2025: Year in Review

Yes, it’s that time of year again! I’m writing (and you’re reading) another yearly review post. In case you’re new here, this started as a simple Instagram story in 2018, but it evolved into longer posts in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. It takes a lot of time to write these, but it’s an excellent exercise, so I definitely recommend you do the same for yourself.

As I’m getting older, my memory is getting less reliable, but thankfully I keep a daily journal, and I take many, many photos. Sure, most of them are of pizza¹, but there are memories locked in every one of them. Since we carry our phones around all the time, it’s easy to take photos of almost anything, and scrolling back through them brings it all back.

Writing

Unfortunately, this will be a short section: outside of Visualizer updates, I haven’t written much publicly. The daily journal streak is now 2,688 days, but those entries aren’t public.

I only posted once on Instagram this year. And even that was just a shared post that my girlfriend posted. Twitter X feels calmer than it did when I left it, but a lot of interesting people are gone, so I have no real desire to go back. Threads feels like a rage-bait machine, and the other Twitter-like alternatives, after the exodus, feel like small bubbles of like-minded isolated people. Maybe it’s me getting old, but most of these sites now feel optimized to keep you scrolling so they can show you even more ads. And don’t even get me started on Reels. I might uninstall Instagram again. 😩

Side Projects

Visualizer is still going strong, and it recently celebrated its 5th anniversary. This year I migrated from Stripe to Lemon Squeezy because our government makes it incredibly hard to stay tax-compliant while running a worldwide B2C business, even with a small user base. Merchant-of-record services take care of that hassle. They do take a significantly bigger cut, but the peace of mind is worth it.

Besides that, I expanded the list of supported machines. So now, in addition to Decent, Beanconqueror, and a few others, a ton more Gaggia-based machines (via Gaggiuino or GagiMate) can upload to Visualizer as well. All of that resulted in over 980k uploaded shots in the past year. Even in my wildest dreams I never expected this fun little side project to have over 7,200 users and over 3.7 million uploaded shots. Absolute insanity. 🤯

Another big Visualizer moment was speaking at Rails World in Amsterdam. I was selected to give a lightning talk about Visualizer, more specifically: how Rails made my hobby profitable. Unfortunately, the lightning talks weren’t recorded, so you can only see the slides. It gave me a great excuse to dig back through Visualizer’s history and relive all the transformations it went through, and all the things it forced me to learn along the way. It made me grow a lot as a software developer, but also as a person. I can say without a doubt that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for this little thingy. And as an absolute cherry on top, I also got this response from Joe Masilotti²:

This was my favorite lightning talk from the conference. Great job on it, Miha!

The other big side project, ECT Business, is also picking up speed. This year we saw a big increase in the number of cafés interested in our premium offering. The mobile apps and European Coffee Trip website are getting more and more popular and recognized, so it’s a privilege to be involved. One sign of that is the annual rewards we run, which saw 22,251 confirmed votes (up from ~7k last year) over a month-long voting period. We have big plans for the future of the project, so keep an eye on it if you’re interested in specialty coffee.

Work

Luckily, there’s not much to say here. I’m still incredibly happy at Cliniko. A year and a half in, I honestly think it’s the best company I could ever work for. The work itself is interesting, my coworkers are amazing human beings, our customers are incredible, and we keep growing healthy. 🥰

Even though I’ve been practicing it for almost 12 years, I’ll be the first to tell you that remote work can be very hard, especially when people are distributed worldwide. Luckily, I attended the aforementioned Rails World with two of my coworkers, which made it much more enjoyable. On top of that, most of the company also got together in Australia, where we spent 10 days in campers, hanging out together, and exploring the astounding nature on the outskirts of Melbourne. I’d never been to Australia and didn’t know much about it, so I was surprised by how hilly and green it was. For some reason, I’d imagined it would be completely flat. I’m an idiot, what can I say. 😂

But yeah, seeing kangaroos just hanging out around the property, hearing (and feeding) wild parrots, and seeing vegetation like nothing else hits you differently. I can’t wait to go back sometime soon. 🦘

Traveling

Besides the short trip to Amsterdam, and an incredibly long one to Melbourne, we traveled to Thailand with my girlfriend this year. Last year was my first time there, but I was mainly in Phuket since it was a company retreat after all. This time we took full advantage of the three weeks we had and tried to see as much as we could.

We started in Bangkok, which is still the perfect kind of chaos: old temples, insanely huge shopping malls, and the fantastic smell of street food at every corner. I’m still not over the fact that some malls basically have everything, including aquariums and zoos, because why not. The food was obviously ridiculous in the best way possible. I ate my weight in mango³, drank an unreasonable amount of coconut water, and somehow still wanted more.

From there we did the island part: Ko Tao, Ko Samui, and Ko Pha-Ngan. After that we went north to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai to see the incredible temples, stroll around endless night markets, and take all the day tours we could. We also visited an elephant sanctuary, which was one of those experiences that stays with you for a while. 🐘

But before Thailand, we also (almost traditionally now) had to go for a week-long trip to Italy. This year we went back to Tuscany, but this time with a car, so we were much more flexible. On the way there we stopped in Treviso to try and enjoy the original tiramisù⁴. We then spent a day in Bologna to enjoy the beautiful city and its unbelievable delicacies. You just can’t go wrong with Mortadella di Bologna. We, of course, also had to visit the Ferrari museum.

