I am a sucker for New Year's. I love the idea of renewal that comes with the holiday. It offers an opportunity to reflect on the past year and to set some goals for the upcoming year. In Pasadena, New Year's is a big holiday with the annual Rose Parade followed by the big Rose Bowl game. My mom and I make it annual tradition to watch the Rose Parade and see the floats and bands cruise down Colorado Blvd.
In the spirit of the New Year, I decided to reflect on 2021 and set some goals for myself for 2022.
In the spirit of the New Year, I decided to reflect on 2021 and set some goals for myself for 2022.
2021 Reflections
2021 has been a really fun year for me! It started with a new job, included travels with friends and family, as well as accomplishing some goals and discovering new passions.
Just a few of the things that I did this year that I wanted to highlight:
1) Discovering a new passion in F1 - Like many I discovered F1 through the Drive to Survive series on Netflix and became hooked. The thrill, ingenuity, engineering and athletic excellence was intoxicating for me and so this year I decided to follow the F1 season for the very first time.
The 2021 season has been an absolute CLASSIC with Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton entertaining us to the highest degree possible in sports. There are too many moments to highlight from the actual season, but a few that come to mind on a more personal note include watching races at Akhil's house in the early mornings, going to Austin with some of my best friends to attend my first race in person, waking up at 5 AM to watch the controversial and epic finale, and setting up a sim racing rig at my house and trying to fly around F1 circuits (with notably poor results). What's made the entire experience even more enjoyable has been seeing the number of people in my life discover this sport with me from my cousins, friends, and coworkers. I've lost track of the number of group chats, WhatspApp threads, and Slack channels that have to do with F1 in my life. After 2021, I find it hard to believe that F1 won't be a big part of my life going forward.
My big takeaway from this whole experience is to just generally be more open-minded because you never know when life will introduce you to something special (open-mindedness is definitely a big theme from 2021).
Lewis Hamilton's car displayed in Austin
Me standing in front of some iconic F1 cars displayed at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles
My racing simulator setup (the blue box is the PC that I built this year)
2) Planted a Vegetable Garden - Last year, I set out a goal to plant a vegetable garden and in the late spring (I think we should have planted earlier) my mom and I planted some vegetables (bell peppers, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes to be exact). The results were a bit disappointing with everything except the tomatoes basically dying, but we did get some tomatoes that made their way into some delicious salads! Hopefully we get some better luck in 2022!
A tomato from the garden
The harvest of tomatoes and bell peppers
3) Built a PC - During quarantine, I rediscovered my passion for gaming and decided that I would build a PC to play Sid Meier's Civilization (a 4X strategy game I used to play when I was younger). The process was a bit rocky and I ended up needing some help from a local computer store (shoutout to Alice Computers in San Marino) but eventually got it to work and am typing this post from that very computer. It was a fun project that taught me a lot more about computers and am excited about the ability to incrementally improve the machine over time by upgrading different components. It's already clear that the GPU will need an upgrade to handle some of the more recent games.
On the subject of gaming more specifically, the games I have mostly been playing this year have been Civ 6 and F1 2021, but the end of the year brought a new Halo game (a title I haven't played since probably middle school). Even though I am absolutely terrible, it has been so much fun to play with friends. Hopefully I improve a little in 2022 so I can hold my own, but the whole experience has been just a great way to stay in touch and experience something together from a distance. Definitely something I want to continue doing in 2022.
4) Started a new job - I started the year coming off working the 2020 election cycle. Initially, I thought I would continue to pursue a career in politics but in a more engineering focused role. I knew after the election that I missed engineering and wanted to get back to work on technical problems, and found the campaign to be some of the most meaningful work I have done in my career so mixing those 2 things felt like the right next step in my career.
