Caleb Schoepp

Year in Review: 2024

Published December 31, 2024

For the past four years, I’ve been writing a year-in-review post (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). Writing these has been a wonderful exercise in reflection and gratitude. I’m excited to continue the tradition with this post.

Top 10 Experiences

  1. Getting baptized — In 2023, I decided to follow Jesus. This year, I decided to get baptized to publicly declare my faith in Christ.
  2. Trip to Germany — Fermyon had an offsite in Berlin during the summer. Before the offsite, I spent a week traveling around Germany. The highlights were spending time in Heidelberg with a co-worker and exploring the city of Hamburg.
  3. My first triathlon and half-marathon — On a whim, I developed an interest in racing triathlons this year. I raced my first ever sprint triathlon in July and followed it with another one in August. Later, in September, I ran my first half-marathon. It turns out I really enjoy racing!
  4. Learning to play piano — In January, I began piano lessons with a local teacher. I’ve been very committed to my practice and have seen great improvement. It was fun to cap off the year with a small piano recital.
  5. Buying a house — I purchased a home in West Edmonton!
  6. Trip to Salt Lake City — I attended KubeCon NA in Salt Lake City with Fermyon this November. Afterwards, I spent a few extra days in town. I enjoyed my first-ever ballet, ate delicious food, watched an NHL game, and did my first mini-solitude retreat.
  7. Trip to Minneapolis — For American Thanksgiving, I went to Minneapolis with my parents to visit family. I had a great time fostering adult relationships with cousins I hadn’t seen in a decade.
  8. Knife-making weekend — As a special gift, my dad took all of us sons on a knife-making weekend. Over three days, we crafted chef’s knives by hand. It was extremely cool to learn the process and a great bonding experience.
  9. Biking 200 km — For years, I’ve aspired to bike 100 miles (161 km) in a day. I finally trained enough this year and accomplished it late in the fall with my brother-in-law and dad. Our original goal was 180 km (the Ironman bike distance), but I felt so energized that I pushed through to 200 km.
  10. Trip to Mexico — I spent a week in Cancun for a Fermyon offsite and extended the trip with a week in Puerto Vallarta with family. It was a wonderful break, and I cherished the family time.

Honorable mentions to my Austin trip, Pasadena trip, Seattle trip, the Oilers playoff run, playing recreational hockey, getting involved at Celebration, and the family vacation at Hubbles Lake.

Top 10 Movies and TV Shows

  1. Masters of the Air — Band of Brothers and The Pacific are some of my favorite shows of all time — in fact, I re-watched them this year. A third addition to this family of shows was a dream come true. The series really drove home how terrifying air combat in WW2 was.
  2. 30 Rock — I slept on this show for too long. In my opinion, it keeps up with the greats like The Office or Community.
  3. Society of the Snow — An incredible true story. This film stretched my notion of what humans can survive.
  4. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare — One of the best action flicks I’ve seen in a long time, and it’s a true story to boot.
  5. Slow Horses — A delightful twist on your usual spy series. Great comedy, tension, and character development.
  6. We Live in Time — I thought the storytelling in this romance was great, and the acting was phenomenal.
  7. The Zone of Interest — A deeply haunting recounting of the Holocaust from the German perspective.
  8. Invincible — I’m not typically into the superhero genre, but Invincible is great. I love all the side characters like Allen the Alien.
  9. The Rehearsal — Nathan Fielder is wild. No spoilers, just go watch this and have your brain melted.
  10. Blackberry — It was fun to learn about more Canadian tech history.

Honorable mentions to WeCrashed, Bullet Train, Jerry and Marge Go Large, American Fiction, Fall Guy, and Dune 1 & 2.

