A year in review: 2022

posted on

I started my last year in review post with the words “2021 was wild!”. If 2021 was wild, then I don’t know what 2022 was because so much stuff was going on last year.

Personal

Our daughter was born in 2021, and suddenly she’s 19 months old. It’s killing me how fast time flies. It’s still amazing to watch her grow and learn new things. Looking at photos from early last year baffles me because she looks so different. It’s almost like I’m looking at another or multiple other persons. I’m really glad that I managed to find enough time for her. I still don’t work on weekends and evenings and I try to be home early every day, which allows me to spend a lot of time with her.

Some of my personal highlights this year were a weekend trip to Italy (Venice and Chioggia), our 4 week trip to Greece (Peloponnese and Athens), our road trip to Germany and The Netherlands (Freiburg, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Amsterdam), and of course moving to Graz.

My daughter and fiance playing with toys on a beach in Italy in October. Our fully packed van for our trip to Greece Me lying clothed on a beach and my daughter lying on top of me looking at me A beautiful beach in Greece with crystal clear water

In early 2022, we were looking for a house or flat in Graz, the second largest city in Austria. In June we found a nice place, said “Yes” with no hesitation, and moved in in August. Everything went so quick and now we’re already 5 months here. I like it here. It’s much smaller and calmer than Vienna, but nice.

Again our fully packed van but this time with furniture First selfie of me, my fiance and our daughter in our new home

This year I ran the first part of the relay marathon at the Vienna City Marathon. I did 5:14/km at a distance of 15.5km and I added another 5 kilometers for fun, which I ran in 6:43/km. I’m pretty happy with the result and I hope I can beat it this year.

What didn’t go well? I still didn’t have enough time and energy left for the rest of my family and my friends. I really want to fix that this year. Also, I have to make room for reading. I didn’t read a single book last year, and newspapers not as much as I would like to.

I was able to maintain my body weight more or less, but I actually wanted to lose some weight. Today I have ~90kg. I’d love to get down to 85kg.

The pandemic didn't hit me as much as other people, but I can feel how the general situation (war in Ukraine, covid, supression in Iran, increasing worldwide poverty, the rise of far right movements, climate crisis, etc.) effects me emotionally. I'm in no position to complain, though. I understand how priviledged I am.

Work

This year working for the City of Vienna was really busy. We had so much to do and a lot of internal discussions on how to do things. It was stressful, but I enjoyed it. The most notable event was our decision to switch to web components. I’ve spent a great deal of 2022 writing web components and I’ve learned a lot about JavaScript, reusability, and scalability.

December 31st was the last day for me working for the City of Vienna as a regular employee. I’ve worked for almost 4 years for Wien Holding Media and the Presse- and Informationsdienst (MA 53). My original plan was to give it a shot and quit after 2 years if it gets too boring, but it never did. I had amazing colleagues, interesting tasks, a lot of freedom in many aspects, and a boss you can only wish for. Moving to Graz didn’t just mark a new personal, but also a new professional chapter in my life. I’ll keep working with the City now and then, but starting 2023 I want to focus on new tasks (by the way, if you want to work with me, get in touch. :))

Besides my work for the city, I did a couple of accessibility audits, for example, for the Burgtheater in Vienna. I’ve helped an agency consult the Vienna University of Technology, and I did some workshops. Two online and one in-person workshops for Smashing Magazine and an online workshop with Shopify.

Objectively speaking, you can say that I worked too much last year, but doing less makes me unhappy. It sounds silly, but I need this sometimes stressful, face-paced, always busy environment in order to feel good. After making bad experiences with doing too much of the wrong kind of work a couple of years ago, I feel pretty confident that I can now judge when it becomes too much for me.

This year I want to focus more on teaching (through my blog, HTMHell and workshops) and consulting. If there’s one thing I can do to make the web a better place, it’s teaching others how to make inclusive websites.

Speaking

In 2022 I could check off so my things from my bucket list. I wrote a new talk called “Lost in Translation” and I presented it at Beyond Tellerrand, Smashing Conf in Freiburg, Fronteers, and Paris Web.

Here's a recording of my talk:

After 2 years without conferences, it felt so great to meet some of my friends again in person and other friends I made online for the first time.

In Düsseldorf, I met Stephanie Eckles, Marc Thiele, Joschi Kuphal, Matthias Ott, Niels Binder, Marco Hengstenberg, Oliver Schöndorfer, Gunnar Bittersmann, Marc Hinse, Maik, Robert Weber, Daniel Wentsch, Thomas Semmler, Reinhard Steudel, Vasilis van Gemert, and many more. In Freiburg, I met Andy Bell, Michelle Barker, Charis and Jarijn, Vitaly, Ari, Amanda, Iris, Samuel Snopko, Nathan Curtis, Harry Roberts, Barry Pollard, and many more. In Utrecht, I met Bramus van Damme, Schepp, Jewwy Qadri, Michael Hastrich, Niels Leenheer, Roudy Rabouw, Floor Drees, Erik Kroes, and many more. In Paris, I met Ahmad Shadeed, Gaël Poupard, Elie Sloïm, Cassie Evans, Luc Poupard, Nicolas Hoizey, and many more.

I know that listing names is a stupid idea because I’m sure that I forgot someone, but it just makes me happy to visualize how many amazing people I’ve met.

Me standing and smilie in front of a poster made for my talk Selfie of Daniel Wentsch, me and Oliver Schöndorfer in front of a bar that uses the Lobster font in their logo Breakfast with Bramus, Schepp, my fiance, our daughter, and Niels Selfie of Ahmad Shadeed and me

On top of that, I’ve taught at FH Joanneum in Graz for the first time (thanks for the opportunity Eric) and I gave talks at UX Graz online and at the Accessibility Club in Düsseldorf.

Side projects

My two most notable side projects in 2023 were the HTMHell advent calendar and my #100DaysOfMoreOrLessModernCSS. I’m really proud of how both have turned out.

In 2021 I’ve started the HTMHell newsletter, as well as recording videos for HTMHell. I've worked on both things in 2022, but not as much as I would’ve liked to. I hope I can change that in 2023.

Articles

I've written 90 blog posts this year, which means on average 7.5 per month.

If I had to pick 3 favorite articles, I'd go with:

Misc

My two favorite albums in 2022 were Joy as an Act of Resistance by IDLES and Sometimes I Might be Introvert by Little Simz (both not released in 2022).

My top 5 songs:

My favorite podcasts were Darknet Diaries and Behind the Bastards.

Plans for 2023

Looking at my goals from 2022, I can say that I was really bad with achieving my goals last year.

For 2023 I want to add:

Thanks to everyone who helped make my year 2022 as amazing and exciting as it was. I'm looking forward to 2023! 🤗🥳

Reviews by other people

If you enjoy reading review posts as much as I do, you might want to checkout reviews by other people in the web dev community.