My 2024 Year in Review

I’ve written a “year in review” post for the last fourteen years. I highly recommend you try it. It’s a time capsule that lets you reflect on the past year, appreciate parts of it that were great, and develop a plan for the next year. You can view any of the past 14 years’ posts here: 2010,  2011,  2012,  2013,  2014,  2015,  2016,  2017,  2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

This felt like an in-between year. I didn’t undergo massive personal changes or life-changing injuries (like tearing my ACL in 2022). When I got into a routine I could stick with, I saw progress toward my goals and a massive sense of achievement. There are so many things that can go wrong, but this year things just seemed to go right.

My top themes of the year were personal fitness & health, Hardcover, and house. 🏡

I focused a bunch on personal fitness & health. After spending 2023 in physical therapy, in 2024 I started hitting the gym more (3x a week), working with an online personal trainer, and tracking calories (using the LoseIt app). I ended up losing 20 lbs (170 lbs → 150 lbs)! According to my body composition scale, I put on 10 lbs of muscle too. Having someone online to be accountable to helped keep me on track. Since November, I’ve slowed my pace and put a few pounds back on, but I’m also lifting even heavier at the gym, so some of it should be muscle. A few of my highlights have been hitting 570lbs on leg press, 110lbs on dumbbell bench press and lots of body weight dips (15 reps for each of those) 🤞

On the Hardcover side, a lot happened. We grew from 5k users to 23k. From 40 subscribers to 215. From not profitable to maybe profitable. 🙌 We launched a redesign, updated progress tracking, Letterbooks, reading journals, survived a scrapping attempt, planned advanced stats, acquired another site (which fell through) and so much more. I spent on average 25 hours a week working on Hardcover. We’re planning a big update for January I’ve been working on for the last 3 months.

In September a house went up for sale on my daily walk route in the Avenues of Salt Lake City that made me want to go and see it. It was a somewhat crazy house that we saw with a realtor, but it was both outside our price range and needed too much work. We continued looking, got under contract for one that fell through (“it’s falling in on itself” – our inspector), and eventually found a place we love in November, 2 days after we returned from our trip. We put in an offer, and closed on the house on Friday, December 27, 2024! 🥳 There are a few things to do before we move in, but it’s close to move-in ready.

Having a routine was a key part of this year’s enjoyment. Since leaving my job 6 years ago, I’ve tried lots of different schedules. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. My routine this year has revolved around a few keystone habits: Gym (6-8 am, MWF), Peloton (8 am, TR), run (R), allergy shots (M), errands (M), Hardcover Live (W), Date day (R), Takeout date night (F), gaming with kids (Sun), Video Chat with friends (W).

I’ve identified many things I want to learn and dedicated quite hours to them. These include deploying websites using Kubernetes, Tensorflow & related machine learning techniques, React Native for mobile development and automating workflows using Make and AI. To my surprise, the technologies I learned the most about ended up being Inertia.js and Kamal – two pieces I’m using right now for the Hardcover migration from Google Cloud and Heroku to Digital Ocean. I wouldn’t call myself an expert in any of these, but I’ll continue learning as I go.

Even good years have down notes. We said goodbye to 3 more friends who moved away from Salt Lake City. I spent too much time on TikTok and Reddit, which meant less reading or learning. I was constantly stressed out about Hardcover. Trying to grow it, fix bugs, and keep plates spinning while trying to enjoy learning has been stressful. I felt disorganized for much of this year – likely a byproduct of misaligned priorities. Someone was elected who I don’t support (putting it mildly here).

The 2024 US Presidential election topped the news. Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies. The Paris Summer Olympics gave us breakdancing.

My 2024 Month By Month

A few years ago, I started doing a monthly breakdown. I love being able to look back and see what I thought was most important each month.

January: Sundance Film Festival, Jazz Game.

February: Apple Vision Pro, Superbowl with friends, Broadway Rave, Comedy Church, our 18-year anniversary, Dune 2.

March: Oscar Party, trip planning, librarian updates on Hardcover.

April: South Korea for two weeks during cherry blossom season! Started working out with an online personal trainer. Ski & Snowboard lesson with Marilyn.

May: Hardcover redesign and Letterbooks. Metric concert. My 42nd birthday! Started allergy shots. Saw Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, Belle and Sebastian and TV Girl at the Kilby Block Party Concert. Furiosa. Eurovision.

June: Fortuna Family reunion! Friends moving away from SLC.

July: Deadpool & Wolverine. Pie and Beer day. Jewel and Melissa Etheridge concert at Red Butte Garden. Paris Summer Olympics. Retro games tournament for friends birthday party.

