Tuesday, February 17, 2015

2014 Review

Posted by portho at 20:16 Labels:
About time I got going on the 2014 review - it's already half way through February !

I might as well start by looking at the 2014 goals - that I think I half achieved.

  • Baking
    • I'm not sure if this was a goal, but I attempted 37 new recipes - most were successful
    • Some of the best were:
      • Anzac crumble cake
      • Chocolate mousse cake
      • Chocolate truffle macaroon slice
      • Coconut bars
      • Custard Yoghurt cake
      • Finger buns
      • Spiced honey jumbles
    • And some of the failures were:
      • Cinnamon knots
      • Marshmallow muffins
  • Blogging
    • I increased from 46 posts to 99 posts for the year - although many were holiday reports
    • I went through all of my old ISP emails to try and piece together what happened in the last 10 years, but I just haven't got around to writing it up coherently yet
  • Car
    • I made a short list of about eight cars I might like to buy
    • Since I seem to be driving even less at the moment, I've put the purchase on hold for now
  • Health & Fitness
    • Half Marathon
      • I completed one for the year - Melbourne Marathon
      • I just missed my goal of averaging 4:00/km, dropping off to 4:02/km by the end
    • Triathlon
      • I definitely need to improve my swimming (and arm strength) first
      • Buying a bike and doing some riding would probably be a good idea too...
      • This will be a goal for either 2015 or more realistically 2016
    • Weight
      • A continual frustration, I feel like I eat sensibly but have been basically stuck at 74 kilograms for the whole year - I'd like to be around 70 kilograms
  • Holiday
    • I ended the year the three days of holiday leave remaining, so I'd say this was a success
  • Investment
    • Property
      • I haven't done the research yet that I would like to
      • The never ending price increase is quite demotivating
      • I'm thinking of a small apartment or similar close to the city, if anything
    • Shares
      • I made a short list of prospective companies
      • The shares had a dip in January 2015, I missed out on the 10% recovery since then
    • Superannuation
      • My account went from 153,000 to 181,000 for the year
      • That's an 18% increase, but it includes both returns and new contributions
      • I have not made any super contributions yet but I will soon
  • Passport
    • I got my new Australia passport, good for another 10 years...
    • I made no progress on the UK passport, some of the conditions and rules are a little complicated
  • Reading
    • My e-book reader seems to lose history when I reload it from my computer
    • I think I completed about 12 books, just by reading on the way to work when not listening to podcasts - or too tired to do anything at all
    • My favourites were:
      • Blake J. Harris - Console Wars
      • Stephen King - Insomnia
      • Stephen King - The Stand
  • Study
    • I did not find a good opportunity to get a certification related to my work for the year
    • I may be doing some new work in the .NET area, which may provide an opportunity
  • Work
    • I worked on several projects, but mostly dealing with the same software stack as 2013
    • The travel to work and back is a bit of a pain still, particularly having to stand all the way in the morning - in particular it makes dealing with calf injuries very difficult 


Here's a few other list items to summarise the year, that were not specific goals:

  • Holidays
  • Music
    • I didn't listen to a lot of music (excluding podcasts obviously) and I also found few very opportunities to see a good tour band
    • The only bands I saw for the year were:
      • Arcade Fire - January 22 at Music Bowl
      • CSS and Grouplove - January 23 at Hi-Fi Bar
    • The only other one I missed out on was Tune-Yards again
  • TV
    • There was not a lot of great new series, but I made a few good discoveries
    • These were some of my favourites:
      • Black Mirror
      • Broad City
      • Hard Knocks
      • Homeland
      • Modern Family
      • Murder In The First
      • Person Of Interest
      • South Park (a surprise comeback)
      • Survivor
      • The Big Bang Theory
      • The Challenge
      • The Real World
      • The Simpsons
      • The Walking Dead
  • Video Games
    • I did not find much free time to play video games, just a concentrated few months
    • At a guess I bought more new games than finished existing ones
    • The games I played most were:
      • Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare 3
      • Forza Horizon
      • Grand Theft Auto 5
      • Gran Turismo 6
      • Saints Row 4


So that's a quick snapshot of the year, time to make a success of 2015 then...

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