Year in Review - 2023

And with that, another year is over! Here's a quick rundown of a bunch of key events this year.

If I had to sum up the year, it'd likely have to describe it as: "A tumultuous year of loss, turmoil, and new beginnings"

 

BIG THINGS

* Started a new job this year - a permanent position at last (!) - in a field I love.  Technically, I was returning to the company that I'd been working for prior to the pandemic (but this time, not in a time-limited role), as the major project I'd been working on 3/4 years ago went live at the end of the year.

 

* Two major projects I've spent the last few years working on "went live / public" this year:

   1) The aforementioned big + complex + important system I work on in my current day job

   2) TPMS Studio - The software project I'd been working on for a few years has finally been released for public usage.

 

* We had the bathroom + toilet areas in our place completely renovated - This painful process took over 2 months, and resulted in needing to move out of the house for 2 months while this happened (i.e. the first time I've really lived somewhere else in Christchurch for an extended period), as there was no functioning bathroom or toilet left for several weeks (!) - between the builder pulling out the old stuff, and all the plumbing not getting reinstated until all the regibbing, painting, and tiling works had all been completed (and the new plumbing could then be installed on top of all that)

During this time:

   * I got sick like 1-2 days before we were due to move out. Like really sick - my first major bout of sickness since the one that took me out 3 years ago in February 2020 (i.e. just before the pandemic hit for real). Just like that time, this was a really bad + stubborn thing that was hard to shake for over 6 weeks (!)   While the RAT test came back clear, I wouldn't be surprised if both of these times had actually been run-ins with COVID in some form...

   * I had my job interview during this time - about 2-3 weeks after getting sick (with a 1 week delay, after getting laryngitis for a few days, after previously being fine). Was really good getting to head in and see a bunch of friendly faces I hadn't seen in several years (and to also see how things had been developing over the past few years). 

     - For the record - for everyone's safety, I kept a N95 mask on throughout that whole ordeal, and had just managed to be clear of the acute symptoms for a day or two at that point.

     - IIRC, the day I went for my interview was also the day the plumber sent a sub-contracted plumber to rip out the old toilet. (Up till that point, they'd only taken out the bathroom - including the shower + bathtub that we all loved and were actually still really happy with... but alas, the tradespeople insisted on doing a full refresh of the whole lot)

  * My laptop (which I'd been relying on for all my computing needs during this time) suddenly decided to pack a sad about 1 month in, with really loud + scary sounding "fan grinding" noises. I managed to limp it through that work week, while urgently trying to get a new workstation built.

    - Unfortunately, between post-COVID shipping + supply-chain delays, cross-country shipping (Auckland to Christchurch, but without an option to specify *priority urgent overnight shipping, which I'd have gladly paid for at the time*), and the minor issue of the EASTER HOLIDAY's falling in the middle of all this (i.e. for context, in NZ that means at least 3 statutory + public holidays, when *nothing* is open): what I'd hoped would be a 3-4 day wait turned into a truly agonising 4 week oddessy limping through with a severely weakened laptop...

   - Oh, and at the same time as I was working on a bunch of resource intensive graphics developments for TPMS Studio (i.e. both the "Text Node" and "Volume Import" features) which coincided with a bunch of mobile-GPU-limits / memory-error crashes being reached.... ARGH!!! 

  - In hindsight, I should've done this back in January (knowing that I'd need to be over there in my other place for a few months, without access to my primary workstation). BUT, on the other hand, I'd been trying to get the last bits of my mortgage paid down at the time, so wasn't keen on doing that at the time (also, there were a bunch of *other* things going on that month - more in a bit). A dedicated new / next-gen workstation had been on the cards for a year by that point, but I'd kept delaying that big splurge until my mortgage would've been largely taken care of  (happy to report that within a few months of starting the new job, that happened... would've liked it to have been taken care of completely with the old one, but oh well)

  - As for this new workstation: In many ways, this is even more of the machine that I originally *should* have built a few years ago. Don't get me wrong - my current machine has been awesome, but this new workstation is even better. Main points:

     * Finally got the case that I'd been eyeing up back then (i.e. one of those "BeQuiet" beasts). I really love how that thing is so well designed to make it a breeze to pop the covers to get in there.  (Side note: It was a good thing I did that before powering up the first time, as the big shop that built this rig had shoved a whole bunch of custom-molded packing foam in there, which would've caused a minor disaster if left unchecked)

     * Went back to an Intel processor on that one (after going for AMD Ryzen on current machine). For majority of key workloads, it does feel way faster.  (It's interesting, given that AMD were generally better last time, but the tables have turned back in favour of Intel this time round)

     * Made sure to up-gauge to a 1 TB SSD this time, while keeping a similar 2-HDD setup.  (Last time, I settled for a 500 GB, and have been rueing that decision for the last few years as I quickly ran out of space - currently sitting < 20GB on it - once all essential software was loaded)

     * The motherboard on this build ended up supporting a built-in wifi antenna thingy (instead of needing to rely on the flaky USB-based one I used on my older workstation now). Had been hoping for something like that last time, but couldn't get anything that worked last time.

* Ah yes, now getting back to January's headaches - On New Year's Eve, I discovered to my shock + horror that there seemed to be a blocked septic pipe for the upstairs bathroom at my place (a new-build). Water was not draining from the sinks / bathtub when they were filled up. Oh, and a sudden torrent of water had started gushing out down the driveway from the corner of the garage every time a mini flood was released!

