Overview of 2017

Well, 2017 was exciting! A new job and a lot of climbing in Belgium, California and France : KVB4 training, crag maintenance weekends with BRT, trips to Fontainebleau and Freyr :

• First BRT weekend of the year : exploration and first works in new climbing site in Spontin, some langlaufing on Sunday
• FOSDEM 2017
• Got selected for a sysadmin position at the ICT department of Ghent University
• Joining BRT on Sunday for climbing in Freyr
• More rock maintenance in Spontin, climbing a few routes in Pont-a-Lesse on Sunday
• Climbing in Gorge du Tarn and Gorge de la Jonte with Vertical Thinking, leadclimbing up to 6a, finished a 6a+ toprope (Fuck the Curve, De Que Fas a Qui), 3 multipitches (Jardin Enchanté, Roc d'Aiguile, Le Bitard), discovered a nice and quiet climbing area at the end of the Jonte valley, called Pauparelle, close to Meyrueis, well equiped, 4 to 6a)
• Introducing Alex and Tom to bouldering in Fontainebleau during a 4 day climbing trip.
• Second trip to Fontainebleau with Alwyn, Pieter and Maene.
• Started working as Linux System Administrator at the ICT department (DICT) of Ghent University
• Icinga2 training in Amsterdam
• Trip to Le Marche in Italy, visiting Rome and Milan on the way home by train.
• KVB4 training in La Bérarde, learning basics of trad climbing, using mobile protection, (self) rescue techniques, a lot of knots (HMS and Alpine slipknot to the rescue!) and tips and tricks to avoid tricky situations when climbing in semi-alpine areas and how to get out of them.
• Climbing trip to California, visiting Yosemite, Bishop and Joshua Tree, being fortunate to meet some nice people to climb with. It was a nice combination of comfortable sports climbing (Owens River Gorge), getting some experience in trad and crack climbing in Yosemite, and toproping harder crack climbing routes in J-Tree.
• positive final evaluation for the trial period in my new Linux Sysadmin position
• Visited 34C3, for the first time in Leipzig. Yet again an interesting 4 days of conference on IT, security, policy and science.

Plans for 2018 :

• More crag maintenance with BRT and climbing (trad), maybe another climbing trip to California or multipitch climbing in France
• Conferences : FOSDEM, 35C3
• Pick up on contributing to Open Source again