{"database": "pelican", "table": "content", "rows": [["ryan", "musings", "I've never done a year in review, but this seems like a good a time as any,\nright? I had a rough outline, but after reading the great Year in Review from\n[Tim Schilliing](https://www.better-simple.com/personal/2023/12/30/my-year-in-\nreview/), [Paolo Melichore](https://www.paulox.net/2023/12/31/my-2023-in-\nreview/), and [Velda Kiara](https://dev.to/veldakiara/djangoconus-2023-a-wish-\nfulfilled-2mmc), I was inspired to **actually** finish mine.\n\n# Professional\n\nIn the moment it can feel like I don't really get anything done at work.\nLooking at my [time tracking stats](https://track.toggl.com/shared-\nreport/9091b753451ad2edafbb36f18be33d82/summary/period/last12Months), I do\nspend A LOT of my time in meetings (nearly 40%) and administration (almost\n45%) which is expected for someone in management I suppose, but I really do\nmiss getting to write code more often.\n\nThat being said I was able to complete some pretty significant projects at\nwork with the help of my team that I'm really proud of.\n\n## Migrations\n\nChange is hard, and we underwent a few BIG technology changes that have gone\nreally well.\n\nThe first big change implemented was to migrate from a few Atlassian products\n([JIRA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jira_\\(software\\)) and\n[Confluence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confluence_\\(software\\))) to\n[YouTrack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTrack). I know there are lots of\npeople out there that HATE JIRA, but I loved it and my team liked it. I think\nthat a big reason for that is when JIRA wasn't doing what we needed it to do,\nI was able to make changes to it. We didn't have to pass it through some\nchange control committee, or get buy in from some high level manager. We just\nmade it work for us ... and it really did work well for us.\n\nThe reason we had to migrate from these products was that Atlassian announced\nin February of 2021 that they would end-of-life the server versions at the end\nof February 2024. I looked to see if we could migrate to one of their data\ncenter versions, but because I'm in Health Care any solution 'in the cloud'\nneeds to be HIPAA compliant. While Atlassian does offer\n[HIPAA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act)\ncompliant versions, you need to have 500+ users for that solution. My\norganization has 50.\n\nI spent two years trying to figure out how we could keep JRIA and/or to find\nsomething that could replace what we had in JIRA and the best solution I could\nfind was JetBrains' YouTrack.\n\nWe've been on YouTrack since the end of May and while there are still some\nfeatures that I miss (support for [Mermaid Diagrams](https://mermaid.js.org/),\nability to embed the content of one Confluence Article into another Article,\nautomatic linking between JIRA issues and Confluence Articles) overall the\nworkflow parts of YouTrack for issue tracking are much better than JIRA.\nEasier to set up, easier to maintain.\n\nAnother change that we made was changing our [Version Control\nSystem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control) from\n[Subversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion) to\n[git](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git), hosted on Azure DevOps. This\ninvolved all three of the teams in my department and proceeded in a staged\napproach over the course of about 3 months. I also helped another department\nmigrate from Subversion to git.\n\nThe biggest challenge was the\n[SSIS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Integration_Services) packages\nused in our [ETL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extract,_transform,_load)\nprocesses, and the database objects.\n\nThe SSIS packages took 3 attempts before it stuck, but the ETL devs were\npositive with each unsuccessful attempt and we finally got over the hump in\nearly December.\n\nThe Database objects are unfortunately still in Subversion. This is a\nlimitation of our current tech stack. Migrating to git requires that each\ndeveloper have their own version of the database but we don't. Honestly the\nway we have it set up now is something I'd really like to change, but that's a\nstory for a different time.\n\nIn all we migrated 25 repositories from Subversion. There is still more work\nto do with the Web Developers to update our CICD process to fully leverage\nAzure DevOps, but small steps can make for big changes over time. No need to\nrush if we have a working CICD system (even if it's kind of Frankensteined\ntogether at this point).1\n\nWith this migration to git we were also able to integrate our issue tracking\nsystem (YouTrack) with our VCS. It's nice to see commits automatically\n'connected' to the issues in YouTrack.