wait and I hate when people are late. My wife is the master of being late. This year I will not get upset at that and just have more patience, some people are just not on time…ever

Drinking less soda
Soda is another of these empty calorie drinks that have no purpose except for the caffeine to keep you awake. I don’t drink coffee so my only option left is tea. There are only a handful of teas that I drink, I like Lady Grey tea and Green tea, I drink Lady Grey hot and Green tea cold.

There, that is all, nothing impressive but then again I don’t smoke/drink am not overweight so that eliminated 80% of what other people put on their list.