OffSetLab

2025 started with us trying to get rested from visiting families. Those things are never great for me. Vesna has it different. Be it emotional blackmail or nostalgia, one thing's for sure. It's exhausting.

What I really don't like is that I get a feeling like they consider our life stopped when we moved. Like we're just waiting to come back. Or maybe it's them waiting for us to come back and projecting.

It's been over a decade and we have a thriving social life in Ireland. We built our social circle, nested, have these great little beasts following us. This is not going away.

In the current world, going back to Croatia doesn't sound like a good move, although I often feel like Marjane Satrapi. Like I don't belong there anymore, but I also don't belong here. The anti-immigrant sentiment is worrying. Not just in Ireland, but in EU in general. This touches upon a grim topic that is best left for a dedicated article.

We didn't go down the route of doing new year's resolutions. It was just a hard push to finish what we already started. We drilled and sawed and continued shaping up our apartment. From the small things, to the kinda bigger ones. We even got water damage from the neighbor upstairs just two days before the year ended. I think we covered the most of it. The curtains are still not done because we were not really financially solvent.

The job hunt was slow. My unemployment benefit dried up and I reapplied and got rejected, as expected. The finances were dropping, but we stayed afloat by the sheer fact Vesna was the primary breadwinner and has a job. We're both scared, however. The job displacement due to the generative AI is worrying. I even inquired about a PhD because I had time on my hands and need some connections. It is still an option if I ever get to a state where it makes sense. Visiting a friend in Netherlands in a university campus, then talking to all the scientists on the expedition, just made me remember how fun it is to discover things and see how they work.

To offset the finances in decline, we fixed up the small apartment and rented it out at the end of the year. We learned to paint and scrubbed everything we could get our hands on. The income from it would equate to the unemployment benefit, but it's still better than nothing. We did think about selling it, but decided against it, if we can manage.

DjangoCon EU was also a good event, but it struck me that there were more people trying to get a job than companies offering jobs. The food situation was not ideal there either. The hotel staff had no idea how to handle vegans, let alone lactose intolerant people. I met some interesting folks, though.

I also went to one Python Ireland event, GIS related, and found out some new stuff. Most importantly that I'm still competitive in this job market, but interesting and good job offers seldom appear.

We were making do so at least we were not in a danger of going under. We even got to travel and see some events.

Funny enough, when we were in Antarctica I got a call from a job I applied to. I told them outright that I'm on a bucket-list trip and if it was not meant to be, I was okay with it. They, however, said they'd wait for me to come back and engage in the interviewing process.

Five rounds. It hurts to think back about it. However, I passed all of them and got the offer that I accepted. I didn't start in 2025. This was left for after the year ended.

Trips:

• Netherlands, Utrecht, Nijmegen, The Hague, to explore, to see a friend
• Croatia, Vesna had a family emergency
• Spain, Tenerife, back to the island, but this time with friends for a water park and to see the stars in one of the darkest nights
• Croatia, another family emergency with me as the delegate
• Croatia, to see families because we were about to make a bucket-list trip
• Argentina, Buenos Aires, a jumping off point to Ushuaia
• Uruguay, Colonia del Sacramento, a day trip from Buenos Aires
• Argentina, Ushuaia, the end of the world and back, Tierra del Fuego national park
• Antarctica, Wiencke island, Antarctic peninsula, Petermann island, Pleneau island, an expedition to see the last continent and make a landfall several times, funny enough, South America was also a continent we didn't step foot on before so it was two in one

Domestic travel:

• Northern Ireland, friends got a cat from the same breeder
• Wexford, for soap making workshop
• Killary Harbour, the mud race happened
• Dún a Rí Forest Park to get a log for mushrooms and see a bit of wild
• Northern Ireland, Belfast, for the winter market

Shows:

• Twice to Theatre Sports, improv teathre to see a friend perform. It's silly and funny.
• Gloryhammer, in spite of their major misogynistic fuckup, we went with a friend for science (also, the support, Dominum, was great)
• Miracle of Sound, debut concert. They are actually good
• The Dead South, Vesna wanted to see them
• Heilung + Eivor, with friends and it's a ritual, not a concert
• DjangoCon EU, an ex colleague was visiting so this was a nice opportunity for him to see things and for me to network
• Irish Python Meetup, mostly because I wanted to see what they have to say
• The Rocky Horror Show, a cult musical

Books:

• Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality - David Edwards, David Cromwell
• How to Argue With a Meat Eater (And Win Every Time) - Ed Winters
• The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update - Donella H. Meadows
• Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria - Guy Mettan

Video games finished:

• Behind the Frame

Video games played:

• Dead Space Remake

Things we bought:

• cat stuff, spool of sisal rope, harness, toothbrushes, toys, furniture, catio stuff, scratchers
• Garrus (Mass Effect) ducky for Vesna's birthday, good for debugging, playing in the tub and having a novelty conversation starter
• laser spirit level to arrange shelves
• pots and clothes and bedding and kitchen stuff
• bunch of equipment for the Antarctica trip
• vacuum pump for wine, it works, but we drink the wine before we get to store it
• door draft stopper
• extension cords and connecting cables
• monitor raiser
• SAD lamp for all the needs Vesna has over the winter
• copper mugs for mule cocktails, hex pattern, had to have them
• grill toaster
• Razer Basilisk v3 mouse
• Raspberry PI M.2 HAT, along with a drive
• tea strainer kit
• household supplies, consumables
• motion activated bin
• hexagonal ottomans from IKEA
• Nanoleaf Essentials bulbs for the spotlights in the bedroom
• Septima board game
• stuff for the apartment downstairs, a couch, a rug, a table, new dispenser for the bathroom to fix the broken one
• Tapo smart energy monitoring plug
• shelves for the bathroom that we turned into a storage room
• cordless vacuum again because the last one broke
• scissors and magnetic holder
• battery organizer
• kitchen tap plate that we used to fix the kitchen tap
• PS4 controller charger
• packs of lazy Susans (Vesna loves to organize)
• sink strainers
• tools, like cutters
• some ESP32 devices to get Bluetooth trilateration working (room presence), I need to revisit this in a future article
• two more Nanoleaf bulbs
• STP cable for network (got the IKEA Idasen standing desk working again, this time with native Bluetooth integration)
• mixer for the Old Fashioned cocktail
• Kindle Paperwhite, Vesna got me one because we were going on a long trip
• Symfonisk picture frame speaker (we had a discount from the kitchen purchase in IKEA), it is Sonos based, we need to customize it
• light-tailing kit for LEGO Tallneck
• light switch cover for the IKEA 5-button controller
• cosplay accessories for our Halloween tradition, don't ask
• Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G
• Aqara vibration sensor, I have some ideas
• Redmi Buds 6, ANC, and I like it
• massage gun that only sees use when something hurts
• hiking boots that I thought I'd use on the Antarctica trip, but didn't have a chance, they will be used later
• bunch of small things like wired gloves for mandolin kitchen work
• wax, mushroom kit so I did the log build on the balcony and I'll report in a yar if it grew
• squatty potty!
• rechargeable batteries

Other important events:

• became a board member for the complex we live in, eventually we switched the management company because we want this place to become better
• rug tufting workshop with our D&D coterie, and the rugs look great
• whiskey cocktail workshop, but I know how to do cocktails
• assembled more furniture from IKEA for the small apartment and refurbished it
• soap making workshop with beer in Wexford, basically you make a solution and Irish stout is the soap base
• fixed the cat scratcher with a new sisal rope, twice
• fixed the tub with a new panel where the tiles were broken by the plumber
• a bunch of people visited (both sets of parents, my relatives that live in Ireland, Vesna's sister, her partner and a cousin with his family, a friend that was going for DjangoCon EU)
• updated Raspberry PI with M.2 and an active cooler and I can say it's faster to deliver the pages and can act properly as a media device
• finally consolidated the Raspberry stack with some additional services like Immich and media handling
• made a catio for Kida & Tenzin, parents wanted to help, but that's not why we got them to visit
• fixed the kitchen tap with paddings, the wooden base is horrible for taps without paddings
• Turf Warrior, a race in the mud, the wet suit is great to have, yes we can do it, and are apparently adventurous enough considering we did the polar plunge as well
• pottery painting workshop so now there's a mug on my desk
• rented out the small apartment so we'll see how that goes
• inoculated two logs with mushroom spawn (Oyster and Lion's Mane)
• made another big trip to visit the last two continents we didn't step foot on so now the list is complete
• got two cheap phones to get us through the trip with eSIM support and a better camera, I'm sorry Fairphone, but money is tight at the moment
• got a job offer
• kettle stopped working, a cautionary tale that things must be local, and not depend on the 3rd party cloud