I’m debating dropping the term “week notes” from my updates as I’m obviously not getting to them weekly. Either I need to be more diligent, or abandon the pretense of being weekly. Something to muse on. And indeed the time for musing is fast approaching as in two weeks we head off to Berlin for eight weeks. It will be a bit of holiday, but mostly just a change of scenery, a chance to reflect after a few hectic years.

Reflection is fitting as this week at work we’re celebrated the eight year anniversary of the launch of Nestoria. Not sure how eight years flew past so quickly. Unfortunately we’ll be combining the celebration with the departure of two great teammates - Savio after being with us for three years, Gary as his six month consulting gig with us draws to an end. Gary and I, along with others, have been very busy the last few with the launch of the new OpenCage geocoder, and he gave a good talk about it at SotM-EU. Our basic premise is to offer the power of many geocoders behind a single URL, there’s much more detail on the new OpenCage blog. SotM-EU was good fun, and I’ve dashed off a post with my impressions on the event and the state of OpenStreetMap in general for a major tech blog, it shall hopefully hit the electronic presses very shortly.

In other developments:

  • I’ll be speaking at csv,conf in Berlin on the 15th. My talk will focus on the hell that is parsing partner data at Nestoria.

  • We’ve been quiet on the investment front at Lokku the last few months, but have two deals that are agreed and should close in the coming weeks (famous last words).

  • hiring the product manager for Nestoria India. A grueling process with a lot of logistics, but very happy with our outcome.

  • I personally (as opposed to Lokku) have closed an angel investment. The company gives all impression of doing great, and it’s in a space that is ripe for change (also famous last words). Hope to announce it all soon.

  • I’ve had the annual pain of dealing with my US taxes.

  • watching the world cup. Wir werden zur Finale und Deutschlands Sieg rechtzeitig in Berlin angekommen sein.

  • and mainly working on logistics of Berlin.

On the list before the trip is a follow up post on my goals for 2014 to take stock on how I’m doing.