Mircea Bardac /random_thoughts

Friday, the 13th… May 2005.
… and I’m not superstitious.

It all started when the alarm set off. I remember setting it at 9:30 AM.
Woke up, turned on the computer (I was waiting for an e-mail with an essay for a presentation - had to burn it on a CD). Looked at the time: 7:35 AM. What tha?!?.. then.. it hit me! There was a recurrent alarm set at 7:30AM. Ok, that means 2 more hours for waking up and getting ready for this full day. (I will consider this a neutral event)

I should have been at the University at about 11:15 AM. The 2nd round of presentations for the English Scientific Session started at that time. Sometime later, at about 12:30, me and 3 more colleagues were scheduled for the Psychological Education Scientific Session.

I was all ready at about 10:30. I just needed to burn 2 CDs (one for English, one for Psychological Education) and print my English essay.
Magic happened then: the printer was out of ink (1st bad thing: -1). It was working perfectly less than 12 hours before, when my father printed some faxes.

Called my friend Liviu to ask him if he managed to print his essay in full colour, at a shop nearby. He answered the phone and I found out that “no, he couldn’t print it, but I could send my essay to him and print it black and white”. Ok, that will do - thanks Liviu once again. (1st good thing +1)

I got dressed up very nice in my navy blue suit, put a tie on - incredible speed (about 1-2 minutes) and rushed out. I was in a hurry, so Liviu suggested me I grab a cab, go over to him and get to the University together. Found an undecided cab driver (he didn’t know if he was occupied or not - a lady was waiting for somebody else which, surprisingly, appeared exactly when I was heading for the door of the cab). Took the next cab and.. surprise. That was the most expensive cab I’ve ever been to in my entire life. It costed me ROL 170,000 (that’s about EUR 4.5) to get to the University, when, normal way, it would have been 3 times cheaper. For that price I could have gotten a Mercedes to drive me to the University. (2nd bad thing -1)

We were there at 11:20 AM, only 5 minutes late. Everything was moving so slowly, that the beginning of the presentations was delayed for about 25 minutes. I will consider this the 2nd good thing (+1).

The English presentation I had was the worst presentation of my entire life.
Thinking back about that, I can only say that the main reason for failing to deliver a close to perfect presentation lack of preparation (derived from “lack of time”). What I am most upset about is that I destroyed the most well designed presentation I’ve ever had in my entire life. The name of the presentation is Always sell yourself. How to think like a CEO. A nice not very computer science related subject which literally required serious preparation on behalf of a computer-oriented person like me (it was a mix of ideas, maybe too many ideas, not very logical binding, requiring lots of support in order to glue the entire presentation). It was a bit full of text, but the concept was great. I might put it up online sometime. This would be the 3rd bad thing (-1).

The Psychological Education Scientific Session Presentation went good, I might even say very good. Everybody was pleased. This counts for the good things (3rd good thing +1).

The rest of the day was pretty good, except for the weird things still comming up.
Me and Liviu went to a seminar on Leadership at the Student Union (Casa de Cultura a Studentilor) Bucharest. It was pretty interesting.

We spent the rest of the day walking through Bucharest. Even if I was dressed formally, I felt very comfortable.

We got somewhere in the Revolution Square, where we saw the mayor of Bucharest - Adrian Videanu. He was waiting for somebody. We saw him, he saw us, we crossed the street and stopped in front of the National Art Museum, where a party was being held up. We saw many BMWs stopping by, high influence people in Romania, one ambassador - we later found out it was a charity party. While staying there, Mr. Videanu also crossed the street with his wife. He left his wife go ahead and when he got in front of us he turned towards us, greeted us, we greeted him, then he turned back and entered through the Museum’s gate, where everyone else was waying. I stopped for a moment. Then realised. The mayor has greeted me, when many other people was around us. We weren’t even close to the gate and I had no way/reason to enter, but I admit: I was dressed formaly. This goes with the good things: +1.

There were some other minor good bits which I skipped. Overall, after doing the calculations, this turned out to be a good day. Unfortunately, the English Presentation was a loss, especially for the design itself which I’ve managed to “downvalue” a lot.

Well, at least the mayor greeted me… and we might take a prize for the Psychological Education Presentation… weird day… I have to admit.

Do you remember your first two years? I bet you don’t!
Well, I do! And I’m very proud of them.

I remember my first step, my first words… and now, after two years… I still feel like a baby. Lots of things to share, lots of things to learn.

Happy Birthday to me! It’s been 2 years today since I’ve joined the Psi Community.
It brings me great joy remembering all the stuff that happened these 2 years. Psi really grew under my eyes:

• I personally gave birth to the Psi Windows Installer, a pack of NSIS scripts meant to create an easy to use installer for Windows - these scripts turned out to be wonderful starting points for other projects as well
• Two applications started living to help Psi and not only Psi. One of them is FlySpray (currently in use in many projects all over the world) and Unclassified Newsboard - Psi’s future forum backend.
• I got to be Forum Moderator for the wonderful Psi Community
• Michal was also named moderator to support the upcomming flow of users
• Named moderator at the begining, Remko (spike) was “promoted” to Psi developer as recognition of his continuous effors to improve and develop Psi, bringing fresh ideas to the Project
• We got to have a new Lead Developer - Kevin , once Justin (infiniti) stepped out to pursue other goals, focusing more on the development of the XMPP library used by Psi, named Iris.
• Psi shaped really well to adapt to MacOS users’ needs once our devs started using Macs - mainly with the help of Remko
• File transfer got implemented - this is seen by many as one of the greatest achievements of Psi
• Got really really cool User Interface features, all available in the next Psi version (0.10), thanks to our Qt GUI code master - misha.

I can’t be forgetting Hal here, as he bravely stood and organized us, setting us on the right tracks whenever this was needed - a big THANK YOU for him.
Let me not forget all the translators who help spreading Psi around the globe, thus making Jabber a better place for everybody - they also diserve our thanks.

There are definitely many more things to mention, but I don’t have 2 years to do that.
What’s worth mentioning is that we are constantly working on providing a better, improved Psi, both on the application side and on the community side. The next Psi version (0.10), code name “Faces of conversation” (directed by our new Lead Developer Kevin - this sounds like a movie, doesn’t it?), focuses on usability and improving the interaction with the user. It’s release will sync with a website overhaul, bringing a new face to collaboration within the Psi Community.
Psi 0.10 will make this happen. Don’t forget! Be there when this happens! It’s a one time opportunity!

In the end, I’d like to thank you all for being such a wonderful (Internet) Community.
I am really proud of being a two-year-old around you.

Happy birthday to you too!