August: Marilyns Birthday vinyl, tacos and dinner with Marilyn. Paint night with Marilyn. Pink Martini Concert at Red Butte Garden. SLC Soccer game.

September: Utah JS Conference, Atsuko Okasuka comedy show, Eat Drink SLC, house hunting, researching SBLOC loans, Fanx Convention.

October: Offer on the house (didn’t go through), trip to Barcelona, then cruise to Portugal and Morocco.

November: Election, accepted offer on house, Outlander, Hardcover migration, Kevin Smith, Thanksgiving day parade with mimosas and dinner with friends.

December: Dragonsteel convention, cozy Christmas, dinner and Christmas windows at The Grand America, white elephant exchange, closed on the house! 🥳

Yearly Favorites

Favorite Spot I Visited: Seoul in South Korea! We spent two weeks exploring the city, going to different districts and getting a feel of the city. The older I get, the more I enjoy going deep in a specific area rather than exploring a wide range. I’d like to go back again and spend time in Busan, Jeju and even more time in Seoul.

Favorite Meal: We went on a Seoul food tour, which was easily the best food I’ve ever been on. We were guided through more than a dozen stops, trying dishes featured on Netflix and the best friend chicken I’ve ever had. Marilyn and I had a romantic, fancy dinner at Table X for our 18-year anniversary.

Favorite Video Game I played: This year I didn’t play as many games as past years. I spent more time with my old favorites rather than start new ones. That included Stardew Valley 1.6, replaying Hollow Knight, and Overcooked.

Favorite Board Game I played: Terra Mystica was a fun new one I played with friends and then started playing on Steam. Marilyn and I played a TON of Wyrmspan – the successor to Wingspan. I might even say I prefer to Wingspan. 🫢

Favorite Concert: Jewel and Melissa Etheridge was great. Metric was fun.

Favorite Live Event: Going to Marilyns first Utah Jazz game, Chris Harwick’s comedy show, watching Eurovision live, Kevin Smith Live.

Favorite Hike: During our trip to Seoul, we had one of the most amazing and memorable hikes I’ve ever been on. Led by a folklore professor who moved from Canada to South Korea, we visited shamanic sites, ancient ramparts, and Buddhist temples while listening to mythic stories before enjoying a delicious post-hike meal together with some Mogui.

Favorite Movies: My 5⭐ movies for this year include Dune 2, It’s What’s Inside, Your Monster, Furiosa, and Monkey Man.

Favorite Shows: House of the Dragon, Shogun, Fallout, Three Body Problem (the Netflix US one), X-Men ’97, True Detective: Night Country, Fargo S5, Silo, Outlander, Dark Matter, Dune Prophecy, Shogun.

Favorite Podcasts: I’ve mostly stopped listening to podcasts and switched to audiobooks. Search Engine is one of the only ones I’m currently on.

Favorite Books: Reread The Three-Body Problem Trilogy (+ the 4th book by another author), all of the Berserk Manga, Monstress, Before We Say Goodbye (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #4), Lessons In Chemistry, The Creative Act, Convenience Store Woman, Iron Widow, The Tainted Cup, Funny Story, Starter Villain, Invincible (the comic), the entire A Court of Thorns and Roses series. 😂 See all of my favorites here.

Favorite new programming discovery: Kamal for deploying Rails apps has given me the confidence to move off Heroku finally. That opens up a ton of possibilities for where and what I can host.

Favorite Project: Hardcover, of course. 🙂

Favorite Course or Education Experience: Learning Kubernetes was fun, but the courses weren’t the best. I enjoyed some random Youtube videos to better understand python data science which were more helpful than courses I’ve tried to take that focus so much on math and not on how to use Python to solve them.

Noteworthy Changes this Year

There are many things I started this year where the payoff will be in 2025: Hardcover migration, allergy shots, and buying a home. It’s felt like I worked a lot on things this year to have an even better 2025. Fortunately, the work was enjoyable.

There were some times this year when my stress level peaked higher than it has in the past few years. It’s sometimes tough to know if it’s because I’m pushing myself too hard, or just taking on hard challenges. I’d like to write and journal more in 2025, which will help relieve some of the pressure.

How’d I Do On My 2023 Resolutions?

✅ Get a dog! – I started getting allergy shots in April, finished them in October, and now only need to get one a month for maintenance. With the move coming up, we decided to hold off on bringing in a new family member until we’re settled in the new place. I’ll still consider this as “done” as we did what we wanted – which is prepare for it.

✅ Traveling to South Korea! – The two-week trip was so much fun! Food tours, hikes, cafes, temples, cocktails, shopping and sooo much good food.

