2024: A Year for nicfv
2024 was a big year! I completed and exceeded both of my New Year's resolutions, did a lot of running, visited 2 new countries, and worked on a lot of cool projects. Let's go over the 2024 recap for this mysterious individual named Nicolas Ventura.
Reading
I resolved to read 2 books this year, and I read 3 books:
- Lexicon, by Max Barry: A dark, fantasy world where words have more power than just their meanings. Our main character uses words and the power of suggestion in order to essentially mind-control or mind-alter her enemies.
- Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell: A psychological book of how people make rapid decisions, and their impacts. Some can be helpful, while others are dangerous. It's important to remain consious when this is happening.
- We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman: A humorous mystery and adventure story where the main characters from various backgrounds attempt to solve murders of social media influencers.
All these books were excellent reads, and I'm glad I can still read, not too slowly. It's been so long since I read for fun, that I was worried it would be difficult. It's only a matter of finding the right book and I'll be hooked.
Writing
I've posted 52 articles in 2024, and this one will be my 53rd. Once again, I achieved my goal, which was 52 articles throughout the year. Over half my articles are in the "Journal" category, something about my life or travels. 12 of them were "Project" related, and 13 were "Random", which was previously called "shower thoughts." The "shower thoughts" were the most fun to write, since I could ramble about whatever was on my mind, but I enjoyed writing all of my articles. It's so difficult to choose which one was the most enjoyable to read, I have to go with my Japan story but I'm biased, because that was such an amazing and unforgettable trip.
I also started hand-writing in a private journal too, but I haven't been keeping up with it as consistently. It's definitely not easy to form habits, but I'm glad that this one stuck, at least.
Music
According to Spotify, I listened for 14,525 minutes, between 1,511 songs, from 1,049 artists, and my top song this year was Strangers by Mt. Joy.
Top Artists
- 3rd eye blind
- Mt. Joy
- Deep Chills
- Fleet Foxes
- The Shins
Top Songs
- Strangers (Mt. Joy)
- Silver Lining (Mt. Joy)
- Dirty Love (Mt. Joy)
- Bloom (The Paper Kites)
- California (Sons of the East)
Seems like I really like Mt. Joy... I almost had the chance to see them live at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, but I missed my chance. Maybe next year.
Exercise
This data comes from Strava:
| Type | Activities | Distance | Time | Elevation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run | 142 | 511.4 mi | 91:58 | 44,452 ft |
| Walk | 93 | 239.9 mi | 76:28 | 17,424 ft |
| Bike | 2 | 6.3 mi | 00:35 | 341 ft |
| Total* | 237 | 757.6 mi | 169:01 | 62,217 ft |
| Total | 803 mi | 185h | 70,423 ft |
* Missing activities labeled as "hikes" in Strava. For some reason, they don't show up on my user dashboard.
From just the activities recorded on Strava, I was active for 208 days out of the year, with a total work-out time of over a straight week and elevation gain of over a half marathon. I ran my 2nd fastest mile ever on September 25, with a blazing fast time (for me) of 5:48, which is very close to my personal best of 5:45.
Top Locations
- Novato (no surprise there!)
- Marin Headlands (probably at Tennessee valley, with MRC; Marin Running Club)
- San Francisco (Marina Run Club)
- Berkeley (no surprise there either!)
- Marin County (probably at China Camp, from my days of attempting to start my own running club)
I also competed in 3 races this year.
- Berkeley Lab Runaround (2 or 3 miles)
- Bay Front Run in Hercules (5k), and I came in 2nd overall, out of around 150 runners!
- Sausalito Turkey Trot (5k)
I also learned how to roller skate and went several times in the Spring and Summer. I went skiing once, ice skating once also, and played pickleball frequently in the Spring and Summer.
Travel
I traveled every odd month of this year, including visiting 2 new states and 2 new countries!
- January: ASHRAE Winter Conference in Chicago, Illinois (new state!)
- March: SCALE conference in Pasadena, California
- May: HPCinfra conference in Barcelona, Spain (new country!)
- July: Japan vacation with my cousin, sister, and her best friend (new country!)
- September: HPCOR in Albuquerque, New Mexico
- November: Supercomputing in Atlanta, Georgia (new state!)
- December: (future) Portland, Oregon
Look at all those hyperlinks... I wrote about a lot of these travels!
I estimate that I drove around 15,000 miles this year.
Tech
According to GitHub, I made 962 commits this year, and I'm assuming that those only count public repositories, but I'm not sure.
nicfv.com
Probably one of my most motable achievements, this is the website you're reading this article on. It has seen huge growth since the beginning of the year. Of course, I have added over 50 articles throughout the year, but also added some tools, several photos, Google Analytics, and this website now supports rendering inline LaTeX equations.
npm.nicfv.com
This is a subdomain of my website that hosts documentation for my npm packages. It's something I've been slowly building up but had a recent breakthrough that will help speed up development. I have also started a YouTube channel (@nikfv) with a few (already outdated) tutorial videos but I plan to keep this going as well.
Other Minor Accomplishments
- Set up a Raspberry Pi as a backup disk, and ad blocker.
- Updated all my computers to Ubuntu 24.04.
- I transferred my resume into HTML format and created a private repository for it.
- Merged all my VS Code extensions into one private repository for easy management.
- Continual updates and maintenance to Psychart and dcTrackClient.
Other
- Received my PE license (January)
- Donated blood for the first time (April)
- Upgraded my phone from a Samsung Galaxy A10e to a Samsung Galaxy S22 (May)
- Went backpacking in Point Reyes (June)
- Home refinance which decreased my mortgage payment (October)
- Played over 1,000 games of chess and solved over 1,000 puzzles
- Chess ranking decreased from 932 to 619 (peak this year 941 on March 1)
- Did 290 lessons on Duolingo (French, Spanish, Japanese)
- Top 9% of all learners
- 480 minutes learning
- Had an 86-day streak
- Made 171 mistakes
- Earned 7,741 XP
- Drove to work 64 times
- Saw the northern lights, a partial solar eclipse, and a comet
Conclusion
It was certainly a busy year. I want to thank you for sticking with me through it. See you again in 2025!