Month: September 2024

Petition Update

The petition I mentioned a couple weeks ago didn’t succeed. However, ironically, the talk didn’t make it to the conference after all because the speaker didn’t get a visa to the UK. This was a mixed result: all of us felt like it was not the result that would satisfy us, but on the other hand, it was a relief not to see the name “PostgresPro” in the conference schedule. I felt physically uncomfortable while it was there.

However, we didn’t want to leave it like this, and we (all of the petition signers who were in London) got together after the conference and agreed to continue our fight.

We are going to send a letter to the Code of Conduct and to the Core Team, and we want to make sure we do not allow people to misinterpret our demands. During these two weeks, it was so many times that people would tell us that we were “discriminating on the basis of nationality” and that “not everybody can emigrate,” and all other nonsense. I coopted a couple more supporters, and I really hope things will move along. I also spoke to one of the Core members who said “he was not looking forward to that,” but also “was surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”

I will provide updates as long as there are any. As I already said multiple times, I regret I didn’t stir things up earlier.

PG Day UK

I believe that was the first conference I was late to! Maybe just for 15 minutes, but still – I always arrive early.

My talk went really well, and I am glad I rehearsed it multiple times. It’s not something “revolutionary” in terms of concepts, but I am glad I presented a new and very useful tool for performance analysis.

I think the biggest problem with the conference was a relatively low attendance, which, I think was a combination of being a relatively new event and not enough advertizing. Thereby, the audience was “polarized” – there were many people who “knew everything” and many total novices, and a very little number of people “from the middle.”

Also, the social event after was non-existent: everybody could stop at the pub and use one free drink ticket, but it was so loud and so crowded that the only place you could speak was outside 🙂

Hotel Durrants

Here are some pictures from Hotel Durrants in London. It’s a “victorian-style hotel” which I mostly chose because of it’s proximity to the conference venue (and an option of cancelling until almost the last minute).

As I mentioned, breakfast was included, but it was not a buffet, which left me wondering what exactly was included :). As I mentioned, the first morning I just ate the fastest thing, but for my second morning I wanted to have a proper no-rush breakfast.

As you can imagine, I loved the setting. However, when it was “no rush”, it was indeed no rush. Twenty-five minutes. I know better to order an English breakfast when in England, at least you know what you get. However, this time, since I was low on protein, I decided to order an egg whites omelet. That was what took 20_ minutes, and also, when they brought an omelet, there was no toast with it, which I totally expected. Since I was afraid it will take twenty minutes again:), I decided to compensate in the office where I was heading anyway.

Below are the drawing rooms on the ground floor of the hotel.

My Flight To London

I didn’t want to fly a day before the conference, because I had too much work and in general I thought I could use this time better. However, I didn’t want to fly in right before the conference either, and I was also looking to minimize the cost. I finally ended up on the daytime flight, which would leave Chicago at 8:25 AM and arrive in London at 10:25 local time. That would still give me time for a good night’s sleep, and that was also the least expensive flight. Economy Premium was just slightly more than Economy Classic, but I decided to be mindful and not spend on extras when I didn’t really need them.

That being said, I got up at 4 AM on Tuesday so that I could leave the house at 5 AM and be at the airport at 6 AM, have breakfast at the lounge, and just relax while waiting for the flight. It all worked fine; moreover, it was a very fast rife early in the morning, so I was at the airport by 5-40 AM. I had breakfast, called Boris, and started to write a blog post while waiting. Suddenly, I saw a notification from the AA app (the flight was operated by American Airlines). I opened my boarding pass and saw that the flight was eight hours delayed! I was devastated and ran to the customer service counter in the lounge. They told me there were no other flights: the incoming flight was delayed, but because it was a late arrival to London and London won’t accept night arrivals, we would have to wait till morning in London. That meant the overnight flight, which I wanted to avoid! Also, I didn’t have Economy Premium, and I could not upgrade because there was nothing available!

I decided to go to the office to attend an important meeting, which I would skip otherwise. Also, it was twice faster to get to the office than to go back home. Only when I was almost there did I realize that I had left my office pass at home (and it was done on purpose because I didn’t want to carry around things I wouldn’t need on my trip). The security issued me a temporary pass, but I could not go to the gym or use a shower, or even open the doors to get from one side of the floor to another.

I sent a message to the hotel, asking them to keep my room for my morning arrival, and left for the airport, planning for longer security lines than they were in the morning.

The lines were longer but not terribly long. Fortunately, the AA lounge has showers. I was unsure whether I would have time at the hotel in the morning, and it turned out to be a good call because the flight was delayed for another hour and then we sat for another hour in the aircraft waiting for a takeoff, because the scheduled flight to London was just five minutes apart of t=our new departure time. Thankfully, BA moved me to the front row in the Main cabin, so I had some extra legroom.

Another thing was the food. When possible, I try to order a low-calorie meal, which I tried to do this time as well. However, the system returned “something went wrong” error and I gave up. When I was already seated, a flight attendant asked me whether I had a low-calorie meal, and I said yes, but what they brought to me was vegan, not low-calorie 😀. Nothing wrong with vegan in general, but that meal ended up be barely eatable, and same with the breakfast: they even didn’t give me yogurt which was a part of other people’s breakfast! I did my best to sleep for about 4 hours, and that was the max I could do on a less than 7 hours flight.

