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2015: The year I moved to California

Moving to another country means starting a life from zero. I knew that before getting myself into it, but you only realize how hard it is when you actually do it.

Every year I document some of the challenges I faced and lessons I learned along the way (2014, 2013, 2012, 2011).

For this year's self-centric-review I would like to take a step back and highlight the amazing moments that happened. Make yourself confortable and enjoy the ride!

Personal Stuff

For the last few years I've dedicated my life completely to work.

In fact, it's pretty hard for me to write down that sentence 'cause I don't know if I should feel proud or ashamed of it. The thing is, 2015 was an exception.

  • January, started to live together with Carol. The craziest yet most loving little girl in the planet.
  • March, moved to US for good. A plan I had for a very long time finally became true.
  • April, rented and furnished my entire home for the first time. Thanks IKEA <3
  • June, bought my first car. I never liked cars but it's impossible to not have one in LA.
  • November, got a dog. Which makes me think: "How could I lived without one for such a long time?".

These achievements were huge and probably the most important things that happened to me this year. You can even stop reading here, everything described below are just minor stuff ;)

Talks

As I said before, moving to a new country is not an easy task. That's why I decided to slow down with that crazy traveling schedule. I learned to say "no" and that's helping me to enjoy life more ;)

Highlights

My favorite talk this year was at Nordic.js in Stockholm. The event was pretty well organized and I had tons of fun at the ping pong party.

And the most challenging event was a 40-hour workshop I gave at Fresno's City College. It was completely energy draining but I learned valuable lessons from students and teachers.

Stats

  • 2015: 11 talks and 1 workshop. 7 cities in 4 different countries.
  • 2014: 21 talks and 4 workshops. 18 cities in 8 different countries.
  • 2013: 18 talks and 3 workshops. 12 cities in 3 different countries.
  • 2012: 24 talks. 13 cities in 3 different countries.

Blogposts

2015 was the year of Medium for me. Pretty much everything that I wrote was published there. I'm in love with their platform and I don't think this is going to change very soon.

Highlights

Surprisingly enough, the most impactful piece of text I wrote this year was not in any blog. It was on a GitHub issue. In the end I replicated that text on Medium as "How did clipboard.js get 5000 stars in a few days?".

However, my favorite one was written couple weeks ago, just before New Year's. It's called "What are you waiting for?" and took me months to put that thought on paper.

Zeno in Yosemite

Stats

  • 2015: 13 posts
  • 2014: 22 posts
  • 2013: 51 posts
  • 2012: 49 posts

Projects

My strategy for this year was to grown instead of create. What I mean is: instead of building dozens of new small projects I decided to invest more into those project that already cause a big impact and improve them to become even bigger.

That worked pretty well but I just can't stop creating new things :P

Highlights

CustomElements.io, redesigned in May.

Super proud of what we accomplished not only in terms of UI but also in terms of infrastructure. Read more about this launch.

CustomElements.io

Clipboard.js, launched in September.

By far the most popular project I made this year. Widely praised and adopted by huge players like Bootstrap 4. Read more about this launch.

Logo: clipboardjs.com

Dracula Theme, redesigned in October.

A little piece built during Halloween.

Logo: dracula theme

Stats

What's next?

Same as last year: hard work.

I have defined some OKRs for 2016 but those I keep in secret :P All I can tell is that 2015 was incredible and I'm sure 2016 will bring even more exciting stuff. Thank you for reading and being a part of this.