Top 10 Books

  1. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer — A gripping tale of an Everest summit gone wrong. I need to read more narrative non-fiction like this.
  2. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt — This book contains a story that you can’t help but fall in love with.
  3. Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson — Not his best title, but Robert Kurson doesn’t disappoint.
  4. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson — The older I get, the less I find I want to replicate Elon Musk. Regardless, it’s a fascinating and inspiring story to learn from.
  5. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller — This was a meaningful read based on where I was in my faith journey.
  6. Factfulness by Hans Rosling — I learned that my intuition about the world is very wrong.
  7. What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow by Frank Gallinelli — This helped ground me in the terminology and math of real estate investing as I was considering purchasing a home.
  8. A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics by David A. Moss — I still don’t feel like I fully understand macroeconomics at an intuitive level, but I definitely learned something.
  9. Die With Zero by Bill Perkins — Truthfully, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing style, but I love the idea and have recommended it to many people.
  10. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté — This changed my perspective on addiction.

Honorable mentions to The Problem of Jesus by Mark Clark, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson, Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey, Practicing the Way by Jon Mark Comer, and The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu.

Top 10 Others

  1. For Cryin' Out Loud! by Finneas — This year I discovered Finneas as a solo artist, and I fell in love with his music. He’s a big inspiration for the music I write.
  2. Tmux — I finally bit the bullet and learned Tmux. Now it’s a regular part of my development flow, and I don’t know how I lived without it.
  3. Terraforming Mars — Thanks to my friend who let me borrow this. I jammed a lot of Terraforming Mars this year.
  4. Logic Pro — I decided to upgrade from GarageBand to Logic Pro, and it has been so worth it. Logic Pro is a phenomenal piece of software.
  5. Cortex Podcast — I don’t even care about half the things they talk about, but I just love hearing them talk.
  6. Epix Pro Gen 2 — This is definitely overkill for me, but it has been so nice to be able to track activities without my phone now. The flashlight is really handy too.
  7. Lucky Paper Podcast — I’m less focused on cube and MTG this year, but even still, I enjoy the content Andy and Anthony put out.
  8. SimCity 4 — This was a nostalgia download while I was in Mexico with my family. Building cities together with Jon was such a throwback.
  9. First of October — This once-a-year band is also another big inspiration for the music I write.
  10. Wilson by Ashe — Ashe released a banger of an album this year. “Please Don’t Fall in Love With Me” is my favorite song on the album.

Reflecting on 2024

Career

I’m very happy at Fermyon, so I want to focus on keeping a good thing good. The biggest priority here is keeping a healthy work-life balance so I don’t get burnt out like I did in university. I also want to up my game on the 1-1 front. Last year, I did a good job of doing 1-1’s with everyone on the team, but then I quickly lost steam. I want to build more regular 1-1’s into my schedule because improving relationships will help me do better work at Fermyon and open up job opportunities in the future. Not to mention the benefit of socializing in an often isolating remote job. Finally, I want to learn to love the problems we’re solving for customers and not just the solutions we’ve created. Put another way, I want to focus on writing high-impact code that matters.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been out of university and working full-time for two years now. I continue to be happy with how it is going. I’m happy with my current work-life balance; I did a better job with scheduling regular 1-1’s; I gave my intro to WebAssembly talk at a conference in Austin and ran a workshop in Pasadena; and I became the champion for the WASI Observe effort.

I made a small amount of headway on local networking — I met a few engineers in the local scene — but I haven’t done as much to nurture this as I wanted to. I also completely dropped the ball on trying a co-working space. Overall, I’m gainfully employed and happy with the way things are trending.

Finances

Last year was a financial success, so I plan to keep it simple and stay the course. To make sure I hit my saving/donating goals, I’m going to set up automatic deposits. I also want to spend some time at the start of the year tweaking how I’m using YNAB to be more effective. As a stretch goal, it’d be good to find a financial advisor who can help me with my complex situation of dual citizenship. Also, depending on how things go throughout the year, I might look into buying a home with a rental basement suite.

Keeping it simple was a good plan and worked well for me. As per usual, budgeting with YNAB has been instrumental to my success. YNAB helps keep me on track at a micro level by answering questions like “Can I afford to eat out again this month?” and at a macro level with info like my net worth and how quickly it is increasing.