The flight landed at 7:08, and I was out of the terminal twenty minutes later (the worst passport control became the faster one in recent years). The conference started at nine, and I still needed to get to the hotel to leave my luggage and change. I message my colleague who was a part of the org. committee to ask whether there is any food at the conference, and he sent me a picture of pastries, so I realized I needed to get some food at the hotel (my room included breakfast, and was pre-paid). I reached the hotel shortly after 8 AM (thanks to Elizabeth Line!) and checked-in. They told me they didn’t have a buffet, and I had to order. The hotel was very old-fashiined (I will post some pictures), and the restaurant looked very respectable. So imagine me rushing in and asking what’s the fastest thing they can make :). They were visibly puzzled by this request and when on to confer, and then said that they can make fried eggs on a toast. To their credit, it was ready in ten minutes – I time it! So I got the eggs and a coffee and took off to the conference, which was in ten-minutes walk.

BA Customer Service

I meant to write this post at least three weeks ago when the actual events happened. I consider it my personal achievement because I won the battle with customer support.

Here is what happened. When I learned that my talk was accepted for PG Day UK, I wanted to book the flight immediately, but I had to wait for almost a month because our firm was switching to the new reservation system. The next day after the switch happened, I found out that I needed to book it on my own because it wouldn’t be reimbursed anyway, but the best prices were not available anymore. I rushed to book whatever was available, and since I used the BA website, I forgot to switch to the Finnair Plus loyalty program. As it turned out, it was impossible to do it in the “Manage reservation” menu, so I had to call customer support.

The first time, I called immediately after I made this reservation and realized the mistake I had made, but after waiting for forty minutes, I decided to give it another try. I made a second attempt two days later and, once again, gave up after almost an hour of waiting. Meanwhile, I have activated Avios transfer between BA and Finnair, but I still wanted to get points from my preferred program, especially because my anniversary is on September 30. I decided to make the third and final effort during the Labor Day weekend.

First, I spent almost an hour waiting. Finally, somebody picked up and then went on hold, verifying my trip locator, and finally disconnected. I was determined to follow through, so I dialed again and waited for another forty minutes. This time, finally, everything worked. Not only was my loyalty program updated, but they also listed all the extra bonuses I had with Finnair Plus. In the end, it was worth it, spending all this time, but I was ready to give up at least ten times!

It felt like the greatest achievement!

Life In Not “Going On”, It’s RUNNING!

The last three days were a non-stop sequence of events! I had an almost disastrous flight to London, then a very good conference in London, and another great day there, and now I am in Amsterdam, ready to give another talk tomorrow. I have a little bit of details on Instagram, and I hope I will fill in the blanks here in a couple of days!

Doing Things WIth My Mom

I tried to do a couple of things with my mom last weekend. I always try to take her to places because I believe it’s at least stimulating and, sometimes, gives her positive emotions. On Saturday, I took her to the Art Institutes – the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit will be closing soon, and I never took her there. I was hoping she would like it, even though she never heard about Georgia O’Keeffe.

This went really well. First, she didn’t want to listen to me, like literally tuning herself off, and when I asked her why, she said that “she won’t remember it all anyway.” I told her I just wanted to give her a perspective on time and place, and then she listened, and then she actually liked the paintings.

After we saw an exhibit, I took her to the members’ lounge, and we had coffee and sandwiches. It was the first time for me to get some food there rather than just free coffee. I loved the prosciutto and pear toast!

Then I walked my mom down by the Bridgeway, and we stopped at the Bean:

And then I walked her home. The total time for me was almost five hours, almost twice as much as I planned but I do not regret it: it was a positive experience.

On Sunday, I took her to the Glenwood Street Market. That was something I wanted to do it for a while since they give coupons for Link Cards, and they double the amount. So I was hoping that she will finally stop saying “everything is so expensive” and get something for herself.

We achieved a moderate success, because as it turned out, her assistive device can’t move on the cobblestone surface, and without it, she can’t take a lot with her. But at least I convinced her to exchange $100 in EDBT card for $200 coupons to be used at the market, and we were able to spend some of them! When I stopped by on Monday, she didn’t try any of the produce we bought, because “she had something she bough earlier.” I hope that it won’t go to waste at the end! Again, this whole outing took twice more time than I planned, but again, I thing it was worth it.

What I Was Saying…

From Chicago Sun-Times:

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration spent $814,000 on a giant fence as part of an effort to shut down one of the city’s largest and most visible homeless encampments ahead of the Democratic National Convention, City Hall records show.

The massive barrier was part of an “emergency” effort to permanently lock out unhoused people from the location near the United Center, where the convention was held, the records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

The Johnson administration had refused to say how much taxpayer money went toward blocking off the green strip of land between the 1100 block of South Desplaines Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway just north of Roosevelt Road, until after the nationally televised gathering was over. The Sun-Times has been asking for those records, which should be public under state law, since July, when that tent city was cleared of its residents, the tents and the items they left behind.

Just A Note…

Time Magazine about the danger of caffeine: the side effect of caffeine is that it’s harder to fall and stay asleep. Isn’t it why we drink caffeinated beverages? Isn’t it an effect, not a side effect???

The article. I still don’t understand why one should quit it!

Continue reading “Just A Note…” →

“Never Better” Musical

Theo Ubique Cabaret just opened the season with the new musical Never Better by Preston Max Allen. Today was a preview and only the second run of the show. I am so impressed! It’s different from anything I saw at Theo before. It’s a very tragic story, not even pretending to be funny, and the acting is just stunning! Each character is so true to life, and for all of the two hours, it’s so real that you forget you’re in the theater, and you worry about the characters and what will happen next.

The show runs for five more weeks, so if you are around, come and watch it!