Category: just-plain-life

This year has been full of ups and downs, its a year I’m not going to forget.

2024 is when I got Covid again for the 2nd time. Once again it was in another country (this time the Netherlands) while at MozHouse Amsterdam. Where I spent a lot of time this year due to 4 conferences (PublicSpaces, Mozhouse AMS, Dutch media week and Society 5.0).

Talking about travel, I ended up in Bristol, Audenshaw, Weston Super Mare, Lancaster, Cardiff, Amsterdam, Hiversum, Henden Bridge, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bath, Buxton, Harderwjik, Berlin, Newcastle, Gateshead, Oslo, Sheffield, Barcelona, Sitges, Hoofddorp, Zwolle, York, Huddlesfield, Newport and London; this year.

I’m happy to say I took the train a lot including the Eurostar into Europe a few times. However my train rides around the UK resulted in many delays and cancellationshttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/21/just-2-of-busiest-trains-on-key-london-to-manchester-line-run-on-time. I have worked out its resulted in me applying for delay reclaim over 50% of the time! For example here is my diversion from Bristol to Manchester via London due to the storm darragh.

My sleep has taken a bit of dive later in the year which makes sense as you will see. From average of 7.4 hours to 6.8 hours. Bedtime of about 1 am is working out; but my deep sleep goes into freefall when I need to get up early.

Most listened to podcast is Daily Tech News show (they keep change the artist tag) with Better offline and Podnews just behind that. Music wise, Tonepoet has the advantage, as my pacemaker doesn’t track me and I tend not to listen to single tracks on the go. Trakt indicates so far, I have watched 259 hours of TV shows and 318 hours of films.

Here is the review of my 2024 resolutions.

1. Digital nomad things
   Make or break year I wrote previously, well nothing moved on this front for me. I also been reading how digital nomads are causing a back lash.
2. Finish my dating book
   Well I’m closer, really close. I attempt to use the gig platform fiver to get some external proof readers and it made was shocking how the scammers operate there. I’m still getting contacted by them right now, luckily its contained within the platform chat, which I have ignored.
   I still have many thoughts about the title, want to change the epilogue a bit to related to something I’m involved in.
3. Head even further a field with the scooter
   Not happened but this is likely to happen next for sure, when I have more time. Will add to next years list.
4. Learn to drive a car
   Another one which looks like will happen next year when I have a lot more time for reasons which will be clear soon. Another hold out for the the next years list.
5. Listen to two Audiobooks every month
   This has been a good challenge and I have blown through 24 books with 28, although 2 of the books were quite short but still well worth listening to. I did also start a number of books but gave up on them as they were annoying or just not interesting in anyway. Its likely I will keep the goal at 24 for next year too although I might have more time.
6. Go to a new country
   This year I finally made it to Norway for the first time. Its a country I should have visited ages ago to complete my Scandinavian travels but never did. I went to Oslo and really enjoyed the short time I had there. I do have ideas for potential short trips to Switzerland and maybe the Czech republic, although Rural France is booked for a wedding.
7. Go to a new Rollercoaster park
   I ended up going to Wallai again but I’m considering going to a lot more in the 2025. I certainly can do better, especially with Thorpe parks new ride Hyperia on my doorstep as such.
8. Take the Diabolo skills up another level
   I still can’t do the infinite suicide but learned a bunch of new tricks and even ones of my own, although getting out of them can be tricky and a matter of luck.
9. Move over to privacy preserving protocols and platform
   This is happening more and more. Like many people I have pretty much ditched X/Twitter (although I do seem to get a few direct messages from the API which is strange). I lean on the Fediverse for all my social stuff and am generally very picky about new applications and services I use. For example I have been looking at knowledge management systems as I’ve been using Joplin too much like a notes store and could do with something new for project based stuff (feel free to shout at me, but I blame importing a bunch of Evernote & Standard notes stuff). I am always searching alternative.to for open and self hosting options. There is a big question of when I switch over my email to Proton, but thats still in the future right now.
10. Separate out my food waste
    This is one I am happy to say I have done pretty much 85% of the time. Some tricky times is when I have a Airbnb guest and also when emptying the food waste bin into the main bin, which is generally quite empty now. This one is good and its just part of the routine now.
11. Start to mark out significant moments in my history
    This one has started but I spent a lot of time working out how to best do it. I found a markdown schema/format called MarkWhen, which does exactly what I need. So far I have converted most of my significant moments but add more as I go. Plus I’m going backwards and finding dates for many more. Another good thing to have done and will keep on doing.
    Its also another indicator that although I love XML, I am do get Markdown is pretty human writable, which is important for those little tasks. Also I need to play with SaxonJS which can convert between Markdown and XML with ease.

    

12. See more of my friends
    This has been ok, but I feel like I can do so much better than I have done so far. I might modify this one a bit in the next year to something less ambiguous