Throughout the year, I saved 25.3% of my gross income (37.0% net income) and donated 10.1% of my gross income (14.7% net income). The importance and power of “paying yourself first” via automatic transfers cannot be overstated. I view these saving and donating goals as fairly aggressive, and the more I can automate them, the less willpower I require of myself.

My current asset allocation is as follows: 45.4% equities, 7.6% bonds, 8.0% crypto, 13.4% real estate, and 25.6% cash. A couple of notes: this doesn’t represent my target allocation (which is quite different); it represents my actual allocation after any portfolio drift occurs. It’s difficult to accurately assess your current equity in a property, so I aimed conservatively 🤷. Cash represents my emergency fund and anything I’m holding liquid to later move into another asset class — it does not include money assigned to my regular budget.

I did end up looking for a financial advisor and having a few conversations. The outcome of the search was that I determined I don’t yet need a financial advisor. A good piece of advice for future Caleb is that when I do need a financial advisor, I should make sure to find one that is paid on a flat rate and is a fiduciary.

Perhaps the biggest news in this category is that I ended up purchasing my first home! It’s a bungalow in West Edmonton, and it has a legal basement suite that I rent out. I didn’t have tons of time to save for the down payment, so I only put 5% down on a 5-year fixed mortgage. This means that, on average, the house is not cash flowing — we’re in the red. I’m okay with this situation for four reasons. First, I have large emergency funds (~5 months), so I’m not concerned about covering this deficit. Second, I’m very bullish on the neighborhood it’s in and the potential appreciation. Third, I have very long time horizons, so I expect rent to appreciate enough that it will start cash flowing. Fourth, independent of the financials, I like the home and would have made the decision on that basis.

Physical Health

Most of my focus at the start of the year will be around rehabbing my knee. In terms of exercise, I’m setting a more realistic goal of twice a week at a minimum. I’m also setting the goal of being able to do a pull-up because I’ve always wanted to be able to do one.

If I could have peered into the future for one answer last year, it would have been to ask how my knee is doing. Great! In fact, I rehabbed it so well that I can’t even remember which knee I injured. It turns out that in addition to a torn MCL, I also had a bad bone bruise, which is why the recovery was taking longer than expected. In even more good news, I’ve made it through 2024 without any additional serious injuries.

My year was filled with lots of fun team sports. I played on one and a half hockey teams, and my skill development has been notable. I’m starting to feel like I need to graduate out of the original team I played on so that I can learn more at higher levels. I also played multi-sport this year, which was nice because it felt like I was in high school gym again (which I loved).

The biggest twist was that I got into racing triathlons. This was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. I love training for triathlons, the race day is fun, and it’s a great mix of sports I enjoy. Due to issues with my knees in years past, I had sort of just assumed that I would never run again. So it felt great to break that barrier with the help of triathlons and ultimately run an entire half-marathon! In December, I found a great triathlon coach to help me with training plans for my races next year. I’m excited to see the difference a coach makes.

Inspired by getting into triathlons, I’ve made good progress on checking off the parts of an Ironman individually. I biked more than the 180 km of an Ironman, and I did a 4 km swim. Now I just need to do a marathon. I figure if I can do the parts of an Ironman by themselves, it’s not that far-fetched to string them together.

The only thing I missed this year was doing a pull-up by the end of the year. Frankly, I just started working on this goal too late in the year. With more time, I think I could have done it. Regardless, I made good progress and have laid a strong foundation for hitting this goal next year. I’ve also found my way back to StrongLifts 5x5 and have been feeling stronger than ever before.

Mental Health

My main goal for mental health in this coming year is to build a more healthy relationship with my phone and social media. I don’t think the goals I’ve listed are sufficient for a perfectly healthy relationship, but I do think they are achievable and a good starting point.

Same old, same old here. The macro of my mental health is 👍. But the micro is all flubs. I’m probably setting unrealistic goals — or maybe phone boundaries are just really hard? It seems like my mental health is mostly downstream of other things like digital life, faith, physical health, relationships, etc. Maybe I need to rethink this category.

