Charlie Custer

2022 was in a lot of ways a pretty good year, although I definitely got off-track with some of my goals and the fitness goals were marred by a lengthy injury after a bad bike crash in the spring.

2022 Books

I read just 7 books in 2022, a reflection of the fact that our evening routines changed and I got out of the habit of reading before bed. I started trying to fix this in the fall; six of the seven were finished between August and December.

Highlights were Semiosis by Sue Burke, Dawn by Octavia Butler, and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell.

2022 Goals Review

Here’s a link to last year’s post, for reference. The password-protected bits of that post were the things related to bisexuality; I will not bother censoring them here.

Cover 2,000 human-powered miles.

F. Hard to give it anything else when I didn’t even make it to 50%. Per Strava, I covered 785.5 miles in 2022. The smaller-than-usual number is due in large part to the crash I had in the spring, which kept me from any kind of distance-based exercise for a month, as well as a lengthy sickness in December.

Push my MTB limits in at least 3 ways I can clearly point to at the end of the year.

C. The aforementioned crash also kind of shattered my confidence, so a lot of my riding over the past year was more about fun and fitness than pushing my boundaries. However, I did push my mechanic skills to the next level by building a bike from the frame up, and later setting it up as an indoor trainer, and I also got more comfortable with night riding thanks to some new lights.

Improve my Python x SQL skills.

A. Certainly there is more I could have done, but I did write enough of my Pinkbike classifieds app that it successfully connects to and can read/write from a CockroachDB serverless cluster, which was the explicit goal I stated in last year’s goals post.

Read 20+ books again.

F. As stated above, I only read 7. Will be trying again this year.

Establish some kind of strength training routine I can stick to.

F. I didn’t. Will be trying again this year.

Go a month without added sugar again.

B? Honestly, I can’t totally remember if I did this. I believe I did, though, because I have a vague memory of explaining to Cockroach Labs coworkers that if I was a jerk in February that was why.

Join some kind of bi and/or LGBTQ+ community

A. I joined the Cockroach Labs Pride group, and have been volunteering for the Trevor Project since summer.

Come out on social media for Bi Visibility Day in September

A. I did it, and wrote this.

2023 Goals

Read 20+ books.

Why: It’s fun, keeps my brain active, and ties into my sleep hygiene goals.

How: Get back into the habit of always reading before sleeping.

Cover 2,000 human-powered miles.

Why: Same reasons as always: it’s good for me and fun to try.

How: Most importantly by staying healthy. I’d like to go a full year with no serious injuries. I also think having a trainer set up will help, as between that and the treadmill I should be able to log more miles indoors when the weather sucks.

Have visible abs in summer.

Why: I think it’d be fun to do once, as I’ve never had them, and it’ll force me to eat a lot healthier and build core muscle — two things I really should be doing anyway.

How: Establishing a consistent training routine and eating healthier. To start, I’m planning to exercise regularly with Chunyang according to a schedule, and switch to a much more vegetable-based, less carb-heavy diet. But I may make changes over time depending on how that’s going.

Meaningfully improve my coding/technical skills.

Why: It’s good for my career and also it can be fun to do and satisfying when you get something working.

How: Totally finish and use my Pinkbike classifieds app. Start and hopefully finish the Dataquest data engineer path.

Fix my sleep hygiene.

Why: At some point last year I kinda fell off the wagon and am now sometimes sleeping with headphones again.

How: Charge the phone further from my bed and read before bed. Also make an effort to go to bed a bit earlier.

Stand for work meetings under 1 hour.

Why: It’s healthy, but I got out of the habit of doing it while I was hurt (as for a while I couldn’t really stand for extended periods).

How: Just start doing it again.

Learn to play a little guitar.

Why: I think it would be fun.

How: Buy a copy of Rocksmith 2014 along with the cable and a plug-in acoustic guitar and see how far that can take me.

Learn more carpentry and home repair skills (by doing)

Why: It’s fun and in some cases can save a lot of money.

How: By attempting to fix things and do regular maintenance myself where possible. Also by building a few things, possibly including: a carport/roof that’ll fit both of our cars in the parking spot, a treasure chest for Ryan, new steps for the house, a new picnic table, maybe some fun bike features, a roof for the deck, etc.