{"id":3406,"date":"2017-12-31T18:17:56","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T10:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2018-01-01T09:34:04","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T01:34:04","slug":"annus-horribilis-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2017\/12\/31\/annus-horribilis-2017","title":{"rendered":"Annus Horribilis, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been writing New Year’s Notes for quite sometime, and in 2017<\/a> I ushered it in Lisbon. The year didn’t start particularly well, considering there was illness that befell (on Jan 1, with a doctor’s visit to the suite!). Not for me, I was still hale and hearty, but there was also a situation a week later in London, when there was a little snow, and a Uber driver riding over my dad’s leg, rushing to St. Mary’s Hospital, and finding out we had to pay absolutely zero thanks to the NHS. Like the late Sir David Tang said, there’s lots to praise of the NHS<\/a>. (he passed away a week before I was to meet him).<\/p>\n

My grandmother took ill in February (I admitted her to the hospital, a few hours before catching a flight to Los Angeles). She fought on for 50 days, and passed on April 18 2017. During that period I took extremely short flights and visited her twice a day (you’re limited when they’re in the ICU) when I was in town. I never really found time to grieve, because from death to burial, I hopped on a plane to San Francisco to go to the biggest event in the MySQL \/ open source database world. It surprised many people, who thought I’d be cancelling my appearance. But when I commit to something, short of being disabled myself, I will deliver.<\/p>\n

I wrote this message on Facebook, but it was “friends only”, so I can’t actually link to it:<\/p>\n

\n

There is never a right time to say goodbye. At approximately 4pm on 18 April 2017, my grandmother, Amma, passed away. She had been in the hospital for about seven weeks, and was described as a fighter to me by her doctor a day before she passed. Alas. <\/p>\n

She was a great cook. She hosted wonderful Christmas parties. I grew up with her, she looked after me superbly well. I’m in computing because she bought a computer in 1989 and it consumed my spare time. I have only fond memories of her. <\/p>\n

I called her Amma. Which is what you call a mother. Because that’s what she was to me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By July it has been confirmed my father had taken ill. This is going to be a tough battle ahead. And by December 26, I hear even more bad news from a personal standpoint, that I am still digesting and hoping & praying for the best.<\/p>\n

So for me, I can’t wait for 2017 to end. I write this in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, at the Royal Lake Club, not overseas for the first time in a very long time. I want 2018 to be an annus mirabilis<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Travel stats are a good way to end this: 30 trips, 247 days on the road, 451,022km travelled, 53 cities, and 23 countries. I visited Montenegro (Budva in particular), which was a new place to check off. I also learned to dive, and had the best sushi at Sukiyabashi Jiro. Life’s all about moments, right? Anyway comparing to 2017<\/a>, it was 5 trips more, 5 days less, about 12,500km less, 3 countries more, and 6 cities more. <\/p>\n

Do I think I’ll achieve a lot less time on the road in 2018 (it is a goal)? Will my personal life get sorted? I’m really looking forward to the horror of 2017 to end. Fin. Here’s to annus mirabilis 2018<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been writing New Year’s Notes for quite sometime, and in 2017 I ushered it in Lisbon. The year didn’t start particularly well, considering there was illness that befell (on Jan 1, with a doctor’s visit to the suite!). Not for me, I was still hale and hearty, but there was also a situation a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-SW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3522,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2020\/03\/28\/life-with-rona-day-11","url_meta":{"origin":3406,"position":0},"title":"Life with Rona – Day 11","date":"28\/3\/2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Woke up in time to do an Isabel & Marcus workout. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Read a bit. And will keep today short as I'm going to watch Ozark Season 3 -- been a while since I used my Netflix account. I notice Better Call Saul is back too. Pity Ray\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3466,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2018\/12\/31\/ciao-2018","url_meta":{"origin":3406,"position":1},"title":"Ciao 2018","date":"31\/12\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Too busy to sum up the year but generally speaking: father much more gravely ill, lost another grandmother exactly 14 months to the date of the previous one, lots of general busyness. As I write this, I\u2019m in Kuala Lumpur, not elsewhere (second year running), shuttling between home and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3359,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2017\/06\/04\/speaking-in-june-2017","url_meta":{"origin":3406,"position":2},"title":"Speaking in June 2017","date":"4\/6\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I will be at several events in June 2017: db tech showcase 2017 - 16-17 June 2017 - Tokyo, Japan. I'm giving a talk about best practices around MySQL High Availability. O'Reilly Velocity 2017 - 19-22 June 2017 - San Jose, California, USA. I'm giving a tutorial about best practices\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MySQL"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3367,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2017\/07\/13\/cfp-for-percona-live-europe-dublin-2017-closes-july-17-2017","url_meta":{"origin":3406,"position":3},"title":"CFP for Percona Live Europe Dublin 2017 closes July 17 2017!","date":"13\/7\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I've always enjoyed the Percona Live Europe events, because I consider them to be a lot more intimate than the event in Santa Clara. It started in London, had a smashing success last year in Amsterdam (conference sold out), and by design the travelling conference is now in Dublin from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MariaDB"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3318,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2017\/04\/08\/speaking-in-april-2017","url_meta":{"origin":3406,"position":4},"title":"Speaking in April 2017","date":"8\/4\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Its been a while since I've blogged (will have to catch up soon), but here's a few appearances: How we use MySQL today - April 10 2017 - New York MySQL meetup. I am almost certain this will be very interesting with the diversity of speakers and topics. Percona Live\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MariaDB"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3320,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2017\/05\/05\/speaking-in-may-2017","url_meta":{"origin":3406,"position":5},"title":"Speaking in May 2017","date":"5\/5\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a big April if you're in the MySQL ecosystem, so am looking forward to other events that have different focus and a different base, so to speak. See you at: rootconf - May 11-12 2017 - Bangalore, India. My first Rootconf was last year, and it was a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MySQL"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3407,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}