2026 Goals

This year I want to be deliberate and realistic about setting and achieving goals. This post will serve as a public document of my goals, and I’ll do my best to write weekly about my progress (or not) towards them. These range in ambition and focus, and are listed in no particular order.

Find a primary care doctor

I haven’t had a primary care doctor for years. My insurance plan allows me to schedule directly with specialists as needed, and that’s what I’ve been doing. But, I’m 47-years-old and probably should have a professional partner in this aging journey. Ideally I’ll have found a doctor by the end of January and will have booked an appointment.

Less endurance rides

I am a Peloton user, in fact it’s the one exercise program I’ve been able to stick to. Ever. I am primarily a bike rider, and I mostly do Powerzone training. For the past year I have almost exclusively done endurance rides, which are longer, less intense rides. This year I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and do more intense rides to build strength in addition to endurance.

Play more card games in person

Over the years I’ve dabbled in a few trading card games, mostly playing at my kitchen table or gaming stores with a small group of friends. I’ve collected a lot of cardboard, and most of it just sits in boxes, sorted and unplayed. This year I want to play more games in person with people I don’t know. There are active communities for most of the games I’ve collected here in the Twin Cities, and my goal is to leave my house and play a few times a month. Mostly casual play, nothing too competitive.

Play more of the boardgames I own

Similarly, I own a fairly large number of board games, many of them designed for solo play or that at least have a system that allows for solo play (co-op games for example). I usually play them once or twice, then put them in the boardgame closet. I came up with this phrase “Ten Times to the Table” to sum up this goal, meaning I’d like to play a game 10 times at least. Apparently, this is already a thing in the boardgame community known as 10 x 10 challenge, which means play 10 games 10 times. I don’t know that I’ll commit to playing 10 games, but I do have a few in mind that I want to play at least 10 times.

Learn the AT protocol

The AT protocol is “is an open, decentralized network for building social applications” and powers apps like Bluesky, my social media app of choice these days. I’ve primarily been a front end engineer (and these days it’s mostly engineering management), so I’m actively interested in pursuing something well outside that realm. There’s something fascinating to me about open protocols, and particularly this one. This year I want to learn enough AT protocol to build something on top of it. I have some ideas of what that could be, but nothing concrete yet.

Published on January 22, 2026