Daniel Barca

Tag: life

  • BTW I’m writing in Spanish too, now

    I started writing in English because this language was a large part of my life, I wanted to improve my writing and I liked the idea of being seen as someone who communicates in English. I have a feeling that lots of people reach my blog through my LinkedIn profile, so it’s also a bit of a competitive advantage in Spain, where most people have big difficulties to speak English. Or at least it shows that it’s not my case.

    But right now I think I’m in the process of reshaping what this blog means for me, I want to think less about what I write and I want to take it closer home. I want to open more parts of my life to it, look for topics that are maybe not as carefully chosen as they used to be, but on the other hand more personal. I realized choosing topics takes a lot of energy in the process of writing here, because I am afraid of how I may be seen by someone who stumbles across this and maybe knows me personally. I would like to be more impulsive.

    So as someone who feels both languages as part of myself, it makes sense to write in both languages too. To be honest it’s very likely that I start to write mostly in Spanish from now on, but even though I don’t have that big of an audience, I don’t want to alienate any of those who subscribed in the last few months and expect English written articles.

    At the top header you will now find a link to Kagi translate, which in my experience provides really decent AI-powered translations. I will look for even fancier ways to allow switching languages in the future, but for now that’s straightforward enough.

    Anyway, I hope this new approach brings more life and purpose to this blog.

  • Happy birthday to me

    Today is my 31st birthday. I thought it might be a good time to reflect on what’s basically the craziest year of my life, and the one with the most changes.

    During 2022, at age 29, I made a decision that would resonate a year and a half later and make my 2023 a lot more exciting. I asked the woman of my life, Carla, to marry me. This decision made lots of sense to me since she was not only the woman who had decided to tolerate my quirks, she’s also the most caring and incredible woman that I could ever dream of, and a life without her would be a void life. Those who have the luck of deserving her love know that there is not much more valuable than that.

    Despite all the wedding planning, 2022 was a pretty quiet year in retrospective. The few months before the wedding have been the most intense of my life. Organizing a wedding is no joke, and certainly something I would never go through for a second time, but thanks to Carla’s insane event planning skills, it was 100% worth it and a wedding that none of guests will ever forget.

    The first few months of 2023 have been crazy for a second reason: in May 2023 I was able to publish my first game ever. It’s a project I’m extremely proud of, and represents a milestone in my career. I feel like it’s the first really sensible project in my curriculum, and the first that I helped build from the ground up.

    Of course the few weeks before a release date are really intense, and seeing the users react and enjoy the game (and also shit on it from time to time) is pretty surreal.

    This last few months of 2023 hint at 2024 being even crazier: Carla and I are expecting a child. It’s a boy and he’ll come to our lifes around April. We’re getting ready for what’s probably the greatest event in our lifes and it feels quite surreal. We even got a car, not just any car but a “daddy car”, bought with a family in mind and getting us officially in the adult world.

  • First dive into car tech

    My wife and I took the chance to upgrade our old Chevrolet Spark to a newer Volkswagen T-Roc. This is a huge bump up for us. We needed a bigger car now that we’re heading into adulthood and starting a family. Technology and safety features were also a big factor in our decision making. We didn’t plan to get such a good car, but turns out my 194cm of height can’t really get comfortable in any car, not even models we thought were big.

    As a tech enthusiast, this is not quite the high-tech jump I would’ve dreamt of (I’m really looking forward to trying EVs and self-driving capabilities) but nonetheless we found ourselves light years from where we started.

    Our new car is much safer than our previous one, full of features like lane detection, adaptive cruise control (which is almost like magic), automated parking assistant, fatigue detection… It has automatic gear switching (which is not a common feature in Spain), and it’s also comforting to drive a newer and up-to-date car (I was worrying our luck with the previous one could run out at any moment).

    In hindsight, I feel like a bigger jump could have made me feel a bit overwhelmed. This setup has already taking lots of getting used to as it is. Watching the wheel turn itself automatically (for the park assist) can be very stressful at first, so I can only imagine what it’s like to see it while going 120km/h in the highway.

    I’m really looking forward for the next step in a few years, but I’m pretty sure this is the appropriate one at the current moment and context, the one that feels “right”. The next move will be much easier now that we’re already on a higher tier of quality and tech.

  • 34°C

    34°C right now around Barcelona. A red IPA joins me into reading Apprenticeship Patterns, a book about life as a programmer.