Colin Charles Agenda

As I bid adieu to 2025, annus horribilis, I wish to welcome 2026, Annus Mirabilis.

What changed from Hello 2025?

Fell in love with Pumpkin, Vanessa’s dog. I only did 41 days of travel, 7 trips, 13 cities and 36,049 miles. This was basically covid 2020 ;)

Ushered it in Kuala Lumpur 2025 and 2026.

I look forward to having a better year ahead. Best year as 42 is coming, and that is the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Know whom my friends are. Know who were fair weather friends. Very enlightening 2025 has been. You’ll eat, just not at my table.

Ever onwards. And upwards.

I write, but just not here. Client sites, X, etc. so there is chronicling, but just not on the blog.

What changed from Hello 2024?

I got married. I moved into the flat. Companies have gone up and down, like life.

170 days on the road, 308,832km travelled, 38 cities, and 16 countries. I have never travelled this little in recent life, but maybe the whole getting married thing (planning a wedding is no mean feat), and sorting the flat out (dealing with incompetent interior designers, sorting things there, etc.), caused this?

It is 2025, and I’m actually planted in Kuala Lumpur, not having done an end of year trip, to usher in the New Year somewhere else. I started the year in Paris, and I ended the year in Kuala Lumpur, tired, and maybe a bit burnt out.

Working hard to get back into the grind; don’t get me wrong, I’ve been doing nothing but grinding, but c’est la vie.

At this rate, there is no real blogging here, regardless of the lofty plans to starting writing more. Stats update from Hello 2023:

219 days on the road (less than 2022! -37, over a month, shocking), 376,961km travelled, 44 cities, 17 countries.

Can’t say why it was less, because it felt like I spent a long time away…

In Kuala Lumpur, I purchased a flat (just in time to see Malaysia go down), and I swapped cars (had a good 15 year run). I co-founded a company, and I think there is a lot more to come.

2024 is shaping up to be exciting, busy, and a year, where one must just do.

good read: 27 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Said the Best Employees Focus on Content, Not Process. Research Shows He Was Right. in simple terms, just do.

I have long said “Long Malaysians, Short Malaysia” in conversation to many. Maybe it took me a while to tweet it, but this was the first example: Dec 29, 2021. I’ve tweeted it a lot more since.

Malaysia has a 10th Prime Minister, but in general, it is a very precarious partnership. Consider it, same shit, different day?

5/n: Otherwise, there will be no change.

So change via “purported democracy” is never going to happen with a country like Malaysia, rotten to the core. It is a crazy dream.

You succeed, despite of. Davka.

Reboot, or bust.

Good luck, Malaysia.

— Colin Charles (@bytebot) August 18, 2021

I just have to get off the Malaysian news diet. Malaysians elsewhere, are generally very successful. Malaysians suffering by their daily doldrums, well, they just need to wake up, see the light, and succeed.

In the end, as much as people paraphrase, ask not what the country can do for you, legitimately, this is your life, and you should be taking good care of yourself and your loved ones. You succeed, despite of. Politics and the state happens, regardless of.

Me, personally? Ideas are abound for how to get Malaysians who see the light, to succeed elsewhere. And if I read, and get angry at something (tweet rage?), I’m going to pop RM50 into an investment account, which should help me get off this poor habit. I’ll probably also just cut subscriptions to Malaysian news things… Less exposure, is actually better for you. I can’t believe that it has taken me this long to realise this.

Time to build.

I did poorly blogging last year. Oops. I think to myself when I read, This Thing Still On?, I really have to do better in 2023. Maybe the catalyst is the fact that Twitter is becoming a shit show. I doubt people will leave the platform in droves, per se, but I think we are coming back to the need for decentralised blogs again.

I have 477 days to becoming 40. I ditched the Hobonich Techo sometime in 2022, and just focused on the Field Notes, and this year, I’ve got a Monocle x Leuchtturm1917 + Field Notes combo (though it seems my subscription lapsed Winter 2022, I should really burn down the existing collection, and resubscribe).

2022 was pretty amazing. Lots of work. Lots of fun. 256 days on the road (what a number), 339,551km travelled, 49 cities, 20 countries.

The getting back into doing, and not being afraid of experimenting in public is what 2023 is all about. The Year of The Rabbit is upon us tomorrow, hence why I don’t mind a little later Hello 2023 :)

Get back into the habit of doing. And publishing by learning and doing. No fear. Not that I wasn’t doing, but its time to be prolific with what’s been going on.

I better remember that.

Yes, the blog is still on. January 2004 I moved to WordPress, and it is still here January 2022. I didn’t write much last year (neither here, not experimenting with the Hey blog). I didn’t post anything to Instagram last year either from what I can tell, just a lot of stories.

August 16 2021, I realised I was 1,000 days till May 12 2024, which is when I become 40. As of today, that leads 850 days. Did I squander the last 150 days? I’m back to writing almost daily in the Hobonichi Techo (I think last year and the year before were mostly washouts; I barely scribbled anything offline).

I got a new Apple Watch Series 7 yesterday. I can say I used the Series 4 well (79% battery life), purchased in the UK when I broke my Series 0 in Edinburgh airport.

TripIt stats for last year claimed 95 days on the road. This is of course, a massive joke, but I’m glad I did get to visit London, Lisbon, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles without issue. I spent a lot of time in Kuantan, a bunch of Langkawi trips, and also, I stayed for many months at the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur during the May lockdowns (I practically stayed there all lockdown).

With 850 days to go till I’m 40, I have plenty I would like to achieve. I think I’ll write a lot more here. And elsewhere. Get back into the habit of doing. And publishing by learning and doing. No fear. Not that I wasn’t doing, but its time to be prolific with what’s been going on.