2015

2015 Year in Review

Greyhawk68 / Personal Life / 2015, review, year in review / 0 Comments

January 1, 2016

Every year, I go back and look at my resolutions and see how I did. Let’s take a look once again.

Get Healthier

On this I think I did pretty well overall. That curve on my weight chart keeps going down, but I’m not totally where I want to be yet. I did it mainly through what I ate. What I really need to do is actually commit to exercising. But I feel pretty good about this one.

Do more with my Photography

I pretty much failed miserably at this again. I barely took the DLSR out this year, and primarily took pictures with the iPhone. Nothing wrong with that, as it’s always with you, and it does take some damn good photos. I just never did all I wanted to do in Lightroom by cleaning up my catalog, and I never just took pictures for the love of the art. I’ll try to do more this upcoming year. One thing that was really cool though was Google Photos. Basically everything I take gets uploaded to Google, and it does some magic sometimes, and is easily searchable. So that was nice new addition.

Write more again

Fail. Fail. Fail. I do a ton on Facebook, and was less prevalent on Twitter this year. That said, I wanted to do more long form stuff, and other than what I wrote about Lotusphere and the Apple Watch, not much got done. I need to get back to that.

Learn

I learned a lot this year, just not in the way I had planned. It was more about patience, how to be humble, and how to deal with adversity than anything fun. That needs to change.

Work/Life Balance

I had a really rough year this year. A lot of anxiety, a lot of change, and my stress levels were through the roof. So at times I think I failed miserably at this, but despite how rough it was overall, I think I did pretty well. I still let the family know how much I love them, and I didn’t let work get in the way of major family milestones.

Be Kind

I feel, and hope, that people around me feel I did well on this. It’s been hard, with all the divisiveness in the world to not want to lash out. That said, I have tried hard not to engage in arguments, and tried hard to ignore things that would really make me angry at people I know. I’ve really tried to be nice to my fellow humans and keep things positive. It was hard, really hard this year with all the stuff I’ve been dealing with, but because of this resolution, I think I’ve come out better on the other end. The simple words of Be Kind can make everyone’s life better, and I’ll continue to keep trying.

As for the world, it’s gotten even worse since 2014. Here’s hoping that 2016 will see some more healing and less vitriol. Let’s all work to make that happen.

Lotusphere 2015 Photos Are Up

Greyhawk68 / IBM Lotus, Photography / 2015, ibmconnected, lotusphere, ls15, orlando, photography, photos / 3 Comments

February 9, 2015

All of my photos of Lotusphere 2015 are now up, as is my collection of all of the Lotusphere photos over the years. Lots of great memories in this group of pictures!

Fear the Beard

Greyhawk68 / Personal Life / 2015, beard, headshot / 0 Comments

February 4, 2015

Here is a professional headshot taken by my good friend Andy Donaldson. It’s the last remnants from the runaway beard before I trimmed it back to normal levels. So, if I ever DO grow it out again, I have a headshot to go along with it 🙂

Oliver Heinz’ ConnectED Community Photo

Greyhawk68 / IBM Lotus / 2015, bloggers, ibmconnected, lotusphere, ls15, photo / 0 Comments

February 3, 2015

Normally every year I have someone help me get a good photo of the yellow community. Unfortunately, I messed up the settings on my camera this year, so the person helping with the photography wasn’t able to get good shots. That said, Oliver Heinz got a wonderful shot, and it’s posted on flickr with a great ConnectED 2015 photoset. Check it out.

Resolute 2015 – This time it’s Personal!

Greyhawk68 / Personal Life / 2015, health, kindness, learning, resolutions, writing / 1 Comment

January 2, 2015

Alright. Since I failed so miserably at last years resolutions, I’m going to really try to focus on these this year and make them a reality.

Get Healthier. I just added a standing desk at work, so that will help. I think I’ll cut back on cigars some and replace them with vaping instead. I’ll eat a little less, eat a little healthier and when a certain health conscious watch comes out this year, I’ll probably integrate that into my routine. I looked at my weight chart for the past two years and 2013-2014 really let me down from where I was in 2012 when I was at my best in years. I’m going to do little things all around and hopefully that will help.
Do more with my photography. No, really. I want to go through my catalog and tag metadata correctly, import my iPhoto library into Lightroom, and whack a bunch of pictures that just suck. I’m not going to promise I’ll take more photos, but I’ll try. I have an excellent camera on me at all times, I really should make use of it.
Write more again. Whether it’s a music review, internal marketing of our IT team at work, hardware reviews, my musings on the world, or tips and tricks in the IT space, I want to do more long form stuff. I do quite a bit on Twitter and Facebook, but I need to not let my longer form writing skills languish like they have been.
Learn. I don’t care if it’s learning more about software, hardware, cigars, photography, vaping, managing or creating music. I need to learn new things and make it a priority.
Work/Life Balance. This has been a staple here in my resolutions, but it’s really the most important thing to me. I need to make sure that work doesn’t consume me and make me ever place my family on the back burner. I’ve focused on it over the last few years and I will continue to do so.
Be kind. 2014 had a lot of very unkind things in the world. I’m just going to do my best to be nicer and kinder in all of my dealings. If we all do, maybe the world gets just a little bit better.

I think that’s where I’m going to leave it this year. Here’s wishing you all an exemplary 2015.