Clearly I’m a bit behind this year with my goals. These are usually posted on 1/1 but this year, things are different. Different priorities, different timelines, different expectations, still trying to be a better version of myself. So here it is, time to write down the goals and put a plan in action to make it happen! My 2017 Goals!

• Solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 3 minutes – This one may seem silly and it very much is. But its a brain teaser and something that has sparked a bit of competition at the office. I’m all about camaraderie and I enjoy picking on co-workers as I crush their hopes and dreams in friendly competition 😉
• Run 365 miles this year Some could call this run a mile everyday but that just isn’t in the cards for me. My hope is when the calendar goes from ’17 to ’18, I have 365 miles under my belt and hopefully a few less pounds on the body. With the running crew at work, I think I can make this a reality. So far I’m on track with a month in. I already have 51 miles under my belt with a couple of months in and cold ass weather here in the midwest.
• Learn Swift I’ve dipped my toe in learning swift a few times now. But there has always been something that has come up that has distracted me. I’ve recently started the iTunes U course on Developing iOS Apps with Swift. Its been good so far and I’m eager to learn more. Hopefully I can get an app I’ve been wanting to develop off the ground in the process.

3 is a good number of goals given twins, lack of sleep and everything else that seems to crop up. Some are physically challenging, some are mentally challenging, 1 is just dumb. But they’ll give me something to work for along with everything else that happens with life. I’m hopefully a good father, husband, friend and co-worker in the process.

I don’t think I’ve ever done this poorly on my yearly goals. But I have a good reason, a couple of them actually. Please refer back to The Ochos and you’ll fully understand. But…to stay consistent, let’s run through them and see how poorly I did.

• Learn Swift – FAIL I did some tutorials and the playground activity from the developer portal. I do like what I’ve seen in swift so far. But I’m not proficient in it yet so I consider this one a fail. While I did learn some, the goal was to proficient enough to ship an app or at least attempt an app.
• 26 posts – Not even close. I got 8. Just didn’t have the time to write with everything else that was happening. Not to mention, I kind of enjoyed checking out a bit at night which I don’t think is a bad thing either.
• Run Forest, Run! – FAIL – Didn’t make my 300 number but did put up a respectable 222 miles in 2016. Not bad considering I took close to 10 weeks off from running. I did start a running club at work as I only have time to run over the lunch hours it seems and maybe sneak away for a decent run on the weekends.
• zzzZZZzzz – LOL FAIL FAIL FAIL…I had twins. There have been several nights where an hour of uninterrupted sleep was amazing. Not to mention the several nights I spent at the hospital with Evan during his surgery. Sleep just hasn’t been happening.

0 for 4. An amazing amount of failure. But I learned a lot, the family is growing and striving. The job is good and I’m happy. Overall 2016 was a success.

I posted this on Facebook for all those that are friends with me there. But I think it needs a formal place here on the blog…the announcement of the twins born on 8/8/2016

With a triumphant roar, the Patterson boys came into this world on 8/8. Evan Michael lead the way at 10:32am coming in at 5lbs 9oz and measuring 18 inches. His brother Andrew Douglas gave mom a bit more trouble and made a fashionably late appearance at 11:16 after an emergency c-section. Topping his brother in size at 19 and a quarter inches and 5lbs 11 oz. Both are adjusting to all the new found space and momma is recovering well.

I think I’ve come to the end of my Fitbit adventures for a while. My 3rd Fitbit finally bit the dust. I originally got one when we had kicked open the doors of our new data center and wanted to see how much I was walking around the 1/4 mile long building. To sum it up, its a lot. On average, I was between 5-7 miles a day without even thinking about it.

A while back, I had written a quick and dirty shell script to take a simple tarball of the /etc directory of my linux machines and copy it to an FTP server. Then, to make sure that the FTP directory didn’t get out of hand, I had written the following in my puppet config for that server that would clean everything up with the use of the tidy resource type. The code looked like this: