My friend and former colleague was in charge of Pg Day Boston; it was the first event in that series, and I promised him I would come. Fortunately, there are plenty of direct flights to Boston from Chicago, but Boston is one hour ahead of us, and to make it a day trip and to get most of the conference, I had to take a 6 AM flight, which meant I had to be up at 3 AM. That was an extreme even for me, but remembering how I stayed in line three weeks ago, I decided to be on the safe side. I even pre-ordered Uber, which I almost never do.
Also, remembering that there was no food on my flight to Vancouver, and that the lounge does not open before 5 AM, I decided to upgrade to First Class. I arrived at the airport on time; the priority boarding didn’t reopen, so I stayed in the line with others, but chose a shorter line this time. Then, I waited for 25 min for the lounge to open. I got a cappuccino, a small yogurt cup, and a small cup of chai pudding, thinking I would have a proper breakfast on the plane, but they didn’t have any food, even in first class! There were drinks and some snacks, like crunchy bars, and that was it. Oh, well. First World problems:)
The conference took place on the 6th floor of the Boston Museum of Science. The great thing about it is that it is very close to the Logan Airport. Since my flight was ahead of schedule, and the ride was less than 15 minutes, I only missed a small part of the keynote. The most difficult part of the whole day was staying awake, alert, and social while being up since 3 AM. I mostly succeeded :). I had several great conversations, made some meaningful comments, and reconnected with several of my former EDB colleagues. I probably could have stayed for the whole social hour after the conference and been on time for my flight, but I chose to spend this extra hour in the airport lounge and have a proper meal. Even though it was rush hour, it still took 15 min to get to the airport (most of the way it was an underground tunnel). No lines at security, great food in the lounge, free in-flight internet (now the norm with AA), early arrival, and a quick taxi ride home (I know by now that taxi is faster on tbd way back, and not that expensive).
I spent zero time in Boston, as expected. I am thinking – it’s sort of funny how you can actually go for a day to Boston with no luggage, no packing; just a regular backpack I take to work. I am not sure whether it was a justified spending of time and money yet, but we’ll see. I mostly went to support Tom, but he appears to be fine anyway. There was enough EBD people, which made up for the lack of external audience, and overall, he is just more relaxed about the whole thing than I :). Besides, he won’t be doing these conferences anymore; there is a new team coming next year.
Anyway, I guess it was good that I went. The event was different from mine, and it’s OK.
Hettie's Reflections 