Continuing down south, we took many random detours, and we visited a bunch of tiny, picturesque towns that look like they were designed specifically for postcards: San Gimignano, Siena, Pienza, Montepulciano, and San Quirico d’Orcia, among others. Every day was some combination of “wow this is pretty,” “let’s stop here too,” and “how is this place real?” And as always, Florence is still stunning. We were there in 2022, and it somehow didn’t lose any of its magic. I can not wait to go back again. 🥰

Hardware

I bought a new drone. Again. This time I went smaller with the DJI Mini 5 Pro because I mainly use it when traveling or hiking, so size and weight matter a lot. I’m absolutely blown away by the image quality this tiny thing produces. But the biggest difference for me is flying in hot and/or sunny conditions. With the Air 2S, using my iPhone as a display, the screen would dim so much that I could barely see anything. No such problem with a dedicated controller with an integrated display. Game changer.

I was already interested in Omarchy and made a tactical preorder for the Framework Desktop soon after it was announced, but after DHH’s opening keynote at Rails World I was completely on board. I’m so happy with this machine, I can’t even begin to tell you. I still primarily use macOS⁵, but I’m switching to the Arch side more and more each day. I also love learning more about Linux in general, which made me much more confident about doing stuff on my Hetzner servers and (thanks to the Unix underpinnings) macOS as well. And this tiny thing is so cute, yet so powerful, and almost completely silent. If you’re on the market for a new computer, it’s an incredible choice.

Probably the biggest purchase (physically speaking) this year was the Bambu Lab A1 3D printer. I was always curious about 3D printers, but every time I checked they were around 1k€ so it felt like way too much for something to buy on a whim just to play around with. But then I came across this video of a 3D printed iPhone Standby Mode Dock and was introduced to Bambu as a company. The price at the time was around 250€, and seemingly everyone online agreed that the A1 is an excellent printer, especially for that price. So I ordered one, and the first thing I printed was that dock. I still use it every day and absolutely love it.

For the first month or so I think I was printing absolutely all the time. Gridfinity, cable organizers, cookie cutters, espresso tools, board game inserts,… name it, there’s a model for it on one of the platforms like MakerWorld or Printables. And when I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I was motivated enough to learn how to work with CAD tools⁶ so I could solve my own problems. I don’t use it nearly as much anymore, but it’s still an essential tool, and I’m incredibly happy I bought it.

Another device that I use every single day, and I find it hard to imagine my life without at this point, is a Garmin watch. I’ve been a fan since 2017 when I switched from Pebble to Garmin. This year I finally bit the bullet and jumped on the fēnix train and got the 8 in Carbon Gray Titanium. Love it. Sure, I have nitpicks, especially with the buggy early software versions. But Garmin keeps shipping new features, so the watch keeps getting better. Yes, Garmin watches are too expensive. But you use them every single day, they last for a really really long time, and they keep getting better. And they have a lot of watch lines that share these features, so you can find excellent options at every price point. They also get discounted quite often at various online resellers. Just saying. 😉

Sport

Speaking of multisport watches, I went multisport as well. While in last year’s review I had only just started swimming lessons, during this past year I kept going until the end of the school year. Over the summer I kept practicing in the sea, and come fall I went back to the pool. It’s a great exercise for my body, and even though I’m not a great swimmer yet, I’m so much better than I was before the lessons. Technique really makes all the difference here. According to Strava, I swam 88 times for a total of 87 kilometers, or, to put it differently: 48 hours of flailing around in water and occasionally feeling like I know what I’m doing.

And, of course, I kept on running. I logged 201 runs for a total distance of 2,419 kilometers and 18,596 meters of elevation gain. That’s much, much less than in previous years. In fact, the last time I ran even less was in 2017 (2,170 km), and I was very much a beginner runner back then, having started running in 2014. But I take comfort in the fact that I often swam instead of ran, traveled a ton this year, and had a cold and fever for most of the fall. At this point, I don’t think I’ll ever beat the COVID-lockdown-fueled 2020 with 3,677 km. 😅

Race-wise, it was a fun year too. I did 6 laps around Bled lake on Ruthin tek, we completed Mali kraški marathon with Nina, managed to get to 29k at Wings for Life, ran my fastest 12k ever at Tek trojk, and of course the traditional Ljubljana Marathon with a great time of 3:33:33. Not great because it’s particularly fast (my PB is still 3:22:08), but simply because I love that it’s all 3s. 😆

It was my 10th marathon, and I can honestly say I enjoyed the vast majority of running this one. Which still sounds a bit ridiculous to write, because it’s 42 kilometers of voluntarily suffering that I keep signing up for, year after year. I guess if you repeat something extremely stupid often enough, your brain just gives up, normalizes it, and calls it a hobby. 😂

Board games

Not much new this year. We played a bit less than the year before, and we definitely bought fewer new games. We started using Shmelo to at least sort of keep score. It does the basics well, but if anyone knows of something better, please let me know.

