2023 Recap

2023 was a pretty cool year overall for me. Started off shit, definitely took my lumps, but I feel really good at where I ended up with in the end.

Feels like it's been a consistent arc in my life, which I'm grateful for. Whenever I've taken a step back in life, I manage to find a way to take a few steps forward.

At the same time, let's not pretend like this years been all sunshines and rainbows. Let's jump in here.

Winter

As I alluded to in the intro, the start of the year kinda sucked.

First week into the new year, and I found myself sick with covid, and let go from my job.

I had managed to survive the first round of 30% layoffs that Clearco had, but as the second round claimed it's ~100 victims, I was among the culling of the herd. The company had shrunk it's operations down to servicing exisiting customers, and had decided to freeze a ton of the outbound work that I had been focused on automating. It was a bit of poor timing because I had just started some really interesting initiatives with the advent of ChatGPT. If I was able to continue, I think we could have created some really interesting and creative ways of reaching customers with personalized insights at scale.

The layoff turned out to be a great forcing function. If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I'm perfectly content to remain in a place where I'm "happy enough" - I need substantial activation energy to move towards things I want, or away from things I dislike. I was never someone too interested in sales, but the technological challenges I could play around with that were adjacent to the space was mentally stimulating enough that I stuck around - but it was never somewhere I loved being. With this "decent" role pulled out from under me, I could start to play around with alternative career ideas.

I took a bit of time to just unwind - I was given a generous severance, and I was a 20-something year old with no major debts to speak of. Looking back at this time period, I wish I had taken a bit of time to travel - instead, I mostly just read a lot of books, and lifted a lot of weights. I managed to get my bench up to 315, my squat to 445, and my deadlift to 500 during this time period - all from the grungy little basement home gym I had constructed.

Reading was a big part of my year this year - my rate surpassed more than a book a week. For the first half of the year, I was probably on pace to more than double it.

I fell back in love with reading fiction novels, which was something I had fallen out of touch with in university. When I was in school, my reading materials were dominated by psychology and economics; with self help and biographies. But this year I fell back in love with stories of the wild west, of robots and aliens, of love stories and mysteries. I gave myself the time to remember that reading can be entertainment; it doesn't just have to be the consumption of facts for a purpose. I'll try to write a bit more of a recap of my books of the year in another post.

Spring

With the advent of spring, came the return of rugby.

I went on my first rugby tour with the "old boys" of my local team - a sure sign that time was beginning to catch up to me. We planned a trip down to Nashville, where rugby came as a secondary pursuit, and drinking was the main attraction.

I managed to escape one of the nights of drinking through pure fortunate circumstances - an overbooked flight. In the Pearson airport, I had arrived a few hours early alongside a few of the other rugby players, and we had snuck ourselves into the lounge. After a couple hours of free beers, we decided to head down to the gate to board the plane. When we arrived, we were greeted by a gate attendant making an announcement over the intercom:

"We are now offering $1800 and a seat on a flight in 4 hours if you give up your seat."

I looked at the other guys, shrugged, and told them that I'd see them later in the evening because I was going to be taking that money. As an unemployed man with the prospect of a fairly pricey weekend in Nashville, this was too good an offer to pass up. I waved farewell to the boys as they left on the flight, then settled into a comfy chair and started a new book. Eventually it came time to board my new flight, an indirect flight through Newark.

The first leg of the flight was uneventful. But as the second leg took off from Newark to Nashville, we encountered storms and turbulence. We were caught in a holding pattern for an hour, before being diverted to Atlanta. Here, we stayed on the tarmac until almost 2am when we were finally able to fly back to Nashville. I stumbled into the hotel at 4am, and proceeded to pass out.

The rest of the weekend was enjoyable - spent playing some rugby with some great buddies, and then drinking on rooftop patios with the boys - all in coordinated outfits of course.

