Tag: New Year

Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2012 Year!

Here we are, in the last hours of the 2011.  Those of us who celebrate the New Year holiday are either taking a quick nap, getting ready for the night of partying or getting ready to receive guests, cooking in the kitchens, calling relatives, cleaning the house, and starting to have a quick drink.

I am among those who are cooking in the kitchens and taking a quick drink.  Taking a quick break from all the preparations, it’s a good time to relax and reflect on the year that is almost gone, as well as pave the road for the coming year.

If I was to use a single word to describe 2011, I’d definitely stick with ‘quick’.  It seems that only a few weeks ago we celebrated the New Year, and here we are again, a year later.  It is, for sure, one of the quickest years I had so far.  Things just flew by me so fast that I barely noticed any time at all.

It wasn’t as chaotic as 2010, but it did bring a lot of new and interesting moments.  I spent most of 2011 working for FXCC.  Even when it just seems like yet another Forex company in my resume, it is not exactly so.  New team, new concepts, new technologies, new ways of doing things.  The experience I had this year was definitely enriching and empowering.  One example to give was my new and extended experience with Microsoft Windows.  And even though I haven’t changed my personal preferences from Linux, I’ve definitely learned a lot and saw many things in a new light.

One of the items on my wish list from last year was an Android phone.  I’ve been following the platform for a few years and finally I got myself an Android device early in 2011.  I also was considering an Amazon Kindle, but that wish changed a bit.  Instead I now desire a tablet.  And even though I still don’t have one yet, there is one in the mail.  Yes, that’s right, I’m awaiting a delivery of a tablet device.

One of the biggest adventures I’ve ever had happened this year too, and I didn’t even have to travel for that.  I’m talking about ImpreStyle – a start-up and a project that I am doing together with my very close family.  We started back in May and recently we reached yet another milestone (more on that later).  There were a lot of slow downs, problems and misunderstandings, but we managed to pull through, solve it all, and push it together.  We have an excellent team now, where each one brings to the table something that others can’t.  And we have some really good signs for this project for the upcoming year.  I’m sure that each member of the team learned plenty of new, but I’ll speak of myself here.  It’s been a while since I wanted to get into mobile technologies, and finally I did.  I’ve learned a lot about how this industry and market operate.  I’ve learned a lot about web promotion.  I’ve learned a lot about online marketing – now from a more practical perspective.  I’ve learned more about finance, accounting, management, and other areas of running a business.  In some more, than I ever wanted to know.  Yet, I’m sure I will learn more next year.

Something else that I experienced today and enjoyed a great deal was my first TED conference.  TEDxNicosia event was awesome on its own. But for me personally the timing was excellent as well.  It came just when I needed it and provided the inspiration that I needed.

While I’m writing this post, and thinking back and forward, I’m enjoying a glass of a real port wine.  I got a bottle directly from Portugal thanks to Michael.  This is yet another first time for me.  I’ve tried the Russian idea of port wine quite a few times but it has nothing in common really.  The real stuff is awesome – definitely something to experience again!

Now, for the New Year.  My biggest hopes and plans are all around the ImpreStyle project.  I think that that will be the year when it grows up, defines itself better, and gets a much needed infusion of resources.  We’ll see.  Regardless, I think I will get even more into the mobile stuff – smartphones and tablets in particular.

I also think that working on the same project brings the family closer together.  That’s what was happening this year, and I hope the trend will continue.

As with any year, I am always looking forward for some travelling.  I haven’t been out of the country in either 2010 or 2011, so I hope this year will provide me with an opportunity or two to go and visit foreign lands.

That’s about it really.  Instead of having many different wishes and expectations, I am concentrating more on those which are the most important to me.  How about you? What are you expecting from 2012?  How did 2011 treat you?  How does it compare to your expectations from it a year ago?  Let me know in the comments.

Once again, Merry Christmas and  a Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.  Enjoy the holidays season and family time.  I hope Santa Clause brings you everything you wished for and a little more on top of that.  Have fun, eat, drink, and I’ll see in 2012. Tada!

Which day is your candidate for the Groundhog Day?

This blog post (in Russian) tells a story of a young woman that really loves the first day of winter, when the first snow falls. The author suggests that if there was a chance, this woman would have chosen the first day of winter to live through again and again, like the character of Phil, played by Bill Murray in the excellent movie “Groundhog Day“.

The author of that story also asks an interesting question.  If you had a choice, which would be the day you’d choose to live through and through, like in that movie.  If you could pick any day at all, which one would that be?

For me personally it is a hard choice indeed.  I love and cherish every day of my life.  Except for, maybe, Mondays.  I’ve had plenty of excellent days over the years and I can’t really pick one of them.  But if I had to, I guess I’d have to go with the 1st of January, the New Year Day.  Why? Well …

I am Russian and Russian celebrate the New Year like nobody else.  It’s one of the biggest holidays in our culture.  We eat, we drink, we have fun, and everybody stays up until very late.  Until early morning even.  1st of January is a public holiday.  No matter which day of the week it is, you don’t need to go to school or work.  Since everyone stayed up late, most people sleep through the morning, waking up in the afternoon.  This is probably the only day when I am not standing out in this regard, when I’m not the only one who loves waking up past midday.

