2024 A Year in Review
2024, a year in review ... not the best ... but I guess I grew!
This past year was a blast! But … it was also fraught with inconveniences. A car accident, a twisted ankle, and foot injuries derailed a lot of my personal goals. However, month over month, The Longhair Lawyer grew and so did I! Professional highlights of the year include being appointed as the Young Lawyer Liason to the Washington State Bar Association’s Solo & Small Practice Section, obtaining a federal trademark for The Longhar Lawyer, and becoming licensed in Texas. Personal highlights include getting my first wild turkey, landing my first 360 while wake surfing (after more than a decade of trying), and climbing all the Seven Sisters (a mountain range above the Pack River in Idaho) in two days.
I also lifted weights 74 days this year (a definite personal best) and ran 315 miles (definitely not a personal best).
January was dialed in – full of quality lifting sessions, solid runs, boxing practice, climbing sessions, freelance appellate work, and visits from my parents and my in-laws. I also launched The Longhair Lawyer Podcast (a project that's getting revamped and revisited in 2025).
February was off to a great start until my wife and I got rear-ended by a drunk driver, which messed up my back for 6-8 weeks. I somehow managed to keep running, but couldn't lift weights. After 3 weeks of short runs, I decided to go for a 13-miler and tweaked my ankle, which took several months to recover from fully. Somehow I still managed to have a good month work-wise, reconnecting with old friends and colleagues and completing my application to the Texas State Bar.
March's highlight was flying to Minneapolis to get matching tattoos with a bunch of like-minded attorneys. Otherwise, there was a lot of focus on planning and recovery.
April was my spring emergence and the start of an adventurous year. Early in the month, my sister and her boyfriend came to visit us in Redwood City. Later in the month, I flew to Washington to go Turkey hunting near Spokane and spend some much-needed time in the woods near Entiat, WA. Work-wise, I began putting together the biggest commercial real estate transaction I've ever been involved with. Somewhere in the midst of it all, I sat down with Nate Crespo to record an episode for his Lawyer’s in the Making Podcast.
May saw me travel back to WA, in a newly acquired van, as old as me. I spent practically all my free time getting it ready for the trip – replacing the brakes and hoses and gutting the inside. Once it was roadworthy, I packed up my two dogs and drove to my hometown of Ritzville, WA where I served as the toastmaster for our annual alumni banquet.
June started with my brother's high school graduation and a friend’s wedding reception. It quickly turned into a trip back to CA and a few weeks with my wife, Gretchen, in a quiet house with no dogs. We went on a treasure hunt in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, I reported for jury duty, I did a LOT of work on the van, and we wrapped up her company team’s softball season.
July was a month of traveling. Gretchen and I started with a joint venture to the Spokane WA, area to spend time with my family at an uncle’s lakehouse, where I made my first attempt at barefoot skiing. Afterward, we flew to Austin, TX, to visit family. I had just received my license to practice law in TX (although, ironically, the only meeting I had the entire trip was a Zoom meeting with the General Counsel of a Tech startup in San Francisco). We also popped up to Ardmore, OK, to visit other relatives. Next, Gretchen and I parted ways. She went on a company trip to Bowie, MD for two weeks, while I went to Lake Roosevelt (in Eastern Washington) with my dad, where we witnessed an incredible lighting storm and the start of a natural wildfire.
August was just a blast. Back to Lake Roosevelt, then to a Mariner’s game with the WSBA Solo & Small Practice Section, then on the most intense solo backpacking trip of my life (the tops of my feet are still a little numb from it). After a couple of easy days of picking huckleberries, I laid low at my parent’s house while I waited for the Ritzville Rodeo to come by. I drafted real estate contracts out of my van and interviewed with Scott Snellings for the Driven Crowd Podcast.
September was a month of discovery. I took my dogs back to CA, then went bombing back to WA to go on a fruitless buck hunt turned wonderful backpacking trip. It was quickly followed by the WSBA Solo & Small Firm Conference.
In October, Gretchen and I spent a lot of time together, we hosted a Halloween party, went to a baby shower in Paso Robles, took the dogs to Half-Moon Bay, attended a pub crawl, snuck back to Washington to fill my deer tag, and managed to hit a lot of workouts in the process.
We started November with a friend's 40th birthday celebration near Point Reyes, where we cold-plunged, hot-tubbed, and jammed out with a bunch of people who play guitar. We followed it up with a family trip to Hawaii with my mom's side of the family full of snorkeling, hiking, and too much good food. After that, a quiet Thanksgiving with one friend, four dogs, and two cats.
December started with a wonderful trip to San Antonio to celebrate my Grandpa (from my dad's side) who has always wanted to see The Alamo. Then Gretchen and I attended her company Christmas party in San Francisco, which is always quite a show. Unfortunately, somewhere in the midst of all of this, I managed to contract a genuine case of influenza, which I passed on to Gretchen. It was a sad and lonely Christmas in our household but we healed up in time to ring in the new year.
– Tyler O’Brien –