\n\nAnother thing that I've been able to work on is getting more and more Python\nenabled for various projects. We have a Django App that we use to manage\n'administrative' tables in our MS SQL database, and we've been able to\nintegrate Python in some of our SSIS packages for ETL.\n\n## Speaking\n\nOne of the goals that I had from my last annual review was to engage in two\npublic speaking activities. While I give lots of presentations at work,\nthey're all via Zoom so the idea of getting up in a room full of strangers and\ntalking was both exciting and terrifying.\n\nThe first conference I spoke at was the KLAS Points of Light conference in May\nin Salt Lake City (only about a week after PyCon US). The talk was limited to\n10 minutes and I had 2 co-speakers so I was limited to about 3 minutes of\ntalking time (and if I said I spoke for 90 seconds that would be pretty\ngenerous). That being said, I did get up on stage and spoke to a room full of\nabout 200 strangers (and nearly threw up!)\n\nThe absolute highlight of my speaking engagements this year was speaking at\nDjango Con (which I wrote about\n[here](https://www.ryancheley.com/2023/10/24/djangocon-us-2023/) and\n[here](https://www.ryancheley.com/2023/12/15/so-you-want-to-give-a-talk-at-a-\nconference/)). I won't write more about it, but I had such a great time giving\nthat talk!\n\n## Certifications\n\nI was able to achieve a couple of certifications this year. The first was the\nGoogle Cloud Platform Cloud Architect Certificate. I wrote about the\nexperience [here](https://www.ryancheley.com/2023/04/01/gcp-cloud-architect-\nexam-experience/).\n\nAnother certification I achieved was the Certified EDI Academy Professional.\nInitially I did this mostly because the cost of the classes to work on the\ncertificate for 2 participants versus 3 participants was only $100 extra and\nthere were 2 people in my department that had asked about working on the\ncertification. Since my department is in charge of EDI 'stuff' and I'm in\ncharge of the department it kind of made sense that I should get it too.\n\nWhile I didn't think it would be super beneficial and did it mostly _just\nbecause_ I have been surprised at how useful it's ended up being. Seeing\nwhat's possible with EDI in Healthcare has allowed me to work with the EDI\nAnalysts in my department more effectively AND has helped us all to better\nidentify opportunities for automation\n\n## Misc\n\nAbove I lamented the lack of time to program above, but one thing I was able\nto work on was a refactor of an Airflow DAG from 2000+ lines down to 150\nlines. This was thanks to the DjangoCon Tutorial [Django \u2764\ufe0f\nAirflow](https://2023.djangocon.us/tutorials/django-3-airflow/) lead by\n[Sheena O'Connell](https://fosstodon.org/@sheena).\n\nThis is also the first year since the start of the pandemic that I've gone\ninto the office on a (mostly) regular basis. While it's mostly like working\nfrom my home office (lots of Zoom meetings) it is nice to have a different bit\nof scenery (the new arena where hockey is played is visible from my desk when\nI look out the window).\n\nIn November I also got my first promotion in 7 years which was nice. I went\nfrom being the Regional Director to Senior Regional Director.\n\nFinally something I was really excited and proud about was the rating my\nmanagement team and I got for Employee Satisfaction. This was the first full\nyear that I had two people other than me in the management team and I think\nthat really helped. The satisfaction rating came back at 95%, the highest my\ndepartment has ever gotten.\n\n# Personal\n\n## Health\n\nAt the end of last year I completed the Running Challenge which lead to me\nparticipating in my first organized run (the Panther 5K) since 20182. I had\nhoped that this would get me back into running and that by the end of 2023 I\nwould have been able to run a half marathon.\n\nThese hopes were dashed in April when I contracted COVID (for the second time\nsince the start of the pandemic) and I wasn't back to feeling like myself\nuntil late May. Now, in most places of the country late May might be a swell\ntime to start running, but in the Coachella Valley it's already push triple\ndigit highs so I had a hard time getting motivated to start running again when\nit was that hot.\n\nI started the Running Challenge again this year, but 24 days into it I got a\nreally bad cold that basically is only now (nearly 2 weeks later) truly\ndisappearing. I haven't run in those 2 weeks, but am looking forward to\nstarting [rucking](https://www.901pt.com/post/rucking-what-it-is-benefits-how-\nto-do-it) and then running again in 2024.