Intermission
I haven’t posted in a while.
It’s interesting how these things happen. Years ago, I used to be able to whip out a post of some kind in any of the blogs I maintained easily.
The reasons for the lack of that now are multiple. The usual “I’m busy” applies, but it’s more than that.
It’s the fact that a lot of the work I now do is not public (although I think it’s amazing), so there’s not much I can reveal.
It’s the fact that my own, personal quality bar for tech writing is higher than ever, so I know I’d spend a long time conjuring and polishing something.
It’s the fact that I tend to be critical of making noise, and thus I only feel like adding something to the blog when I think there’s something new, unique, or important to be added to the world.
It’s the fact that I reserve my Mastodon account for random thoughts that would, in the past, be written in a blog.
Still. I feel like the end of a year is a good reason to say “enough” and whip out a post (without thinking too hard about it).
So, without further ado, here it is: my year in review.
Work
My year at work was quite interesting. 90% of my work involved C++ (17-ish), which made me happy for different reasons.
First, I wanted to “modernize” my knowledge of the language and that was it. I’m still very much into Rust, but it was nice getting a glimpse of more modern C++. The language can feel quite comfortable and even somewhat safe when well used.
Second, simply put, I just wanted to do more (for the lack of a better word) hardcore software development. I’m not writing low-level code for firmware, but C++ is what allowed me to be a bit closer to the metal in the (amazing) stuff we’re building at work.
Which brings me to my final point. There was a time, 15 years or so ago, where I could talk about my work without thinking about it. I’d post images and code here that I was proud of. Those were glimpses of stuff I was creating for major, recognizable brands, but it was no big deal.
I can’t do that anymore, for obvious reasons. The work I’m doing is part of software platforms that won’t be out for years, integral parts of a highly competitive platform, and protected by NDAs. So I can’t write much. That makes me sad.
Still, I’m very proud of the stuff I’m helping build. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk about it in a few years, as it gets to people’s hands (and faces).
Life
Oh boy, 2024 was a banger. This was the year my second kid was born. We’re all healthy. We had many transitions, like my first born going to kindergarten.
With a growing family, I feel like we’ve had yearly revolutions at this point. Things change all the time. 2025 won’t be different. Maybe in 18 years it’ll finally feel “boring”. Right now? We’re living it day-to-day.
At least we didn’t move homes and nobody changed jobs this time!
Fitness
I never though I’d talk about “fitness” in this blog. If someone told me so 10 years ago, I’d think they were nuts. Yet here we are.
I haven’t covered much of that here, but I’ve been running a lot since 2018 or so. I started jogging casually and steadily increased my distance, volume, and pace over time.
I’ve never been a runner before, but somehow just works with my mind. Took me a while to realize it, but once it “clicked”, it stuck. Now I look back in my life and can see the signs have always been there; I should have been running earlier. I didn’t know it was a thing, in a way.
In 2024 I ran a total of 2,546 km (about 1,582 miles), running about 5-6 times a week. I tried being creative about where I run, so I don’t repeat the same route every time. This is what my NYC heat map looks like:
A huge chunk of the above is due to run commuting to work, which I do every time I go to the office (2-3 times a week). The only times I take the train to work are when I have some appointment or some other logistical obstacle that prevents me from running.
Come to think about it, there was a time I couldn’t do two of these commute runs at the shortest distance (10 km / 6.2 mi) in a row, but now I frequently do much longer versions (up to 22 km / 13/6 mi) back-to-back without thinking (and all while carrying a 7 kg / 15 lb backpack).
Of all the runs, my longest run was the New York City Marathon, of which I got a Marathon “personal record”, doing 3:28:21. There were a few other races and PRs, including a 20:26 5K, and an “unofficial” (time trial) Half Marathon of 1:39:00.
In general, I think I’ve been smart enough about my training and self-coaching, so I improved a lot. At 47, I’m not the fastest running around, but I’m doing pretty good age-graded wise, and getting better. I likely have 2 or 3 more years until I reach my absolute peak, and then my results start catching up with my age and declining. I am ready for that, I think.
Finally, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the metric side of running. I constantly study my runs – my pacing, my heart rate, etc – to try and improve it. I use a number of websites as tools to monitor my performance. Not because I want to win races, or be too competitive against others; but because understanding the systems behind running (a real engineering challenge!) and improving myself are half the fun of running. It’s not like that for everybody, but it is for me. It never feels like working, mind you, even if I have dozens of spreadsheets.
I’m also at the best shape I’ve ever been in my life. I’m grateful for that as well.
Reading
Book reading took a backseat this year. I think I’ve read a good number of books (8) and a good amount (3,535 pages), but it was still just a bit above half of my 2023 volume (I don’t mind either, but it’s good context).
