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+---
+permalink: "/{{ year }}/{{ month }}/{{ day }}/2024-in-many-words"
+title: "2024 in many words and some photos"
+published_date: "2024-12-31 23:59:59 +0100"
+layout: post.liquid
+data:
+ route: blog
+excerpt: |
+ It has become a tradition for me to look at the year that's about to end.
+ I did so in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.
+ Let's look at 2024 now.
+---
+
+It has become a tradition for me to look at the year that's about to end.
+I did so in
+[2023](/2023/12/31/2023-in-many-words/),
+[2022](/2022/12/31/2022-in-many-words/),
+[2021](/2021/12/31/2021-in-many-words/),
+[2020](/2020/12/31/2020-in-many-words/),
+[2019](/2019/12/30/2019-in-many-words/),
+[2018](/2018/12/27/2018-in-many-words/),
+[2017](/2017/12/31/2017-in-many-words/),
+[2016](/2016/12/31/2016-in-many-words/),
+[2015](/2015/12/31/2015-in-many-words/)
+and [2014](/2014/12/29/2014-in-many-words/).
+
+So here comes the 2024 edition (later than usual, but I still date it to the correct year).
+
+### My year in numbers
+
+I attended 4 conferences this year:
+[Rust Nation UK][rustnationuk] in March,
+[Oxidize] in May,
+[RustFest Zürich][rustfestch] in June
+and [EuroRust Vienna][eurorust] in October.
+And while I didn't attend [PyCon DE][pyconde] this time,
+some of my colleagues did and I met them for food & drinks afterwards.
+
+[rustnationuk]: https://www.rustnationuk.com/
+[oxidize]: https://oxidizeconf.com/
+[rustfestch]: https://rustfest.ch/
+[eurorust]: https://eurorust.eu/2024/
+[pyconde]: https://2024.pycon.de/
+
+The only talk I gave was a fun lightning talk at work about [the adventures of Little Bobby Tables][bobbytables].
+
+[bobbytables]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZupfJy6I0A
+
+I traveled a lot.
+To Valencia for a Drift Masters event,
+to Oslo for the Biathlon World Cup,
+home on several occasions,
+to Toronto for a work week,
+to Dublin for a Mozilla All-Hands,
+to Mozambique for vacation
+and to northern Norway for some quiet time.
+I didn't count the distances traveled.
+
+I wrote 11 blog posts, plus the one you are reading (which is technically being finished in 2025).
+That's a good increase over the last 2 years
+as I tried putting out things without spending weeks and weeks on editing (and then never finishing it).
+
+I don't know how many books I finished.
+Maybe 2 or 3?
+It's still a thing I want to get back into more.
+There's a pile of books in my apartment and more on my e-reader.
+
+GitHub says I made 1720 contributions in 2024. A lot of automated commits included.
+I'm now hosting my own forge, so some commits never go to GitHub and stay private.
+At work as usual contributions are spread across GitHub repositories, our internal Mercurial server
+and a whole bunch of documents, meetings and chat discussions.
+
+The `~/Pictures/2024` folder now contains 3968 pictures. Probably 1000 less with the dupes removed.
+My iPhone photo library counts 5094 pictures for 2024.
+There's a whole lot of overlap.
+I should get my backups of all of these properly automated.
+
+<!--
+import osxphotos
+photosdb = osxphotos.PhotosDB()
+photos = photosdb.photos()
+thisyear = [p for p in photos if p.date.year == 2024]
+print(len(thisyear))
+-->
+
+Since I've been keeping a private archive of my Mastodon activity it's now easy to count:
+1464 toots over the year, 819 of those as replies to others.
+
+<!--
+SELECT
+ SUBSTR(created_at, 1, 4) as year,
+ CASE
+ WHEN in_reply_to_account_id IS NULL OR in_reply_to_account_id = 109309502992768302 THEN 'toot'
+ ELSE 'reply'
+ END as category,
+ COUNT(*)
+FROM
+ timeline
+WHERE
+ account_id = 109309502992768302
+GROUP BY 1, 2
+ORDER BY 1, 2
+-->
+
+I did 13 dives. 2 in Valencia, 11 in Mozambique.
