Occasional Update 2

Back in June 2020, I started writing this article:

---
date: '2020-06-30'
layout: article
tags:
  - updates
title: 'Occasional Update 2'
summary: "A very strange year"
---

That’s as far as I got before giving up in the face of the futility of it all. It really has been an odd year though, these last 3 years.

I’ve done a few things. No in person conferences but I did make video presentations about some historical computing stuff at PycOnline 2020 and EveryWorld 2020 which was fun but also incredibly time-consuming and somehow … hollow? I think by that time I was very much burnt out from online communications.

I started writing a game (sort of) and I made a MIDI guitar (sort of) and I upset a lot of people and did a bit of 3d printing but otherwise, despite a massive amount of time on my hands, I didn’t get a whole lot done.

Offline, I did learn a bit of Ukulele, but part of the joy of that is that’s it’s an Entirely Offline Hobby, I even print out sheet music for myself on paper so I can enjoy the total absence of onlineyness, so I won’t be ruining it for myself by writing about it here (much) — although it has given me the opportunity to experience just how offputting it is to beginners to describe any new skill as “easy”!

And I’ve done a lot of cycling, which I probably will write about at some point. Like just about everyone, I did eventually catch COVID, and despite a whole bunch of vaccinations it was not a whole bundle of laughs, but over the year I’ve recovered well and I’m back to cycling again and building my fitness back up so hoping to do a lot of riding this summer.

I’m now working on CountESS pretty much full time and looking forward to talking about it (and the MIDI guitar) at my first in-person conference in several years, PyConAU Adelaide. Hope to see you there.