As I began to look for jobs, I met with some amazing people in the political tech space, but in the spirit of open mindedness decided to take the recommendation of a dear friend of mine to apply for a job at this Insurtech startup named Vouch. When he first told me about it, I was really skeptical. Insurance sounded like the last thing I wanted to do, but I figured what's the harm in interviewing worst case scenario I turn it down. As I went through the interview process, I was so impressed with everyone I met and the company seemed to be on a really cool trajectory with some very challenging data problems to work on. When I was presented with an offer, I felt like the opportunity to grow as an engineer was the thing I wanted the most from my next job and Vouch was the best place for me to do that.
I started in February and haven't looked back! The past 11 months have been some of the best in my career and I have gotten the chance to dive into a whole suite of problems I had zero prior experience in (namely Knowledge Graphs). I'll save another post to discuss my journey with Knowledge Graphs more specifically, but suffice it to say that I am really happy with I joined Vouch and look forward to what 2022 will bring.
Another reminder of how powerful being open-mindedness can be!
Just a few of the things that I did this year that I wanted to highlight:
1) Discovering a new passion in F1 - Like many I discovered F1 through the Drive to Survive series on Netflix and became hooked. The thrill, ingenuity, engineering and athletic excellence was intoxicating for me and so this year I decided to follow the F1 season for the very first time.
The 2021 season has been an absolute CLASSIC with Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton entertaining us to the highest degree possible in sports. There are too many moments to highlight from the actual season, but a few that come to mind on a more personal note include watching races at Akhil's house in the early mornings, going to Austin with some of my best friends to attend my first race in person, waking up at 5 AM to watch the controversial and epic finale, and setting up a sim racing rig at my house and trying to fly around F1 circuits (with notably poor results). What's made the entire experience even more enjoyable has been seeing the number of people in my life discover this sport with me from my cousins, friends, and coworkers. I've lost track of the number of group chats, WhatspApp threads, and Slack channels that have to do with F1 in my life. After 2021, I find it hard to believe that F1 won't be a big part of my life going forward.
My big takeaway from this whole experience is to just generally be more open-minded because you never know when life will introduce you to something special (open-mindedness is definitely a big theme from 2021).
Lewis Hamilton's car displayed in Austin
Me standing in front of some iconic F1 cars displayed at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles
My racing simulator setup (the blue box is the PC that I built this year)
2) Planted a Vegetable Garden - Last year, I set out a goal to plant a vegetable garden and in the late spring (I think we should have planted earlier) my mom and I planted some vegetables (bell peppers, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes to be exact). The results were a bit disappointing with everything except the tomatoes basically dying, but we did get some tomatoes that made their way into some delicious salads! Hopefully we get some better luck in 2022!
A tomato from the garden
The harvest of tomatoes and bell peppers
3) Built a PC - During quarantine, I rediscovered my passion for gaming and decided that I would build a PC to play Sid Meier's Civilization (a 4X strategy game I used to play when I was younger). The process was a bit rocky and I ended up needing some help from a local computer store (shoutout to Alice Computers in San Marino) but eventually got it to work and am typing this post from that very computer. It was a fun project that taught me a lot more about computers and am excited about the ability to incrementally improve the machine over time by upgrading different components. It's already clear that the GPU will need an upgrade to handle some of the more recent games.
On the subject of gaming more specifically, the games I have mostly been playing this year have been Civ 6 and F1 2021, but the end of the year brought a new Halo game (a title I haven't played since probably middle school). Even though I am absolutely terrible, it has been so much fun to play with friends. Hopefully I improve a little in 2022 so I can hold my own, but the whole experience has been just a great way to stay in touch and experience something together from a distance. Definitely something I want to continue doing in 2022.
4) Started a new job - I started the year coming off working the 2020 election cycle. Initially, I thought I would continue to pursue a career in politics but in a more engineering focused role. I knew after the election that I missed engineering and wanted to get back to work on technical problems, and found the campaign to be some of the most meaningful work I have done in my career so mixing those 2 things felt like the right next step in my career.
