2022: Year in review

Not a data science post
This year went by way more quickly than I planned. Let’s check it out.
Author

Ryan

Published

December 29, 2022

Resolution score card

I started this year with 3 pretty modest New Year resolutions…

  • 💻Write 12 blog posts
    • Fail - I wrote 4 novel ones if I count this post. Updated a few others while moving this site to Quarto.
  • 🤜Learn how to punch
    • Success? - completed a boxing course with Peloton, though haven’t tested my skills in the real world yet.
  • 📃Go 365 days without watching The Office
    • Fail - I think I made it to March.

I guess I was too ambitious. It’s amazing how fast a year goes by now that I’m approaching middle age. The score card might look bad, but looking back, I think I had a solid, steady state year with no regrets.

Professional

I had a pretty awesome year at work - marketing data science at The LEGO Group. The more time I spend at the company, the more comfortable I’m getting with the organization and I’ve been growing a network of colleagues to collaborate with. The cool thing about The LEGO Group is that we are involved in every part of our supply chain - product design, production, distribution, marketing, selling to stores, and selling to consumers. This means there are so many potential uses for data science at the company and it’s great to see how our work is evolving in real time to meet the business’s needs.

Over the past year, I developed new data science solutions for the LEGO.com e-commerce team and led our trade promotion team in launching a new product for some of our biggest key accounts. Working at The LEGO Group has been everything I wanted from a career in data science. I get to code daily, help lead a team of smart people, and work for one of the coolest companies on the planet.

However, it turns out that when I get to do engaging and exciting work all day long, I don’t have the same desire to do it on my free time. Since joining The LEGO Group, my motivation for side projects and blog posts has plummeted. I do miss this part of my life and will make a stronger effort next year to get excited for the non-LEGO work. My big goal is to rewrite my major internal modeling package using tidymodels and blog about the process.

Side projects

I did manage a few on-brand side projects this year.

In 2023, I hope to finally finish datasaurs 2.0, likely as a Mastodon bot and perhaps begin brickr 2.0.

Personal

Outside of work and my lack of open source coding, I had a pretty great year. Nothing bad happened, so that’s a win.

Gymnastics

In late 2019, I decided to join a gymnastics gym with 0 experience. This year, I competed in a competition! It was incredibly relaxed and I messed up a ton, but I am incredibly proud of myself for this accomplishment.

As seen in the video, I also got my back flip this year!

35th birthday

This one is out of my control and I wish it weren’t the case… but I turned 35 and that’s a nice numerical milestone. We celebrated in the most adult way I can think of… a classy Golden Girls jungle themed party.

Other highlights

  • My dog got kicked out of daycare.
  • Saw an ABBA cover band in January (and Mamma Mia! on the West End in May).
  • Almost 100 hours of Peloton workouts. (Still time to hit 100!)
  • Dropped a can of beans on my toe in November and the nail is still purple.

Looking forward to 2023

Resolutions for 2023:

  • 💻 Write 6 blog posts. (50% the ambition of 2022, but 50% more success).
  • 🦕 Release datasaurs 2.0
  • 🤸 Continue my geriatric gymnastics career and learn giants on the high bar.

Follow me on Mastodon at @ryantimpe@fosstodon.org!