42: The answer to the universe

Yesterday I celebrated my 42nd birthday. I have to say, I’m both excited and a little concerned for what the next year may hold. Mainly because the past year has been pretty much insane. Let’s recap:

Business

What started out as a 3 person partnership went down to 2 at the beginning of 2011. Then, in early 2012 that went down to 1. I’m now the sole owner of 9seeds. I’m thrilled to say that I was able to lose two partners but keep both as friends. Their friendship means way more to me then having them be part of the company.

You might think that having 2 partners leave means that things aren’t going so well. Well, you’d be wrong. We just wrapped up one of our best months in our nearly 3 year history, and July is already shaping up to be better than June. So on the business side, things are good and the next year looks to be a big one for us.

Aside from just my own business, I have also had a lot of involvement with two groups looking to change the outsider’s perception of Las Vegas. VegasTech is a group of technology enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. Downtown Project is a group of passionate people looking to revitalize downtown Las Vegas in new and unexpected ways. After only a year there are already signs that big changes are on the way. I’m positive that what you seen in downtown Vegas 18-24 months from now is going to knock your socks off.

Personal

On January 10th, I did two things I had never done before. The first was something I had been wanting to do for a while. I gave a presentation at an Ignite event. For whatever reason, the shorter and more structured format for the talk made it really interesting to prepare for. I had an absolute blast.

What I didn’t know was also going to happen that day was that my tastes in certain foods was about to change. After Ignite, a group of us walked across the street to a little restaurant called Le Thai. If you had asked me earlier that day if I liked Thai food, I would have said no. But, we went and I really liked it. The spice level I chose (level 1) was a little outside of my comfort zone. The next time I went I ordered the same meal but with a zero spice level and realized I didn’t like it as much. I’ve switched back to level 1 and have probably eaten at Le Thai 20 more times since then.

The other big food/drink related change worth noting is my recently acquired interest in addiction to coffee related drinks. Blended Vanilla Mocha or Caramel Macchiato, neither of these would have ever been something I would have seen myself ordering. But, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have at least one of these each of the past 3 or 4 days. I haven’t gotten to the point of just ordering a cup of black coffee yet. But something tells me it’s probably not far off at this point.

Throw in my recent switch to ordering ‘mild’ rather than ‘plain’ chicken fingers and I think you can see that it’s been a pretty weird year. More than once I’ve been asked “Who are you and what have you done with John?”

What to do while 42

I’m not usually somebody who sets goals or plans things too far in the future. But, for the past year or so I have had a fun little idea in the back of my head. You see, I’ve pretty much been a geek my entire life. I bought my first computer (with my own money, mind you) when I was about 10. Around that same time I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for the first time. I’ve since read the book a couple more times, but, something I have never done is read the entire series. So I figured, when better to read the entire series than while I’m 42? Nerdy? Absolutely. But it sounds like fun to me. And if you don’t get the reference, please go read the first book in the series.

Since I probably should do more than just read a handful of books over the course of the year, I’m also going to devote some time each week to sharpening my dev skills. Currently my focus is on JavaScript. There have been far too many times where I have put off building projects simply because I don’t know the JavaScript needed to make them successful. No more. This year I WILL learn how to use JavaScript to do the things I need.

I’ll set a reminder to write an update post each quarter to report back on how things are going with both projects.