2025 In Review

I saw Imran do this and I thought it was a good idea.

Things I did

(re)started a blog!

I've tried keeping a blog for years to middling success, but hey, I've written two (three?) actual posts for this one! That's like a 200% increase from previous years.

moved to Canada!

Technically I did this last year, but I'm counting it in this year. I did this largely for personal/relational reasons, despite what the current state of US politics might imply, and it's been quite an adventure. It's been one of the more convoluted and stressful processes I've gone through, but all in all it's nice to know that I have done it.

Plus, my grandparents insisted for years I should live overseas for a time. Canada isn't exactly "overseas" from the US, but it's a decent starting point!

I have complicated feelings about leaving the us and about rocking up somewhere else that I imagine I'll write about down the line. If nothing else it'll be An Experience and I'm glad for that.

Started a new job!

Again, technically last year, but still! I left the fintech startup I was at previously where I learned a lot but also burned myself out. I'm now somewhere I feel like I'm growing as an engineer and understanding much more of how corporations view engineering problems. (Is there a "Seeing like a Company" analogue to "Seeing like a State"? A quick search suggests many people have written articles, both casual and academic, trying to capture similar thinking, but I don't see any books... I'll peruse the articles down the line.)

I've worried for a couple years about what my career path "looks like" to whomever my next hiring manager will be (which hopefully isn't a problem I have to deal with for some time). While I know I'm capable and insightful I haven't had the titling to back it up, due in part to that not being a priority in the tradeoffs I've made changing jobs and because I haven't had the tools to discuss such things with my managers in a way that led to results. I think I'm starting to mitigate that problem though, which is a nice feeling. (I still feel like the world is gonna fall out from under me at any given moment for unknowable reasons, but hey, that's not really new, and it feels good to be making progress on the problems I think are "legitimate," so. Yay!)

Started a "corporate" intranet for my household!

Through a mixture of FreeIPA, Tailscale, Authentik, Fedora, and assorted webapps I have what feels like a corporate intranet for my household. This has proven very useful for things like migrating off google photos, setting up an Office365 alternative, everyone having a login across the half dozen household computers.

I'll write a proper post about this at some point, but I'm very pleased with the results, even if it's a megahack and I don't understand LDAP any more than when I started.

Spun up assorted selfhosted apps!

I'm hoping to write a future post about this, but quick notes for now:

• Stood up Immich to migrate from Google Photos
• Spun up a budgeting app! (promptly fell off the wagon, we'll try again in a bit)
• Spun up an Outline wiki, which so far has only really been used to solve Blue Prince puzzles.
• Planka! Planka has saved my butt in so many ways. (It's a Trello knockoff.) Useful for tracking todos (which I need to update again), comparing items while shopping (how does anyone do that on a phone?), tracking household projects. It's really great!
• PaperlessNG to digitally archive paper documents; important in the midst of an international move, and useful for things like vehicle maintenance records.
  • I need to get a two sided feed scanner to more easily digitize multipage documents, like past tax records

Started a media log!

I've gotten cranky with myself for just consuming media without really interacting with it in a meaninful sense. Which, not everything has to be, it's fun just to watch the junky show, but I'm at the point where I want to cultivate more of that style of thought, and if you're not writing you're not thinking, so! A media log it t'was to be.

Like most things, I tend to do it in bursts, so I've got like six entries for September, a big hole, and a couple entries for December, so it's a ✨ work in progress ✨, but still; exciting!

Went to Vienna!

I went to Vienna with one of my partners. It was really beautiful and stirred my restless existentialism! I wrote a long post about it!

Things I want to do

Blog more!

Hope springs eternal! My goal is six "serious" posts for the year, documenting something technical, a personal reflection, that kinda thing. I'd like to do more, but I'm trying to not spook my future self.

Be more present, and more zen

This last year has been rough and stressful. I've found it hard to be present in the day to day with my family, or not to lose myself in worrying about things I can't really control.

I don't want to go through life feeling like I've just been stumbling from one crisis to the next. I want to spend this year enjoying the smaller things, and not spending so much time worrying.

Maybe go camping again

It's been years, and I've enjoyed it in the past but also found it very sensory. Not having access to a shower and smelling like bug spray all the time Sounds Bad, but being away from all the hectic vibes of live and staring at the stars sounds nice. Maybe I'll like it more/still/again?

More photography!

Embarrassingly I did a photoshoot with some friends back in April and I still have not finished editing aaaaaaaa.

I also need to recover some of my past public galleries and put them up.

Actually take a stance / process for street photography

I've put off making a decision about how to do street photography in a way that doesn't feel creepy for too long. I think my current stance is that I've been wimping out from just talking to people, and I need to get better about that. So, goal, continue doing street photography, but more in a "Hey, I lov eyour vibe, would you mind if I took your photo?"

I suspect I'll get told 'no' a lot, which will be good for me, and I'll get told yes sometimes, which will also be good for me.

Learn more history and economics

This is part of my quest to better understand decision making of large groups, which I'm slowly realizing is a slightly nonsensical statement. I'm some fifty pages into David Graeber's "Debt," and have been for months, that I suspect will help eludicate me on both fronts. But more learning more good!

Take some drumming classes

I did some two years ago (yikes) when I lived in Chicago and really enjoye dit, but didn't keep up the practice. There's a shop near where I currently live that does private classes and I think it'd be fun. Plus, I could put that electric drum kit in the basement to good use.

Technical housekeeping

There's so much of this; here's a list, which I'll convert to tickets for myself later:

• static cache the images on this blog so I don't melt sr.ht's bandwidth anymore than I need to
• make my FreeIPA system redundant; the VM sits on my NAS right now, which makes it a single point of failure, which isn't ideal.
• make my SSO redundant; same problem as above.
• archive the links from my blog
• set up a DNF package cache on my LAN. With six (!!) Fedora workstations it seems good-citizen-y of me to reduce my bandwidth load. Plus, it'll go faster?