I tend to read in the subway and at night. In 2024, my reading time has been limited because I spend less time in the subway (due to running), and because I can’t easily read at night (with a newborn).
However, the queue grows longer and longer. Much more to read in 2025, I’m sure.
Gaming
It’s hard having a steady job and a family. Gone are the days I’d spend the nights playing with clan-mates. In fact, most of my gaming nowadays, if it exists, has to be around quick chunks of time.
As such, I’ve been playing little games here and there on Steam and, now, on the Switch, which I got for my son (yes, for my son, of course) for Christmas. There’s some interesting games there. Frankly, I have little patience for AAA games on the XBox, Playstation and PC nowadays; I’ll have something fun any time of the day instead.
So while I can admire some AAA games (like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2), I’m looking forward for things like Slay the Spire 2 in 2025.
Technology
I’m always working on something “on the side”, both because of curiosity and as a way to keep up-to-date with tech trends.
In 2024, no, I didn’t explore anything related to AI. While I think there’s a few interesting and even useful applications of LLM, Generative AI and such, the development space is so filled with crap peddled by charlatans that there’s nothing I feel like exploring right now. This might change in the future, as the shark oil-fueled rockets crash and burn and there’s more space in the hangars for people who are not merchants of hype, but for now, I want distance from the noise.
Instead, I’ve been doing a lot of the “basics”.
I’ve been exploring static site generation with Astro (among others). In fact, I’ve started redoing my whole Portfolio website using it. It’s not ready for publishing (that’ll actually take a while), but I’m happy with the results so far: a static, HTML-first website, with some basic JavaScript for interactivity, and no React.
I’m not a React contrarian, mind you, but there’s some sort of warm, fuzzy feeling that comes after having a simple, static website generated. I don’t particularly care about being SEO friendly, but knowing that a webpage is just there in the HTML (instead of waiting to be constructed by JavaScript) makes me happy, somehow. Which is a funny thing for someone who has no regrets about working in Flash to say. But there it is.
I haven’t done much Rust this year, other than some maintenance and some small scripting. That part makes me sad.
I also have one little game project in the molds of Wordle being built. It’s almost done, and I hope to launch it soon.
Closing words, and plans for the next year
I’m not the kind of person who likes setting big plans, goals, or resolutions. In fact, I’m almost anti-planning; I feel like big goals are just failures waiting to happen. Instead, I prefer having possibilities – like open doors – and use it for my excuse for lack of planning.
Most of the best things in my life happened without a ton of planning, so I’m stubborn about that approach.
Still, I have a few ideas of stuff I’d like to do in 2025, outside of life/family stuff.
Running wise, I want to keep my current volume, maybe raising it a bit: above 2,575 km and 1,600 miles. I won’t be able to run much more than that; it’s a hard proposition with young kids. Maybe in a few years I can finally run an Ultra. But, for now, I’m happy with consistency and continuous improvement.
I also have the New York City Half Marathon in March, in which I expect to get a more official PR. I’m training for that right now.
One final thing I’m lowkey training for is pacing others. I think I’ve nailed my pace strategy (regardless of the execution, which was also great) during the New York Marathon, and that made me think it would be fun to run a race as a pacer from time to time. I’m doing some research on that and hope to be able to do some of that for fun soon.
At work, things are on a rocket trajectory. Once again I can’t say much, but I’m grateful for being in the position I’m at. I am challenging myself in more axes than one, and hope to continue that trend.
Tech wise, I hope to continue working with C++. This is not a given just yet, at work (it might be Kotlin next, which I don’t mind too much). On the personal side, I’ve been exploring helping some open-source projects, but haven’t found an ideal space for that yet.
I do hope to continue working with Rust, maybe continuing and concluding some of my projects, or starting a new one (always a good idea, right? Right???).
I also want to explore more of Godot, the game engine. Truth be told, I enjoyed working with Unity in the past, but it never clicked with me; things always felt a bit hacky (with all the components piled up and such). Maybe it’ll be different with Godot. I like some of its concepts already, and can see myself porting some of my ongoing projects (…yes) to it.
Gamedev-wise, I should be finishing the little word game I mentioned soon. There’s just a few things missing. It’s nothing extraordinary, but will be a nice experiment.
Playing games wise, I hope to play more of the Switch with my son. He’s getting to the right age.
Finally, hopefully I can also finish my new portfolio, and then also move this blog to a static website. In fact, this is one of the (low key) reasons why I haven’t posted much here: I’m done with WordPress updates and configurations and such. I want to convert the blog to something static, Markdown-based, that I don’t have to worry about breaking or being exploited or being deprecated by PHP. In fact, I kept thinking “I need to convert the blog before making a new post!”. But. Here it is.