Returning from Nashville, I was still was struggling with figuring out where I wanted to go career-wise, so I thought of another opportunity that I had neglected previously, which was the chance to play for the Toronto Arrows, which was Canada's only profession rugby team. I had played in their development side for 3 or 4 years up until this point, but had always had an excuse why I didn't want to make the jump to the pro team. Part of it was the fact that I was only somewhat decent at rugby (most of the player on the team were far more polished players), and part of it was I had always had other career/educational opportunities that had gotten in the way.

Now unemployed and realizing this might be my last chance to say I was a professional rugby player, I reached out to the coaches. They were receptive to the idea, but ultimately communication fell through for about a month.

During this month, I picked up a different variant of the sport, Rugby League, at the behest of a good friend who had played for a few years. The team I joined, the Brantford Broncos, was by far the strongest in the league. We enjoyed a brief 3 game season that saw us beat the Toronto Saints, and the Brampton Beavers, and then the Beavers again to win the provincial title. Rugby League felt more like the game I was built for - lots of room for just running straight and hard with the ball, and less strictness when it came to tackle height. By the end of the season, I had been invited to be part of the Canada East squad that would head to BC in the summer for a Team Canada rugby camp.

While the Broncos season wound down, I found the Arrows coaching staff reconnecting with me. They had a few key injuries in the positions that I played, and were looking to build out their depth in those areas. The pay was a pittance compared to what I had been making, and what I could make picking up another corporate job, but I wasn't ready to go back to the office life yet - so I accepted the offer.

That sparked a two month period of me waking up at 5am, taking a 2.5 hour train into Toronto, attending workouts, training, and meetings from 9-2, then taking another 2.5 hour train home. If I actually do the math on how much the travel cost me, I was probably making about $5 an hour - but hey - that's "professional rugby" for you. During this period I was mostly a tackle dummy; a body for the starters to run against. I was also woefully underconditioned since I was coming into the season in week 12, whereas these guys had been running almost every day for 3 months straight already. A couple games I was named as the injury replacement - the 24th man - but those injuries never materialized, so I never played in the games.

Finally, in the last week of the season, I got the news that I would be making the roster. It was against New Orleans, and honestly, it wasn't a game that mattered to either team - both teams were out of the playoff picture at that point. But around the 60th minute, I officially made my pro rugby debut - Arrow #106. I'd love to tell you that I was a massive star, but that wouldn't be true. I had a couple carries, made a 5 or 6 hits, and managed not to completely mess things up, which is good all things considered.

After the adrenaline of the game wore off however, I realized that my shoulder was killing me. I got it checked with the trainers, and got told that I'd likely messed up my AC Joint a bit. The only cure was to rest.

Summer

Unfortunately for my shoulder, that break from rugby was short lived.

Less than a week after finishing with the Arrows, I was on a plane to Vancouver to attend the Canada Rugby League camp. The camp itself was decent, but the location was stellar - I will forever regret not thinking more about attending school at UBC. The campus was just amazing to walk through. The dorms we stayed in were right across a road from a set of stairs that led down to a beautiful beach (which we quickly learned was a nudist beach, by the leathered old men roaming everywhere).

Going back to the rugby, the camp culminated in an East vs. West match. I can only describe the match as the weakest game of rugby I've ever played in my life. My shoulder was killing me, I couldn't hold onto the ball to save my life, and every hit I made (which wasn't many) set a jolt of pain down my arm. We lost badly to the West team, and I felt incredibly disappointed in myself afterwards. I felt like I had just killed any chances of making a Canadian national team - and to be fair, I might have.

The silver lining was the coaches of the Canada East team were also the newly named coaches of the Toronto Wolfpack. Without going into too many details, the Wolfpack was the first attempt at bringing professional rugby league to North America. The previous owner had bankrolled the team for millions in order to get them playing in the English professional leagues. The team had been sold during the pandemic, and now the new owners were trying to restart the team in the North American market.

I was offered a contract to play for the new team, and the season would run roughly the rest of the duration of the summer. The time commitment was low, and the pay was pretty decent, all things considered. It would allow me to continue delaying my return to the corporate world. I signed the contract, alongside many of the players from both the East and West squads.

