Every year I review my habits, exercise, and projects for the previous year. It’s mostly a list of stuff for my future self will remember.

Daily Habits

No changes from the last couple of years:

• Read (part of) a book. Finished 43 in total. Wrote up my top picks for the year.
• Anki cards. Have added new cards for birds I’ve seen, using an automated script.
• Gratitude journal. I record both things I did well, and things that brought me joy.
• Prehab. Bare minimum stretching.

I also tracked the following but didn’t commit to any frequency:

• Set of pull-ups. Daily with occasional rest days, plus a few gaps from travel and minor niggles. Typically between 8-10.
• Set of push-ups. Same frequency as pull-ups but more consistent through travel. Usually 15-25.
• Alcohol-free day. Didn’t have any drinks during the back half of the year. Non-alcoholic beers are in a golden age right now.

I use and recommend Loop Habit Tracker and Gratitudes Journal to keep track of things.

Sport

Running

Worst running performance year in a long while, and lowest volume since 2017 — didn’t even crack 2,000K.

Trained well for Ballarat Marathon in April but was sick for the month leading into it so dropped down to pace a friend in the half. Ended up working much harder than I would have liked for a 95 minute finish.

Got started again in May and had a solid seven week build into a local half marathon … that was on a Wednesday morning that I had to skip because of a work commitment. Did a solo effort myself the day before in 88 minutes which felt strong, and was my one redeeming effort of the year.

Spring-boarded into a training block for Melbourne Marathon but re-injured my glute at the end of July which was really stubborn. Combined with some other illness, didn’t resume running regularly until December(!)

Run of the year was an early morning trail run in Joshua Tree where it had unexpectedly snowed overnight. Stunning!

I ran with Hunter Athletics Tuesday mornings around Olympic Park, and joined a new club Ate Miles for social mid-week and weekends. I continued to be coached by Tim from the Distance Collective; sorry I didn’t give you much to work with this year!

Birds

Birding was my new hobby this year, along with bird photography. I saw 243 species, photographing 155. It’s been a great way to “see with new eyes,” and it’s rewarding being able to recognise all the birds and bird calls in my area. Helps that Jodie is in to it also!

Projects

• Built a homelab.
• Consolidated DNS from DNSimple to Cloudflare using Terraform.
• Balatro hand calculator in Unison.
• Tetris clone in Zig that didn’t get very far, getting frustrated by library compatibility. (In retrospect, many of the issues I ran into were related to a new version of Zig coming out two weeks before I picked it up.)
• Tetris clone in Haskell that got a lot further, though was mostly having fun with different randomisation algorithms.
• Maintenance on my Factorio mod Floor Placer, and a quick spotlight video.
• Brushed up on Abstract Algebra and wrote an intuitive explanation of a fun result about ruler & compass constructions.
• Proof-of-concept app for recording bird sightings verbally.
• Site to host all my bird data and photos.
• Script to integrate bird data into Anki.

Entertainment

Video Games

Played some new ones:

• Tactical Breach Wizards was a fun, compact, and well put together tactics game.
• Backpack Battles was my first foray into auto-battlers. Ranked up to Diamond on Ranger and Reaper.
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based role playing game, a genre I haven’t played in over a decade. Great visuals, sound, plot, and the parry combat mechanic was rewarding.
• Hades II came out of early access in October and felt incredibly fresh despite having the same setting and basic mechanics as the first one.

Returned to some old favourites:

• Picked up Balatro again, inspired by Balatro University, to complete all the challenge runs and finally 100% my collection. Nearly beat gold stake on all decks but petered out.
• Celeste remains the best platformer, and I returned to finally 100% it (finished Farewell and Core C-Side), and start playing through the incredible community-made Strawberry Jam maps.
• I never actually learned how to play Tetris, so put in enough work to get my 40-line clear time under three minutes on tetr.io. Then got distracted by programming projects, per above.

Factorio remains my forever game, representing the bulk of my play time for the year:

• A Space Age run to nab my two missing achievements for finishing in under 40 hours and destroying first enemy structure using artillery.
• Another more leisurely Space Age run (my third) to just enjoy it now that I know what is coming.
• A modded run adding as many new planet mods as I could find.
• Started tackling Pyanodon’s mod collection, the last of the big overhauls for me to try. Loving it so far but will likely be at it all of 2026 … if not longer.

Other Games

• Have now solved 528 NYTimes crosswords total, most a team effort with Jodie.
• New high scores on both Demolition Man and Godzilla pinball machines, and got to Planet X (the wizard mode on the latter) for the first time.

Live Shows and Exhibits

• Penn and Teller’s 50th Anniversary Show was overall too much “big stage magic” for me, but still had some great tricks. Entropy was the best part of the show, and wasn’t even a trick as much as it was just clever.
• Dear Evan Hansen was excellent and I still think about it regularly.
• Lawrence at the Forum on their Family Business tour. Fantastic live show, as expected.
• Hadestown I didn’t think much of at the time but it stuck with me. Very different kind of musical.
• Beetlejuice had some fun sets and scenes but was ultimately unmemorable.
• The Drowsy Chaperone, a community theatre production that was a heap of fun.
• Aidan Jones’ Chopin’s Nocturne, was the best introduction to classical music I’ve ever seen, and also incredibly funny.
• Archibald portrait exhibit in Geelong.

TV Series

• Dept. Q is a Crime thriller with bone dry humour that I loved.
• Season 3 of The Diplomat was just as strong as the first two. The West Wing successor I didn’t know I needed.
• Both seasons of The Recruit were fun. Doesn’t take itself seriously.
• Fisk is a very Australian legal comedy set in Melbourne starring Kitty Flanagan and Aaron Chen. Comforting.

Documentaries & Sport

• Mediterranean Crusade, a documentary about the Fearless Flyers band. Mostly interviews with the band members interspersed with performance. Good insight on life of professional musicians and how these things come together.
• Listers is technically a documentary about birdwatching, but please just watch it, you won’t regret it. Great talent, very funny.
• Mostly avoided spoilers for a year so I could watch the 2024 Tour de France unfold on season 3 of Tour Unchained. Sad it has been discontinued.
• ASL seasons 19 and 20, exciting seeing Soulkey win his fourth title.

Miscellaneous

Trips

• Equilibrium handstand retreat with Jodie and Gravit8.
• Spent a week in Joshua Tree with Jodie, my brother, and sister-in-law.
• Short work trip to Cairns, with a bonus day of birding.
• Weekend away to Mount Worth with Jodie. Found some Lyrebirds.
• Road Trip to Bells Beach with Jodie to (mostly unsuccessfully) see the Aurora Australis.
• Long weekend in Katoomba and Capertee Valley with Jodie.
• Portland and the Grampians with Jodie.

Other

• Fixie has fluoro green handlebars now.
• Upgraded my monitor to a 27”, discovered just how bad the colour on my old one was.
• Dropped down to 9-day fortnight in August. First day off went to Yan Yean Reservoir with Jodie and saw Gang Gang Cockatoos.
• Two Features in the AFR.
• Interviewed on the Execs Who Run podcast.