OK. That was a surprise!<\/p>\n
In retrospective, there have been some hints along the way. But I don’t get hints. I’m the kind of man who, when watching a complicated movie, needs his girlfriend to explain him what goes on.<\/p>\n
I was utterly astonished and honored to find my name on the screen, and have me being one of three people called to accept the MySQL Community Award for 2009.<\/p>\n
Let me tell you: it is heavy<\/em>! And it doesn’t fit in my bag, either, so I hang around carrying this big heavy box in both hands…<\/p>\n I guess this calls for a short Oscar speech, a written one.<\/p>\n My friends and neighbors have heard me say the word “community” quite a lot lately. I was mentioning to them how wild it is. I’ve been working with open source for some 10 years, and have been using MySQL in particular for 9 years now. The open source model always impressed me with its elegance and honesty. Back when I only started using MySQL, I used to play with the thought I should sometime contribute back.<\/p>\n OK, so it took 8 years to get me moving. Hey, that’s quick for me! I have lamps I need to install in our living room, and it’s been almost a year since I bought them!<\/p>\n About a year and a half ago I started doing MySQL consulting. A few months later, when MySQL first started their trainings in Israel, I became an official MySQL instructor. I then started working on some open source projects I’ve been thinking about, getting more and more ideas through my consulting and training work.<\/p>\n At about 6 months ago, I started actively blogging about MySQL. I usually blog about technical issues, many of which come up from my daily experience. I express opinions, some of which may change over time; I sometimes write “mini tutorials” or so, etc.<\/p>\n A couple of months ago I released the openark kit, an open source set of utilities for MySQL. It’s still being developed, and interesting (I think) new stuff is coming up.<\/p>\n It’s funny, because so many things are being done from my home, in a small village up north. But then again, it’s a small world. That’s what’s so wild about the community. It is powerful, large, fast moving and fast responding. It’s as if everyone is gathered in one small room.<\/p>\n Thank you, MySQL, for this honor, and, of course, thank you, the MySQL and open source community!<\/p>\n OK, everyone, wipe your tears, the movie has ended. Today is a very interesting day at the conference, and cakes are now being served! [IMPORTANT UPDATE]<\/strong> Ice creams, not cakes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK. That was a surprise! In retrospective, there have been some hints along the way. But I don’t get hints. I’m the kind of man who, when watching a complicated movie, needs his girlfriend to explain him what goes on. I was utterly astonished and honored to find my name on the screen, and have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysql","tag-mysqlconf"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2bZZp-ce","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/code.openark.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}