2008, 2010, 2012 — Each of these years was, for the most part, a long, slow, change. Nothing dramatic and nothing sudden, but entire year-long periods of change. In 2008 I grew from a freshman to a sophomore at American University, but there was no significant travel, no significant moves. Even the election—while dramatic—seemed like it started in January of 2008 and only came to a final resolution at the end of the year. 2010 was another year in DC, with nothing dramatic, nothing sudden, and no major life events. 2012 has been a phenomenal year, but with no major changes in my life (same house, same job, same city, same friends).

2007, 2009, 2011 — In 2007 I graduated high school, lived in Japan for six weeks, and moved to Washington, DC for college. 2009 was full of drama: the inauguration of Barack Obama, Paul’s move to Seattle, my study abroad experience in Copenhagen. 2011 saw my graduation from AU, my first real job (GeniusRocket), and my second real job (Uber!).

2013 looks to be a lot more like 2007, 2009, and 2011 than 2008, 2010, or 2012. Early next year, I’ll most likely be moving—probably to my own place for the very first time. I’m kicking off the year with a trip abroad to Stockholm, Sweden. Friends will be getting married, moving, and undergoing similarly dramatic life changes. Getting older is WEIRD. But also pretty exciting.

Today I was thinking a lot about the exciting things I want to do in 2013. Besides moving, I want to take a renewed interest in fitness and my health. I’m thinking about registering for a triathlon. I’ve already taken a renewed interest in writing and design. I want to get a puppy. And I’m really psyched for the exciting stuff that will be happening at Uber over the next year. I’m lucky to be a part of such an great company and doing such amazing work. 2013 should be an incredible year.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

It’s been an exciting week for Uber. With a huge regulatory win and the release of #TheRideAhead, there’s really never a dull moment in Uber-land. Add to that some exciting things in the weeks ahead, a quick trip to Kentucky for Christmas, and spending New Year’s Eve in Stockholm, and well… life is pretty damn awesome.

All you need to do is open up Terminal and enter the following lines to direct to your screenshots folder within your Dropbox folder (“your-folder-name” in the example below), one at a time:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Dropbox/Your-Folder-Name/

and then,

killall SystemUIServer

Enjoy!

Not a lot, mind you. But a little bit.

I think of it as a stress reliever, I think. Obviously, I work a lot. Obviously, I love my job. Obviously, I have no problem with this. But there are two things that I find myself consistently going back to when I need to let off a little steam: one is exercise—whether that’s biking, running, or just working out in general—and the other is writing. As clearly evidenced by this blog… I’ve let the latter one slack off quite a bit this year. Thank god I didn’t set any resolutions.

Anyway, I’m still not expecting a lot in the way of posts on this blog, but maybe a few more than I have been. A little change-up in appearance might help, and a little less focus on multimedia is important, I think (if you want photos, etc., find me on instagram, twitter, or facebook). We’ll see how it goes.

I’m already psyched to see what they’ve put together for tomorrow, but I wanted to go ahead and get my slide deck online for my presentation tonight. It’s lacking some context, but has a few good data nuggets and some fun maps to enjoy. Check it out:

I love meeting people who really, really make me think. I think I’m going to start mentioning them on my blog. To kick things off: Eric Schulze is one of those people.

Over the past few months I’ve been fortunate enough to talk with him, hang out with him, and party with him and his friends, and he absolutely lives up to his slogan for Thirst DC (which he created), “Be utterly fascinating.” He totally is. Few people I know have as many surprises, stories, and fascinating knowledge about the world as Eric does, and I feel really lucky to have met him.

Today we met to talk Uber, Thirst, plans for the future (stay tuned!), and just catch up. Before long our conversation spiraled into topics like data, perceptions of DC, and how the eyeball and the brain works together to show us the world we see each and every day. He’s just a fascinating dude and I’ve never had a boring conversation with him—and I’m confident I never will.

If you haven’t met Eric, you should. If you haven’t heard of Thirst, you should go. And if you’re a fascinating person, too, let’s talk.