Hi! It's me, Joris.

It looks like I've linked you here myself. Linking people to a blogpost I wrote is often a bit akward, especially at work.

I likely shared this blog in an attempt to further a conversation. Usually the post does a better job at succinctly sharing information than I could by talking.

In any case, I hope me sharing this post doesn't come across as humblebragging, that's really the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks for reading!

My 2023 In Review
10 min read

A year of discovery

This is the fourth consecutive Year in Review post (2020, 2021, 2022), and it’s been another very busy year.

After last’s year of Letting Go (refinding balance after emerging from the pandemic with 2 young kids), this year became a year of Discovery. An overview.

Tasting the Digital Nomad life, with a family

Our 2300km roadtrip from home (Breda, Netherlands) to our AirBNB in Portugal (Almancil).
Enlarge

Our 2300km roadtrip from home (Breda, Netherlands) to our AirBNB in Portugal (Almancil).

Our 2300km roadtrip from home (Breda, Netherlands) to our AirBNB in Portugal (Almancil).
Our 2300km roadtrip from home (Breda, Netherlands) to our AirBNB in Portugal (Almancil).

In an effort to escape the daily rat race, spent more time together as a family and deliberately seeking adventure - we decided in late 2022 to spent February 2023 working remotely from Southern Portugal - with 2 small kids in tow.

While it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, it was an unforgettable experience overall - so much so that we ended up repeating this experiment in May in Croatia.

I wrote at length about our experience in Portugal in a blogpost and captured some of our day-to-day experiences on X. I definitely hope we can do this again in the future.

Me working outside on a sunny day in Croatia in early May while the kids are playing in the background.
Enlarge

Me working outside on a sunny day in Croatia in early May while the kids are playing in the background.

Me working outside on a sunny day in Croatia in early May while the kids are playing in the background.
Me working outside on a sunny day in Croatia in early May while the kids are playing in the background.
One thing that carried over from our time abroad was working outside. Whenever the weather and my schedule permitted at home, I ended up working outside using a small mobile home office.
Enlarge

One thing that carried over from our time abroad was working outside. Whenever the weather and my schedule permitted at home, I ended up working outside using a small mobile home office.

One thing that carried over from our time abroad was working outside. Whenever the weather and my schedule permitted at home, I ended up working outside using a small mobile home office.
One thing that carried over from our time abroad was working outside. Whenever the weather and my schedule permitted at home, I ended up working outside using a small mobile home office.

Thread related to our stay in Portugal

Similar picture, but this thread is the one for our trip to Croatia.

Buying a new house 🏡

While we had initially planned to repeat our remote working experiment again in November, it didn’t end up working out. Rather unexpectedly, we ended up buying a new house instead 😅

While we had planned to slowly start a house hunt in 2024, a house that checked a lot of boxes serendipitously caught our eye in late summer this year. One thing let to another and now we’re moving early February 2024!

While moving house naturally comes with some stress (and a lot of paperwork), the predominant feeling is one of excitement. Excitement to discover a new environment and establish new daily routines but above all: the blank canvas that is our new, more spacious house (and garden). My mind is raging with all the new projects that will be enabled, I can’t wait 🤩

Our new home starting early February!
Enlarge

Our new home starting early February!

Our new home starting early February!
Our new home starting early February!
*Obviously*, I’ve started creating a 3D model of our new home 😁  Using [SweetHome3D](https://www.sweethome3d.com/).
Enlarge

Obviously, I’ve started creating a 3D model of our new home 😁  Using SweetHome3D.

*Obviously*, I’ve started creating a 3D model of our new home 😁  Using [SweetHome3D](https://www.sweethome3d.com/).
Obviously, I’ve started creating a 3D model of our new home 😁  Using SweetHome3D.

Blog

Similar to 2022, blogging on a regular schedule has been a challenge this year. Not for a lack of ideas, but as the cliché goes: time. Which really just means it’s not been as big of priority this year. While I’d like it to be different (because I truly believe writing is good for me), I don’t think 2024 will be much better in this regard.

Nevertheless, I did manage to publish 3 blogposts this year, all of which I felt good about.

[Spending a month in Portugal](/posts/spending-a-month-in-portugal/): Details on our aforementioned experience in Portugal.
Enlarge

Spending a month in Portugal: Details on our aforementioned experience in Portugal.

[Spending a month in Portugal](/posts/spending-a-month-in-portugal/): Details on our aforementioned experience in Portugal.
Spending a month in Portugal: Details on our aforementioned experience in Portugal.
[My Backup Strategy](/posts/my-backup-strategy/): I recently performed another round of backups as described in this blogpost, as part of my [Yearly Life Reviews](/posts/yearly-life-reviews/).
Enlarge

My Backup Strategy: I recently performed another round of backups as described in this blogpost, as part of my Yearly Life Reviews.