Well... after calling in the builder's plumbers to take a look (a bit of an ordeal to pull off, requiring quite a bit of wrangling), the guy started having to rip a whole bunch of panels off to investigate what was going on - leading to several massive gushes of water pouring out. Then, followed an array of impressive tools for trying to unclog the drains + toilet (gee... that red "pump-action suction gun" thingy looked way more effective than a regular old plunger) + replacing leaky parts... all to conclude that the drainpipe was looking very blocked, and would need some drain cleaning camera folk to come and take a look to determine where the blockage was...

LOL

So, the PooMan crew came out a few days later (bless these folks - they must have stomachs of iron and absolutely no sense of smell, for the stenches they're exposed to day in day out are not for the faint hearted). Anyway, so they go into the garage and put their tools down the access hatch for the upstairs sewage line (which, to get to you must drill a hole in the gib-board walls on the side of the garage - UGH... why didn't they build in a bloody access hatch that you can just open like a cabinet door!), at which point they said - "Oh... something looks seriously wrong with your drain"...

After an hour more of digging up the driveway, it turned out that the drainlayer HADN'T ACTUALLY CONNECTED THE DRAINPIPE TO THE MAIN SEWER LINES!!! So, for the past year, all the pee + poop + soapy water from that bathroom had been going straight into the soil right under the bloody driveway!  EEEEK!!!

(The only plausible excuse I can think of is that they were doing this right before the first lockdown, then forgot they'd not finished the job... otherwise, that would've been real negligence!)

In any case, fortunately with that binding, the builder finally agreed to take responsibility for all the costs + for repairing all the stuff broken in the process of finding the fault. (The driveway paving though still ended up taking several months before it happened)

(Oh, and towards the end of that month, Dad needed to have some minor leg surgery, just before Chinese New Year, on the same day some more workmen were coming for some or other step in the repairs... yeah, busy times!)

* On the topic of further illness in the family - A few days after Christmas, Grandpa sadly passed away 😭. Up till then, he had been the last of my grandparents still alive.

Earlier in the year, his health started declining, resulting in needing surgery (successfully) in May. I gather that he'd been quite apprehensive about it, fearing he might die on the operating table due to his old age (90's). Fortunately, that went well, and he was back at home and in really good spirits the next time I talked to him on the phone. That turns out to have been the last phone call... a month or so later, he had a massive stroke, which left him bedridden and shuttling between hospital and hospice care  (arguably, the hospitals apparently seemed to do a better job at keeping things under control from what I heard).

It's sad that I won't get to visit and have lunch with him anymore when travelling overseas. I'm lucky to have had the chance to do so a bunch of times the past decade on our trips back to HK. The following photo - one of my favourites of Grandpa - was taken in 2010 on the first of these trips.

In happier news... here are a bunch of highlights from the past year:

* 1) Going to see up-close the first arrival of the Emirates A380 returning to Christchurch for the first time since the pandemic. I missed the original inaugural arrival (due to various reasons, including being wary of driving out that way - the aggressive zig-zagging car behind me trying to aggressively overtake me when leaving this time was a pertinent reminder of why), and had been rueing it for years...

* 2) Photographing my first grey warbler ever - For the first time, I managed to get a clear shot of this elusive bird, after trying and failing to even spot one for several years!

* 3) Getting to visit the Christchurch Airport Control Tower - Wow... the views up there are even cooler than I imagined!  (Also, seeing the old + new radar centres in normal ops mode - vs reduced traffic during COVID. Man... it turns out it's more like a rowdy stock trading floor in there than the "oasis of warm oozing zen" I encountered last time 😂

* 4) Travelling to Wellington for a weekend for the Wearable Arts show - Our first trip outside of Christchurch since the pandemic! Was great to head back up to Wellington after such a long time. Key highlights:

   - Getting to have lunch of Grand Century - One my my favourite restaurants in the country! Finally got to have the cocktail/coconut buns I'd been craving (+ missing) for several years! 😍  Must make further frequent trips up next year!

   - Unexpectedly spotting a whole bunch of amazing native birds up in the Botanic Gardens! (First time I'd been there in so many years)

   - Bunch of interesting stuff I've been too busy to post about since (despite originally planning to finish going through the photos and preparing some posts about those).  May end up posting some of those pics on various socials later instead.

* 5) Completely paying off the remainder of my mortgage!  Yay!

* 6) See notes about all the "big things" above - Seeing years of hard work paying off and actually being used by real people is always so satisfying!

* 7) Running into some old friends from high school (for the first time in over a decade) - It was fun catching up with them. (Oh, and the weirdest part - running into one of them just outside the cinema before going to watch "Past Lives" - oh the irony of that particular run-in... a story for another time)

 * 8) "Silvereye Season" this year was an absolute bonanza - The bush has finally returned to near full form/shape after a decade, and as a result, we had instances of 5-6 birdies on the bush at the same time!  (Of course, a bunch of these were 3-4 juveniles + parents servicing them - it was like a silvereye juvenile daycare / cafe hangout spot here for a while), and I managed to take photos of 2 of them being the same frame as each other (along with some awesome "action" shots in mid-flight this year)

* 9) Canterbury Museum's "Street Art Museum Takeover" Exhibition - Where artists were invited to "redecorate" the interior of the museum before it closed for a big redevelopment project.

(Note to self: I should port over my notes on this from my Mastodon posts at some point)