The Obligatory 2026 Post
The new year is here, and I'm naturally in a reflective mood. What a year 2025 was for me. I changed jobs, saw my youngest graduate and start college, moved twice, and so much more. I expect 2026 to be less chaotic and more focused. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
I've never been one for New Year's resolutions. I don't like the idea of making plans once and executing on them. I'm more of a be in the moment and adjust as you go kind of person. But even with that, I can't help but look ahead and think about what I'd like to get done this year.
Let's start with my work at CNN.
To say I'm grateful for this job is an understatement. My prior two roles didn't work out as I had hoped. I was starting to get a bit down about my ability to land something that could be a long-term role for me. CNN came along at the perfect time. I've now got a role where I enjoy the work I do, it's a good technical fit for me and my expertise, and I've got great colleagues to share the journey with. I want to maintain that, so any plans I have around work are to be consistent in my role and try to grow within it.
We're doing more with Rust and edge compute, so I want to really learn Rust well this year. I've dabbled before, and I know enough Rust to be dangerous. I want to grow my technical expertise there. I also want to re-up my connection to Python and the Python community. I'm thinking of going to PyCon this year. For all my experience in Python and its open source community, I've never been to a PyCon. I hope to change that this year. I'm thinking about re:Invent this year too. AWS is a mainstay in my toolkit, both personally and at work, and I'd like to be more involved in re:Invent, even if it's the end of the year before we get there.
Outside of work, I'd like to spend more time with the things that help me feel more present.
One of those is travel with my wife. We're empty nesters now, and we've been talking about taking more weekend getaways. It feels cliche to say it, but it's true – my wife Wendy really is my best friend. We enjoy each other's company, and we love travel. I'm excited about visiting nice locales within a day trip of Atlanta. I hope to literally get away more as often as we can.
I also want to find some opportunities to play more of the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game with friends or other local Atlanta players. I love superheros, comics, and playing games with friends. MMRPG combines all those. I took up the game a little over a year and played a few times last year. I'd like to really lean in this year and play more, especially in person with others in Atlanta.
So 2026, here we go. Onward and upward. More focus. More living in the present. And hopefully I'll do a little better at sharing updates on all that here on my blog.