Year in Review: 2025

Here is the 2025 edition of my year-in-review post. This means I’ve been doing this for six years now (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)!

Top 10 Experiences

1. RIZN — Serving as a RIZN leader has been such a blessing in my life. I gained a new community, made amazing memories, and had an impact on the youth. Highlights include RIZN Camp, winning Water War, World’s Best Saturday, slip n’ slide kickball, and Fear Factor.
2. Marathon in Victoria — Finishing my first marathon was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Finishing the race was a deeply emotional experience. I laughed, I cried, I grimaced and I rejoiced.
3. Trip to France and Italy — I explored Milan, Turin, Nice, Villefranche-sur Mer, Monaco, and Paris. One of my co-workers joined me for part of the trip which I really enjoyed — double the pastries! This was during the peak weeks leading up to my marathon so I mostly ran and ate good food.
4. Trip to Barcelona and London — I liked Barcelona so much more the second time around.
5. Triathlons — A big focus of mine this year was training for triathlons. I loved pushing myself, training with friends and family, and competing.
6. Cancun offsite — I love Fermyon offsites and a few of us from the team went scuba diving together.
7. Trip to Austin — A quintessential Texas experience: I shot some full auto rifles at a gun range, swam in Barton springs, and ate delicious BBQ.
8. Vancouver trip — Initially this trip was bittersweet because I was meant to be doing the Vancouver marathon but due to injury was only doing the 8km race. However, I had such a good time with my sister, brother-in-law, and their friends.
9. Jamming with friends — The group of folks I jam with has grown and our jams are fun as ever. Shoutout to Eric for letting me learn on his drums.
10. Trip to Boulder — Some Fermyon friends and I rented a beautiful AirBnB in Boulder and spent a week co-working. The hot tub and runs together were my highlights.

Honorable mentions to my Atlanta trip, Montreal trip, Activate, selling 50/50 tickets in Oilers playoffs, Farm Team winning the division, opportunities to pray for strangers when traveling, hosting dinner parties, race car hot laps, family time, and the Donovan Woods Concert.

Top 10 Movies and TV Shows

1. Warfare — War is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme violence and sheer terror. This captures that better than any other mainstream movie I’ve seen.
2. The Wire — This holds up to all the acclaim it has received over the years. Glad I went back to watch this.
3. 2000 Meters to Andriivka — Absolutely haunting. I had trouble sleeping for a few days after watching this. War is truly horrible.
4. F1 — The POV shots on the track are incredible.
5. Tour de France: Unchained — This was a gateway drug for me into a short term obsession with the Tour de France. I can’t believe the kind of watts Tadej Pogačar puts out on those climbs.
6. Our Flag Means Death — Pirates meet safe spaces — hilarious.
7. Here — Coolest concept piece I saw this year.
8. The Peanut Butter Falcon — Heartwarming and funny. A rock solid movie.
9. Portlandia — One third of the skits flop, one third are funny, and one third are absolute genius with deep cutting commentary and gut wrenching laughs.
10. Ford v Ferrari — Just another good action flick.

Apparently I like racing movies and war movies. Who knew? Honorable mentions to Boots, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Last Breath, Her, Black Mirror S7E1, Nobody Wants This, Randy Feltface: Feltopia, and The Big Sick.

Top 10 Books

1. Em’s Mems — Before my granny passed away she wrote her memoirs. I had the honor of compiling these into a book for our family
2. A City on Mars — This completely changed my perspective on space colonization and it’s hilarious to boot.
3. Made for People — I crushed this as an audiobook as I did a single day trip to and from Calgary. Changed how I think about the most important friendships in my life and highlighted the importance of confession.
4. The Wealthy Barber — It was fun reading the revised edition. The Wealthy Barber was the first personal finance book I ever read (at a very young age when my Dad gave it to me) and it set me on the path to being financially literate. This is going in my repertoire of books I’ll buy for people along with the Problem of God by Mark Clark.
5. Extreme Ownership — I liked the leadership principles and the stories. I felt the examples of applying the leadership principles were cheesy.
6. Apollo Murders — This was a fun twist on the Apollo stories that I love learning about.
7. The Art of Spending — A nice fine tuning on my financial direction.
8. Liturgy of the Ordinary — My friend James loaned this to me. Quite the poetic read.
9. Same as Ever — I really like Morgan Housel’s writing and thinking, but truthfully I think this was his worst book yet.
10. Single, Dating, Engaged — A Christian framework for relationships.