As I began to look for jobs, I met with some amazing people in the political tech space, but in the spirit of open mindedness decided to take the recommendation of a dear friend of mine to apply for a job at this Insurtech startup named Vouch. When he first told me about it, I was really skeptical. Insurance sounded like the last thing I wanted to do, but I figured what's the harm in interviewing worst case scenario I turn it down. As I went through the interview process, I was so impressed with everyone I met and the company seemed to be on a really cool trajectory with some very challenging data problems to work on. When I was presented with an offer, I felt like the opportunity to grow as an engineer was the thing I wanted the most from my next job and Vouch was the best place for me to do that.
I started in February and haven't looked back! The past 11 months have been some of the best in my career and I have gotten the chance to dive into a whole suite of problems I had zero prior experience in (namely Knowledge Graphs). I'll save another post to discuss my journey with Knowledge Graphs more specifically, but suffice it to say that I am really happy with I joined Vouch and look forward to what 2022 will bring.
Another reminder of how powerful being open-mindedness can be!
Pictures from 2021
Train Depot from my visit to Santa Fe, NM
Icehouse Canyon hike (believe it or not only 40 minutes from Pasadena)
Turn 12 at Circuit of the Americas - Austin, TX
Early morning camping at Joshua Tree NP
Audobond Park in New Orleans, LA
My first tennis match at the US Open - an amazing sport to view live
At Shivam's wedding in San Jose, CA - my first post COVID big gathering
Sedona, AZ - one of my favorite places to visit
2022 Resolutions
Bigger
Work towards pilot's license - This is an idea that has entered my head quite recently. I don't know if it's something that I have strong conviction in doing, but the idea of flying sounds really cool so I want to give it a try this year.
Contribute to Open Source projects - I love the idea and mission of Open Source and use it all the time for work as well as personal projects. This year I want to contribute more to Open Source projects.
Contribute to Open Source projects - I love the idea and mission of Open Source and use it all the time for work as well as personal projects. This year I want to contribute more to Open Source projects.
Smaller
Be Spontaneous
Collect more data on me - I love data! It's the place I have spent most of my career and a true passion of mine. This year, instead of using data just in my job, I want to use data to learn some interesting facts about myself (steps walked, places visited, money spent, etc). In the past, I have been hesitant to do this for privacy reasons, and I definitely still have those concerns, but do want to be able to look back next year and have some more concrete figures on my personal activity. So hopefully when I write this post next year, I can include some nice charts about all the different things I did this year (and collected the data in a somewhat privacy conscientious way).
Write More - I have as of today 9 incomplete blog posts in my drafts folder. Let's try to make an effort to actually commit to writing out those posts and to just write more. I believe this was a resolution from 2021 that I would like to carry over to 2022.
Ski a black diamond this year - Over the past 2 years, I have been getting back into skiing slowly. I am pretty comfortable on blues but want to level up and get down a black this year.
I have a cheeky saying I like to say that "my next year is my best year". 2021 was filled with a lot of great adventures. Let's hope for many more in 2022!
Collect more data on me - I love data! It's the place I have spent most of my career and a true passion of mine. This year, instead of using data just in my job, I want to use data to learn some interesting facts about myself (steps walked, places visited, money spent, etc). In the past, I have been hesitant to do this for privacy reasons, and I definitely still have those concerns, but do want to be able to look back next year and have some more concrete figures on my personal activity. So hopefully when I write this post next year, I can include some nice charts about all the different things I did this year (and collected the data in a somewhat privacy conscientious way).
Write More - I have as of today 9 incomplete blog posts in my drafts folder. Let's try to make an effort to actually commit to writing out those posts and to just write more. I believe this was a resolution from 2021 that I would like to carry over to 2022.
Ski a black diamond this year - Over the past 2 years, I have been getting back into skiing slowly. I am pretty comfortable on blues but want to level up and get down a black this year.
I have a cheeky saying I like to say that "my next year is my best year". 2021 was filled with a lot of great adventures. Let's hope for many more in 2022!