\n\n## Django\n\nI mentioned above that I spoke at DjangoCon US this year in Durham, but before\nthe conference started I got to see my youngest step brother and his wife at\ntheir (new to me) house3. It was a great way to start an amazing week in\nDurham which is one of the more walkable cities I've been to.\n\nAnother bonus was a chance encounter with [Ronard\nLuna](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronardluna/) (whom I met at DCUS 2022 in San\nDiego) and some of his Caktus colleagues after day one of the conference. We\nwent and got (really good) Thai that night, had some great conversations and I\ngot to meet some more amazing Django people.\n\nTowards the end of the conference [Jay\nMiller](https://mastodon.social/@kjaymiller) interviewed me about my talk and\nthat was super awesome. I was nervous at first, but Jay (and\n[Dawn](https://mastodon.online/@BajoranEngineer)) did a great job of making me\nfeel at ease \ud83d\ude01\n\nI also spent time working with [Jeff\nTriplett](https://mastodon.social/@webology) and [Maksudul\nHaque](https://github.com/saadmk11) on\n[DjangoPackages](https://djangopackages.org) which has been fun and a great\nlearning experience. I'm looking forward to continuing that work next year!\n\nFinally, towards the end of the year I interviewed and was accepted to be one\nof the [Djangonaut.Space](https://djangonaut.space/) Navigators. I'm really\nlooking forward to working with the Djangonauts on my team, as well as my\nCaptain Nishant Aggarwal.\n\n## Reading\n\nI had a goal of increasing the diversity (both in style and authors) that I\nwas going to read this year4. To this end my daughter Abby helped me by\nputting together a list of books by Author's to get me out of my reading rut.\n\nI kind of fell off the reading wagon in the last quarter of the year, but I\nwas able to read some really good books that I wouldn't have found otherwise:\n\n  * American Gods: Neil Gaiman\n  * Scythe: Neal Shusterman\n  * Renegads: Marissa Meyer\n  * Don't Read the Comments: Eric Smith\n  * An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: Hank Green\n  * The Thousandth Floor: Katherine McGee\n  * Legendborn: Tracy Deonn\n  * Mistborn: Brandon Sanderson\n  * War Girls: Tochi Onyebuchi\n  * The Poppy War: RF Kuang\n\nI also read a few books in the Rise of Mankind Series by John Walker5\n\n  * Raid\n  * Conflict\n\n## Writing\n\nI only wrote [nine articles this year](https://search-\nryancheley.vercel.app/pelican?sql=select+summary+as+%27Summary%27%2C+url+as+%27URL%27%2C+published_date+as+%27Published+Data%27+%0D%0Afrom+content+%0D%0Awhere+published_date+%3E%3D+%272023-01-01%27+%0D%0Aand+category+%21%3D+%27pages%27%0D%0Aorder+by+published_date)\n(including this one). It sure feels like more, but in looking back I didn't\nwrite my first post until April, and then not again until July. It was really\nin the last 3 months (since DjangoCon) that I really started to write more\nwith 2 in October and November and three in December.\n\nI'm looking forward to writing more in 2024 with the goal of one article per\nmonth. I've started already with trying to write up one\n[TIL](https://github.com/ryancheley/til) a day. This is part of a large theme6\n\n## Hockey\n\nOn December 18, 2022 AHL Hockey made its way to my home town. The best part is\nthat the arena they play in is only 10 minutes from my house so I went to _a\nlot_ of hockey games.\n\nSo far this season isn't going like I had hoped, but a few highlights from\nlast season were:\n\n  * Getting to see a triple overtime game against the Calgary Wranglers that ended with the Firebirds winning\n  * A game 7 of the Calder Cup finals going to over time\n\nWhile the 3OT game ended with the good guys winning, the game 7 OT ended with\nthem losing. It was heart breaking, and I wrote about it\n[here](https://www.ryancheley.com/2023/07/01/firebirds-inaugural-season/), so\nI won't go over it again. That being said, even though they lost, the fact\nthat I got to go to a Game 7 for a championship was already mind blowing. The\nfact that it went into overtime was more so. I did a bit a research and it was\nthe first Game 7 OT championship game in either the AHL or NHL since the early\n50s, so it was kind of neat to be a part of history.\n\nI've gotten so into the AHL that I've written [a silly\nscraper](https://github.com/ryancheley/ahl) that dumps data into a\n[datasette](https://datasette.io) [instance on vercel](https://ahl-\ndata.vercel.app).