Made it!

Wow, we made it through your 2017. I don’t know about you, but considering everything going on in the world, it seemed a bit dodgy as to whether or not we’d be facing some pretty serious dangers.

While the world has seemed a bit mad this year, personally I’ve had a pretty solid year, and I think things are queued up well for a really good 2018. I set some pretty decent goals for 2017, time to see how I did.

Test for 1st Kyu in Aikido: In May, I passed my 1st Kyu test! I wasn’t as happy with my performance as I was with my 2nd Kyu test, but it was still pretty respectable.

Completing 6 courses, as part of my degree: Came pretty close to meeting this one. Of all the courses offered over the summer, only one was an option for me, so I got a total of 5 courses done. That being said, I completed an Intro to Stats course, which in my books is worth two courses!

Enter a local homebrew competition: Well, I did it. Sadly, it went relatively poorly – I had my first infected beer. On the plus side, it reminded me of how important it is to be careful with sanitation when brewing beer.

Refine my security/software testing presentation: Didn’t manage this one, but I did a month-long security challenge, and submitted a talk proposal to AtlSecCon, so I’m willing to take this one as a wash.

Read 50 books: Made it to 30 this year. Going on vacation helped me get through a lot of books – I read a lot on the beach.

Just by the goals, 2017 was pretty damn good. Add in that I managed to get in the first proper vacation in years, and that my wife is expecting our second child, I’m pretty hopeful for 2018.

So, here are my goals for this year:

Start prepping for my Shodan: I don’t plan on testing in 2018 – there’s a lot of training that needs to happen before I’m ready to test. I need to get myself in better shape, and refine my techniques. When the baby arrives, I expect that my training plan will have to get readjusted.

Read 50 books: I think I can make it this year!

Compete in another homebrew competition: I don’t expect to win, but I would really like to give a better showing this year. Or at least, not infected…

Hope you have a great year!! Happy 2018!!