[My Backup Strategy](/posts/my-backup-strategy/): I recently performed another round of backups as described in this blogpost, as part of my [Yearly Life Reviews](/posts/yearly-life-reviews/).
My Backup Strategy: I recently performed another round of backups as described in this blogpost, as part of my Yearly Life Reviews.
[Dreaming of the Ultimate Smarthome (Part 1)](/posts/dreaming-of-the-ultimate-smarthome-part-1/): Part 2 of this series is about 70% done. I had planned to publish this in December but life got in the way. Hopefully soon!
Enlarge

Dreaming of the Ultimate Smarthome (Part 1): Part 2 of this series is about 70% done. I had planned to publish this in December but life got in the way. Hopefully soon!

[Dreaming of the Ultimate Smarthome (Part 1)](/posts/dreaming-of-the-ultimate-smarthome-part-1/): Part 2 of this series is about 70% done. I had planned to publish this in December but life got in the way. Hopefully soon!
Dreaming of the Ultimate Smarthome (Part 1): Part 2 of this series is about 70% done. I had planned to publish this in December but life got in the way. Hopefully soon!

In addition to writing 3 blogposts, I also migrated my blog backend from Jekyll to Hugo this year. A change I’m still happy with.

Food: Bread, Veggies & Meat

In the last few years, my interest in better understanding how to produce and cook food has increased a lot, I think as part of a larger interest in self-sustainability and alternative lifestyles. This expressed itself this year by my first experiments with vegetable gardening, sourdough bread making and different meat preparation techniques.

On the veggie front, I successfully grew radishes, baby carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, a variety of herbs and strawberries. Failures included zucchinis, baby spinach and green beans (better luck next year!). This felt very rewarding and it was a great activity to do with the kids. I’m definitely planning to experiment a lot more in 2024!

In the bread department, I experimented with quite a few different types of flour and recipes, including creating my own sourdough from scratch (which I still don’t have down quite yet).

The first time my bread rolls came out this well I was very happy!
Enlarge

The first time my bread rolls came out this well I was very happy!

The first time my bread rolls came out this well I was very happy!
The first time my bread rolls came out this well I was very happy!

When it comes to meat preparation, I experimented quite a bit with different grill and smoking techniques and a large variety of different meat cuts.

I did most of the grilling on my new Ninja Woodfire grill. It makes BBQing so easy we did it multiple times a week during the summer.
Smoking salmon 🐟
I cooked and ate wagyu beef for the first time this past summer. The hype is real: incredibly tender and buttery.
Enlarge

I cooked and ate wagyu beef for the first time this past summer. The hype is real: incredibly tender and buttery.

I cooked and ate wagyu beef for the first time this past summer. The hype is real: incredibly tender and buttery.
I cooked and ate wagyu beef for the first time this past summer. The hype is real: incredibly tender and buttery.
Another first this year: sous vide cooking. Makes for some very juicy meat (pictured: chicken).
Enlarge

Another first this year: sous vide cooking. Makes for some very juicy meat (pictured: chicken).

Another first this year: sous vide cooking. Makes for some very juicy meat (pictured: chicken).
Another first this year: sous vide cooking. Makes for some very juicy meat (pictured: chicken).

Gitlint

I spent quite a bit of time on gitlint - my open source project - in the first half of the year, but did little in the second half. While this resulted in just a single release, the release contained a lot of under-the-hood changes. I completely rewrote the CI/CD pipelines and build tooling - something I had wanted to do for years - and also completely redid gitlint’s documentation website.

Another year of slow but steady growth for gitlint, reaching almost 750 github stars. Source: [star-history.com](https://star-history.com/#jorisroovers/gitlint)
Enlarge

Another year of slow but steady growth for gitlint, reaching almost 750 github stars. Source: star-history.com

Another year of slow but steady growth for gitlint, reaching almost 750 github stars. Source: [star-history.com](https://star-history.com/#jorisroovers/gitlint)
Another year of slow but steady growth for gitlint, reaching almost 750 github stars. Source: star-history.com
The [new gitlint documentation website](https://jorisroovers.com/gitlint/latest/) uses the excellent [Material for mkdocs](https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/) backend.
Enlarge

The new gitlint documentation website uses the excellent Material for mkdocs backend.

The [new gitlint documentation website](https://jorisroovers.com/gitlint/latest/) uses the excellent [Material for mkdocs](https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/) backend.
The new gitlint documentation website uses the excellent Material for mkdocs backend.

Home Automation

2023 was an incremental year for my home automation setup. Outside of a home automation infatuation phase (in August-September), I mostly just made tweaks to my existing setup.

Still, I added a few, cool, new, devices and build a few new dashboards in homeassistant.

Also, this happened as I started preparing for our upcoming house move.

After installing a weather station this year, I also build a pretty cool weather dashboard.

Work

After making a big career decision last year (moving from a engineering management back to a technical engineering role), this year was very different from the years before. While there were times I missed some of dynamics of engineering leadership, the ability to dive deep into technical topics that were new to me more than made up for that.

Word Cloud of some of the technology I used at work this year. Generated using [wordclouds.com](https://www.wordclouds.com/).
Enlarge

Word Cloud of some of the technology I used at work this year. Generated using wordclouds.com.