\n\nAt the time of this writing the Firebirds are [9 points behind the pace they\nhad last year](https://ahl-\ndata.vercel.app/games?sql=with+data+%28TheYear%2C+W%2C+L%2C+OTL%2C+SOL%29%0D%0Aas+%28%0D%0A%0D%0Aselect+strftime%28%27%25Y%27%2C+game_date%29%0D%0A%2C+sum%28case%0D%0A++when+home_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3E+away_team_score+then+1%0D%0A++when+away_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3C+away_team_score+then+1%0D%0A++else+0%0D%0Aend%29+as+%27W%27%0D%0A%2C+sum%28case%0D%0A++when+home_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3C+away_team_score+and+game_status+%3D+%27Final%27+then+1%0D%0A++when+away_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3E+away_team_score+and+game_status+%3D+%27Final%27then+1%0D%0A++else+0%0D%0Aend%29+as+%27L%27%0D%0A%2C+sum%28case%0D%0A++when+home_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3C+away_team_score+and+game_status+%3D+%27Final+OT%27+then+1%0D%0A++when+away_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3E+away_team_score+and+game_status+%3D+%27Final+OT%27then+1%0D%0A++else+0%0D%0Aend%29+as+%27OTL%27%0D%0A%2C+sum%28case%0D%0A++when+home_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3C+away_team_score+and+game_status+%3D+%27Final+SO%27+then+1%0D%0A++when+away_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name+and+home_team_score+%3E+away_team_score+and+game_status+%3D+%27Final+SO%27then+1%0D%0A++else+0%0D%0Aend%29+as+%27SOL%27%0D%0Afrom%0D%0A++games%0D%0Awhere+%28home_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name%0D%0A+++++++or+away_team+%3D+%3Ateam_name%29%0D%0Aand+++strftime%28%27%25m-%25d%27%2C+game_date%29+%3E%3D+%2710-01%27%0D%0A++AND+game_date+%3C%3D+strftime%28%27%25Y%27%2C+game_date%29+%7C%7C+%27-%27+%7C%7C+strftime%28%27%25m-%25d%27%2C+%27now%27%29%0D%0A++group+by+strftime%28%27%25Y%27%2C+game_date%29%0D%0A%29%0D%0Aselect+*%0D%0A%2C+2+*+W+%2B+OTL+%2B+SOL+as+%27Points%27%0D%0Afrom+data%0D%0Aorder+by+TheYear&team_name=Coachella+Valley+Firebirds&_hide_sql=1).\n\nWith that, it's still pretty awesome that I get to watch hockey live a couple\nof times a week and don't have to travel hours to do it.\n\n# House\n\nWhen my wife Emily and I bought our house in 2009 we were surprised that it\nwas on septic and not connected to the sewer. But then we learned that the\nunincorporated part of the county we live in that's not unusual. Every few\nyears I call one of the [local plumbing\ncompanies](https://hammerplumbing.com/) that is highly regarded to empty my\nseptic tank.\n\nThis was the year to have the tank emptied and when they came out to empty it,\nwe discovered that the tank was collapsing on itself and would need to be\nreplaced.\n\nNow, this is not an inexpensive expense7 but also not totally unexpected. What\nwas unexpected was to find out that because our house was within 200 feet of\nthe sewer line we were REQUIRED to connect to the sewer.\n\nAfter contacting 12 approved contractors we were able to get one under\ncontract and they got us connected to the sewer. It cost WAAAAAY more than I\nthink anything should8, but it's done now so one less thing to worry about\ngoing forward\n\nBut the silver lining in that is I finally felt comfortable getting a lemon\ntree in my front yard and it brings me lots of joy. 9\n\n# Family\n\nThis fall my daughter Abby started her Senior year in High School. This is a\nmind blowing stage in life. It means that this time next year Emily and I will\nofficially be empty nesters.\n\nIn preparation for the transition to College we have done a lot of College\ntours. These have mostly been short weekend trips, but it's been nice to get\nout there and visit new / different places.\n\nBefore the pandemic my family and I would take a [stereotypical American style\nfamily road trip](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085995/). We haven't done it\nsince, but we were hoping to do something big this summer.\n\nThose plans were derailed when the sewer bill came in, but the college tours,\nand a nice long weekend trip to [Julian](https://visitjulian.com/) made up for\nthe lack of a BIG trip.\n\nI mentioned above the Hockey games I've been able to see at Acrisure Arena,\nbut one of the extra benefits of having an arena where they play hockey is\nthat they will also play music. I was only able to go to one concert\n([Paramore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramore) with Abby), but Emily and\nAbby were able to see several shows including [Shania\nTwain](https://www.shaniatwain.com/#/), [Lizzo](https://www.lizzomusic.com/),\nand [Pentatonix](https://www.ptxofficial.com/).\n\nWe also live relatively close to LA so we were able to see a couple of events\nat the Staples Center (I refuse to call it by it's new name) including\n[SZA](https://www.szasos.com/tour/) (all three of us plus a friend of Abby's)\nand a [Kings game](https://www.nhl.com/avalanche/news/colorado-avalanche-los-\nangeles-kings-game-recap-december-3-x2816) (just Emily and me).