Happy 2015!

I wish you all an exciting 2015 in good health, with a lot of fun and big achievements in your projects! Good luck and joy to all my friends who are expecting a child this year!

Reviewing 2014

Well, 2014 was quite busy. Looking at my plans for 2014 a lot more happened than I expected : I learned Python when I started a new project, visited 7 capital cities and 3 continents, did a few climbing trips and got to visit San Francisco and Yosemite again :

• celebrated New Year in Cebu, Philipines
• visited Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Melakka, ...), Singapore and Hong Kong
• bought a Google Nexus 5
• attended FOSDEM 2014
• resigned as a phpMyAdmin team member, creating some more time for other projects
• finished a first blue route at Bleau
• coorganised an info session about Google Summer of Code at Ghent University
• started working on a tool to generate a trend graph of a build process, my first Python experience
• attended Newline 0x04 and talked about reducing iptables configuration complexity
• attended LinuxTag 2014 and talked about 'Reducing iptables configuration complexity' (presentation slides)
• Finished a 10km race (Gentse stadsloop) in less than 55 minutes
• Visited Maker Faire Paris : A lot of interesting stuff, mainly 3D printers, but some with a twist : pancake maker, an industrial welding robot mounted with an extruder, lots of hinges, bearings and other stuff printed ready to be used : no need to assemble
• First time to visit Paris, I finally got to see the Eifel tower, Avenue des Champs Elysées, Arc de triomphe, Le Louvre (outside), Notre Dame, La Seine, Musée d'Orsay, Musée Rodin, Montmartre and Sacré Coeur
• Released version 0.3 of Get Back GPS
• Participated in a climbing training in L'Argentière-La Bessée and received a certificate for lead-climbing  and multi-pitch climbing (KVB3), had a lot of fun : climbing a lot and sending several 5b's and 5c's lead-climbing, some of them on sight.
• Visited Amsterdam, the 6th capital city I went to this year
• performed a lead-climber's fall at Klimax II
• did a 55km cycling trip around Ghent
• Donated blood for the first time
• Released the first version of Buildtime Trend, a tool to create visual trends of  a software build process, written in Python and JavaScript
• GetBack GPS had more than 10 contributors during 1 month, most of them are translating the app
• Ran 16km/10mi for the first time
• Spent a weekend in Fontainebleau with Maxime, Seba and Wolf, opening some routes.
• Went to San Francisco to attend the GSoC 10th Anniversary Reunion and spent a few days in San Francisco and did a trip to Yosemite with Madhura Jayaratne. Shared a few beers with Justin and Josh of Keen.io, talking about Open Source commit streaks and Buildtime Trend.
• Released GetBack GPS 0.4, introducing 7 more languages.
• Spent a long weekend climbing in Fontainebleau with Peter, Dorinne, Cécile, Stef, Aline, Senne, Nik, Chris, Andreas, Luke and Barbara, climbing several yellow and blue routes.
• and a second blood donation
• finished a red climbing route
• traveled to Lisbon.

Things to do in 2015:

• Continue working on Buildtime Trend : offer it as a service (SaaS), add more stats, support more CI environments, ... 
• Climb as much as possible, both indoor and outdoor, with trips to France during the Easter and summer holidays, and weekend trips to Fontainebleau or one of the climbing areas in the south of Belgium.
• Visit Open Source and related conferences : FOSDEM, LinuxTag, EuroPython, DebConf and KeenCon.

I'm looking forward to where 2015 will bring me. Looking back at 2014 it is bound to be an exciting year again.

Ambitions 2013

After having reached some goals and having done some cool things in 2012, I set some ambitions and goals for 2013 (basically an updated version of the ones I set for 2012) :

• pick up Java and/or C++
• improve knowledge of OOP and design patterns
• finish writing a first Android app
• do a presentation/talk at a conference (FOSDEM, ...)
• Improve pace and distance in running, after I recover from a knee injury. Next goal : 10 miles by April.
• Improve swimming (technique, speed, stamina and style) : Build up stamina doing a slow front crawl. Next goal : 250m without a break
• In 2012 I started wall climbing (bouldering), so I hope to improve my technique and muscular strength, as a preparation for some outdoor rock climbing.
• Repeat the Car Free Day action, but this time on faculty level

Ambitions

Enough with resolutions, enter ambitions and goals (some of them longterm, other shorter term) :

• pick up Java and/or C++
• improve knowledge of OOP and design patterns
• write an Android app (update December 17th 2012 : created a first 'Hello World!' app)
• release a first beta of my PHP framework (update August 12th 2012 : it was released)
• Easily run 10 km in about an hour by the end of summer 2012 (update August 23rd 2012 : I ran 10K in an hour. Next goal, improve pace and distance)
• Improve swimming (technique, speed, stamina and style) : Now that I can do 2km breaststroke in under an hour, build up stamina doing a slow front crawl (250m without a break)
• start doing another sport : wall climbing, pick up squash again?