Before the season started, and while I was still on the west coast, I elected to visit my friend Nik in Seattle and my brother John who was living in Los Angeles. I hopped on a bus from Vancouver to Seattle, and met up with Nik.

I was only in town for 4 days, but boy, did we ever fit a lot into those days. We went paddle boarding in the Seattle Harbour, swimming in the ocean, woke up at 2am (two days in a row) to drive down to Mount Rainier to hike, watched the fourth of July fireworks, caught our breath in the botanical gardens, and filled our bellies with some of the finest food Seattle has to offer.

Mount Rainier has got to be one of my favourite places on earth. Every hike we did (and we did 7 or 8) had a unique flavour, and breathtaking views. Whether it was climbing in complete darkness save for our headlamps up to a cliff edge that dropped away hundreds of feet, or trekking through glacial meadows under the watchful eye of marmots, Rainier just kept revealing new ways to show it's beauty. As long as Nik lives out there, I'll keep finding excuses to visit.

After those whirlwind days, I hopped on a plane down to Southern California to visit my brother. After landing, I grabbed my rental car - a Toyota 4Runner - which inexplicably was the cheapest car option I could find. I navigated the narrow streets of LA with probably the highest car I've ever driven, and eventually made it to John's apartment and parallel parked the whale of a vehicle on the first try - not bad!

John lived in a little studio apartment a few blocks away from the beach in Santa Monica. It was a nice little spot - roomy little studio, with an espresso maker that took up the majority of the limited counterspace. I dropped my bags, grabbed a blanket and passed out on the couch.

The next day, John and I explored around Santa Monica - we grabbed a lunch at a Mexican spot that he had grown to love, then went down to the beach. We walked along the beach from Santa Monica down to Venice Beach, soaking in the sun and the shops and stalls selling their cheap souvenir trinkets. We stopped to watch some buskers perform, cheering as they flipped over members of the audience.

The next morning, we headed out to Joshua Tree. John had seen that there were some cheap rentals out that way (it was July after all), so we figured we could have some fun exploring the desert at dusk/night. As we drove away from the coast, we entered a foreign world compared to my Canadian roots. The lush coast gave way towards barren rocky hills, with Joshua trees and cacti spotting the landscape. Stopping at a burger spot for lunch, we were immediately blasted with heat as we left the car. The air was dry and the sun intense.

After driving for another hour, we arrived at our AirBnb, a small bungalow tastefully decorated in southern desert style. The airconditioning was a godsend in the desert, and this house became our oasis during the daylight hours for the next couple days. We'd spend the time reading, doing puzzles and cooking while waiting for night to fall.

As the sun grew low in the sky, we would drive into the park and clamber over rocks to find a vantage point for the sunset, and then as the night wore on, the stars. If you've never witnessed the stars on a clear desert evening, you're missing out. It's one of those moments where you realize how truly small we all are.

After a few days in the desert, a lot of photos, and one puzzle completed, we headed back to LA. John had work he needed to do, and I wanted to go explore the Sequoia trees that California is so famous for.

The next day I awoke at 4:30am to do a sunrise hike to get a viewpoint above the city of LA. Honestly, it was a bad decision. As the first person on a fairly unkempt trail, in the complete darkness save for the weak headlamp I had, I learned of southern California's thriving spider population. Every 20 steps or so on the trail, I encountered a spider web woven at head height across the trail, with a meaty spider hanging somewhere on the edge. Cursing, ducking and dodging I made my way up the mountain in the complete darkness and isolation.

When I made it to the top, the views were fine, but nothing spectacular. You could see the sea, and the sun rising in the east over the towers of downtown LA in the distance. It was still before 6, so I hurried down the path and jumped back in my car, and headed north towards Sequoia National Forest.

