August 2023

One of the perks of working for Igalia is that Alice gets to travel to A Coruña in Spain each year. This is where Igalia hosts its annual Web Engines Hackfest conference. This year was the first time that I joined her for the conference, which is now a W3C endorsed conference!

What made this year extra special is that we made the entire trip by public transport. Trains for the most part with a bus for the final stretch. The ±2.000 KM long trip took us two days to complete in both directions. The outbound journey was relatively relaxed and uneventful. The return trip was more stressful given that it was during the European June heatwave; with outside temperatures reaching 42 ºC.

Irregardless, I had a fun week with some fantastic folks. I hope I can make it out to A Coruña next year. Not sure I want to repeat the trip by train though…

Finished reading All Systems Red by Martha Wells yet again; I love that book so much. Murderbot is such a likeable character and the humour in these books is fantastic.

It’s my last month with the ministry of infrastructure and water management. It’s been an interesting year in which I’ve learned a few things. It makes me sad to think about the things that it could’ve been.

I look forward to my next project.

Alice finally arrived! We’ve been apart since September of last year—which has been entirely too long. I’m so incredibly happy that she’s here 💕.

Started as a Senior Accessibility Advisor at the Dutch government. After a two year hiatus it’ll be an adjustment to get back to work. The road to recovery from my burnout has been long. I hope this new job gives me the energy to get back into it! Working on accessibility, in whatever capacity, is something I’ll always enjoy.

Alice and I spent two weeks in California to visit friends and attend TPAC. It was my first time visiting San Francisco. It was a real treat driving around in a city I’ve explorer in games so often. We rented a cabin in the El Cerrito hills with a view of the Golden Gate bridge.

After our week in San Francisco, we picked up a friend from the airport on our way to Anaheim. We made a stop near Los Angeles to visit a friend where we spent the night (and had a yummy dinner). It was a privilege to finally meet their cats 🐈.

TPAC (Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee) is W3C’s annual conference where collaboration on web standards happens. This year it was held in Anaheim. It was the first one Alice and I attended in person since Japan in 2019.

Australia here I come! It’s been a wild few months. After all it’s not every day that you fall madly in love with someone. Much less so someone from the other side of the planet. And yet here we are. Thanks to a (now shared) friend we were able to spend a week together before Alice had to fly back home, to Australia. That was at the end of June. Falling in love and immediately having to be apart for a month has been a cruel way to start a relationship. But I’m all the more excited to fly to Australia and be together for the next two months!