Charlie Custer

Hoo boy. My guess is that, even a decade from now, I’m not going to have to remind myself (or anyone else) what happened in 2020. This year’s goals review isn’t going to be pretty, so let’s just rip the band-aid off.

2020 Books

• Red Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson)
• The Wandering Earth (Liu Cixin)
• Negroes With Guns (Robert F. Williams)
• Invisible Planets (Ken Liu)
• The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)
• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (Stephen Brusatte)

This is a short list, much shorter than I had planned for it to be. At least it’s a good one. All of these books are worth reading. My favorite was probably Invisible Planets, which is a collection of short Chinese sci-fi in translation.

2020 Goals Review

Become a licensed EMT in Maine.

On its face, this is an easy one to grade: F, because I’m not a licensed EMT. I paid for, enrolled in, and completed a United Ambulance EMT course, even passing the written final exam. But the course got delayed and thrown-off by the pandemic, leading to a situation where it ended months after it was supposed to, and where missing months of in-person learning meant that to take the NREMT tests, we’d have to pass all of the in-class practical skills again (even those I’d already passed) via a number of in-person make-up sessions.

With Leia having lost her job, and Lilly at home full-time with schools doing “remote learning,” I didn’t feel I had the time for it, and the thought of having to re-do a lot of what we’d already done was depressing.

The silver lining here is that I have (hopefully) learned a lesson about stretching myself too thin. Even before the pandemic, I was struggling to keep up with everything (work, kid, health), and I was incredibly stressed. Enrolling in the course in the first place was a bad idea.

Ideally, I would have learned to be a bit more realistic about how much I can do at once in a way that didn’t cost $1,000 and many, many hours of stress and studying. But I did learn the lesson. And of course, I learned quite a lot about emergency medicine too, even if I can’t practice it. So let’s call this a D — I didn’t achieve this goal but it was still a valuable endeavor.

Run or hike 800 miles this year.

Technically, I didn’t quite hit this goal. As of this writing, I have 685 miles of running on Strava.

The only reason I missed it, though, is that I started mountain biking in 2020. I have 819 miles on the bike, and most of them are trail miles.

Given that the reason for the original 800 mile goal was health and fitness, I think it’s fair to say that I actually surpassed this goal, albeit in part using a kind of outdoor exercise I hadn’t anticipated. In total, I spent 268 hours, or about 11 24-hour days, running or biking in 2020, with a total combined mileage of about 1,500. Let’s call that an A.

Read at least 20 books.

There’s no way around an F here, because I wasn’t even close. This and the next goal, which I also failed, were casualties of the stress double-whammy that was the EMT class and then the (still ongoing) chaos of COVID.

Improve my sleep hygiene.

As mentioned above, it’s a hard F here as well. I started off quite well, but things fell apart after January as the stress started to ramp up.

Spend significantly less money on Amazon.

I don’t even need to look up the numbers to know this one is a dismal failure. Again, I can blame COVID, at least to some extent, as Amazon became one of the only safe ways to get some items reasonably quickly, since in-person shopping was mostly off the table. F.

Remain valued at Dataquest.

The Google algorithm was not kind to us this year, but I’d say this is still an A. With some help from a contractor I managed, we recovered pretty well from a devastating algo update in May, and at my yearly review I was (again) well-reviewed and given a raise.

Learn enough SQL to build Mode reports

I did complete the first Dataquest SQL course, but I didn’t get much further, and thus don’t have the skills to build good Mode reports from scratch. Hard to blame COVID for this one! F.

Run a marathon.

For the second year running, I didn’t manage this one, although this year it’s COVID cancellations that are to blame, rather than an injury. I did, however, complete a birthday fitness challenge that included 15+ miles of running and 20+miles of trail riding in one day.

It’s not the same as a marathon, but the marathon I was going to run got cancelled (along with all the others), and I think it does capture the spirit of what I wanted to do with the original goal, so let’s say C.

Complete a significant personal project.

I went above and beyond what I expected with this goal, creating a Youtube channel that updates weekly with new bike videos. I suppose it’s technically not “complete” since I plan to continue it in 2021, but still, I think it counts as an A.

2021 Goals

Let’s get to the main event! Once again, I’ll use the why/how structure from previous years. I’ll start with a few repeat goals — things I failed at last year that I’d still like to do.

Improve my sleep hygiene.

Why: Same reason as last year — I’m still falling asleep by watching, and then listening to, things in headphones. And just as last year, I don’t think this is very healthy. 

How: I will put my phone in the bathroom at night, and get back into the routine of using the alarm clock and reading light I bought last year.

Read at least 20 books.

Why: I think this is a healthier before-bed habit, and there’s a lot of value, both in fiction and nonfiction, that just isn’t available in any other format.

How: I will read regularly each night. Also important, and something I think that helped derail me last year: I will stop reading books I’m not getting much out of and move on to the next book, rather than trying to power through and finish each book I start for the sake of finishing.

Learn a new skill that adds value for my job at Dataquest.

Why: I think this is a better goal than to simply “remain valued,” although the net effect will hopefully be that I am even more valued.

How: I will complete at least one CXL certification. I will set aside two hours per work week to study. 

Go a month without added sugar.

Why: Like everyone, I eat too much sugar, and I’ve read a lot about the health benefits of not doing that. I’d like to try and kick the habit and at least see how it feels on the other side. It should also be helpful in losing some of the Christmas weight I’ve put on. 

How: I will avoid eating anything with any added sugar in February 2021. This won’t mean avoiding sugar entirely, but I will only be able to get it from fruits and other places where it occurs naturally. 

Grow my Youtube channel to 2k followers.

Why: It’s fun and it’ll force me to keep going outside of my comfort zone, trying new things, and improving my editing. 

How: There’s no way to be totally sure how I can hit this goal, but I will try to do it by producing videos each week, upping the number of “brand” search videos over the winter months, arranging collaborations with other local Youtubers and MTB orgs for cross-promotion, and building my riding skills to make the videos more interesting.

Check off everything on my MTB skills wishlist.

Why: I want to improve my skills significantly again in 2021, but with the “noob gains” out of the way, doing so will take a more dedicated and targeted approach. 

What: Here’s a working list, although I may change this over the course of the year:

• Learn to consistently clear small to mid-size jumps (5-10 feet), including gap jumps.
• Get a Strava time of 1:45 or less on Flow Creek.
• Learn to hit larger drops of 5 or 6 feet.
• Visit the Vietnam trail system in Mass. and send some of the rock rolls and drops.
• Send the optional rock rolls and gnarly lines at Mt. Apatite.
• Build and shred a cool private trail.
• Be able to send everything (except for the huge jumps) at Mount Abram.
• Send the drop at Freeman Ridge Bike Park
• Participate in at least one MTB event (like an enduro race, the 12-hour race at Bradbury, etc.)
• Avoid any serious injury

How: Each item on the wish list will require a different approach, but generally this will require: more time on the bike, more time on gnarly trails, some in-person coaching if covid permits, and hopefully riding with others who can help me push my boundaries.

Cover 2,000 human-powered miles.

Why: I want to stay fit and healthy. This gives me more flexibility than in previous years, since it would include running, biking, hiking, walking, etc. 

How: By running or biking most days, and covering some mileage every day (even if it’s just a short treadmill walk).

Stand during work meetings

Why: I sit too much at work. In the past I’ve tried time-based rules, but this has proved distracting and thus easy to excuse skipping.

How: I will stand during at least the beginning of every work meeting. If I reach a point in the meeting where it’s distracting or I’m too tired, I can/will sit down, but I will at least begin each meeting standing.