+That's a good number for just 2 trips. Let's see if I can keep up with that in 2025.
+
+I don't have good tracking of my workouts anymore.
+I did try to keep a regular cadence of 2-3 workouts (A mix of HIIT and Core workouts) per week among the weekly Handball training.
+The latter of which I'm still leading as the coach, so I don't get as much training done myself.
+A hand injury, some sick days and the travel made it harder to keep the streak going.
+
+### <a id="my-year-in-photos-and-words"></a>My year in photos and words
+
+
+
+I spent the first week of the year in Tallinn with Flaki, before I headed back to Berlin.
+The 2024 European Men's Handball Championship was happening and I got myself tickets for the 3 game days of the Preliminary round of Group D.
+That group included Norway (of course), but also the Faroe Islands.
+Their fans were spectacular and the team managed to score a draw against Norway.
+
+In January I went to a [concert of Goldroger](https://www.instagram.com/p/C2kYkkzs8sP/).
+I went to school with that guy, so seeing him on stage in front of hundreds of people was something different.
+
+
+
+On a whim I bought a ticket to the [Enter Shikari concert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Q-gwLXxJ0) in Berlin in February
+(recording not from that concert, but from the same tour).
+While I knew them before I never followed their music much.
+That changed with the concert.
+
+The day after I flew to Norway.
+As a kind of joke in December the previous year I asked my family if they would join me for Biathlon in Oslo.
+My dad and my sister said yes. So that's what we ended up doing February.
+Now I'm signed up to volunteer at the Holmenkollen Skifestival in 2025.
+
+
+
+In March I headed to London.
+It's been a while since I visited, so I took that opportunity to do some sightseeing, including a Jack The Ripper walking tour.
+And of course I ate at [Mei Mei](https://www.meimei.uk/) (twice!)
+
+
+
+The actual reason for the trip however was the [Rust Nation UK](https://www.rustnationuk.com/) conference.
+Me at a Rust conference as an attendee, no work or organizing involved. Still weird.
+
+
+
+I came back to spend Easter with my family, before I took my nephew with me to Berlin.
+He wanted to visit the big city and get some time away from home.
+We went to another Füchse Berlin game.
+
+That same month I dislocated a finger on my right hand in the second-to-last game of the season.
+My whole right forearm was in a cast for a week and it took several more weeks before I could return to proper training.
+
+
+
+May then took me to Valencia, Spain.
+I accompanied [Patrick](https://www.instagram.com/pckbls/) there,
+where he took the opportunity to film the [Drift Masters](https://dm.gp/) event happening at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
+I managed to sneak in 2 dives and spend a day at the beach on my own.
+
+
+
+Motor sport, no matter what, is still not my kind of sport,
+but nonetheless the results of Patrick's work there and at other events are worth a watch.
+Go check out [his latest video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77tZng7pAAo).
+
+
+
+In June I flew to Canada to take part in a Data Org Work week at the Mozilla office in Toronto.
+There's only a few times a year to spend time with my team, so we made the best of this week with planning, discussions, ping pong, arcade games, food and beer.
+
+
+
+Back from the Canada trip I barely got a load of laundry done before I took a flight to Zürich for _my first_ [RustFest Zürich](https://rustfest.ch/).
+It was the second overall, after I couldn't attend [the 2017 edition](https://zurich.rustfest.eu/).
+
+The team pulled it off and set up a small community event with great talks and fantastic attendees.
+
+
+
+In July I made a surprise visit at my parents to celebrate my mother starting retirement,
+after which my parents in return visited Berlin (planned, not a surprise).
+
+We then went back home together.
+From there I went further west to attend the wedding party of one of my closest friends.
+And it just happened that I met someone at this party and we hit it off.
+
+There was no point going back to Berlin for a short time,
+because I was once again helping at the Juicy Beats festival in Dortmund just a week later.
+I stayed one more week so I could attend the bachelor party for my little brother.
+
+
+
+A week back in Berlin allowed me to catch some of the summer days,
+but before I got to settled down I went to Dublin for the Mozilla All-Hands (or MozWeek as they relabeled it).