The best and most played game this year is an easy pick, though: Dragon Academy. The original Wyrmspan was already fantastic, but DA takes it up a notch. It opens up new strategies with the new dragon size, and it adds an extra layer of interesting decisions by making you choose between prioritizing resources or the number of turns. If you’re into this sort of game, I can guarantee you’ll love it. And if you already have Wyrmspan, just go get DA. It’s a no-brainer.

Reading

I didn’t read much this year, because on the long runs where I was usually listening to audiobooks I now listen to The Rest Is History podcast. I hated history in school, but I recently realized that was mostly because I had shitty teachers. It turns out history can be awesome when it’s presented in a fun way by people who really care and know a lot. They’ve made so many episodes, and I’ve listened to only a tiny percentage, so it’s impossible to recommend anything specific. But just go through their archives and pick a series you’re interested in. I can promise you’ll learn something new, fun, and interesting. 📖

I still have some book recommendations, though. Unreasonable Hospitality is the big one. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you love Richie’s staging episode in season 2 of The Bear, you’re business-minded, lead in any capacity, or work with people, you’ve gotta read it.

If you’re at all interested in Apple, hardware, supply chains, or China, Apple in China is fantastic. It has so many original stories that sometimes it’s hard to believe they’re all true and that we never heard them before. It also shows you how big a role geopolitics play when you have to scale production to numbers no company has ever seen before. Absolutely riveting.

The final book I can recommend is Dirtbag Billionaire, which I’m only halfway through. But I love reading anything about Yvon and/or Patagonia, and this goes all the way from the very beginning to the present day. Equal parts ridiculous and entertaining, and it’s hard to believe the guy is still alive after all the shenanigans he went through. 😅

Coffee

If you’re Slovenian, or if you follow cycling at all, you probably know we have an exceptional cyclist: Tadej Pogačar. Some of us believe he’s already the GOAT⁷, and he still seems to be getting better every season, so somehow he’s not even at his prime yet. I’m saying all this because some of you might not know that coffee plays a surprisingly big role in cycling. There’s a whole coffee ride culture, some cyclists have their own coffee beans, and plenty of cycling brands do coffee collaborations,…

At the end of Tadej’s amazing 2024 season, Victor Delpierre⁸ had Victoria Arduino make a one-of-a-kind E1 Prima just for him. Then, in July, Tadej kicked off a charity auction featuring this machine. Being a huge fan of Pogačar and a coffee nerd, I felt morally obligated to place a bid. Mostly for the fun of it. I was convinced this thing would end up in the “tens of thousands of euros” range and I’d be out immediately. But since I’m writing all this, you already know what happened, right? 😂

By the end of September, my one and only bid was still on top. And thanks to some questionable coding on the charity website, I could actually see there were only two bids for the machine: Tadej himself on July 1st, and me on August 18th. The espresso machine itself is a ridiculous piece of cycling history, and I’m thrilled to own it. But meeting Tadej was the real prize. He’s even more impressive in person: kind, approachable, and exactly the guy you hope he is. 🥰

Since I now have two machines, my Visualizer year-in-review shows about 300 fewer recorded shots than 2024. But I really like how it looks this year. Turns out LLMs are fantastic for transforming my instructions into Tailwind classes.

If you’re looking for roaster recommendations, mine have been pretty static for a while: Dak and Banibeans⁹. While I was in Amsterdam, I got to visit Dak’s showroom, and it instantly became one of my favorite places on Earth. I can’t wait to go back.

Wrapping up

Every year when I start writing one of these, I’m convinced it’s going to be short. A year goes by in a blur, most days feel pretty normal, and it’s easy to think, “eh, not much happened.”

But then the process starts. I write a couple of notes, make some bullet points, scroll through thousands of photos, and suddenly I’m back in Bangkok, Tuscany, Amsterdam, Melbourne, or just some random Tuesday that I’d completely forgotten about. I know I sound like a broken record by now, but I truly can’t emphasize how amazing it is to keep a daily journal and/or write yearly reviews, even if they’re not public and just for yourself. It’ll make you appreciate life more, for sure.

If you made it this far, thank you. It still feels a bit surreal that people read these at all, so I really appreciate it, whether this is your first one or your eighth. 🥰

Until next year. 🥂

1. Seemingly half my gallery is pizza photos, so I probably should cut it back a tiny bit. 😬 ↩

2. The Hotwire Native guy ↩

3. I was never a huge fan of mango. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t love it either. That was until I tried a ripe Nam Dok Mai Thai mango 🤯 ↩

4. For the best one and the best coffee in Treviso go straight to TASTE. Trust me on this one 😉 ↩

5. Muscle memory is hard 😬 ↩

6. Which was very very hard for my feeble brain to grasp. I watched hours and hours of YouTube videos to make the most basic shapes. 😅 ↩

7. Greatest Of All Time 🦄 ↩

8. World Coffee In Good Spirits Champion 2013 ↩

9. Feel free to use VISUALIZER10 for a 10% discount 🤫 ↩