2024 was very kind to me. It was probably the best year so far. I would not change a thing about it. Travelled to interesting places, ran, hiked, met goals, and did so much more. Unlike the previous years, I spent a lot of time outdoors. Writing this post to remember some of it.
Work
Joined Cockroach Labs in October of last year (2023). This was probably a pivotal decision that made this year so great. The work culture here made me realise that I can do fulfilling work without completely burning out.
I got to do a lot of interesting work this year on the various observability tools that are used for monitoring/debugging cockroachDB. I did a lot of work around the debug zip command, instrumentation lib, logging etc.
Apart from the main line of work, I took part in an internal leader board for the 1 billion row challenge. That was a lot of fun and I got to learn A LOT from this experience. I was able to get the runtime from 3mins to just over 2 seconds. But because the bar is so high at Cockroach Labs, I was only able to get 8th place 😅.
There is still so much to learn and do at Cockroach Labs. I am looking forward to the coming year.
Health
Last year, I got a health checkup done and found out that I had high cholesterol and glucose resistance. This really scared the shit out of me. So, I decided to take health more seriously and started running.
In the beginning, it was very hard. My endurance really sucked. I hated running. But eventually, I got a hang of it and started to enjoy it. So far this year, I've run almost 300Km. I even took part in my first 10k run.
From the past few weeks, I've also started to do some strength training. Over the course of this year, I was able to drop around 10Kg of weight. And more importantly, I don't have high cholesterol and glucose resistance anymore 🎉
My current goal with running is to be able to run 5k within 35min. This is a fitness requirement for most of the Himalayan trek organised by IndiaHikes.
Travel
Kashmir
I went to Kashmir with my family in March. The timing was perfect. It was the beginning of spring and still got to see snow. This was my first time seeing snow. The highlight of this trip for me was the stay in Gulmarg and the hike to the Thajiwas Glacier in Sonmarg.
Canada
Got to go to Canada for the company's RnD offsite. The offsite was for 3 day in Toronto. For the 3 days, there was enough to do in Toronto apart from the official programming of the offsite. We mostly walked around the city and visited touristy places like the distillery district, steam whistle brewery, etc. On one of the days, we went to see the Niagara falls. This was my first time travelling outside of India. I really enjoyed the first world experience. The company put us up in the Four Seasons Hotel. The hotel was just amazing. The food was great, the view from my room was great. I really enjoyed my stay there.
After the offsite, a few of us took a couple of days off and went to Banff in Alberta. This was the highlight of the trip. The place is just so beautiful. We went to some of the blue lakes, hiked a bit, and mostly just walked around the town. The hostel we stayed in was 5min away from the bow river. The views were spectacular from every corner of the town.
Hiking
This year, I did not leave any opportunity to go hiking. I found this amazing community of hikers in Bangalore called BLR Hikes which is run by Shreshth Mohan. I went on several hikes with them around Bangalore. This made me realise how easy it is go get away from civilization for a little bit and just be with nature.
Outside of Bangalore, I went on 2 treks in the Western Ghats. The first one was to Kudremukh and the second one was to Kumara Parvatha. Kudremukh was my favourite of the two. It was during the monsoon season. It was lush green and there were multiple streams of crystal clear water that you could drink from. The trek was medium-hard difficulty. The views towards the summit were amazing. Kumara Parvatha was much harder. Most of the group I went with (including me) did not make it to the summit. We reach Shesha Parvatha which is about 1km away from the summit and decided to turn back because it was getting dark. This trek was very humbling 😅.
I also did a couple of hikes in Banff and Kashmir which were great. Hikes around Bangalore are nice, but the hikes in Alpine regions are something else. In this coming years, I want to do some of the more challenging hikes in the Himalayas.
| Date | Name | Duration | Distance | Elevation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, 11/30/2024 | Kumara parvatha (almost) | 5:40:00 | 17.40 km | 1,462 m |
| Sat, 10/12/2024 | Kudremukha | 7:00:09 | 20.18 km | 869 m |
| Sun, 10/6/2024 | The hill behind Rasta cafe | 1:22:23 | 4.31 km | 196 m |
| Sun, 8/25/2024 | Hari hara betta | 1:12:57 | 3.11 km | 141 m |
| Sat, 7/27/2024 | Johnston canyon | 1:17:34 | 6.28 km | 178 m |
| Fri, 7/26/2024 | Afternoon Hike | 51:24 | 3.45 km | 0 m |
| Fri, 7/26/2024 | Moraine lake rock pile | 19:26 | 1.18 km | 18 m |
| Thu, 7/25/2024 | Sulphur mountain - cosmic ray station | 22:44 | 1.35 km | 62 m |
| Sat, 6/15/2024 | Handhi Gundi Trek | 2:03:07 | 7.15 km | 344 m |
| Sun, 4/21/2024 | Tenginakallu | 2:10:00 | 5.00 km | 0 m |
| Thu, 3/28/2024 | Hari parbat fort | 31:00 | 2.08 km | 98 m |
| Wed, 3/27/2024 | Thajiwas glacier | 55:32 | 3.09 km | 43 m |
| Sun, 2/25/2024 | Bidarkatte trek | 2:11:28 | 7.22 km | 220m |
Music
Having spent a lot of my free time outdoors this year, I could not spend much time on the music front. But I did perform in two open mics at the Indian Music Experience. Apart from this, I uploaded 3 covers on my Youtube channel:
- Pneuma (by Tool) on a classical guitar
- The Humbling River - Puscifer | Acoustic + MIDI cover
- By And Down The River - A Perfect Circle | Guitar/MIDI Cover
If you are a fan of progressive rock/metal, you will probably notice a pattern in the above songs 😛. Tool and Maynard James Keenan's world is one of the best discoveries I made this year. I'd listen to Tool before but never really got into it. But this year, I got obsessed with them. It's amazing how much depth there is in their music both lyrically and musically. I've listened to technically proficient music before, but Tool also manages to be very emotional and spiritual. I've never felt so connected to music like this before.
These were some of the highlights of 2024. I am looking forward to the coming year with a few minor goals in mind. See you in 2025!