+
+
+
+That whole ordeal was so exhausting that after I was back in Berlin I took the train up to Stralsund to get away and relax at the ocean once more.
+I enjoyed it so much that I spontaneously extended my stay by 2 days.
+
+
+
+In late September Flaki came to visit Berlin, bringing along his two dogs Lumi and Iris.
+
+
+
+That visit was all part of a trip all the way down to Vienna to attend EuroRust in October.
+The two dogs were the most calm fluffy attendees I've ever seen.
+I on the other hand was quite busy helping to provide internet for the conference and running the Q&A sessions after talks.
+
+
+
+This year I seem to have packed all my travel close together.
+I again got less than a week back in Berlin before rushing back home.
+My brother got married and I had to be there.
+It was a great wedding and I wish the happy couple all the best!
+
+
+
+For (nearly) all of November I stayed in Berlin. Finally.
+I managed to go to two concerts and then I got a visit from the special person I met a few months earlier at the wedding.
+Good food & good company made this month at home very worthwhile.
+
+
+
+Then on November 29, Florian and I boarded a flight to Johannesburg in South Africa.
+[Sibylle](http://blog.discover-botswana.de/) picked us up
+and we took a long trip over to Mozambique,
+with a day trip through the Kruger National Park.
+
+
+
+The extended trip was chosen due to the still-ongoing protests and political crisis in Mozambique.
+A trip to the Kruger allowed us to use the more northern border post and thus avoid a drive through the capital Maputo.
+
+
+
+When we made it to Barra Beach we were greeted by our hosts and friends Greg & Gwen
+from [Aquaholics](https://www.barrascuba.com/).
+We spent 2 weeks down there.
+In 11 amazing dives I experienced a lively, colorful and astonishing world under water.
+
+
+
+After Mozambique I got back to Berlin for a day.
+The next day I hopped back on a train, heading home to spend Christmas with my family.
+
+On December 27 I then started a long trip to northern Norway together with Dominik.
+I'm always checking the pictures from [ofotfjorden.no](https://ofotfjorden.no/),
+so it was time to see for myself.
+The picture above is looking roughly in the same direction as the Ofotfjorden camera.
+
+
+
+On New Year's Eve we made it to our final stop all the way in the north of Norway.
+The tiny settlement we're staying in is called Steinfjord
+and it's a good place for some days in the quiet.
+
+Just as 2025 was to break the Northern Lights came up on the sky.
+They grew stronger as time went on, visible with bare eyes.
+A perfect start into a 2025.
+
+### The Future
+
+In retrospect writing this I realized just _how_ busy my 2024 was.
+I don't think 2025 will slow down much.
+I'm still traveling at the moment and won't be back in Berlin until late January.
+I already have two further trips booked.
+And that's only in the first 3 months of the year.
+It looks like I will go to at least 2 Rust conferences again.
+At some point I will need an extended summer vacation again too.
+
+Work will go on.
+2024 was a turbulent year at Mozilla and it doesn't give me the highest confidence for Mozilla in 2025.
+Nonetheless I will continue to work on data things and ensure that we do that in a way that benefits the user.
+Glean just went through a major change and I have some work lined up to reduce memory usage and change the storage layer.
+
+I'm still in the same flat as the year before and didn't really look for a new one yet.
+Maybe 2025 is the time for a move?
+
+I now recognize when I didn't get to exercise for a while, be that for laziness, travel, injury or sickness.
+One thing I want to improve in 2025 is some form of workout schedule while traveling.
+
+My year was busy, but all of that was enjoyable thanks to the people keeping me busy.
+
+Thanks to so many people that traveled with me or came to visit.
+My dad & sister to Oslo.
+My nephew in Berlin.
+Patrick to Spain.
+Flaki in Berlin and to Vienna.
+My parents in Berlin and back home.
+Camille in Berlin.
+Sibylle, Wolfgang & Florian to Mozambique.
+Dominik to Norway.
+
+<br>
+<div style="text-align:center">
+<strong><3</strong>
+</div>