Top 10 Others

1. Wahoo KICKR CORE 2 Smart Trainer — Absolute game changer for bike training during the long Canadian winters. No more crappy gym spin bikes for me.
2. Waymo — The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed. After one minute in my first Waymo ride I was already comfortable and convinced this is the future of transportation.
3. Cube — I freaking love cube. The highlight of the year was getting to play in London Cube Clash 2 by total happenstance.
4. The Dream by The Favors — Ashe and Finneas are two of my favorite artists. Peanut butter and jelly.
5. Rational Reminder podcast — This is the best and most evidence based personal finance podcast out there. I also appreciate that it is Canadian focused.
6. Web comics — Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, The Perry Bible Fellowship, and xkcd.
7. Oxide and Friends podcast — Deep tech insider baseball. Their sense of humor is incredible.
8. Tape Notes podcast — I love hearing how my favorite artists write and produce their music.
9. Acquired podcast — Acquired is a like fine wine that keeps getting better every year.
10. Thermapen One — It’s expensive, but it is the best instant read thermometer out there.

Honorable mentions to The Money Scope podcast, The Crux by Djo, Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees by TALK, Sean Goedecke’s blog, and Hoka Clifton 9s.

Reflecting on 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.

I once again failed to try out a co-working space so I think it is time to accept my proclivities and move on from that goal. I’m going to count the WASI Observe goal as accomplished. Technically it is called WASI OTel now, and it is only in phase 1, but we have some really good momentum and I think phase 2 is just around the corner. I ended up giving four talks this year which was a surprising boon. Over the Christmas break I got more reps with AI by vibe coding a custom recipe app for my unique needs. Fermyon also got acquired by Akamai this year and I got promoted to Senior Software Engineer. One last thing worth mentioning is that I built the habit of time tracking with Timery which has made me more effective. Overall, a good year career-wise.

• Maintain a sustainable work-life balance.
• Try out a co-working space.
• Advance WASI Observe to phase 2.
• Attend some local software engineering meetups.
• Stretch goal: Give another conference talk.
• Stretch goal: Build, publish, and write about one meaningful personal project that contributes to my career trajectory.

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.

The biggest thing to point out here is that I’ve completely stopped using Instagram and YouTube on my phone which has felt really healthy. I’ve also kneecapped YouTube’s grip on me by using Unhook. My biggest problem is still Instagram. Even when I use it on my computer for a reasonable amount of time I find it makes me feel icky afterwards due to comparison.

By charging my phone outside my bedroom I do a good job of not using my phone immediately in the morning. But, I struggle with using my phone right until the moment I go to bed.

• Keep making use of Todoist and Obsidian.
• Stretch goal: Don’t use my phone between 9pm and 9am.
• Stretch goal: Spend one Sunday a month not using digital devices.
• Stretch goal: Try not using social media for a month.

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.

I read 15 books of the Bible of the year which I’m quite happy with. On average across the year I probably managed two to three mornings a week of prayer and reading my Bible. I also did a half day of solitude when I was in Milan. From a quantitative perspective I mostly failed, but qualitatively I’m very happy with my growth in discipleship this year.

• Build a habit of reading the Bible and praying four mornings a week.
• Read 12 books of the Bible.
• Spend one Sunday a month sabbathing.
• Stretch goal: Spend one hour a week in solitude.
• Stretch goal: Do a weekend-long solitude retreat.

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.

I still love YNAB. It gets more fun every year as I have more and more spending and net worth history. Since I started using the Wealthsimple credit card I get mobile notifications for purchases which has been really helpful for keeping on top of entering transactions into YNAB. Speaking of Wealthsimple, I went all in on using it for my saving, checking, credit, and investing needs. I’ve been loving the consolidated solution and Wealthsimple is net better than traditional banks on every single dimension in my experience. The only double edged sword is the amazing visualization around your investments. On the one hand you have pretty graphs and on the other hand it is way too tempting to stare at your portfolio.

I’ve consolidated my investments to a simple strategy of holding Vanguard all in one asset allocation ETFs. Influenced by my obsession with Rational Reminder (specifically their presentation of Scott Cederburg’s work) I’ve opted for a 100% stock allocation. This most closely matches my risk tolerance — high tolerance for volatility and low tolerance for not meeting my goals long term. I’d rather water down my returns with healthy reserves of cash rather than bonds. I will need to remain psychologically vigilant to not kneecap myself when I encounter my first proper downturn.

Throughout the year, I saved 28.8% of my gross income (42.4% net income) and donated 8.0% of my gross income (11.8% net income). My current asset allocation is as follows: 72.8% equities, 0% bonds, 3.5% crypto, 11.0% real estate, and 12.7% cash¹.

My rental property (home) is just starting to break even on operating cashflow and is slightly negative in terms of free cashflow. This is due to me putting down so little on the home. Throughout the year I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m content with investing in equities and don’t need to rush into more real estate yet. I like where I live; real estate is more work and more stress than buying an ETF; I’m not convinced I need the leverage; and I’m not convinced real estate returns will be significantly better in the long term. This isn’t to say I don’t want to own more real estate — just that I’m in much less of a rush to do so.

