Summary of 2022

Continuation of 2021 highlights

As the first highlight of year 2022 I wanted to mention the continuation of most of habits that I’ve started in 2021. I’m still jog regularly. I tried to learn Russian somehow regularly over the year. I had some breaks but generally I learned a bit and didn’t forget what I’ve learned in 2021. I still do pull ups and chin ups on daily basis. I’ve run three (3km, 6km and 6km) Runmageddons in 2022! There are plans for going for 12km in 2023. I’m also still amazed by quality of my Macbook Air M1, after almost two years now. Battery still can make over 10 hours of work on single charging. The last one is not a habit, but I wanted to mention it here.

Russian aggression on Ukraine

[This paragraph was added on 2023-01-25]

It was very sad and shocking moment when Russian army actually attacked Ukraine. I wanted just highlight single event in this regard. Around a week after the war has begun at Friday night I’ve got a call from my colleague (and team member at that time) if I could drive to Polish-Ukraine border to help him pick up part of his family. They were evacuating Ukraine. I agreed, started getting ready and in an hour we met. I knew from my parents that there is problem with gas availability in regions near the Ukrainian boarder so we’ve tried to refuel around 100km from Warsaw. Fortunately there was gas available but queue on this gas station took about an hour. In about 4 hours we make it to the border. It was already after midnight. My colleague was in touch with his family all the time but it was really hard to tell for them what is actually happening. They knew that they are close to border crossing but they couldn’t estimate how long it would take. We slept 3-5 hours in the car. Finally around 2-3pm next day they arrived on Polish side and we’ve met.

I’m describing this, because it was definitely an experience like no other. Ukrainian on average needed to travel for 2-5 days across whole country to get to Polish boarder. They were exhausted, stressed, hungry and lost. On the other hand it was great to see that many Poles come to help. There was like 50-100 cars just at that night. There was food, clothes, rugs, dippers and other needed stuff gathered and prepared for refugees.

I’ve left Allegro Pay and joined TCL

In August 2021 I’ve left Allegro Pay and joined TCL Research Europe. Regarding my time in Allegro I’ve wrote up a summary.

I’ve joined TCL Research to maintain and expand their Overseas Big Data Platform. It’s very interesting experience so far. Most of services are deployed on AWS or Alibaba Cloud. Whole infrastructure is defined as a code within AWS CDK and is developed by data engineers and not DevOps. Also here for the first time I started using Scala and Spark (via AWS Glue jobs). It was definitely a good experience. I immediately liked both Scala and writing data transformation using Spark. Using those technologies we’ve implemented end-to-end and integration tests for most of significant part of the platform, including dynamically deploying dedicated infrastructure. Many new technologies and all embedded in AWS. Very interesting so far indeed!

In TCL we also primarily speaks in English. It was a good change after working for last two years in Polish-speaking teams. I see clear improvement of my English pronunciation and speaking in general after a few months.

Using carbon steel wok

Around July-August this year I’ve got my first carbon steel wok. Till that point I’ve owned and used only Teflon-coated nonstick pans. Initially I had to scrub and season the wok. It was a bit difficult at first, because I was using induction stove. Over time I’ve improved it using actual fire.

The difference between Teflon nonstick pans and carbon steel wok is huge! Wok is getting hot faster and reaches higher temperature overall. After using it for some time, now Teflon pans feels like it doesn’t heat at all. Because of those characteristics cooking with carbon steel wok require different technique. Usually food is fried faster and needs to be stir-fried with constant moving food around the wok. Vegetables prepared with wok have unique texture. They are cooked well close to outside but kind of fresh inside. For me this is ideal.

Deep frying is much better in wok, then in other pans. I think it’s because of much higher temperature of oil. Food seems to not absorb oil at all!

Using wok enhanced my cooking. I cook basically daily now. Preparing lunch with wok is 20 minutes total, including preparing ingredients. Now I like to cook my food by myself more then ordering a take-out.

I turned thirty

This year I turned thirty. It wasn’t any special really. My only goal for entering my thirties was to be in better physical shape, then in all years in my twenties. I definitely accomplish that.

Getting back to table tennis

After few years I’ve get back to training table tennis again. I wasn’t a pro player but I enjoy it. It’s good to join regular trainings again. It’s both super fun and quite an exercise.

Improved my knife sharpening skills

Over the last few years I’ve been sharpening my knives on whetstone but quality of those tries wasn’t very much stable. I couldn’t get consistent and sharp results every time. I thought it was because of my whetstone quality or incorrect gradation. After I’ve watched Burrfection has sharpen a knife on a brick (!) I’ve got convinced that the most important is a technique. I adjusted my technique afterwards and started practice more often. Currently I’m getting definitely better, regarding sharpness, and more consistent results. I’m very glad that I’ve improved this skill.

Home App rewritten and moved online

In November I’ve rewritten Home App in Go and moved it online. I’m very satisfied with this decision and final result. If you’re interested in details, please follow the link.

AWS Certification

A week before Christmas I’ve received my first AWS certificate - Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03). Learning for the exam was for sure a fruitful experience. I’ve better high level picture of AWS. I also strengthen my foundations and get know many details I didn’t know before.

I general I’m still not really a fan of certification but I have to admit that AWS exams have pretty high level and contains actual real-life scenarios regarding system design in the cloud.

Summary

In summary I think year 2022 was pretty good year for me. I’ve improved my professional skills regarding AWS and cloud in general. In hobby area in this year I focus on cooking and exercising. I improved my pizza making skill. I made croissants. I started using carbon steel wok. I learned a bunch of rice and rice cookers. Now I’m looking forward to 2023!