2012: Year in Review

As we move from one year to the next it's a good time to reflect and look back on what the past year has brought us. Some of the main events in 2012 for me include a mayor road trip in the United States along various places, changing jobs and moving abroad. I'm now living in London and I've moved from working at a well-established media company (Lukkien) to a growing technology startup (Rangespan).

Travel

I've travelled to various countries and visited places that I haven't been to before. I've worked in three different cities (Ede, Amsterdam, London) and I've spend some time exploring Tucson, Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Madrid and London (twice).

Furthermore, I've seen precious gems and minerals at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show, the largest event of its kind in the world. Other travel highlights include immersing myself in the Spanish cities Barcelona and Madrid and being in London during the 2012 Olympic Games.

Career

Professionally I've learned a lot in both jobs about software development and software testing as well as building a stable software platform and keeping the systems running. I've shared my knowledge by answering many questions on Stack Overflow and I aim to write more about technical subjects here on this blog in 2013.

Some new technologies that I've used in 2012 include Selenium (see my previously posted tutorial), Celery (in a task-based online control panel for a render farm), MongoDB and Amazon Web Services.

Expat in London

Moving abroad can take quite some time and effort (see my post on finding a room in London) and I still haven't fully settled in or taken care of all the necessary paperwork. Nonetheless I think it has been worth the effort thus far and it's going to pay off in the near future. Based on my previous experience with living in Melbourne, Australia, and my time so far in London, the year 2013 has at least all the opportunities of becoming a good year for me.