What’s happening with me now? Last updated on 2025-11-25
Cycling
In August 2025, I re-injured my right knee. I’ve fought with knee problems since I was 16 years old, so this isn’t new for me. While I’m not in pain, I’m working through physio therapy to reduce problems and get back to serious training for next summer.
My plan again is to take the bike up the Rhine from Cologne to The Hague, Holland where it ends in the North Sea. Then, later in the year, I plan to go the opposite direction and follow the Rhine down all the way to where the two Rhine rivers merge in Tamins, Switzerland.
These are long, multi day tours. I’ll see how training goes until spring and what doctor/therapists have to say about it. For now, I’m working on it daily, but only time will tell.
Software Engineering
Randomly, I discovered the Bootlin Embedded Linux course, which I’m working through right now. After that, I’m going to do their Buildroot course as well, and I have an Embedded Linux project in mind to make use of this knowledge.
I’ve had a strong interest in systems programming for a while and I bought multiple ESP-32 microcontrollers for upcoming hardware projects. I also have The Raspberry Pi Book to help me get started with electronics.
For my day job, I’m reading Writing Data-Intensive Applications in the hopes of discovering and then filling the holes in my distributed system’s knowledge. I have opted for a more general book to cover more ground, with the option to dive deeper into specific topics as needed.
Work
At my current employer, I feel I have reached the end of where I can develop as purely a software engineer. My plan is to get into a position where I get to spend more time helping colleagues out with their training and career goals.
I want to give more talks and foster a stronger environment of learning within the company. More knowledge sharing and more experimenting on the job to get people excited about work, less focus on just delivering on deadlines.
Goals
For this year, I made the following New Year’s resolutions:
Write an article every month.- Play an Indie game every month.
Read a book every month.
So far, I’m having success in pursuing these goals, but over the year my engagement has worn off.
This happened slowly over time and was recently ramped up by work becoming more demanding.
The only goal that I have stuck to is playing more videogames - which is great.
I don’t want to drop everything entirely though, so I’m planning to release a few more articles this year. I’m still reading books, just not at the expected cadence. Perhaps I’ll give this another shot next year…