2019

Published on Dec 29, 2019 (updated Jun 8, 2024), filed under misc. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

Time for the next personal retrospective. I’m going to play with the format.

2019 was a rather quiet and uneventful year.

Travels

It’s not a priority anymore but I traveled internationally.

• Malta
• The (breathtaking) Faroe Islands
• The United States (2×)
• Sweden
• Romania
• Spain
• France
• Austria

I traveled both nationally and internationally for Round Table, not necessarily all in my function as President (until February) and Past-President (from March on) of my table, RT 233:

• the Funta in Crailsheim,
• the RT Sweden AGM in Linköping,
• the RTI World Meeting in Brasov (Romania),
• the x33 Euro Meeting around Valenciennes (France), as well as
• several local and regional gatherings like district meetings and charity events.

I’m proud and happy that my ideas and work contributed to several thousand euros in donations for Round Table charity. “On fire for tabling.”

Some of the journeys I made with my girlfriend, Beatriz, with whom I moved in together in August, right into the heart of Hamburg. That was an important step for us, I look forward to the next one, and I love you, Beatriz.

Trainings

I made trainings and activities a bigger priority again. (If you just get to know me, I love trying things, and I try everything.)

• I went through bloodborne pathogens training,
• I acquired an Internet surf certificate 😂,
• I made my sea/ocean boating license (Sportbootführerschein See),
• I made my lake/river boating license (Sportbootführerschein Binnen),
• I made a license to operate and own emergency signals (Fachkundenachweis/FKN or “Pyroschein”),
• I went through a semi-professional beer tasting run by a colleague (cheers Franzi),
• for the first time I joined public protests (Fridays for Future and, spontaneously, a march against the LPT animal testing labs),
• I became a certified Professional Scrum Master, and
• I made my forklift license (Flurfördermittelschein or “Staplerschein”).

I do love trying things and have a few plans for 2020.

Writings

I wrote.

• 3 books: 199 Love Haiku, Das kleine Buch der HTML-/CSS-Frameworks, and Upgrade Your HTML,
• 37 posts for meiert.com (29 in English, 8 in German),
• 4 articles for heise.de,
• 12 drafts that I discarded.

Statistics

I did other things:

• I wrote 1,688 emails (3,900 if I count notes-to-self, which are an important tool for me).
• I read 109 books. (I log them and rate the best on Goodreads.)
• I watched 144 films. (Too many. Star Wars IX was one of the worst.)
• Of the photos I took, I kept 2,867. Of videos, 36.
• I made 947 contributions on public and private GitHub, and (exactly) 1,000 commits to private Bitbucket.

This may do.

_ It was a good year. I extend cordial wishes to you and your loved ones for the brief remainder of 2019, and wish you all the best for 2020. Be in touch.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)