Goals of 2023

Accountability is key.

✅ Ride from Treriksroset to Smygehuk.

I did! See this post about the trip.

❌ More Crossfit; be able to do five pull-ups.

The year started out good training wise. I got myself a 1 year membership at the local CrossFit club and went frequently for a couple of months until a caught a cold. I hate coming back to CrossFit after a break.

✅ Read more, and more consistently.

I have been reading more consistently this year. No long gaps. 11 finished books at a total of 3,468 pages according to Bookwyrm.

This year I finally finished Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton. Most of it, I have to admit, was listened to while I rode through Sweden. I picked up the second book in the series, Judas Unchained, a couple of weeks later. I’m still reading the last pages (well, I have like 400 pages left out of 1700+). Both are amazing as soon as you get a grip of the characters and get in the flow of Hamilton. Some parts are pretty boring, others are wild.

Another great read this year was Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I have been in love with the movie since I was a kid, and the book adds an additional dimension to that. I have never thought of Malcom as a douche, but he is an arrogant asshole. Before JP, I read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and both books builds upon bio engineering but in different eras. JP takes place in the late 80’s where computers are starting to be taken seriously, while Dark Matter is in a near future. I love the vibe in JP while Dark Matter didn’t really stick to me the same way as Recursion by the same author did.

✅ Blog more; publish at least three articles.

I recon this will be the third post of the year, so technically I made the goal but perhaps not in spirit. However, I have been using Mastodon more this year. I usually just lurk, but I have had some nice interactions there this year. It’s nice to see the Fediverse coming along.

I had a great talk to a couple of friends this year about the Fediverse. They wondered why I didn’t use Instagram or Facebook and after trying the quick answer (I don’t like Meta) we got into Mastodon and the Fediverse. I explained it as Facebook being compatible with Instagram, so that you don’t have to have an account on each and every service just to follow each other. They thought it was brilliant, but of course they still haven’t joined. I’m hesitantly hopeful for Threads to come along and make it more mainstream, even though I’d like to keep Meta out of the picture.

🌕 Contribute to an open source project.

I could have said I technically completed this one too, but it is too much of a stretch. A friend of mine and I started working on a recipe app in Go. It’s open source but in a very early stage. I have also become a financial sponsor on GitHub for a couple of projects I use regularly.

✅ Pick up analog photography again.

I did send a few rolls of the trip we did to New Zealand in 2021 to develop. I have been sporadically done some analog photography during the year, but no dedicated photography where I go out with the goal to capture pictures - it has been events and so on. On our trip to Sicily I brought with me my medium format Mamiya but it malfunctioned.

Honorable mentions of 2023

Engaged!

I finally proposed to my SO and she said yes. We are getting married late spring 2025!

I deleted my Facebook account permanently.

I haven’t used the Facebook app for many years, and last year or so I removed the Messenger app too. That caused some annoyance among my friends since Messenger is kind of the universal messaging app here in Sweden.

I have kept Facebook mainly for the group that the marina has. Except for the tone for time to time, it has been a great group for the occasional storm or bad weather in general. I decided it is not worth keeping Facebook just for that group though, since there are official channels that don’t use Facebook. During my trip through Sweden I noticed that some had written to me on Messenger and it feels kind of rude to ignore them. Next hassle is to get rid of Instagram.

Sticking with Colemak.

I’m still using colemak and I’m now in a state where I am able to comfortably touch type without thinking. Moonlander and my quite specific keymap has ruined my from programming on a plain old keyboard though. Reminder to do a write-up on that.

I kept up with Dailyo.

I have a streak of 280 days or so on Daylio. It is basically a diary but with some features to make stuff measurable. I check-in whether it has been a good or bad day at work, if I have had alcohol, met with family, worked out, etc.

I think it’s worth a quick write-up on its own. It’s pretty great.

Goals of 2024

First off, I have kind of an itch - I feel that these goals aren’t enough. I want goals that causes a bit of a struggle, something you need to fight some for. None of these goals, except learning a bit of Italian perhaps, feels like much of a struggle. That said, I might add some to this post - or not - but see it as an append-only piece.

Do a three day sailing trip.

We spent a good three or four weeks on getting her in better shape, renovating some of the tree details, polishing and painting.

Due to weather and my bike trip we ended up with a total of one sail. It was over in an hour or so. Super disappointing.

Anyway, we let her stay in the water this winter in order to be ready as soon as weather allows us to start sailing again. We aim at sailing to Bornholm via Simrishamn during 2024. That will be a good exercise in docking at unknown marinas, sailing in other than exceptionally good weather and sailing for longer than we usually do.

This is the year where we will evaluate if we are to keep her too. If the trip to Bornholm isn’t enjoyable, I’m not sure we will keep her. Don’t get me wrong, I love having a boat and to sail and fix, but it takes so much time, and there is the financial aspect too. Let’s hope the trip will be awesome.

Read one of Alistar Reinolds works.

Since finishing Pandora’s Star, I have been looking for something similar in density and world building. I’m not sure Reinolds will be as good, but I have heard good things.

Complete Vätternrundan in less than 12 hours.

I’m of the opinion that almost everyone could do the Vätternrundan if they are determined to. This year I will do my fifth race and I aim at doing it under twelve hours. It has been extended to 315 km a few years ago.

Complete Cykelvasan.

A friend of mine and I signed up for Cykelvasan during his birthday celebration. It is more of an off road race and I’m stoked.

Delve into AWS.

On my current contractor assignment we run our applications in an on-premise cloud environment (not AWS) which I seldom come in contact with. Since the world has been moving into the cloud for the last 15-20 years, I feel that it is about time to do some more personal projects that exposes me the AWS and its ecosystem.

Do a checkup on my asthma.

Simple as it sounds. I haven’t been to the doctor for a good ten years to check it and I’m out of medication since a few years back. This winter has so far been exceptionally cold and that triggers it.

Be able to keep a simple dialogue in Italian.

A couple of weeks before we left for Italy this year, I picked up Duolingo and started their course on Italian. I doubt it’s the best resource to actually learn the Italian language, but it packages it in a fun and addicting way. In combination with Coffee Time Italian, the podcast, I will continue to try and learn. I’m tempted to pick up an evening course, but not quite ready to commit to one just yet.

Don’t buy brand new non-functional clothes.

This is more of a challenge than a goal, but I will refrain from buying any brand new clothes for a year. I will exclude functional clothing as I might need that for the bike related goals, but all non-functional ones should be bought second hand.