Document: WM-002                                                 P. Webb
Category: Life                                                2016.12.27

                       What I’ve achieved in 2016

Abstract

   Looking back on the awesome things that’s happened to me in 2016.

Body

   Last year, I decided to look back[1] on everything I’ve
   learned/achieved and it was a great reflective experience. So, here
   it is again for 2016!

   1. Became a father to a newborn

      I was already a dad but I’ve never experienced taking care of a
      brand new life. I was worried that my son wouldn’t like me and
      other silly non-sensical things like that. In reality, it is
      super challenging at times but he’s a happy boy who has no
      problem falling asleep in my arms. And biting me. And farting on
      me. Needless to say, he’s super comfortable with his papa. 😁

      

   2. Moved all my projects to GitLab

      After running my own email server for half a year, I wondered why
      I was still paying GitHub for private repos. What they
      charged used to charge didn’t make sense so I set up a
      personal GitLab instance[2] and I couldn’t be happier. I have
      unlimited private repos for $40/month (my server has 4GB of
      RAM and 60GB of storage). Because you can never be too sure, I
      have backups enabled for $8/month.

   3. Moved all my email to Mail-in-a-Box

      Just like with GitHub, I didn’t understand why I was paying Hover
      $200/year for hosting my email when I already had a
      Mail-in-a-Box[3] instance hosting one[4] of my them. Thankfully,
      it’s relatively easy[5] to add multiple domains to the same box.
      It currently costs me $10/month for unlimited email accounts
      versus $200/year for merely 10 (my server has 1GB of RAM and
      30GB of storage).

   4. Released a SaaS product

      I buy a lot of books on Amazon and never get around to reading
      them. That wasn’t the case with The 7 Day Startup[6]. After
      reading the book (it was a quick read), I was super motivated to
      bring an idea (I sat on for about a year) to life. That idea was
      BeachfrontDigital[7], a domain portfolio management tool. My
      market focus is quite niche, it’s for people who buy multiple
      domains from multiple registrars. The problem I am solving
      involves keeping track of all your domains and renewal dates. Some
      TLDs also renew 30 days before expiration and I intend to include
      this kind of information in V2. I’ve gotten some great feedback
      and I look forward to enhancing the service in 2017.

      Related to releasing BeachfrontDigital, I learned how to use
      Feathers.js[8] more, used MongoDB[9] and mongoose[10] for the
      first time, and in production (I love them both now), and other
      back-end web development things. I’m a firm believer that side
      projects are key to learning new things. Your day job most likely
      won’t challenge you to try drastically different things from what
      you’re used to, which can stifle your personal growth.

   5. Hosted my first pop-up shop

      My clothing brand WEÖM[11] had a pop-up shop in one of WeWork
      South Station’s conference rooms. Along with my friend Angel[12],
      we had fun collaborating on 2017 collections when we weren’t
      chatting with people who stopped by. It was a great learning
      experience! In the time since, I’ve decided to transition/rebrand
      WEÖM to become a space-centric lifestyle brand instead of being
      just a clothing brand. There’s still a lot of work to be done,
      but look forward to visiting the new world I’m building around it!

      

   6. Had my first interview

      Revision Path[13] is a weekly interview podcast, Patreon[14], and
      Slack group[15] that I’ve been a fan of for quite some time. The
      host, Maurice Cherry[16], likes to interview people on the come up
      doing interesting things. So, imagine my surprise when he asked to
      interview me! We tried recording while I was in my apartment but
      houses in Massachusetts are old so my microphone was picking AM
      radio signals. 😒 I wasn’t hearing that weirdness but Maurice is
      in Atlanta and was hearing ads for Harvard, lol! Long story short,
      we had to reschedule and the interview will be out in January.
      Great way to start off the new year!

   7. Published my first module to npm

      My module is called hexo-render-sass and I made it before
      realizing that similar modules exist…oh well (it doesn’t help that
      the official Hexo site[17] fails to list Sass plugins on the
      site). It was another great learning experience and it took away
      the mystic mumbo jumbo I associated npm modules with. You can find
      it here[18].

   And that’s it!

      I’ll end this post with my best nine Instagram photos of 2016,
      according to Lip Inc[19]. 🕸