Word Cloud of some of the technology I used at work this year. Generated using [wordclouds.com](https://www.wordclouds.com/).
Word Cloud of some of the technology I used at work this year. Generated using wordclouds.com.

Media: books, videogames and TV

I read 6 books this year, all of which were good - a few great.

Whatever your opinion is of the man - **Elon Musk** by **Walter Isaacson** does a fantastic job at providing a balanced view of this complex and intriguing persona. A must-read for anyone who’s into technology.
Enlarge

Whatever your opinion is of the man - Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson does a fantastic job at providing a balanced view of this complex and intriguing persona. A must-read for anyone who’s into technology.

Whatever your opinion is of the man - **Elon Musk** by **Walter Isaacson** does a fantastic job at providing a balanced view of this complex and intriguing persona. A must-read for anyone who’s into technology.
Whatever your opinion is of the man - Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson does a fantastic job at providing a balanced view of this complex and intriguing persona. A must-read for anyone who’s into technology.
**The Fault in our Stars** by **John Green** was the only fiction book I read this year. While some categorize it as *chicklit* (i.e. target audience: young women) - I enjoyed it a lot!
Enlarge

The Fault in our Stars by John Green was the only fiction book I read this year. While some categorize it as chicklit (i.e. target audience: young women) - I enjoyed it a lot!

**The Fault in our Stars** by **John Green** was the only fiction book I read this year. While some categorize it as *chicklit* (i.e. target audience: young women) - I enjoyed it a lot!
The Fault in our Stars by John Green was the only fiction book I read this year. While some categorize it as chicklit (i.e. target audience: young women) - I enjoyed it a lot!
**The Bomber Mafia** by **Malcolm Gladwell** is an excellently told story (best enjoyed it as an audiobook) about precision aerial bombing during WW2.
Enlarge

The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell is an excellently told story (best enjoyed it as an audiobook) about precision aerial bombing during WW2.

**The Bomber Mafia** by **Malcolm Gladwell** is an excellently told story (best enjoyed it as an audiobook) about precision aerial bombing during WW2.
The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell is an excellently told story (best enjoyed it as an audiobook) about precision aerial bombing during WW2.

While I tried quiet a few new video games for a few hours this year (I also got a PSVR2 and a steamdeck), only 2 really stood out to me.

For the first few hours I thought **God of War: Ragnarok** was just an incremental sequel to the incredible original game, but *boy* was I proven wrong as the game picked up pace. Absolute must play.
Enlarge

For the first few hours I thought God of War: Ragnarok was just an incremental sequel to the incredible original game, but boy was I proven wrong as the game picked up pace. Absolute must play.

For the first few hours I thought **God of War: Ragnarok** was just an incremental sequel to the incredible original game, but *boy* was I proven wrong as the game picked up pace. Absolute must play.
For the first few hours I thought God of War: Ragnarok was just an incremental sequel to the incredible original game, but boy was I proven wrong as the game picked up pace. Absolute must play.
Playing as a samurai in medieval Japan is as amazing as it sounds. **Ghost of Tsushima** offers fantastic sword play, beautiful scenery and never felt too repetitive despite a big open world - highly recommended.
Enlarge

Playing as a samurai in medieval Japan is as amazing as it sounds. Ghost of Tsushima offers fantastic sword play, beautiful scenery and never felt too repetitive despite a big open world - highly recommended.

Playing as a samurai in medieval Japan is as amazing as it sounds. **Ghost of Tsushima** offers fantastic sword play, beautiful scenery and never felt too repetitive despite a big open world - highly recommended.
Playing as a samurai in medieval Japan is as amazing as it sounds. Ghost of Tsushima offers fantastic sword play, beautiful scenery and never felt too repetitive despite a big open world - highly recommended.

I didn’t watch a lot of TV this year, but I did tremendously enjoy some of Apple’s TV series.

**Ted Lasso** succeeded in making me cry from laughter as well as profound emotion. A+
Enlarge

Ted Lasso succeeded in making me cry from laughter as well as profound emotion. A+

**Ted Lasso** succeeded in making me cry from laughter as well as profound emotion. A+
Ted Lasso succeeded in making me cry from laughter as well as profound emotion. A+
While we haven’t fully finished **For All Mankind** yet, the first few seasons are great science fiction.
Enlarge

While we haven’t fully finished For All Mankind yet, the first few seasons are great science fiction.

While we haven’t fully finished **For All Mankind** yet, the first few seasons are great science fiction.
While we haven’t fully finished For All Mankind yet, the first few seasons are great science fiction.

And more…

2023 became a year of discovering new places, hobbies and perhaps myself. As I look back, I’m very happy we had the courage to make some of big decisions that we did, culminating in the purchase of a new house. Going into 2024, that house move will undoubtedly influence a lot of the year, bringing both new opportunities as well as new challenges. I’m excited for this big new chapter for our family, and the stories and memories we’ll create there.

If there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that 2024 will be another busy year. Let’s get it going!

Comments, questions, feedback? I'm @jorisroovers on X (twitter).
Enjoyed reading this?
Read one of my other blog posts.
Get notified of new posts by subscribing to my newsletter.