{"id":29158,"date":"2018-12-31T18:43:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=29158"},"modified":"2018-12-31T18:44:05","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:44:05","slug":"dear-2018-you-wont-be-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2018\/12\/31\/dear-2018-you-wont-be-missed\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear 2018, you won&#8217;t be missed!"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A year is a significant period of time in human terms.  There is plenty of opportunities for good and bad times.  But when we look back at it, we usually have an overall feeling of how good or bad the year was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of my years tend to be either good or average.  But 2018 was one of the worst ones I can remember.  Sure, plenty of good happened too, but an overall stream of stuff that&#8217;s not too great, made it into what it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just a few points that made it so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Lost a few family members.  I guess this is kind of expected, the older everyone gets.  But still.<\/li><li>Nearly lost or got separated from more family members (for a variety of reasons, like health conditions, car accidents, government paperwork, etc).<\/li><li>Apparently, nearly kicked it myself.  Although it didn&#8217;t feel like, but the doctor was pretty sure and I don&#8217;t have any reasons not to trust his professional opinion.<\/li><li>Had to celebrate my 40th birthday sober as a judge.  That&#8217;s a first one in a quarter of a century, I think.<\/li><li>Had to attend the first funeral in ages (my friend&#8217;s father passed away).Had one of those &#8220;knife in the back&#8221; situations.  Which was probably more of my own doing or perspective.<\/li><li>Had a whole roller coaster of financial surprises.  Mostly downstream though.<\/li><li>And on and on it  goes.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The stuff at work has been crazy.  We&#8217;ve been delivering more and faster than even before.  (Gladly we managed to nearly double the development team starting in the second half of the year.)  When I&#8217;m thinking about it all, I often get the racing scene from The Fate of the Furious movie playing in my head.  With the only exception that our race didn&#8217;t start this year.  Think of it more like 3 minutes 15 seconds into this clip:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pdAsC_1sH1g?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even towards the last few days of the year, 2018 tried to give me both a flu and a severe toothache.  Gladly, I got nearly immune to this year&#8217;s treats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, one of my favorite movies scenes helps to summarize this year.  Imagine that the year 2018 is sitting behind the desk here, and that&#8217;s me who&#8217;s talking from the shoes of Gust Avrakatos:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sQ_4m2ocxhI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With all of that, I&#8217;m happy to report that I&#8217;ve pulled it through.  Once again, huge thanks to all my family, friends, and colleagues who helped and supported me in a variety of ways.  Additionally, special thanks goes to all bartenders, waiters and waitresses, and alcohol manufacturers, without who this year would be absolutely impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s a huge cheers for a much better 2019!  Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.  And I&#8217;ll see you on the other side.  Enjoy!<\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>A year is a significant period of time in human terms. There is plenty of opportunities for good and bad times. But when we look back at it, we usually have an overall feeling of how good or bad the year was. Most of my years tend to be either good or average. But 2018 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2018\/12\/31\/dear-2018-you-wont-be-missed\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dear 2018, you won&#8217;t be missed!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Dear 2018, you won't be missed! #HappyNewYear #milestones #personal","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[991,2603],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-29158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-personal","tag-milestones","tag-new-year"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9343,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/08\/14\/air-plane-crash\/","url_meta":{"origin":29158,"position":0},"title":"Air plane crash","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"About two hours ago, an airplane of Helios Airlines has crashed 30km off Athens. It was flying from Larnaca, Cyprus to Althens, Greece carrying 115 passangers and 6 members of the crew. According to RBC news there are two versions of what happenned. One of them says that the plane\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10163,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2006\/06\/05\/i-am-not-alone\/","url_meta":{"origin":29158,"position":1},"title":"I am not alone","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"June 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Via this post at Life Hacker I found out a whole bunch of people bloggers who have recently went on a diet. Some of them went as far as created a Flickr group (WARNING: scary stuff ahead!!!) where they post their before-after images. While I haven't joined this gang yet,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13268,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/08\/20\/brothers\/","url_meta":{"origin":29158,"position":2},"title":"Brothers","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've heard \u00a0quite a few positive reviews of the \"Brothers\" movie. \u00a0By chance I got my hands on a copy of it, so I watched. My feelings about this film are mixed. \u00a0On one hand, I think that there should be more war movies out there. \u00a0Pretty much any kind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;4 stars&quot;","block_context":{"text":"4 stars","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/brothers-337x500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10061,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2006\/04\/19\/technology-helps-growing-families-stronger\/","url_meta":{"origin":29158,"position":3},"title":"Technology helps growing families stronger","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"There's plenty of new stuff happening all around us. Technology gets a lot of hype on a 24x7 basis, with new things happening here and there. In this constantly updated environment it is sometimes difficult to notice the real pearls. I think that I just came across one - JotSpot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13831,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2011\/01\/04\/the-social-network\/","url_meta":{"origin":29158,"position":4},"title":"The Social Network","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Social Network\" is a movie about Facebook. \u00a0There's been a lot of hype about it, since that's pretty much the first mainstream movie about the modern Internet and the social networking. \u00a0And Facebook having half a billion registered users doesn't sound like geek-only territory anymore. \u00a0But on top of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;4 stars&quot;","block_context":{"text":"4 stars","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/movies\/movie-reviews\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/the_social_network-317x500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8928,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/05\/04\/cyprus-forums\/","url_meta":{"origin":29158,"position":5},"title":"Cyprus forums","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"May 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"While many people can afford some sort of Internet connectivity, Cyprus Web is not overloaded with quality websites. There are a few, but things tend to stay simple and outdated. There aren't that many people communicating onlines, as well. Except maybe for a bunch of kids in different IRC channels.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29158"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=29158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}