• Use a budgeting tool like YNAB all year.
• Save 25% of my gross income.
• Donate 10% of my gross income.
• Stretch goal: Explore the opportunity of building a laneway suite in my backyard.
• Stretch goal: Have a down payment to purchase a rental property in 2026.

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.

I made lots of progress on piano this year. I wrote my RCM level 1 exam in January and I’ll be writing my RCM level 3 exam in a few weeks. This rapid progress in piano stemmed directly from my daily commitment to practice. The tradeoff is that I felt the slight atrophy of my guitar skills. I still noodle a lot on my guitar, but I didn’t practice at all with it this year — it showed.

Jam sessions with friends continued to play a central role in my musical life and our crew is growing! I even had a few opportunities to start playing the drums and I’m not half bad.

Same as last year I played on the Bethel worship team a few times. I even started joining the Celebration worship team which I was proud because they require total memorization. However, I had to back away from this commitment due to a lack of time.

Melodies, chord progressions, lyrics, and ideas for songs continue to pour out of me — the 64 voice notes on my phone from the year are a testament to this. However, I had little time or energy this year for any mixing, mastering, or producing.

• Take piano lessons all year and perform in recitals.
• Practice piano daily.
• Complete RCM piano level 2.
• Organize jam sessions with friends.
• Release three mixed and mastered songs on SoundCloud.
• Master the A shape barre chord on guitar.
• Stretch goal: Join the worship team at Celebration.
• Stretch goal: Complete Justin Guitar Grade 3.
• Stretch goal: Organize and perform a small concert at a senior center over Christmas.
• Stretch goal: Learn to use a looper with this course.

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.

The biggest difference in 2025 was my renewed commitment to physical fitness. I think I’m in the best shape of my life right now and it is only improving. I started the year off by hiring a triathlon coach. This was instrumental in multiple ways: it held me accountable; reduced the logistical overhead of training plans; help me set realistic expectations; and let me glean from his decades of racing experience. I went really hard this year and was training 6-7 days a week all year. Some days were doubles and I often had a hockey game each week too. This was exhausting but the gains were tangible.

Throughout the year I competed in lots of races. Two sprint triathlons, one olympic triathlon, an 8km run, a marathon, and a beer mile with friends. I also participated in two triathlon focused swim camps where I saw big gains. I’m happy to say that I’ve completed all individual parts of an Ironman — now I just need to do them together.

Outside of endurance racing I also kept up with hockey this year playing in a higher division. It took awhile but I feel I’m finally getting my footing at the higher level. For example I’m playing more relaxed with the puck and not just coughing it up in a state of panic. I also played some pickleball this year which is the first racket sport I’ve really enjoyed.

My diet didn’t significantly change this year. If anything I’m eating way more due to my training volume. Overall I think what I eat is healthy enough that I don’t think it will be a priority next year.

• Be able to do five pull-ups by the end of the year.
• Do a strength workout at least once a week.
• Do yoga every day for one month of the year.
• Finish my first marathon.
• Finish faster than my brother-in-law in an Olympic triathlon.
• Play hockey once a week.
• Establish more disciplined eating habits.
• Stretch goal: Race a half Ironman late in the season.
• Stretch goal: Take some power skating lessons.

Reading

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

Barely managed to get this one done.

• Read 10+ 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.

I’m really happy with how this year went in terms of relationships with my friends and family. I feel that I put a healthy emphasis on maintaining and growing these relationships. I’m also pleased that my circle of friendships grew a lot this year with the community I made through RIZN. A hope of mine this year was to meet someone, but that will come with time.

• Prioritize and maintain relationships with my family and close friends.
• Schedule lunches with friends and family in town once a month.
• Hop on a call with a friend abroad once a month.
• Host four dinner parties.

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.

While I technically met none of my goals here I still had a very adventurous year by any standard. Just look at my top 10 experiences!

• Stretch goal: Family canoeing trip in Bowron Lake Provincial Park.
• Stretch goal: Go to New York.
• Stretch goal: Take dance lessons.
• Stretch goal: Travel Asia.
• Stretch goal: Visit family in New Zealand.

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.

Writing for my blog fell through the cracks as I focused on executing on my daily career, musical, relational, and physical goals. I did finish editing and publish my granny’s memoirs though, which I’m immensely proud of.

• Publish 4+ non-personal blog posts.
• Finish editing my grandmother’s stories and publish them.

Looking Forward to 2026

Career

Fermyon was just acquired by Akamai so I’ll be running the “new job” playbook.

• Maintain a sustainable work-life balance.
• Advance WASI OTel to phase 2 and land support in Spin.
• Network within Akamai and have 1-1’s with 20 new people.
• Spend more time outside the house working at coffee shops or the homes of friends and family.
• Provide my manager with biweekly written updates.
• Continue tracking my brag document.
• Stretch goal: Give another conference talk.
• Stretch goal: Build, publish, and write about two meaningful personal projects that contribute to my career trajectory.

