Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Yesterday I celebrated my 30th birthday.  That was a blast!  I received congratulations and best wishes from more people (and bots) than I ever did.  In fact, there were so many that I can publish some statistics (numbers are approximated):

• Automated greeting messages from forums and social services: 35
• Phone calls: 15
• SMS messages: 10
• Paper postcards: 1
• E-cards: 1
• Emails: 4
• IM chats: 15
• Social networks contacts (Odnoklassniki.ru, Facebook, etc): 70
• In person: 20

Some of these overlap, but not that much.  Messages started coming in from Monday afternoon and they are still pouring  in. Needless to say, I am overwhelmed.   A huge thank you to all of you!  You made my day.

My favorite (so far) programming language has been born 20 years ago.   It’s been loved and hated.  It’s been praised and damned.  It’s been complimented and criticized.  But all that doesn’t matter.  What matters is that it has been helping people all over the world to solve problems.  Tricky, boring, annoying problems.  It provided enough power to build enterprise grade applications, while still being easy and flexible enough to be the super-glue of many systems.

I’m sure Perl will still be with us in another 20 years.  I wish it to be as useful in that time, as it is now.

Thanks, respect, and best wishes to everyone who created and supported Perl, its community and tools all these years.  Happy birthday!

(For those of you who don’t know, my mother came to Cyprus last Friday for just a few days to celebrate her birthday.  She is back to Moscow today.)

It was one of the shortest visits so far.  The longest one was when Maxim was born.  Ma stayed with us for a month or so.  There were a few two-weeks and 10-days stays.  There were some 1 week stays.  Those felt short, but we had enough time to pack all the fun in.  With 3 days at hand and all the preparations that had to be done for the actual celebration, we still managed to enjoy plenty of time together.

The celebrations were cool too.  A whole bunch of people, up in the hills with plenty of drinks, food, free time, and good mood – that’s a heck of a combination for great time.  It’s a bit sad that it’s over, but  I’m glad we didn’t spoil a second of it.  It was all fun.

Happy birthday mom.  Hope to see you again soon!

Today is yet another Olga’s birthday. She refuses to celebrate it. Again. Saying that it’s not a holiday and that there’s nothing to celebrate. Oh, well. That only means that all of you guys are out of luck. I’m still having my wife’s birthday and nothing can stop me.

Happy birthday, babe! All the best wishes, and some extra stuff that I won’t post here.

Album location: /photos/2006/2006-03-14_Olga_Birthday

Today is my brother’s 21st birthday. Congratulations bro!

You have become an adult by all standards now. Even by those way outrageous American ones. You’ve achived much, but don’t stop yet. There are so many wonderful things in life beyond of where you’re now.

I wish that you have enough energy to climb the highest hill around to see beyond the horizons. And then I wish that you have enough will to travel there (that is beyond the horizons, if you haven’t been listening).

There is a huge world out there with plenty of interesting and amazing stuff going on. There are plenty of interesting people. There is much to learn. There is much to find. There is much to gain.

Now that you’ve become totally adult, I hope you’ll explore the possibilities and push the opportunities even further. Good luck to you and welcome to adults!

P.S.: Being partially childish is a good thing too, by the way.

P.P.S.: Happy Birthday!

Today, yet more of our friends passed by to congratulate Maxim (and us) on reaching the important milestone – the age of 1 year. Plenty of presents, kisses, and hugs were mixed with lots of food and drinks. The result – excellent time. Kids are fun!

Album location: /photos/2006/2006-02-25_Maxim_birthday

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today is Maxim’s birthday, and he is one year old.

It was the most remarkable year of my life. Everything has changed so much. Yet, time is the thing that surprise me the most. This year was by far the longest year of my life. Probably, because it was so packed with emotions, worries, thinking, studying and observing. The longest. By far. But looking back at it, I have this feeling that it passed so fast. Where did all that time go? Confused…

One thing I am certain about though. It was the best year of my life so far. Hopefully it will continue to be this way…

Happy birthday, son! (maybe one day you’ll even read this)

Album location: /photos/2006/2006-02-23_Maxim_1_year_old

For a long time now my father tells everyone that he is old. He accepts no arguments against the statement, even though his own parents tell everyone that they are young. I’m not going to argue. I’m just going to use Internet. Everyone knows that Internet is always right, so here is the official statement from the Internet:

Now, the tricky part is that once it is out there, it’ll always be out there. There is no way to correct this. And if he will try, that’ll just prove more that he’s still young. Beat that!

Happy birthday, Dad! I wish you all the best, as usual. I also want to wish you have some extra strength as you need it so much right now.

Hope to see you this summer…

Elia Dyrdina (Slava’s wife, but I really shouldn’t mention that) is celebrating her birthday today. I wish her all the best, and, as usual, I hope that she’ll stay as childish and lighthearted as she is.

Have a good one – I’ll see you later today…

Maxim is 10 month old. He learns to walk and to talk. Something tells me that he can start doing both of these simultanously (along the lines of “Holy Crap! Look ma, I’m walkin’ over here!”). He is still puzzled with the Christmas Tree, but he slowly gets used to it.

Instead of a proper present, he got a pair of new boots. Size 20. Infant 20 that is. He’ll probably enjoy them a great deal as they are both comfortable and taste good.

Happy birthday, Max!