I am glad 2020 is over. It was the year that put an end to any hope of self-responsibility to tackle a global crisis. It did not work for COVID-19, it will not work for climate change. We need something else and I hope we find it in time.
Havoc to my travel plans
In 2020 I wanted to visit Australia, a dream I had to postpone due to health issues for a few years now. COVID-19 put an end to that as it did to my plans to visit Scotland, Copenhagen, and Oslo. For the first time since 2013 I could not travel to Norway to attend NDC. The online conference was good, but not really comparable to the “real” thing.
I was glad I took the chance I had in February to take part in the Ski weekend of my team and go to Amsterdam as it was still possible. It followed a relatively mild lockdown in Switzerland. In the summer, the situation looked a lot better and I took the chance to visit France and Italy. Those two countries had much better safety measures in place than Switzerland and they made sure that they were obeyed.
The lack of tourists gave me the opportunity to take pictures like almost never before – or can anyone remember a nearly empty St. Mark’s square in Venice when this place is not flooded? You can find my pictures of 2020 here:
Python Friday
My Idea to learn Python and blog about it every week was a great help to keep focus this year. You can find those posts here and I have enough ideas to keep this series going for another few months.
Ministry of Testing
One of the great discoveries for me in 2020 was Ministry of Testing. For a reasonable membership fee (£249.99 per year) you get access to all their online conferences, the 99-minutes workshops and a great community. I find this subscription a great addition to Pluralsight and I am looking forward on what I can learn there next year.
2021?
I have high hopes on the vaccine for COVID-19 and that we can have something like “normal” by summer. Maybe this crisis will help more people to understand that certainty is an illusion and that we can and must do things differently if we not want to run right into the next crisis. Let us hope for the best.