I did start two habits that have helped a bit. First, I took my phone charger out of my bedroom and placed it in a room across the house. Now I wake up to a digital alarm clock. This has helped me to avoid doom scrolling right before bed and also means that I’ll typically wait a few hours in the morning before I go find my phone.

Second, I started using app blockers. On my work laptop, I have schedules that automatically block things like YouTube during the workday. On my personal phone, I occasionally flip it onto 24 hours of strict mode, preventing me from using YouTube. I’m not that rigorous about it yet, so these tricks only work when I’m feeling at least moderately disciplined.

Relationships

My relationship goals this year are mostly focused on maintenance with some opportunities on the side to grow my circle of relationships.

The most notable thing here is that I’ve found myself a fantastic community at Celebration church. This has been a big improvement to my quality of life.

I’m being relatively strict with marking regular lunches, dinner parties, and staying in touch with friends abroad as failed. I did all of those things, but just not quite to the level of regularity and discipline that I was hoping to do them with.

Faith

Coming to faith last year was a big change. I want to focus on approaching it with intentionality in 2024. Finding a community to get plugged into is going to be critical.

This year I ended up making Celebration my home church, and I’ve been feeling very connected. I’ve joined a small group and started volunteering to help lead their youth program. I’ve made lots of friends through this. Oh, and I got baptized!

I also grew in my spiritual practices this year. Towards the end of the year, I had a habit of reading scripture in the morning before breakfast 2-4 times a week. I only made it through 4 books of the Bible, and I definitely dropped the ball on sabbathing.

Travel and Adventure

For 2024 I’m going to list a bunch of things that I potentially could do, but go in with my eyes open and make them all stretch goals. Hopefully, this list will give me inspiration throughout the year, but will also give me the space to be spontaneous.

I didn’t specifically do any of the stretch goals this year, but I’m still pleased with the amount of travel and adventure I got up to this year.

Organization

I felt like I needed a new section to track my progress around productivity, organization, and digital tools. I really want to find a note-taking tool I can consolidate on, like I did for task management with Todoist. Right now, I just use a mix of random tools that aren’t working well for me.

Todoist continues to be useful for me. I’m not super rigorous with it. You won’t find me reviewing it every day to make sure it is up to date. I’m also not entering every single task I have into it. But it is still valuable for four reasons. First, it helps me to easily track recurring tasks I need to deal with (e.g., check the furnace filter). Second, it lets me forget about things that are really far away (e.g., renew my driver’s license). Third, it helps me consolidate my task anxiety into one place — no more sticky notes, whiteboard scrawlings, etc. Fourth, it allows me to write down aspirational things that I’m unlikely to do but take up mind space (e.g., sort my filed papers).

I did start using Obsidian this year — I’m using approximately 2% of its functionality — but I’m using it. I use it to store notes from important conversations and other important lists I want to track. Google Keep acts as my dumping ground where things go first.

Building

Building things is still exciting to me and, perhaps more importantly, is a compounding activity, so I’m keeping this goal around in a very simple form. I would hope that the project either is deeply technical or solves a problem. In the case of a deeply technical project, it will act as a learning/teaching opportunity. If it solves a problem, then it will help me flex my entrepreneurial muscles. I’ve moved the hackathon to a stretch goal because I still think it is a great idea, but it would take some meaningful work.

I didn’t do anything here. I was too busy with my other goals. One thing worth noting is that I still get emails asking for support for MixtapeManager. I’m not sure what to do about this. There doesn’t seem to be enough momentum with it to invest more effort into it. But there is enough traction that it feels weird to kill it.

Reading

Based on how little I read last year, I’m toning this goal back a little bit to make it more reasonable. One potential issue that occurs to me is that if I only read 12 books, that’s still not a lot to construct a top 10 from. That can be next year’s problem.

I knocked this one out of the park. This year, I read 15 books.

