A Pretty Good Year

After the disaster that was 2023, my 2024 was pretty good, so I thought if I share the bad the least I can do is share the good!

If my year had a theme, it was "busy". First there's the day job - I've mostly been working with Lincoln Loop to support their clients. It's a great company, fantastic team and interesting work. Although it's mostly remote, we've met up in person a couple of times.

One of those times was at DjangoCon US, where I had an amazing time meeting old friends and making new ones. I also gave a lightning talk about nanodjango, but it didn't quite go to plan - we plugged a powered USB hub into a data USB socket and fried my laptop. There I was, on stage in front of all the Django-famous people I've known of and been in awe of for the 16 years I've done Django, having the tech equivalent of that teenage dream where you accidentally show up to school naked! It would be nice to say that it wasn't my fault, just one of those things - but hilariously it only happened because I specifically bought a super-cheap laptop with a terrible spec, so I wouldn't worry about accidentally breaking it. Mission accomplished?!

But anyway, the lovely DjangoCon team let me try again the next day, with a borrowed laptop, and it seemed to go ok! I'll write more about nanodjango here soon, but even with that, the conference was definitely a highlight of the year.

Which leads me on to my open source stuff. I've already mentioned nanodjango, but I've also been working on another 10+ projects, including my docker deployment tool; sphinx-gitref and a rust version which works with markdown; I've just today put out a new version of powerwiki; and I've also been working on several as-yet-unreleased mystery projects, including a new version of my 26-years-in-the-making CMS which this time has a name and everything! Hoping to rebuild this site with it in the coming months.

My kids have been keeping me very busy too - we're getting to the ages where afternoons and evenings start to fill up with activities, and the weekends are full of trips and tasks. I keep joking I'm looking forward to relaxing at the weekend, but I don't think I'll get one of those for at least another 20 years.

I'm still trying to sort out my dad's estate after he passed away last year. It feels like the end is in sight, but there have been a few hiccups along the way. I'll post more soon about what he left behind, but for now suffice it to say he had a dream, and it's been a difficult journey for me to come to the conclusion I can't keep any of that dream alive. Regular readers will recall that my back room was full of boxes of documents and photos - my solution was to hire a storage locker, which is working surprisingly well. Out of sight, out of mind! I bought a negatives scanner and bring back a box every now and then, grinding through strips of negatives on the sofa every evening - gradually getting through it.

And last but not least, my house. After 7 years we're finally getting through the todo list we made when we moved in, but keep getting waylaid by little jobs, like the bamboo plant which suddenly and without warning exploded runners all over our lawn - and next door's drive. A few weeks later there were three men and a digger tearing everything up, and now we're left with a large gap in our garden. I'll have to figure out what to plant in 2025 - and I'm genuinely thinking more bamboo. What's the worst that could happen?

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about 2025. There are certainly some big events and challenges on the horizon, but at least now we've got a loft ladder, the hall's going to be painted, and the next version of nanodjango is going to be great.

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