life-updates-2023.txt (2687B) [raw]
1 # Life Updates 2023 2 3 _Published: November 14, 2023_ 4 5 A year ago, the most exciting thing I had to report on for 6 this blog was my [homelab](state-of-the-homelab-2023-09.html). 7 Oh wow what a year it's been since then! 8 9 While generally the focus of this blog has been tech, it's 10 been a big year, so I thought I'd make this a bit more personal. 11 12 ## Life and Love 13 14 The biggest life update by far was that my wife Jennie and 15 I got married in September <3. It was an amazing day and 16 I feel so grateful to have such loving and supporting friends 17 and family who traveled to celebrate us. Thank you to all who 18 came. 19 20 As if planning the wedding wasn't stressful enough, we bought 21 our first house mere months before in June! We were immediately 22 thrown into the deep end with a leaky roof, an oil tank double 23 the maximum age about to become an environmental disaster, a 24 hot water heater with a broken coil flooding the boiler, a 25 collapsed flue that was a CO risk needing a new liner, and 26 a fireplace mantle that fell off and almost seriously hurt 27 our home inspector. 5 months (and a good bit of stress) later, 28 it's starting to finally feel like home. I'm still glad we 29 bought the place, but I wouldn't do it again any time soon. 30 31 ## Hobbies 32 33 I've always found that my interests come and go in intense 34 phases of deep study. This blog partially documents some of 35 the technical ones; from wireguard to plan9 to gopher to 36 text editors... 37 38 \2023 was notable for breaking a common theme: the tech. 39 40 I became interested in Digital Minimalism earlier in the 41 year. The general idea being to identify the technology 42 that aids our lives and reject that which is just 43 distracting and attention-grabbing. I don't claim to 44 be the perfect practitioner (I reach for my phone more often 45 than I should when bored), but with that mindset I've 46 spent a lot less of my off-work hours at a computer 47 (at the expense of this blog). 48 49 Among the new interests were: 50 51 - Re-kindling my love of reading 52 - Learning Chess (admittedly mostly online, but also 53 some over-the-board!) 54 - Home improvement (lots to do on the new house: fixing 55 leaky sinks, upgrading light switches, painting, etc) 56 - Personal finance / investing / FIRE 57 58 In diversifying my hobbies beyond hacking at a terminal 59 screen I've found some balance I was definitely missing. 60 There's something inherently satisfying about fixing 61 something physical in the real world in a way that 62 solving puzzles in Scheme doesn't provide :) 63 64 ## Looking Forward 65 66 With the wedding and majority of home work (a whole new 67 type of homework) behind us, I'm hopeful I'll have time 68 to go back and write about some of what I've learned! If 69 not, well, know that it's been a great year :)