Well, 2021 is nearly completed and I wanted to get a post in before that happened. While looking at my blog, I realized that the last post was over 10 months ago, which is simply too long between posts. A lot happened this year, so I wanted to take the time to write about it as a stream-of-consciousness. Before diving into the numbers that made 2021 significant for me, I wanted to take a moment to a bit about my mental health and its impact on my physical health over the past year.

I struggled for much of the year: I worked too much, I socialized too little, I ate poorly, and I got little exercise. These factors combined to put me in a poor state for much of the first half of the year. My physical health deteriorated: my Crohn’s disease became unmanaged, I became lethargic, and I periodically came to feel depressed about my physical condition. These factors led a to spiraling effect, one where negative emotions manifested as negative physical sensations which led to negative emotions. Around the middle of the summer, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I decided that I had had enough and that I needed to find a way to improve my situation.

In the past, I have had little success in taking big shots with regards to my health. Therefore, I decided that I needed to start small. I needed to find something that would allow me to make incremental, measurable progress. The measurable bit is key; I needed quick checks to reinforce (or redirect) my efforts quickly to keep me motivated.

It was a stroke of luck that, when my wife and I were looking at a bookstore in San Luis Obispo, CA, I came across the book Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligmann. This book opened my eyes to the field of Positive Psychology, which helped me to realize that how I responded to setbacks (incl. physical and mental health issues) could be modified so as to lessen, and in some cases remove, the negative emotional and physical consequences of those setbacks. The insights I gained from this book helped me to realize the power of the mind in overcoming obstacles. Fast-forward 5 months: I am seeing a psychologist regularly to build upon the skills presented in the book and I have seen significant improvement in my emotional, mental, and physical health.

I will close out this introduction with what I hope will be an inspiring statement: If you are suffering with mental, emotional, and/or physical health issues, I honestly believe that there is a way for you to resolve them. After years of struggling, watching my health deteriorate, I have found strategies to improve my outlook on life. These strategies did not require a huge shift in perspective. Rather, I have made multiple small course corrections and was able to modify along the way towards improvement.

Now, onto my 2021 retrospective:

2021, from greatest to least (numerically speaking)

30 books read

The link above will take you to my 2021 challenge on goodreads. Here are some highlights:

Most inspiring - Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, by Martin Seligmann

Though I previously called out Authentic Happiness by the same author, I found the strategies discussed in Learned Optimism had more evidentiary basis and were, in general, more straightforward to adopt in everyday scenarios. I really liked the fact that this is book you can work through: there were frequent “tests” you could take, and how to evaluate your results was made explicitly clear. For example, through my test scores regarding negative and positive events and my responses to them, I realized I have a very pessimistic explanatory style. The book helped me to recognize this, and also to identify how I can shift my perspective to not see setbacks so negatively.

Favorite fiction - Xenogenesis trilogy, by Octavia E. Butler

These books were spectacularly imaginative. I love Octavia E. Butler’s perspective on Sci-Fi; the themes of reproductive rights and sexual violence demonstrated throughout the post-fallout interactions of human society with extraterrestrial creatures were so fun to explore. The extraterrestrial civilization, the Oankali, were so interesting. Their ships were living sentient beings!

Favorite nonfiction (non-technical) - The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, by Gregory Zuckerman

Jim Simons is such an interesting figure in American finance. He was an academic mathematician who saw opportunity and order where others see chaotic fluctuations. This book expounds on his and his collaborators’ journey to build the most successful hedge fund ever, the Medallion Fund. I also appreciate that the Medallion Fund is run for the benefit of employees of Renaissance Technologies (the firm that manages the Medallion Fund). Dr. Simons has left an incredible legacy, all while flying under-the-radar for much of his professional life. This is probably due mostly to his shying away from the spotlight. One glaring hole in this book is the lack of participation by its subject; Jim Simons does not give public interviews, even for this book apparently.

Favorite technical - Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A Mathematical Drama in Five Acts, by Tristan Needham

I can’t say enough about this book. I loved it. I’m counting it as a complete read, though I’ve yet to tackle the fifth “act”. The first four acts of the book are self-contained. I was able to gain significant insights about the fundamental concepts of differential geometry: metrics, curvature, and parallelism. I struggled with the concepts of differential geometry in all other settings. In graduate school, I failed to grasp the fundamental concepts through all of the terminology and formality of the material being presented. Dr. Needham’s book is the first time I have every really understood the material through the historical progression of its application to relevant problems in physics. This is not a mathematically rigorous book; many of the proofs are “hand-wavy”, at best. This lack of rigor is part of what I find so excellent about the book as it makes the material more accessible to a broader audience. I feel like I know have the requisite background to take a deeper dive into the more mathematically precise material or, more likely, more physics-focused presentations of the material (like Schutz’s Geometrical Methods of Mathematical Physics).

10 years of marriage

My wife, Jessica, and I celebrated 10 years of marriage this past June/July. Our marriage story is somewhat unique in that we have two anniversaries: we were legally married in Pima County Superior Court on June 24, 2011 in a small, family-only ceremony while the one we actually celebrate is one week later (July 2nd) when we were informally wed on the beach in Los Cabos, Mexico whilst among our family and friends. We made a trip up the coast to Arroyo Grande in this absolutely beautiful suite adjoining the owner’s own home. Arroyo Grande is such an idyllic place for us. It is close to beaches (Morro Bay and Pismo Beach), there is a college town nearby (San Luis Obispo), and there are lots of interesting and fun things to do. We tried goat yoga for the first time, and it was an interesting experience.

