Owning my own data, part 1: Integrating a self-hosted calendar solution

Summary

Introduction My calendar is a true nightmare. I travel a lot, some of it for my job, some of it for fun, and some of it because I’ve been managing a long distance relationship for years. Traveling a lot means it’s always hard for your loved ones or coworkers to know what time zone you’re in or when you’re on a plane. Managing a relationship across timezones means having to do constant mental math that is way harder than it needs to be. And because I don’t have an assistant, I’ve become frustrated with double entry of flights, trains, blockers for boarding flights or traveling to the airport, and so on. As someone who travels a lot, it’s also one of those things where statistically speaking, the chances of me being on a plane whenever some newsworthy event happens is higher than for the average person. I want my wife, friends, coworkers to know what flights I’m on and what cities I’m in. I’ve survived one terror attack, nearly dodged two others and a mass shooting. It’s one of those things where I want to make sure people who care about me can check in easily to see where I am. The thing is, calendar systems suck. All of them. The standards are a holdover from two computing generations ago, the frontend ecosystem is a mess of rent-seeking monthly subscription mobile apps with dubious features, and the user experience for most systems is pretty much terrible. Just as an example: if I book a flight, my email provider makes a calendar entry, but it often misses the connection flight or gets the timezones wrong, and even if it doens’t fail, it doesn’t make me the organizer, meaning I can’t share or modify it. The entire calendar ecosystem is a nightmare. The sad thing is that in the entire space there’s really two good products: Google Calendar has basically captured the market for diary entries, and Facebook Events would be an admirable tool if it wasn’t attached to a company and service fuelled with undistilled demon blood. I’m trying to break off of big tech as much a...