Photo by Silviu Alexandru Avram

• Q: Do you know what is better than the current trip?
• A: The next one.

It's a very catchy slogan by Delta, used in the commercial you are required to watch before the movie starts on the flight. The annoying part is that you have to view it every time a movie starts. The good part is that they are right.

My US trip was coming to an end and I was actually glad to be returning home, after almost 3 weeks of being spoiled by the American Dream. Snap back to reality, Marshall.

That being said, the magical date of the 1st of May was inching closer, and it's very common to celebrate it while on a trip. The most popular way is to do it is a trip to the seaside, but I was never a big fan of that. Instead, I am a big fan of city breaks, and even though I was expecting most people to chose the seaside or the mountains for their mini vacation, I also expected that the plane tickets to be sold out by that time. Still, it was worth a try, so I checked Skyscanner and, to my surprise, there were quite a few options with very good plane ticket prices, the best being Bologna and Oslo.

Both were places I've never been before, so that got me quite excited. But which one to pick? Sure, Bologna was going to be quite a sure shot, as Italy is always a good idea, as I've been there so many times and it never disappointed.

On the other hand, I've never been to a Northern country, not even Denmark. Consequently, the drive to try something new won, and we picked Oslo as the winner, bought tickets, and breathed easier, knowing that our 1st of May already planned for.

Photo by Silviu Alexandru Avram

We're back in Seattle, baby, and this time we're spending a full week here, not just some silly 3 business trip days. And the best part is: it's only vacation. A full week in tech heaven #2, the land of Amazon, Microsoft and, of course, Starbucks. I just wish I packed un umbrella.

Photo by Silviu Alexandru Avram

New York City. The big apple. Jay-Z's city that never sleeps. Batman's Gotham. Spiderman's home. Call it whatever you like, everyone knows what you are talking about. It's #1 most popular city for filming movies, topping the likes of Los Angeles, Paris and London.

Needless to say, I arrived in NYC with big expectations. And I was still blown away.

Photo by Silviu Alexandru Avram

It was a lovely day of spring, on the 19th of March to be exact. I am a very big fan of the lazy Sunday concept, but somehow I always manage to ruin it in a spectacular fashion. And this one was no exception. It was a great day for science and productivity in general, or at least that's how I felt. As I closed my laptop after finishing a PR for downshift, I took a last sip of my Starbucks matcha tea latte and decided to check the horoscope (skyscanner.net).

Fueled by the warm sensation of accomplishment, I submitted a search for all the flights in the remainder of March, without any specific destination. And just like that, the stars aligned, the planets made love, and the horoscope whispered that I should book a flight to Perugia, from the 26th to the 30th, for a total price of 40 bucks.

Photo by Oana Vasilescu

I started to write this post with an outlook of 2022's events, then decided against it. I will only say that 2022 also brought some good news and that we should just focus on the things that we can control.

I think that tracking past year's accomplishments serve a better purpose than listing new year's resolutions.

They give us a better sense of where we are at this point in time, what are we happy about, what we want to improve, how far we I with our objectives, and other such vectors that form the big picture of life. Past year events have happened, are easier to be measured, to receive follow-ups, to be celebrated and to be analyzed.

As I was writing this post, it occured to me that 2022 was, personally, a year full of events and achievements worth mentioning. Here they are:

Photo by Oana Vasilescu

Building a digital blog should not be, theoretically, too hard to accomplish. Expecially now, in 2022, with all the many dedicated platforms and services that have established themselves over time in the digital blogging department.

As someone who does Frontend Development for a living, my list of technical choices is even more generous. I am able, theoretically, to build a web application using just the magic trio of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Just in case I don't feel like going full vanilla, there are superior levels of abstractions, such as, for example, the ReactJS, tailwindcss and TypeScript combination. Of course, one level of abstraction above, the list continues with the likes of GatsbyJS or NextJS. And just in case I don't want to bother with coding at all, I can go full techless with solutions such as WordPress, MailChimp, Canva, or something equivalent. The last list of services can also provide support for hosting and domain registration, at a cost, obviously.

So, time to choose one technology stack and ... start writing already?