I was hoping to have this written and posted last week, but for Christmas this year Santa brought me a cold which knocked me on my butt for a few days.
I had done a bit of prep, but wow, when I look back at 2025 it was a pretty big year for me personally.
Professional
I celebrated 17 years at my current employer. While this isn't a nice round number sort of anniversary, about 6 months before the actual anniversary date I was promoted to an Associated Vice President and joined the Senior Management Team. This has been a goal of mine since about 2010 and after a lot of hard work (and honestly more than a bit of good luck) I "made it".
In addition to the promotion at work, I also helped to lead a multi department team to a successful upgrade for a major application AND helped to lead a major network migration for our EHR that went really well. Two major projects accomplished in the same calendar year was a pretty good feeling.
We also do annual employee satisfaction surveys and my department had a 96% satisfaction rating. This is a really good feeling as a leader. We get shit done AND people are happy to do it!
Since 2021 my department has consistently scored above 90%. This isn't just me though! I have a great management team that helps to make this happen.
Over this same time period I've had 7 people leave the department1. Five of them because of retirement. I really like that where I work is a place you retire at more often than not! That, along with the high satisfaction rates, suggest that my management team and I are doing something right.
Django and Python
On the Django and Python side it was also a really big year. In February I spoke at PyCascades in Portland, Oregon.
In September I spoke at DjangoCon US in Chicago, Illinois. This was my THIRD talk at DjangoCon US2
I was also active with Django Commons on the admin team, was a Djangonaut.Space Navigator in Session 5 for 2 amazing Djangonauts, and got to hang out at Jeff's Office Hours pretty consistently (though not as often as I would have liked!)
The biggest accomplishment was getting elected to the DSF Board and then being elected Treasurer of the Board. This is still all very new and I'm trying to feel my way around, but I've got some amazing support and I'm really looking forward to working with the board in 2026 and beyond.
Technology
A few weeks ago I watched Jeff Triplet migrate various infrastructure for DjangoPackages.org from Digital Ocean to Hetzner with Coolify. This got me to dive into that ... pretty deeply. I spent a lot of my December PTO3 working to migrate my servers from Digital Ocean to Hetzner managed with Coolify. I plan to write more about that later, but needless to say, as of December 29, 2025 I had successfully migrated everything off Digital Ocean to Hetzner.
Personal
Music
Watching live music is a lot of fun. My wife Emily and I really enjoy doing this. We didn't get to see as many concerts as we would have liked to, but we were still able to see a few. Kelsea Ballerini (with our daughter Abby) and Benson Boone at Crypto.com arena in Downtown Los Angeles, Sessanta at Acrisure Arena, Third Eye Blind4 at a local casino, a show at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee as part of a conference I attended. We also saw about 5 or 6 different bands in 3 days at different venues while we were in Nashville (though sadly we didn't get to see a show on the stage at the Taco Bell Cantina which feels like a real miss!) though we did get to see The Steel Drivers at the historic Ryman Auditorium
We also saw Post Modern Jukebox at the Fox Theater in Riverside. We stayed a few days to get out of the heat of the Coachella Valley, but were shocked to learn that Riverside is only about 15-20 degrees cooler. And when it's 115-120 here it can still be above 100 there!
We still had a great time and it convinced me even more that the wild idea my friend Mario and I had to pitch Riverside as a location for DjangoCon US 2027/2028 was actually a really good idea, not just a wild idea 😀
Hockey
I went to a ton of hockey games. To start the year off I went to the Cactus Cup and saw 4 NCAA Division 1 games in 2 days. The best part was sitting behind the goal right at the glass and seeing just how fast (and LOUD) the game can be.
I was pretty exhausted (but happy) by the end of it.
I also got to see 36 Firebirds home games (regular season5 and post season6), 2 Firebirds road games (both in San Diego against the Gulls), and was able to attend the AHL All Star Competition at Acrisure Arena in February.
On the NHL front I went to a game to watch the LA Kings host the Seattle Kraken (the Firebirds big kid club) and while I was in Nashville for a conference in November I got to watch the Nashville Predators play the Calgary Flames.
My favorite hockey-related experiences this year though were the Teddy Bear Toss game (even though the Firebirds lost) and getting to greet the players in the tunnel before the game
Baseball
Sadly we only made it out to a few baseball games this year. We saw a few California Winter League games one Saturday in February, and one game out in Rancho Cucamungo to see the Dodgers Low A Affiliate the Quakes play. The Dodgers won the World Series, and that was nice, but I didn't see any of their games in person this year.
Family
This year Abby started her second year of College so Emily and I continue to be empty nesters most of the year7
One of my favorite highlights from the year include Abby coming home from college for the weekend for my birthday last March to surprise me. A completely unexpected visit that literally made it one of the best birthdays ever. I read something earlier this year that once your child leaves your home for college, or whatever, they'll have spent about 95% of the time they're EVER going to spend with you. This hit me pretty hard. Like wanting to sob uncontrollably hard. So for Abby to come home to spend time with me for my birthday was the best gift ever.
Conclusion
Looking back it was a pretty great year. Lots of accomplishments, lots of great memories. The year started off with lots of fear and trepidation. I still have that (in spades) but I also am starting to have a bit more hope.
I don't have any lofty goals, and I didn't do the same kind of Theme planning that I've done in the past. This year it just didn't really work for me, so I'm pausing on that exercise.
That being said, if I was going to have a theme for 2026 it would be 'The year of Intentionality'. I've spent more time this year than I would have liked doing things but not thinking about what I wanted to do. I just did them because they were easy or it's just what I always do. For the last few weeks I've been trying (with varying degrees of success) to be more intentional in my actions, and my plan is to continue that into 2026.
Here's hoping to a great 2026!
- The department is 13 people ↩︎
- DCUS 2023, DCUS 2024 ↩︎
- Paid Time Off / Vacation ↩︎
- yes, they are still a band ... no this was not my idea! ↩︎
- This includes games for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 season ↩︎
- just 2025, obviously ↩︎
- I might just be misremembering, but when I was in college we didn't have this many breaks, and they weren't this long! ↩︎
This post is part 3 of the "Years in Review" series: