Year in Review: 2017

Going to out this here for myself and for anyone interested. It has been a crazy year both personally and professionally.

First Child

In May, my wife and I had our first child. He has been such a great addition to the family and you just don’t realize how much you grow as a person when you have a child. The amount of work and lifestyle change is unreal.

Conferences

This year I was very fortunate with the conferences that accepted me. I started the year off speaking in my hometown, Knoxville, at CodeStock. Since moving back I have managed to be accepted as a speaker three years in a row, let’s see if I get a fourth.

My second conference was Code PaLOUsa, in Louisville, Kentucky. Chad Green and crew host a great regional conference for the community in that area. I plan to submit again next year.

Last, but not least, is another regional conference, DevSpace, in Huntsville, Alabama. Chris Gardner and crew also host a great regional conference with a great mix of development topics. This is another conference I plan to submit to every year.

Finally, I have submitted to CodeStock and Indy.Code() for 2018. With my current plans to do Code PaLOUsa, DevSpace, Scenic City Summit, and Music City Code. I don’t think I could handle more than five.

Open Source

What a year for me in open source. I have continued my momentum from last year with at least one contribution in almost every Cake release this year.

I have successfully completed Hacktoberfest and I am almost keeping pace with 24PullRequests. I am a few behind, but I feel I can pull it out. With 24PullRequests, I have branched out a little submitting PRs to projects not Cake related.

Blogging

One area I would like to definitely improve is the frequency in which I am posting. I do not yet have a rhythm to posting and I never had one established before our son was born. I am going to focus on at least two posts a month to get me flowing again.

Community

This is saving the best for last. I have really stepped up my involvement in the local dev community. I have been attending several meetups with frequency.

As part of my community involvement, I started Knox .NET. It is our local .NET and Microsoft tech Meetup. We had one in the past that faded away before I moved back. We have had three successful meetups with an average attendance of 25. There are roughly 90 members and I would like to see attendance grow to 50 with over 100 members on Meetup.

End

Well, I am excited to look back on this post next year and see how much I have grown. This year has been a wild ride that I hope continues. Thank you to all the friends I have made this past year locally, regionally, and globally. I look forward to growing those relationships and hopefully meeting many of you in person or catching up at conferences. Thank you to everyone that has been supportive and to my current coworkers for encouragement and support with many of my efforts.

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