2017 List of Stuff
Everything I’ve looked into for the entire year!
I’ve added commentary to each section to create more context, suss out some of my learnings, and articulate how things connect.
Apps (21)
- Albumoftheyear.org
- Amazon Music
- Asana
- Bumble
- Coffee Meets Bagel
- Coinbase
- Facebook Local
- Facebook Stories
- Fasten
- Google Voice
- Howcast
- Mixmax
- Motion.ai
- Muralize
- Outlook
- Pollen.com
- Runtastic Push-ups Pro
- Runtastic Sit-ups Pro
- Series by Medium
- Urban Outfitters
- Waze
I averaged less Apps this year, which is good? My interests were reflected in music, relationships, time management, health, music, and media. I’m really getting into personal analytics and I’ve got a pretty good App game going through out the years. There were two game changers Waze and Coinbase. I’m love using Waze where ever I’m traveling to get the real time traffic reports and possible police traps. I’m also pretty excited about Cryptocurrency and can’t wait to see where this goes.
Companies (2)
- Amazon
- Bloomberg Cities
Only a few companies captivated my heart this year. I’m keeping an eye on Amazon because I’ve been reading things that will change the way we think about society — they’re starting to build housing and infrastructure which is super interesting! Bloomberg is also a huge presence in cities and urbanism. If you’re not watching these Innovation Teams then start now. I think this is going to be the new norm for governments.
Gear (1)
- Amazon Echo Dot
I got this early last year, and have really only used it for music. But once I started looking into it and trying out the features now it’s become my go to search engine. I think the smart speaker is going to explode in 2018, and we’re on the cusp of a new way of bot relationships.
Events (40)
- ACLT: A Night of Neighborhood Heroes
- Alaska Federation of Natives
- Alaska State Fair
- Anchorage Assembly Meeting
- Anchorage Museum Rasmuson Gallery opening
- Anchorage Community Council Committee Meeting
- Anchorage Community Council General Meeting
- Arctic Entries
- Arctic Entries: In the Dark
- ATX Hack the Traffic
- Bloomberg i-teams cohort 3 convening
- Chick Tech Trivia Night
- Climbed Flattop Mountain
- CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap Screening
- Code for Anchorage
- CodeNEXT — Community Character
- CodeNEXT Open House
- Cousin’s Daughter’s Quinceanera
- Data Science Action Panel
- Design Weekend Anchorage
- Downtown Anchorage Association Annual Meeting
- Friendsgiving
- I Like Robots: 80s Cover Band
- Keep Austin Agile
- Music — Super Saturated Sugar Strings
- Open Austin Brigade Hack Night
- Open Austin Ignite Talks
- Open Austin Leadership Team Meeting
- OSCON
- PARK(ing) Day 2017
- Polar Nights
- Polar Plunge
- Small Business Saturday Anchorage
- Smart Cities Day SxSW
- Steven Johnson Talk
- Super Saturated Sugar Strings Concert
- Tree Lighting Ceremony Anchorage
- UP Club — Celebrating Women in Design
- UX Awards Afternoon at General Assembly
- YPG White Elephant
I made a huge effort this year to do extracurricular activities. Last year, I only went to a handful and realized how vital it was to getting embedded in the city culture. This year, I made it a point to get involved, and want to maintain a healthy extracurricular life at the same pace or more going forward.
Movies (46)
- Alien: Covenant
- Baby Driver
- Baywatch
- Begin Again (re-watch)
- Blade Runner 2049
- Bright
- Colossal
- Contact (re-watch)
- Doc Hollywood (re-watch)
- Draft Day (Re-watch)
- Dunkirk
- Edge of Seventeen
- Fast and Furious 8
- Founder
- Get Out
- Ghost in the Shell
- Guardians of the Galaxy (rewatch)
- Guardians of the Galaxy 2
- iBoy
- John Wick 2
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
- Justice League
- Kong: Skull Island
- La La Land
- Logan
- Man of Steel (re-watch)
- Our Brand Is Crisis
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
- Rogue One (Re-watch)
- Shape of Water
- Sing
- Space Between Us
- Split
- Spiderman Homecoming
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- The Circle
- The Girl with All the Gifts
- The Great Wall
- The Mummy
- The Sixth Sense (re-watch)
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Transformers: The Last Knight
- Valerian
- War for the Planet of the Apes
- Wonder Woman
- xXx: Return of Xander Cage
I’m still a movie buff. I pretty much saw everything I wanted to, but I’m starting to get wary of the theater. The movies are mostly dominated by sci-fi and super hero flicks now which leaves little to the imagination or good acting. That being said, I was super impressed by Founder, Split, and the Shape of Water. I guess I’m looking more for ‘thinkers’ where I’m brought into a world and have to face my emotions about awkward situations. Everything else is just non-stop action where the heroes win in the end, which I think is causing my theater fatigue.
