Alan Mooiman

2015 in Review

December 31, 2015

This has probably been the most exciting year of my life. In 2015, I

  • spoke at an incredibly popular meetup (BrooklynJS)
  • gave my first conference talk
  • went to Burning Man for a second time
  • started an amazing new position at the Mozilla Foundation
  • built amazing new relationships and strengthened my existing ones
  • spent 2 months living on my own for the first time in my life (I didn’t starve!)
  • spent the same 2 months living in Manhattan - something I’ve always wanted to do
  • got over the “I don’t like working out” hump and even started taking aerial yoga classes regularly (I need to get back on this once I live somewhere permanently)
  • started a cross-country road trip (I’m on it now)
  • had countless other adventures with various friends

Through all of this, I’ve spent the majority of the year without a permanent home. I got curious and decided to see how many places I’ve spent the night this year. So I checked my Swarm checkin history and personal calendar to get the final count: 59.

  • The Brooklyn loft I lived in until the end of April
  • An East Village Studio I subletted for two not-quite-continuous months
  • 15 other places across 4 boroughs of NYC (11 beds - mostly AirBnB’s, 4 couches)
  • The farm in Manchester Center, VT where I now technically reside
  • The inn owned by the farm family in Manchester Center
  • Portland, Maine (3 locations)
  • Portland, OR (3 places)
  • New Paltz, NY (2 places)
  • Seattle, WA (2 places)
  • Bellingham, WA (2 rooms in the same resort)
  • Toronto (2 places)
  • Bar Harbor, Maine (2 places)
  • London, England (2 places)
  • Kalamth Falls (2 rooms in one motel- on the way to and from Burning Man)
  • Black Rock City, NV
  • Egg Harbor Township, NJ
  • Detroit, OR
  • Exton, PA
  • Jacksonville, FL
  • Lake Park, FL
  • Elysburg, PA
  • Burlington, VT
  • Hillsboro, NJ
  • Hoboken, NJ
  • Orlando, FL
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Asheville, NC
  • A Super 8 somewhere in Alabama
  • Dallas, TX
  • Childress, Texas
  • Santa Fe, NM
  • 3 red-eye flights

The last time I’ve spent 2 consecutive weeks going to bed in the same place was the first half of August!

I’m going to have a permanent home in 2016, but I’m still aiming to travel a bit. My outlook on life is that I don’t want to regret saying no to an opportunity, so I look at everything through that lens. Even if something turns out to be a less-than-stellar experience, I’d rather do it and know than regret not doing it at all. It seems to be a strategy that’s working out pretty well, so I’m going to keep it up next year.