Oh, and then there is food and television.  31st of December is the evening of celebrations.  We prepare lots of food.  We call plenty of guests.  We dress nicely.  We behave.  It’s all nice, but it’s a tiny bit too official and tiring.  On the 1st of January though, it’s totally different.  It’s the relax time.  There is still plenty of food and drinks from yesterday.  Whoever survived the drunk night is not in the mood for any official behavior.  People under-dress, grab food, and spend a lot of time in front of the television watching entertainment shows or movies, taking short naps in between.

By the evening, people, and people I of course mean myself, are often recovered enough to take a short walk.  Time to see friends or relative or visit the nearest pub.  Slight tough upon the yesterday celebration with an attempt to reconstruct the chain of events from a collective memory.  And then early bed time.

I think that year on year, 1st of January is the closest day to a perfect one.  So if I had a choice to live through one day time after time after time, I’d choose that day.  Gladly, of course, I actually do have a chance to do so.  It’s just that I have to wait a year in between.

What day is your candidate for the Groundhog Day?

Bob, the fish

My son Maxim has been asking Santa for a gold fish.  Among a billion of other things, of course.  And while he wasn’t so sure about all those toys, he somehow was certain that Santa will bring him a gold fish this year.  For it was an almost done fact.  Something like tomorrows sunrise.  It’s not here yet, but you know for sure it’s coming.

Neither me, nor my wife Olga know anything about fish.  Except that it lives in the water and you can eat it in a variety of ways.  But fish as a pet is weird.   Still, we decided to go along with it.  So, for the New Year’s Santa did bring Maxim a small glass bowl for aquarium with a gold fish in it.

Maxim was overjoyed.  I think part of it was due to him expecting the gold fish for Christmas, and not getting it, sort of, downed his hopes a bit.  And then he didn’t find the aquarium under the tree for the New Year’s.  Santa was afraid that our cat will either eat the fish or knock off the aquarium and spill all the water, so he left the present on the table.  And Maxim just didn’t check there.  Yeah, I know, modern age kids.  Back in our day we’d check everywhere!  But I digress.

As I said, Maxim was very excited to have a fish.  He wanted to do things with – watch it, feed it, put more water in the aquarium, move the aquarium around, put more stones on the bottom of the aquarium, feed the fish again, and watch it some more.

By the end of the day, I noticed that the water in the aquarium wasn’t as crystal clear as before.  And the fish seemed to be swearing at us all.  At least it looked that way.  Now of course I think that the fish was trying to breath with its mouth.  Anyway.  Dirty water.  So I changed it – spilled half of it out and put some new water in.  The fish looked better.  But not for long.  The next day I felt like I need to change the water again.  And again.  And again.

Then it hit me – the Internet!  I had to read at least something about the fish.  Since I didn’t know which brand, model, class, or type this fish was, I just read a bit about gold fishes.  And even that little that I read made me worried.  Here is a list of things (I don’t dare call them facts yet) that I read:

  • Aquarium gold fish don’t exists in natural habitat.  They were created by humans for humans.  And while some of them are beautiful, they are very fragile.  One small mistake and the fish is dead.  One big mistake and the whole aquarium is cursed.
  • Aquarium fish is very sensitive to water.  Preparing and maintaining the right water is almost as hard as sending human to Mars.  Maybe not that expensive though.  Aquarium has to be prepared with water before the fish goes in.  Once the fish is in, it’ll take a couple of days for it to settle and adjust the water for itself.  And then that’s what you’ll need to maintain.
  • Gold fish needs a lot of space.  Suggestions varied between a 10 liters and 20 liters of aquarium space per each fish.  Our fish bowl was under 2 liters.
  • Gold fish are a common present for office competitions, birthdays, and other holidays.  But because most people don’t know how to take care of the fish, the fish usually survives only for 3-4 days.  Oops!

Well, at least we tried.  With water changing and everything.  But that didn’t help.  Today morning I woke up to a dead fish.  Bob-the-fish was its name.  And it survived in our custody from December 31st, 2010 to January 5th, 2011.  That’s almost a week. And somewhat longer than the average for a gold fish present.  Not even long enough for me to make a photograph of it.  Sad.

Today we’ll probably have a family meeting to decide if we want to try again.  And as much as I am for having pets in homes where children grow up, I am against torture and animal cruelty.  If we are to try, we’ll need better preparations this time.  We’ll need to learn something.  And we’ll need to get a bigger aquarium.  That’s for sure.

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

First of all, Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to all of you!  Best wishes to you, your families, and friends.  I hope all your disappointments and mischiefs will stay in 2010 and that 2011 will bring only the good stuff.

Looking back at 2010, I see a very rocky year.  So many things came and went, started and finished, appeared and disappeared that it’s hard to keep the track of.  I found and left two jobs.  I moved back to the apartment from the rented house.  My wife found the job, but not for long.  Maxim started school.  My mother moved to another apartment and got back to her blog, even though in a completely different way.  My dad took over a website and became a webmaster in just the few month that he was online. With all these changes around me, I didn’t focus as much on blogging, photography, and technological trends.  But now that most of these changes are (hopefully) over, I’ll get back to my interests.

I don’t have any big plans or hopes for 2011.  I hope that everyone around me stays healthy and wealthy.  I hope I’ll get out of the country for a few days (not much travel happened in 2010, but that was well compensated by 2009).   I hope I’ll finally get myself one of those Android phones.  And maybe even an Amazon Kindle.  These gadgets interest me enough to review my programming skills, which I hope will see some refurbish this year.

With that, I once again wish you all the best, and hope you’ll share your year reviews and hopes for 2011 in the comments.  Have fun, enjoy, and celebrate.  Happy New Year!