Music (14)
- Benny Sings
- Bon Iver
- Brent Faiyaz
- Bruno Major
- Bruno Mars
- Cardi B
- Frank Ocean ‘Blonded’ Apple Music Station
- John Mayer
- Kendrick Lamar
- Michl
- Ólafur Arnalds
- Tom Misch
- Zak Abel
Yes, music! So much good music this year. I’ve been exploring a lot more on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and more. I’m returning back to a place where I’ve figured out how to plug-in to the music scenes, and I’m loving discovering artists again.
Podcasts (8)
- Invisible City — Jennifer Keesmaat
- Masters of Scale
- Sara Dietschy
- Silicon Valley Beat
- Talking About Design
- The Not Boring Tech Writer — Jacob Moses
- Why’d You Push That Button?
- World of Apps
My podcast game has gone up this year. Voice is becoming increasingly more interesting to me as a medium. Whereas before, I was focused on written word and video, now I’m starting to appreciate having stories on in the background or as I work to bend my mind.
Shows (23)
- American Grit Season 2
- Black Mirror Season 4
- G.L.O.W
- Key & Peele
- Mayweather v. McGregor
- Mindhunter
- Planet of the Apps
- Silicon Valley Season 4
- Star Trek: Discovery
- Stranger Things 2
- Survivor Season 34
- Survivor Season 35
- Survivor Season 36
- The Orville
- The Ultimate Fighter Season 25
- UFC 210
- UFC 212
- UFC 214
- UFC 218
- UFC 219
- UFC Fight Night 108
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 1
- Unscripted: Marshawn Lynch
Sci-fi, Competitions, Fighting, and Netflix Exclusives, this is how I spend my past time. Whereas in past years I was all about the shows, I’m just not as invested in fictional characters as much. Instead, I’m much more interested in a real life, not quite reality tv but in that same realm.
Skills (3)
- Jekyll
- Sketch
- Unity
I started off the year really interested in reworking my portfolio again and VR, hence my Jekyll and Unity skills. I’m still interested in Unity, but I haven’t had the spark in a while.
Thinkers (31)
- Ben Shapiro
- Billy Corgan
- Brendan Schaub
- Bret Weinstein
- Brian Cox
- Chooka Parker
- Conor McGregor
- Donna Carter (Austin)
- Elon Musk
- Emily Calandrelli
- Enrique Peñalosa
- Floyd Mayweather
- Ingo Swann
- Jacqueline Jensen
- Jim Carrey
- Jocko Willink
- Kim Rich
- Lauren Serota
- Lauren Southern
- Milo Yiannopoulos
- Randall Carlson
- Rick Falkvinge
- Richard Feynman
- Sam Harris
- Sebastian Junger
- Stephanie Wade
- Tai Lopez
- Tariq Trotter aka Black Thought
- Tom DeLonge
- Trae Crowder
- Travis Kalanick
This year’s thinkers are some repeats, but I diverged in a major way. I went down the rabbit hole of Conservative personalities trying to figure out other perspectives in the wake of last year’s stunning election. To be honest, I think that the conservatives are really smart people and make some really great points. They’ve caused me to re-evaluate my own views. Surprisingly there’s only two Urbanist on this list.
Travels (6)
- Austin, TX
- San Antonio, TX
- Houston, TX
- Anchorage, AK
- Los Angeles, CA
- Montreal, Canada
This year’s travels were as intense as last year. Whereas last year everything was all new, this year was characterized more by my 2 major moves to Austin for half of the year, and Anchorage for the other half. I’m hoping to do a lot more local trips in 2018.
Quotes
- “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” — Herbert Spencer
- “Science is much more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way to thinking.” — Carl Sagan
- “Most people think they need a better plan or more resources or more experience or better advice, but really what they need is to commit to a schedule and practice.” — James Clear
- “One of the great challenges in life is knowing enough to think you’re right, but not enough to know you’re wrong.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
- “The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you become comfortable.” — Conor McGregor
YouTube (16)
- American Ninja Warrior
- Embedded UFC
- High Resolution
- PowerfulJRE
- Ryukahr
- Sara Dietschy
- SethBling
- Show It Better
- This is Not Happening
- The Fighter and the Kid
- The Rideshare Guy
YouTube is basically my alternative to TV at this point, and I’m okay with that. I’m pretty found of the platform and have seen a ton of great content from creators over the years. YouTube is my education and my entertainment!
This is the 4th year of Stuff!
It’s so interesting to me to see how much data I consume and what it means about how my year shaped up. The biggest change from last year was how many extracurricular events I attended. I think a lot of had to do with my determination to become part of the city I lived in, and with living in 2 cities this year I’ve had to attend a lot of events to do so.
This year’s Annual Photo marks a new point in List of Stuff. Normally, I take the photo in the backyard of my parents house, this year I couldn’t make it back to Texas, so I found a new backyard…Alaska.
I think the pic is pretty symbolic of my year. I was trying to move into place, and slipped right before the camera went off. I stumbled back a few steps but didn’t fall. There was defiantly and interesting slant to this year!