Digital Life

Success here looks like less. Consolidate tools. Spend less time on social media. Spend less time on my phone.

• Consolidate cloud storage on Dropbox or Google Drive.
• Decide on how I want Obsidian and Google Keep to play together².
• Run a tight ship with Todoist.
• Continue to add recipes to my personal recipe site.
• Charge my phone outside the bedroom.
• Brick my phone between 9pm and 9am.
• Keep Instagram and YouTube and other addictive social media off my phone.
• Stretch goal: Spend one Sunday a month not using digital devices.
• Stretch goal: Delete my Instagram account.

Faith

The themes for this year are discipleship and fellowship.

• Continue with youth leading at RIZN.
• Attend a Bible study or connect group weekly.
• Build a habit of reading the Bible and praying four mornings a week.
• Build a regular habit of fasting and praying once a week.
• Do a three day water fast during Celebration’s week of prayer and fasting.
• Finish my first read through of the Bible.
• Spend one Sunday a month sabbathing.
• Stretch goal: Do a day-long solitude retreat.

Finances

Last year I did a really good job automating my finances, simplifying my strategy, and consolidating my accounts. This year I want to keep it on auto-pilot and codify my philosophy. A good year looks like making very few changes to my financial setup.

• Use a budgeting tool like YNAB all year.
• Save at least 25% of my gross income.
• Donate at least 10% of my gross income.
• Cap my salary and allocate marginal dollars as follows: 40% invested, 40% donated, 20% for me.
• Get a will and personal directive.
• Stretch goal: Write a personal investment policy statement³.
• Stretch goal: Write a personal finance operating policy⁴.

Music

I think I have at least one more year in me of wanting to prioritize piano over guitar.

• Continue to create a back catalog of voice notes with song ideas.
• Take piano lessons all year and perform in recitals.
• Practice piano daily.
• Pass level 4 RCM piano exam.
• Complete RCM theory level 5.
• Compose two piano pieces complete with sheet music.
• Organize jam sessions with friends.
• Complete Justin Guitar Grade 3.
• Stretch goal: Complete Justin Guitar Grade 4.
• Stretch goal: Release one mixed and mastered song on SoundCloud.
• Stretch goal: Organize and perform a small concert at a senior center over Christmas.
• Stretch goal: Learn to use a looper with this course.

Physical Health

I’m aware that my goals in this category are a touch beyond insane, but hey a guy can dream right? Last year’s progress has left me feeling like I can tackle anything.

• Play hockey once a week.
• Keep training hard for races guided by a triathlon coach⁵.
• Continue to lift heavy once a week even through triathlon training.
• Finish faster than my brother-in-law in a half Ironman.
• Finish an Ironman.
• Do leg 5 of the Sinister 7.
• Run the Hypothermic Half Marathon.
• Compete in local Aquathlons with chance to qualify for worlds.
• Compete in SwimRun Edmonton race.
• Train by myself less.
• Stretch goal: Take some power skating lessons.
• Stretch goal: Be able to do a pullup by the end of the year.

Reading

Same goal as last year. It’s not ambitious, but rather is more of a baseline of how much I want to read.

• Read 10+ books.

Relationships

Last year I learned I really love hosting so I want to emphasize that this year. I also want to make sure I’m spending lots of time with friends. The logistics of finding a time to grab a coffee or workout together is annoying but it is so worth it.

• Prioritize and maintain relationships with my family and close friends.
• Schedule a coffee, lunch, or workout with a friend or family once a week.
• Host a block party BBQ.
• Host 10+ casual dinner parties
• Be content in my season of singleness while being prepared to de-emphasize my other goals if I enter into a relationship.
• Meet someone⁶.

Travel and Adventure

Work travel is usually the impetus for my adventures and I’m not sure yet what work travel will look like with Akamai. I’ve included some more local goals to counteract this uncertainty.

• Go skiing in the mountains for the first time.
• Visit family in New Zealand.
• Go hunting for the first time.
• Work from the mountains for a week.
• Stretch goal: Visit New York.
• Stretch goal: Take dance lessons.
• Stretch goal: Visit Asia.
• Stretch goal: Go bike packing.

Writing

I’m further shrinking my ambitions here to make room for other priorities in my life.

• Continue to write about my race and training experiences.
• Publish 2+ non-personal blog posts.

Closing Thoughts

Writing these reviews is always such a rich experience. I enjoy looking back at the year and reminiscing over everything I experienced and achieved. And I am better off for spending the time to set my goals for the coming year. I still struggle with the exact format of this review though. By it’s public nature there is a lot of private and emotional details that I have to leave out — but, I don’t have another place to textually process those things. I also sometimes wish my reflection was more free flowing and less list and goal oriented. Potential improvements for next year.