Despite all the negative physical stuff I was going through at the time, I’m really glad that we ended up going. This trip provided the time and space for us to get out and celebrate what is, in my mind, a very remarkable milestone in our relationship. I love my wife very much and look forward to every day we get to spend together, whether it is a milestone or not.

5 completed Coursera courses

Coming from a mathematical background, as opposed to a more traditional computer science background, has put me at a disadvantage in some software engineering concepts. This year, I decided to gain more familiarity with the basics of algorithm design and data structures for computer programming by taking 5 (out of the 6) courses in the Data Structures and Algorithms Specialization on Coursera. The quality of the material relative to the cost of completion is considerably higher than other alternatives that I evaluated (e.g. similar courses on Udemy). There was a nice balance of theory and practice, and I particularly liked that a lot of consideration for corner-cases was made. My favority course in the sequence was Algorithms on Graphs. As a roboticist, these algorithms dealt most closely with planning problems that I encounter frequently. I opted not to take the capstone course to complete the full specialization, as the material based on genetics was not particularly compelling for me.

3 COVID shots

What would a retrospective on 2021 be without a mention of the COVID shots? I received my first dose around the end of April, which was right around when shots were made available for adults in California. With the rise of the Omicron variant of the virus and the fact that we planned to visit family over the holidays, I opted to get the Moderna booster (having previously gotten two doses of the Pfizer vaccine) in early December. Fun sidenote: I had a shingles breakout after getting my COVID booster. I had not previously ever had a shingles episode, so I didn’t know what it was until I went to the Minute Clinic and got a diagnosis. After my experience with shingles, I will be telling everyone I know to get the shingles vaccine. Shingles, at least in my case, was quite painful and took a few weeks to clear up. If you are able to, I highly recommend getting the vaccine.

One final note on the COVID vaccine: I had to say goodbye to a few coworkers that were unable to comply with my company’s vaccine mandate for employees. While I was quite sad at this, I understand why my company had to draw such a hard line. In no small sense, I admire the conviction it takes in one’s own values to sacrifice your job and livelihood when policies are put in place that are not reflective of those values. I hope that these former colleagues find new opportunities consistent with their beliefs and values in 2022.

1 new house

The real estate market in southern California is non-sensical during the best of times; 2021 was an unmitigated feeding frenzy! In our area, home prices climbed almost 14% over the past year! Despite concerns about limited availability and soaring prices, we decided to take the plunge and purchase a home (our third such purchase since 2009). There were several factors that impacted our decision, but the major ones were:

  • Interest rates would likely go up (from historic lows around 3%)
  • Home prices would likely continue to rise, even if at lower rates than they are currently going up
  • Paying rent is paying someone else’s mortgage - In the 4 years we have rented our current place, we have paid close to $150K in rent!!!

We were starting to get discouraged after about a month of searching when we came across a lovely townhome in Thousand Oaks. We put in a solid offer (about 4% above asking) and it was accepted above the nine other offers considered. Buying a home in southern California has been an experience, but it has taught me that there are some serious real estate professionals here, and we were lucky enough to work with them during our home buying experience. We are set to close escrow in January 3, 2022, however I wanted to highlight this good news in my 2021 recap.

-4 net headcount on my team

All of the numbers mentioned above were, quite literally, positive. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there were some negative numbers that came out of 2021. I’ll focus this final section on one such measure: the headcount of the team of engineers that I manage.

I had worked diligently with my boss to rebrand/reorganize my department around core robotics competencies; namely, perception, planning, and control. I felt like we made some very purposeful strategic moves to find better functional departments for some of our staff, while also moving some staff into the department. Such moves can be challenging in companies such as mine, where organizational inertia makes any forward motion significantly taxing. I feel that we did really well, though. At the beginning of the year, I was managing about 15 full-time engineers and 1 technician, which was far too many. By May, through strategic moves we got the team to a svelte 9 total heads; all of whom were robotics specialists. My rosy outlook on the future of the group was short lived.

Calendar year 2021 presented many significant challenges to keeping staff, particularly high performers. Some of these challenges included:

  • External challenges
    • White-hot labor market
    • Employers offering greater flexibility and remote work
    • Employers paying higher salaries
  • Internal challenges
    • Slow strategy rollout for new projects
    • Poor alignment between functional areas following acquisitions

These (and other) external challenges led to a rather large exodus from the group. Everyone has to take ownership over their own career, and I make that clear to everyone on my team. I even go so far as providing flex-time to the group to pursue personal projects to develop their skills in their particular areas-of-interest. This whole experience has led me on a search to answer the following questions:

  • How do I identify flight risks?
  • How do I provide the space for employees to pursue personal growth objectives?
  • How do I keep employees engaged and invigorated with the department’s mission?

These questions will drive my growth plan for team leadership in 2022. Perhaps I’ll even write a blog post (or several) on what I find out along these lines.

Quick wrap-up

This year was strange and, in some ways, really wonderful, as all years tend to be. We are nearing the end of our second year in lockdown and I sincerely hope that 2022 will see us edge our way out of these restrictive measures (but only when it is demonstrably safe to do so). I’m going to make it my goal to write at least one post per month in the coming year. I have lots of ideas of things I’d like to do and I’m looking forward to writing about my journey along the way.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!!!