It’s been a while, but I’m back! I last wrote a post at the end of 2021 and had a draft of something I started in March last year. I have had a blog-shaped hole in my life for almost two years. Life has an ebb and flow, and I know another “post-drought” will come, but that’s okay. This post is the start of me establishing the habit again; although I’m not 100% sure what the extent of topics will be, I’ve made peace with having random content aimed at being my log of memories to reflect on at the end of a year.

Why the absence? Long story short, friction. In 2020 Scott Hanselman inspired me to write more. 2021 was my best year of writing, and I attribute that to freeing myself of the shackles of writing only about game development. I simplified the site’s theme enough that creating a new post consisted of picking a title and starting to write, contrasted with the previous theme relying on each post having a nice thumbnail.

Furthermore, I try to keep my computer’s Windows installation as “clean” as possible. I found Hugo’s toolchain a little frustrating to set up on Windows, so I opted for an installation on Ubuntu running in WSL. Package managers are a developer’s friends. Jump to the start of 2022. I started having issues with Assetto Corsa Competizione having micro stutters, which I later attributed to virtualisation. Turning it off made WSL inaccessible unless I boot into my BIOS, toggle virtualisation on to write a post and then have to undo the config change before I try getting back into racing.

This past weekend, I discovered that Hugo’s latest version is available using Windows Package Manager. I quickly ran this site again and tackled some technical debt alongside a little restructuring. The bulk of my posts can still be found here, but I realised some historic posts qualified as Projects. I also moved the scripts of public speaking engagements I did into the Talks, and I’m hoping to discover some more of these “sections” as I write more content. The site’s taxonomies still require some work, but I’m leaving that for future-me to figure out. I’m back to having a low-friction writing environment for the future.

A Quick Review

There’s a lot to unpack here. I’m just going to do a brain dump here. I alluded to something on the horizon from a professional point of view. My career had come somewhat full circle. I’m a product of Entelect’s Boot Camp. Training has been a passion within my career, and I had the opportunity to present the bulk of our Boot Camp content in the format of what we now call “Mid-Year Boot Camp”. Entelect has grown a LOT since I joined, so Boot Camp has scaled alongside it.

Mid-Year Boot Camp was an opportunity to experiment with a slightly different format, and we’ve already had the second iteration this year. Going from a wide-eyed software engineer entering the working world, Boot Camp significantly impacted my career. The opportunity to teach the same lessons to other young engineers and give them a leg up at the start has been a very satisfying experience.

I was promoted to Technical Lead at the beginning of last year. Presenting Mid-Year Boot Camp brought an unexpected move: I’m now part of Entelect’s Learning & Development team. It does mean that the title isn’t quite an accurate description of my focus at work, but the change in focus has been challenging and rewarding. People often ask me if I “miss coding”. My response is simple: “No, I’m still building and architecting. The medium of choice has just changed.”

Enough about work. My personal life has also had some rollercoaster moments. I helped some friends participate in a Lemons race as a team manager. It was an incredible journey getting to stand next to the racetrack, keeping track of the state of each car’s race and making decisions based on that. We entered three cars into the 24-hour race last year in October. Unfortunately, only one of the three cars made it to the end, but it was still tons of fun.

I also partook in my first 24-hour endurance sim race this year. Not just once, but twice. We raced in the LMDh class for the Daytona 24 Hour and took on the Nurburgring 24 Hour in the Toyota GR86 class. It was great fun, and I’m certainly planning to join the races next year.

The last big change that occurred was the birth of our baby boy. The last two months have been an incredible journey. Kudos to the resilience, strength, and care my wife has shown. It’s shifted all my priorities, and I’m still finding my feet, but I’m excited for what the future holds.

The Path Forward

While I’m still finding my feet, I’m unsure what cadence I’ll write. Aiming for monthly posts is likely still a good call, but I also have some other plans that warrant more regular documenting. Some of it might even be game development!