This is the best year yet, and I think that I have said that for tree or four years now. Still plenty of things to complain about but overall everything is getting better for me. Yes, it's once again one of these posts where I update you about my current state in life and it looks like I missed my chance this year to do the normal "new years yearly update" so here it is!
On the surface 2015 was very similar to to 2014, same work, same place and more or less the same activities. I spent plenty of time to relax and reduce stress, especially 2013-2014 had been stressful for me and it was a good idea to learn to handle it before it was to late.
I left the country thrice this year, first once again to FOSDEM in Brussels, followed by a trip to London and Ansible Fest, and finally a planing conference with colleagues from South Pole in Budapest.
The biggest change this year was that I quit my job at South Pole and accepted a offer from SVT as a real employee. This felt like the right decision for me considering that I really enjoyed working there as a consult and there was more of a feature there for me, a better chance to advance and do something more. I really liked working for South Pole and had several colleagues there that I consider friends, but I felt like that I had maxed out my potential and it was time to move on.
I started working at SVT the 1st of January but in reality I was considered an employee from the time it was official, in the end of October if I remember correctly. This was probably the best thing ever for my stress levels, to be employed and know that I probably will stay there as long time that I desire is really nice. As a consultant my contract was renewed every tree months, and even if I was more or less guaranteed to be renewed I never new for sure, and that was somewhat stressful. I had never felt like that before, but I think the reason in this case was that I really liked to stay at SVT and I was afraid that I had to leave.
The manager that I signed the contract with at SVT did unfortunately quit before the end of the year, that was a sad moment considering that she was the best one I had ever had. But her legacy, the merger of two teams, my team and the old Ops team from another departments is still going strong and I really enjoy working with them.
In the beginning of the year 2016 I went to FOSDEM once again, this time, for the first time as an employee at SVT. I found my old colleagues at Delirium and spent some time talking with them for a few hours, got called traitor by one of them :) I traveled there with three colleagues from SVT, two from my team.
A interesting thing that happened in the year was that I ordered a car, my first car ever, and I do not even have a drivers license. Never needed either consider the excellent public transport in Stockholm, Sweden. Still, I do not think I will use it more than a few times each month but it will be really nice to have on the weekends and during vacations. The car, yeah, a Tesla Model 3. Will probably be delivered in a little more than a year, so I have time to learn to drive :)
It's now 25th of September, the summer has passed and nothing super interesting has happen. Got a new friend, spend some time with old friends from South Pole. Programmed a lot, a game actually, I will tell you more about that later. Bought a HTC Vive, started to automate my home and for just two weeks ago I bought a phone running Ubuntu.
I have no grand plans for the rest of the year but I do have a few ideas how to make it even better, and how to make 2017 the best year, again.