[Off-Topic] 2020 will be a year full of challenges

This post really is off-topic.

It seemed that 2020 started to get a good year. Life was kind of normal and I was looking forward to the upcoming events. Community events as well as family events. I was really looking forward to the MVP Summit 2020, to meeting good friends again and to visit my favorite city in the US.

But life wouldn't be life if there were no changes and challenges.

February 1st was the end of my old life but the start of a new one. A challenging one and a life full of new chances and opportunities.

What did change?

My wife and I, we broke up. Without any drama and stuff like this. It was a kind of spontaneous decision but a needed one. It was unexpected for our family and friends but we kind of knew about this for the last three years. It was a shock for the kids for sure but, as I said, there was never any drama and we are still friends and are talking and laughing together. The shock for the kids was a small one and a short one. Actually nothing really changed for the kids, except living in two houses which for sure is a huge change but they seem to love it, to enjoy it like a kind of adventure. Every house has other things they like, other rules and it seems they love to live in both houses.

This might also be shocking for friends who are reading this right now.

To leave the wife that was on my side for around 16 years felt strange and odd. But at the end it was a good decision for both of us.

This for sure results in new challenging situations, like moving into a new apartment and stuff like this.

What else did change?

The second challenging situation is the one that happens to all of us all over the world. The COVID-19 lockdowns all over the world are challenging for everyone. Especially the kids and their parents. Fortunately, I am able to work from home and, fortunately, child care is divided 50/50 between me and my wife. (She is still called my wife because we are still married.) But to work and to do home-schooling and child care in parallel is different, challenging and might be really hard and almost impossible for some parents.

Since COVID-19 happened to central Europe, I was working from home. Actually, today is the first day since weeks I commute to work. Feels strange sitting in the train, for more than one hour, and wearing a face mask. The train is almost empty. Only a few people are talking because of those annoying masks.

And, the first time since months, I have some time to write a blog post. I used to write while commuting, so I took the chance to write some stuff.

Actually, I started this post two weeks ago. Now it is the second time since COVID-19 to commute to work :-D

What comes next?

The new situation and the less commute time are the reasons why I didn't write a blog post ore something else since January.

The move to the new apartment is done. The kids know the new situation since more than a month and get used to it. It is all settling and calming down and the numbers around COVID-19 are getting better and better in central Europe. Let's have a small look into the future:

I'm going to start challenging myself again to do some more stuff for the developer community:

• Writing a blog post at least every second week
  • Just ask for topics.
• Rewriting my book to update it to ASP.NET Core 5.0 and really, really, really get it published
• Writing some more technical articles for my favorite magazine.
• Trying to do some talks on conferences and user groups
  • The next planned talk is at the DWX in November this year
• Getting my streaming set up and running in the new apartment and start streaming again
  • The bandwidth could be a problem in the new apartment.
  • But just recording and feed a YouTube channel could be an option, too.

Actually, this is kind of challenging but why not? I really love challenges :-)