✅ Hardcover is growing! – We grew from 5k members to 22.5k in a year, which is amazing. If we 4x our pace again in 2025, we’ll hit 100k members. 😱

✅ Make fitness fun – I very much enjoyed going for walks after lunch, and even going to the gym earlier by getting up at 6 am. I thought I was done waking up early when I didn’t have to, but it’s been nice.

🤷 Balance consumption, creation and movement – I balanced movement. 😅 But then spent way too much time on Reddit and TikTok this year. When Reddit starts telling you your streak is 75 days maybe that’s a good indicator that you’re on there too much.

✅ Plan for fun – We reserved Thursdays for dates most of this year. It was great having a dedicated day for that to put down work and focus on just having fun and being tourists in our own city. We fell of that schedule in November, but want to pick it up again.

Overall I’m happy with these goals and the progress for the year. They weren’t as specific as some year’s goals, but when I think about the gains I made in each area, they feel right.

What’s Next for 2025?

I wrote many parts of this post ahead of time, but I waited until the beginning of 2025 to write this section. Some years, I set a theme for the year.

For 2025, I’ve decided on one thing that inspires me: Now. It’s about not overthinking and overplanning and just making progress now. Done is better than perfect. Routines form because you take repeated action, not because you plan them perfectly. That’s the mindset I’m trying to instill into my brain.

It doesn’t mean that I can’t also relax, read, spend time on social media and even bed rot occasionally. But at those times when I’m relaxing and wondering, “Should I do X?” The answer is yes; if I’m wondering that, then I should do it. I trust myself to use this to spur action while giving space for relaxation.

Create a Hygge Home – Hygge is a Danish and Norwegian word that describes a feeling of contentment and coziness. That’s the feeling I’m hoping to create in the new place. I want to feel relaxed, warm, and not cluttered.

Play lots of games (board and video) – I love playing board games. In college one of the first websites I created with a Settlers of Catan League for my friends and I to track our gaming. With the new house, I’m most excited about hanging out with friends more and playing games (and playing them together with Marilyn). We even ordered a Dresden Gaming Table for the house that I can’t wait to try! My focus will be on playing games I already own to start before getting new ones. 😅

Welcome a dog – Once we’re settled, we’re excited to welcome a dog into our lives. I’ve been spending time with friends dogs and confirmed that I don’t die, which is a good sign. 😂

Write at least one post here a month – Writing helps me relieve anxiety. The downside is having another task can cause anxiety. Rather than trying to focus on writing something world-changing, I’d like to just write something. Even if it’s just a life update.

Work on a side project (tech-specific) – As much as I love Hardcover, I want to have at least one other project to work on. There’s something that happens when you can toggle between projects that results in both of them being better because of it. This past year I, focused almost exclusively on Hardcover. I have a few ideas for this, but I still need to narrow it down. It’ll probably be one of these (or all 😅): Line of Thought journal (iOS app), adamfortuna.com migration from Next.js to Astro, Raspberry pi connected to lights. The last one is an idea in my head to create a data visualization with a hundred square lights that can both react to sound or set it to different modes (relaxing, active, etc). Still more planning, but like the idea.

Continue learning Japanese – I’m putting this one here one more time this year. I’ve started thinking about going on a work trip to Japan in 2026 for a month – maybe even with my cofounder Ste for part of it! It wouldn’t be a tourism-focused trip, but more work and routine focused in a new environment. Having this trip in my mind inspires me to learn more.

Continue enjoying fitness – I was more focused on this than usual for 6 months of 2024 while working with a trainer. I found that fun, but it was also emotionally taxing to track everything I ate and workout 6 times a week. After that experience, eating mostly healthy and working out 4-5 times a week feels like a vacation. 😂 I want to continue doing that, while mixing things up so I keep having fun. I’m excited that we’ll have a park a block away from us that I can run at too! I’ll likely start running more just from the proximity there. There’s another gym within walking distance that has Olympic lifting platforms. I’d to to get back into that if it works out, but if not I’ll find other ways to have fun.

Grow Hardcover to ramen profitability – This is a bit of a scary one. 😅 Hardcover made $1,274 in December, which is amazing. My dream it to continue working on this project for many years, but for that to happen we’ll need to be able to support our lifestyle with it. Fortunately, our expenses are low, so it doesn’t need to generate much income. My dream is to be able to live a life supported by side projects that I love working on. I already love working on Hardcover, and if I can turn it into my source of income, that would be a dream come true. 🥳

Thanks for Reading

Whew, that was a lot. 2600 words, a lot. 😂 Thanks for reading, and have a great 2025!