Howdy 2022, Adios 2021 - Year End Recap

I certainly have been slacking in my personal blogging in 2021. No worries here is a catch-up to recap 2021. Certainly has been an interesting year, 2021 as the vaccine rollout continued to start to allow some normal semblances of life to return. Though as 2021 is coming to an end, the Pandemic continues to poke it’s ugly head up. In this year in recap, will break into four pieces; Work, Travel, Personal, and 2022 Plans.

That Werkkk

In 2021, my time at Harness as their Evangelist Leader came to an end and a new chapter at Shipa started as a newly minted Field CTO. Certainly been a professional goal of mine since starting out in solutions architecture several years ago to be at the chief level. In my previous blog post, I wrote more of the details about my decision to leave Harness.

Super excited about the journey so far at Shipa. Working at a small place, I get to leverage a lot of my skillset in pre-sales/solution architecture and evangelism/developer relations. Focusing on Product-Lead-Growth [PLG], growing both the paid and unpaid adoption. Feeling like the metaphoric kid in a candy store.
In my first 90 days, I have gotten Shipa accepted into multiple Cloud and ISV vendor marketplaces and have plans for several more. Also started the pre-sales engineering function hopefully will scale up more as we continue to acquire users and customers in 2022.

Travel

For those who know me, I certainly love to travel. In 2021, towards the 2nd half of 2021, work travel started to occur again. In-person meetings for me started back in August of 2021. Also in 2021 started to travel more personally. Felt really great that I could go visit my nephews in their respective college towns and connect with friends and family across the country. I still have not left the county since March 2020, since with the pandemic entry requirements can be up and down on both sides e.g the visiting country and re-entering the US.

Places Visited in 2021

Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco, CA
Palo Alto, CA
Louisville, KY
Maui, HI
McLean, VA
Charlottesville, VA
Tallahassee, FL
Dallas, TX
Austin, TX
Jacksonville, FL
Denver, CO
Bridgewater, NJ
Las Vegas, NV
New Orleans, LA

Photomontage!

Personal

Overall 2021 has been a positive year for myself. Each year we learn and get hopefully a little wiser. Been fortunate was able to get the vaccine and booster shots pretty quickly along with the flu vaccine. As we continue to adjust to the changing Pandemic and supply chain issues, still optimistic for the future.

In 2021 was able to explore a little more. Finally went back to the theatres with my friends and family; really enjoy the silver screen and was glad the opportunity to watch a movie in the theatre was back in 2021.

Kofi [my Siberian Husky] is a blessing. Certainly a “challanging” breed for a first time down owner. Huskies are pretty determined, which is what their breed is known for. Kofi is now five and pretty mellow to his angsty earlier years. Great that my mom finally allows him over to their place without any question. She even buys him treats and gifts and ask about him.

With the housing market in an interesting spot with the Pandemic, decided to sell my current house and start on a new construction. Really excited about the new spot. When I bought my first townhome in 2011, I decided that every five years would get another place e.g moving up. This is will be my third place and certainly, the first two homes helped me be in a spot to aquire a new construction in 2022. With this move was toying around with the move to a few places but again decided to stick around the great ATL Area.

Frisco, TX - No state income tax and cheap car tax
Vienna/McLean/Oakton, VA - Close-ish to freedom
Upper Saddle River, NJ - Love the greater NYC Area, within 50 miles of Queens for Guyanese stuff..
Ponte Vedra, FL - Close to the water and no state income tax
Milton, GA - Horses?

Though my single greatest accomplishment in 2021 was revealed to me thanks to Spotify’s Year in Review. According to Spotify, I was in the 0.5% of Future’s listeners. Certainly, something to be proud of.

2022 Plans

Overall excited for 2022. As we continue to navigate the Pandemic, more semblances of normality will return and certain items will be changed for the long term e.g remote work. In the first half of 2022, will be focusing on the new house. Destination birthdays are back! Will be doing my birthday in Napa in 2022. The second half of 2022, the annual Maui trips are back. Brought several friends to Maui in 2021 and they are hooked. Here is to a great 2022!

Enjoy this Future Track for 2022 yuhhhh!