Month: December 2020

The First Part of the Christmas Baking

Baking alone can be considered a success because I ended up baking enough to send all of my long-distance shipments, and there is still plenty left. I will bake more next weekend, and I should have enough for all my giveaways plus something extra. At least, I hope so. There are so many people to whom I want to give cookies! 

I brought this apple-cinnamon filling form Finland
Last year, after baking kolacki for ten years, I finally figured out how to prepare the apricot filling the right way!
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Technical Difficulties :)

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

If you are still wondering why the presentations for PostgresBuild202 had to be recorded, let me tell you: this morning, my connection to the platform was so spotty, I could not get more than two minutes online straight. So much for getting up at 3-30 AM Chicago time and putting on some makeup for the first time in a while!

I was joking that it’s “A Plot Against America,” but I do not think any participants experienced problems as I did. When I did a test run with the organizers the day before, everything worked perfectly, even though I had all my apps running simultaneously. Today, although I closedeverything, I was not able to listen to my own presentation and could not answer any questions. Even answering in the chat was challenging because the app could not find people by name.

I had so many hopes in networking…

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An Extremely Challenging Weekend

As I am trying to do a half of my Christmas cookies (without any help this year!), whatever is due with the book, house decoration, presents shopping and Christmas cards – and each of these activities is enough to take to whole weekend!

Since it’s me solo, I am doing smaller batches, so do not expect my usual cookie table 🙂

What Finland Is Doing Right, I Don’t Know

People often ask me, “how is it in Finland,” and why Finland is doing so well with the pandemic.
I do not know what to say. Mask just recently started to be worn everywhere, and when I was visiting, people were still dining in, and I saw a lot of people inside bars and restaurants through the windows. Moreover, the number of tests is relatively modest. But somehow, they do it right; somehow, they know how to test the right slice of the population because the number of people in the hospitals, in ICU, and on the ventilators is remarkably small.

Finland’s population is 5.5 million people, which is a little bit less than half of Illinois ( 12.6 million).

At the moment, we have:
Illinois Finland
total deaths 14,000 414
current in hospitals 5,653 141
current ICU 1,134 21
current ventilators. 694 0 , although I do not have todays’

I already told you about the testing at the airport; this time, the result also came in 12 hours, and there was no line for testing. However, it was virtually impossible to get the second test three days after arrival, so apparently, that was already not in the national interest :). They have their models to follow, and as long as the results are as good as above, I thing they are doing the right thing 🙂

What’s Next?

Where did these past three days go? I do not even know! Three and a half days since I returned, and it is work and work, and lots of different online activities. And the book is not moving again. 

On Tuesday, I had two online events after work. One of them was a victory celebration with our Stand with Women group. We talked about the memorable moments of the past several months, which lead to our victory (I mentioned Anna canvassing with two small children!), and then we talked about “what’s next.’

Everybody started to talk about the Georgia Senate race, and phone banking, and all related things. And I said: my goal for the upcoming year is to help to bridge a Big Divide. I repeated all my thoughts from this post. 

I recalled the beginning of the Obama presidency and how people got upset so quickly. And about this half of the country, which voted for Trump. 

BTW, my direct report told me yesterday that he can’t understand how anybody could vote for Trump. 

I said that we need to talk to people, and some of the participants said that you could never convert a Republican, and arguing on Facebook is just a waste of time. I told him that the part of the crowd that is silently listening to the argument is the one we are influencing from my experience. And then I decided that it is not worth arguing 🙂

I stopped arguing, but I am planning to have it as my goal for the year, along with practical support.