\n\nAbby was also able to see the last show of [Taylor Swift's Eras\ntour](https://www.taylorswift.com/tour-us/) at [SoFi\nStadium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoFi_Stadium) which was a bit stressful\nas she did it with a group of friends and an adult cousin of one of those\nfriends (that we didn't know) but she had a great time and had a smile as big\nas any I've seen on her in a while for a few days after.\n\nEmily and I also went down to the Palm Springs Pride parade and got to see\n[10,000 Maniacs](https://maniacs.com/) with their new lead singer ([Leigh\nNash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Nash) from [Six Pence None the\nRicher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixpence_None_the_Richer))\n\nWe have also really started to take advantage of the space in our back yard as\na family. As a 15 year work anniversary gift I received a projector TV that\nwe've set up outside. We also got a fire pit to keep us warm in the _frigid_\nDesert Winter Nights (I mean, it gets down to a low of like 50 by the time I\ngo back inside \ud83e\udd76) and reminds me of [this meme](https://imgur.com/tczZ7ez).\n\n# Tropical Storm Hillary\n\nI grew up in the Coachella Valley, and except for a 10 year period (mostly in\nmy 20s) I've lived here my entire life. I've seen\n[Haboobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haboob), felt Earthquakes, seen smoke\nfrom nearby Wild Fires, and a couple of pretty bad rain storms (like the\n[Valentine's Day massacre](https://www.desertsun.com/picture-\ngallery/weather/2020/02/13/2019-valentines-day-storm-and-its-aftermath-across-\nregion/4747997002/), and the [Storm Cell that wouldn't\nmove](https://kesq.com/news/2014/09/11/la-quinta-cleanup-from-700-year-\nstorm/)) ... but I NEVER thought I'd experience a Tropical Storm (which was\nvery nearly a Hurricane) but this year we did.\n\nIt was a stressful day but at the end of it we can out unscathed. We were\nfortunate that we didn't have any property damage, but others weren't. There\nare still [areas of the Valley that are trying to rebuild after the\nflooding](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2023/09/03/tropical-storm-\nhilary-destroyed-one-palm-springs-area-neighborhood-heres-why/70733017007/)\nthat the storm brought.\n\n# Conclusion\n\nWhen I started writing this I didn't think i I'd have _that_ much to write,\nbut looking back I see that I did!\n\nI'm glad I did this and hope that future me will find some benefit from it.\nHopefully 2024 me won't procrastinate writing this until the very last day ...\nbut he probably will.\n\nThat's just the nature of these things, right?\n\n  1. Our current stack involves commits to Azure DevOps which is picked up by TeamCity and then deployed using Octopus Deploy \u21a9\ufe0e\n  2. That year I ran the LA Marathon in March, and in July I tore a muscle in my left hamstring \u21a9\ufe0e\n  3. They've been in the house for almost 9 years! \u21a9\ufe0e\n  4. I read mostly Sci Fi written by people that mostly look like me \u21a9\ufe0e\n  5. These aren't particular good or well written, but I was in between books and they were on my kindle so \ud83e\udd37\ud83c\udffc\u200d\u2642\ufe0f \u21a9\ufe0e\n  6. more on that in the next article \ud83d\ude01 \u21a9\ufe0e\n  7. Average costs is about $15,000 \u21a9\ufe0e\n  8. Close to $30,000 \u21a9\ufe0e\n  9. When Emily and I were looking to buy a house we only had three requirements: (1) It couldn't be behind a gate; (2) it couldn't have a pool; (3) it had to have a citrus tree, preferably lemon. We were able to get 2 of the three when we bought the house and it only took 13 years to get the citrus tree! \u21a9\ufe0e\n\n", "2023-12-31", "year-in-review-2023", "I've never done a year in review, but this seems like a good a time as any,\nright? I had a rough outline, but after reading the great Year in Review from\n[Tim Schilliing](https://www.better-simple.com/personal/2023/12/30/my-year-in-\nreview/), [Paolo Melichore](https://www.paulox.net/2023/12/31/my-2023-in-\nreview/), and [Velda Kiara](https://dev.to/veldakiara/djangoconus-2023-a-wish-\nfulfilled-2mmc), I was inspired to **actually** finish mine.\n\n# Professional\n\nIn the moment \u2026\n\n", "Year in Review 2023", "https://www.ryancheley.com/2023/12/31/year-in-review-2023/"]], "columns": ["author", "category", "content", "published_date", "slug", "summary", "title", "url"], "primary_keys": ["slug"], "primary_key_values": ["year-in-review-2023"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.761232502758503}