If you believe the Internet, we’re firmly in the Year of the Metal Rat. Few things are looking more metal right now than Doom Eternal, a game I’m ridiculously interested in do to the fun, core elements the previous provided. 2019 proved difficult even for the aspirations of a mere mortal. I fell short in every metric I through out to the public. Games, a mere 11 of 15 digital endeavors were conquered. Books faired better despite the best efforts of the tome that is The Tin Drum. A decent showing at 19 of 22 dead tree escapes. Careerwise, it was a great year, but the metric sent to the webizens was one of a double century of badges for my Trailhead account. So much for making my goals public to push me to the challenge of 200 badges.
Gaming
I’m doing it, folks. I am going to return to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt after losing my progress to the pre-cloud save doom of GOG.com. It’s okay, I will overcome my hatred of replying, especially since I play on hard, by spamming through the early story parts. There’s also ye ol Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest that I still need to finish. I did find an awesome franchise to fill my mobile dearth through most of 2019. Bloons TD 6 will continue to soak up my time for the foreseeable future. A JRPG or Shenmue 3 deserves an attempt in addition to a random older jam such as wrapping Super Mario Galaxy 2 or Metroid: Samus Returns. It’s including lengthy genres like an RPG and JRPG and my penchant for playing on try hard difficulties only that have me leveling my #2020gaming goal to a paltry 12.
Reading
Frankly, I purchased way too many books from my local bookstore in 2019 and could easily spend all of 2020 getting through those. The Year of the Rat will see me continue my typical rotation of a classic, business or professional development, a recommended item, and something purely popcorn. Thus, a good collection of those new books will likely remain on the shelf for another year. Too much popcorn to work through. Here’s hoping I can resist further purchases that will simply be shelved. Don’t hold your breath. I’ve no plans to read some of the incredibly thick tomes I read last year so my Reading Challenge remains at 22 dead trees and e-ink.
Professional
This is the goal I swung and whiffed on that puts me up there with Aaron Judge. I hoped to have reached the double Trailblazer of 200 badges and came incredibly short. It was an aggressive goal and didn’t take into account additional celebratory options, such as another Salesforce accreditation and SAFe certification. All things considered for 2020, I’m going to stick with the 200 badge goal that I had in 2019. That’s a non-trivial 40 badges to get under my belt, of which, I’ve done none so far this year.