Writing

I’m going to keep this goal the same as last year. It’s worth noting that ideally I publish about once a month to practice my consistency.

Including this post, I wrote nine blog posts this year. Four of them were personal, two were reflection pieces, two were about productivity, and one was a technical tutorial. I was most proud of my blog post on remote communication.

Music

My most extensive list of goals for 2024 is here in the music section. I just have so much that I’m excited to do. The headline here is that I’m starting to take piano lessons. I’m stoked to get some formal training and plug the theory and ear training gaps that I have. My hope is that while I devote a lot of my energy to piano I’ll still have enough to make a modicum of progress on guitar. We’ll see how that goes.

Regularly incorporating playing and writing music into my life has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my adult life. In January, I started taking piano lessons, and I’ve made a ton of progress. As it turns out, practicing 30 minutes every day makes a difference. I ended the year with a piano recital, and in January, I will be taking my level 1 Royal Conservatory exam.

Things were more stagnant on the guitar front this year. I didn’t really make any progress with Justin Guitar. But I’m still playing guitar approximately every day as I noodle or write songs. I also played guitar in worship bands a few times, which I enjoy.

Speaking of writing songs, it was a busy year. I don’t have an exact count, but I’m sure I wrote way more than four songs. Finishing them is a different story. I find that I enjoy the recording and mixing process, yet I’m quicker to spend my time writing than recording. In the end, I released one song on SoundCloud that I wrote with my friend James.

Looking Forward to 2025

Career

My hypothesis is still that going to a co-working space would do wonders for my productivity and focus. This is going to be the year that I actually try one out.

Digital Life

This is a new category that is the amalgamation of organization and mental health. It’s mostly just a bunch of shots in the dark about how I think I could improve my relationship with my phone.

Faith

My main focus this year is around growing in my discipleship. This looks like creating habits where I spend meaningful time praying and in scripture.

Finances

I’m very blessed that most of my financial goals feel like they’re just on auto-pilot. The most pressing concern is to continue to fine-tune how I’m deploying my capital. That may or may not look like buying more real estate.

Music

Continuing the theme of last year, I want to focus more on mastering piano rather than guitar. I’ve laid out no specific theory goals, but that is because I’m naturally learning the theory as I progress on piano.

Physical Health

I’ve realized that completing an Ironman and doing a muscle-up are two lifelong fitness dreams I have. I may never do them, but I want to try. My goals this year should help point me in that direction.

The other big thrust I want to make is to clean up my diet. I already eat fairly healthy, but I have very little discipline around my diet. I want to improve the following things: First, focus on my calorie deficit/excess and be able to consciously control it. Second, make it a habit of eating enough protein. Third, make the hard decisions at the grocery store — if I don’t bring junk home, I only have to avoid it once.

Reading

Not much to say, let’s go read some books.

Relationships

These are pretty similar goals to last year with the caveat that I’m setting goals that are easier to objectively mark. I hope this will also make them easier to build into my life schedule.

Travel and Adventure

Once again, I’m just listing a bunch of stretch goals as inspiration. My travel usually ends up being spontaneous or based on where I travel for work anyway.

Writing

I’m setting a less ambitious writing goal this year because I’m finding it to be less of a priority in my life. I don’t feel the need to write just for the sake of writing. I do, however, want to keep publishing thoughtful pieces periodically.

Closing Thoughts

I’m interested to see how long I keep doing these year-in reviews. They’re very helpful for me. They force me to think about my goals and hold me publicly accountable. But, they’re not perfect. Since they’re public, there are things I care about that I don’t write about because they’re too personal. They can also be a bit heavy-handed and painful to write. We’ll see what I’m feeling next year.

Some of my goals for 2025 are just about the exact same as they were for 2024. They’re in a comfortable stasis. In other areas, I’m raising my expectations of myself. And to hold things in balance, I’m also pulling back in certain areas of my life to make room. Here’s to another year and looking back to see if I struck the right balance.

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