The drive was 3 or 4 hours, through much of California's most fertile regions. I drove along a highway with orchards and farms whirring by, and rose bushes as a median in between the highway. Eventually, the farms gave way to hilly ranches, and then to forests. When I had left my first hike, I had just put in the first datapoint that showed up for "Seqouia National Forest' in the GPS when I searched. Now, as I approached the destination - I became confused - there was no clear indication of a park enterance, or any reason why this swath of land should be marked on a GPS. The spot marked came and went, and all of a sudden I was deep into a forest, where I didn't have any cell service.

The road slowly turned from pavement, to gravel, to a one-way loose dirt road winding around hills. I became very thankful for the choice to get a full sized SUV, but I worried about what would happen if I encountered a car going the other way. It would be difficult for both of us to pass each other on such a narrow road, on a steep hill. I eventually came to a clearing, where I got out of the car and looked around. In this clearing, I also got the slightest bit of service, and was able to load a map and determine where I was. I was on a nearly unmarked logging road, and I had probably an hour or two more of winding roads to go if I wanted to take that path, or I could turn around, and make it back to the main road in 20. I chose the latter.

Back on the asphalt again, I stopped at a small group of houses that had a forest information sign beside the road. Here, I was able to get a better map, and figure the path to the forest that I wanted to get to. I backtracked along the road, and turned down a winding mountain road. I was transported through fire torn sections of forest, over mountains and through desnely treed valleys. At one point I made a stop at a random stream I saw. At another I watched as an eagle flew through the air with a snake in its talons.

Eventually I meandered my way to the Trail of the Hundred Giants, a section of trees that were among the biggest and most famous at the park. The trees were incredible to witness - the sheer scale is hard to capture without being there in person. The immersion was broken only by the sounds of chainsaws in the surrounding forest - much of the area surrounding these giants had been ravaged by wildfires, and loggers were removing the charred remains of the trees' neighbourhood.

I stopped again as I left the park by the Kern River, where I sat on a rock next to the river and read for a while. After a few hours, I got back up again, and continued on my drive. I stopped at a gas station for a sandwich and a souvenir tee, then made the long trek back to Los Angeles. Along the way I saw a wildfire being fought in the grasslands, which shut down the highway in the opposite direction for miles and miles. I thanked god that I wasn't headed that direction, as I'm sure they were stuck in that traffic for hours.

I spent a couple more days in LA after that, before saying farewell to John, and heading back to Canada.

The rest of the summer was mostly dictated by Rugby. The Toronto Wolfpack started up, and I played most weekends for them, and whenever there wasn't a Wolfpack game, there was sure to be a game with the local Waterloo team. The competition at the Wolfpack was pretty lacklustre, we won our matches generally by 50+ points. Can't complain too much, since we got paid extra for a win. Again, while I wasn't making a ton, I was making enough that my bank account wasn't depleting at an unsustainable pace. Life was pretty good.

Autumn

As Autumn rolled around, I made the decision to start to look for work again. The Wolfpack was set to run until the middle of October, so I had a few weeks to find a job.

As I waded through the Linkedin job openings, one caught my eye - a senior technical product manager at a company called vidIQ. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I am not at the calibre of being a senior technical PM. But the role seemed too cool not to throw an application in for. They were in the business of building AI tools for YouTubers, and they were the biggest platform for creators. With my background in photo and video work, and building AI tools at Clearco, I hoped I would at least pique the interest of the recruiters.

Luckily, I was correct. Over the following weeks, I had gone through interviews with a recruiter, the head of product, an engineering manager, the CEO, and then the head of product again. At the end of the process, I was given good (ish) news - I was being offered a 4 month contract as a product consultant, as a bit of a "proving period", since I didn't necessarily have the pedigree that the initial job posting had required.

So at the beginning of October, I dove headfirst into this new job. I can tell you it's a lot easier to jump into a job when every day you're having fun. A month into my four month contract, I was offered a fulltime position, which was an exciting development for me!

And that pretty much brings us to where we are today. I've been here for 3 months, and loving every day. Super excited to see where this job takes me in the next year!