Almost ten years ago I got into a fight with a cop and some ER nurses after a suicide attempt and spent the next 48 hours twitching on the floor of a state hospital psych ward and thought I could probably do a better job of that. This year I’m considered enough of an expert in the management of violent patients that they’ve got me teaching verbal deescalation and physical disengagement skills, teaching people how to use restraints correctly, and precepting new nurses.

Did my first successful hard drive recovery including chip swapover while soldering on a microscope. Also started saving for retirement the first time in my life. I’m 38.

I stepped up my nerd game to start trying to land an IT job of some kind. I learned computer networking to set up my own website on recycled hardware and began writing about it. I started developing on a game engine making modules and making art assets to maybe one day make a commercial product. I released like a dozen open source projects under open source licenses.

It all kind of culminated with Christmas. The kids in my life have been begging for multiplayer Minecraft server but Microsoft destroyed the he so hard with money grabbing we refused to pay for realms or make a bunch of Microsoft accounts or whatever.

So, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on creating a mineclonia server built on luanti/minetest engine, patching in all the Minecraft assets like textures, sounds, music that I legally own with python tools I built myself and released,

I really wanted an in game fullscreen map and nobody had ever figured out how to make one on luanti engine so I so spent a few weeks developing one from the ground up. I released the map mod two days ago and people quickly noticed saying I had changed the game forever, congratulating me on my technological achievement or whatever.

Its just a little frustrating because it feels like I’m somewhat competent at the nerd professions but I have no idea how to advertise my talents or if what I’m doing even translates to real Dev work. How Does creating universal map colorizer + generator for proceeduraly generated voxel worlds or designing a full model animation interpolation system for an engine from scratch or hosting public services on my own network built from scratch powered by solar turn into resume stuffs? That’d what I guess new years focus needs to be

Finally moving into my own apartment (away from my dad)

I wrote a one man play! I am not a professional writer, even though i have tried, and not at all an actor, and the play touches some things in me, i get both angry and sad for real while playing – 13.1 is the date, and i’m both super stoked and super anxious. but proud! a real achievement in my world.

Hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

Went back to school for electrical engineering. Took a hard class with a hard professor and got a B+ while working almost full-time. Now I know how computer memory works.

Having a photo I took accepted into a public gallery exhibit for the first time.

I got my highest semester GPA ever and started reading significantly more books

I’m usually a bit excessively modest, but if I’m reflecting on it… I left my precious job in the US & pulled off a successful cross-continental move with little to no outside help (even though there was a lot of stuff involved). Had a ton of fun traveling during the past year too as a result of that. I guess that would be the thing I’m most proud of

It took two years but I finally achieved a 1000lb powerlifting total. It’s not a huge number but I do feel proud of myself, and physically I have never felt better. Outgrew my wardrobe twice, and can’t find jeans that fit but otherwise 10/10 would recommend lifting to anyone

2025 was awful so… I would say I am happy and proud to still be alive.

Stopped being an unemployed bum and got a solid union job that pays more than I ever really expected to make

I’ve created some absolutely amazing photography in ‘25 and will continue to make even more!

Finished the year with $3 in my bank account.

Thanks, Trump.