Month: June 2026

Sponsor Raffles

At the PG DATA conference, we held a “Sponsor Passport” raffle: attendees could stamp their “passports” at each sponsor table, and those passports were then used as raffle tickets.

In case someone doesn’t know, I am not a lottery person at all, and the only reason I placed my passport in the box was to set a good example for others. I was called to draw, and imagine my surprise when I handed Pat the first passport and he said: Hettie!

I thought it was a joke, but it was not: I won a $100 Amazon gift certificate! Even funnier, two other organizers won the prizes, and then one of our meetup members!

Yesterday, at PG Day Boston, they also had Sponsor Passports, and I participated again, joking about my PG DATA experience. A couple of people who attended both joked about the “staged wins.” You will never believe it, but I won a $100 Amazon gift card again! And again, my name was the first to be drawn.

I became somewhat nervous, thinking that this luck is for no good. How did it turn out? I will tell you tomorrow – too tired now!

Traveling To PG Day Boston

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.

CTA Message

Received it several days ago; that’s how it should be! I especially like the beach bus service 🙂

Happy Summer,

As the weather heats up and summer gets into full swing, we wanted to make sure you know about some improvements and changes that are coming to routes you tap onto regularly.

  • #124 Navy Pier: Last trip is at 11:55 PM on weekdays and Sundays, and midnight on Saturdays from 5/23/26 (Memorial Day weekend) through Labor Day, 9/7/2026.
     
  • #130 Museum Campus: No need to hassle with parking. Enjoy cultural and park activities by taking the #130 to the Adler Planetarium, Northerly Island, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, and Soldier Field.
     
  • June 7th through mid-August, daily beach service will operate directly to the lakefront and Chicago’s beaches on the following bus routes: [Weekend/holiday service will continue until Labor Day]

For detailed schedules and routing information, as well as the latest on all bus and rail service, please visit transitchicago.com.

Speakers And Travel

We had to replace several speakers because they either didn’t get visas or required sponsorship for their travel. While the latter one was no one fault, the visa situation was extremely annoying. People applied for visas way in advance, and they should not have wait for many months. I am still mad that it happened!

Additionally, there were several mini -calamities, like there were three speakers who forgot to register, and there was one speaker who’s flight was delayed multiple times, so he ended up arriving to the venue nine minutes before his talk! Our head of the CfP Committee was pacing the hallway with the phone in her hand watching for the speaker’s messages. I ran up to the registration desk and checked him in, so that he could have his badge ready. He made it!

I should also mention that our keynote was at risk until days before the event, but this was also happily resolved.

And the program was the best I could imagine!

Wait Time

That’s not about the conference. Today, I took my mom to the doctor’s check-up. It’s difficult to find the time when I can take her to the doctor, because she has become very inflexible and does everything very slow, so I have to navigate to secure appointment at the time when she only minimally alters here schedule. Today, our appointment was at 2 PM, and we were there at 1:40, as they always ask, and the doctor saw her only at 3:10! And he didn’t even apologize!

My mom often critisizes doctors for no good reason, but this time, her critiques were completely justified. I was especially mad that he literally didn’t say sorry he was late! He should know what it takes for a 91- y.o. to sit and wait for 1.5 hours!

It’s not much I can do regarding the doctor change, since she is on Medicaid, but I never had anything like that before, no matter what’s the patient’s status, and I am really upset!

… And Now I Need To Catch Up With Life

Yesterday, I was still meeting with the conference participants, but now I am done, and my French friend who stayed with me during the conference left yesterday afternoon.

Boris and I had 24 hours to ourselves, without any urgent tasks, without answering emails or Telegram messages, without printing additional badges or directional arrows, without replying to sponsors or updating volunteers’ schedules.

We went for a very long bike ride (almost 40 miles) and had a huge breakfast at Lea’s, so I joked that by 9:30 AM, we both burned and consumed all the calories for today :).

There is still a lot of work to close the books for the conference, including all sorts of feedback collection.

I finally feel sleepy. I thought I would sleep for nine hours after the conference, but it’s only today that I feel like going to bed early. Also, I was pushing aside so many “normal” things that I do not know where to start with getting back on track!

PG DATA Conference In Pictures

I know, I know… I know that people do not click the links, especially if this link leads you to several hundred pictures. I know, I know…

Still, I can’t select just a couple of pictures; I can’t even select a dozen or two. I love them all! I just went through the “everything”, which is around 900 photos, and painfully selected just about 300, and that’s the link I am posting here.

I am smiling, going through the photos. Although this time around, I was able to listen to some sessions, it was still a drop in the sea, and it brings me incredible joy to see an engaged audience at each session, everyone listening and asking questions; a great hallway track. Love seeing new faces, love seeing interest and curiosity!

Take a look 🙂

Conference Day 1

Looks like we are rolling! I had tons of positive feedback about the conference; there were many great talks, and it looks like there were no major hiccups (although we will know next week!)

iPhone Adventures

As I mentioned, I broke my iPhone screen on Sunday, and I was so busy with everything that I didn’t have time to figure out how and when I could repair it. I was so sure that I did not have coverage (after all, I knew all along that these iPhones are unbreakable!), that I only did a quick search on repair places. There was none close enough to my office that I wouldn’t have to take two hours off work, so I decided “to think about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow” finally arrived on Friday, when I could theoretically get off work slightly earlier. I finally asked Google the right question: not “locations of iPhone repair shops” but “how I can replace the broken screen”. And the answer was: click on this link to check whether you have coverage. I checked, and it turned out I did! Moreover, the screen could be replaced while I wait. Apple immediately listed available appointments, and the first available at the Michigan Avenue location was on Sunday at 1:45 PM. The next available at North Avenue was on Saturday, between 5:30 PM and 7 PM. I decided that I do not need to go to the Loop on Sunday, and booked 6:30 PM at North Avenue.

Turned out that was a mistake. There was track repair going on on the Red Line. I “knew” about it, but since I didn’t plan to go anywhere far over the weekend, I didn’t store this information in my operational memory. Also, I knew that the Loop was reachable via elevated tracks, just a slower ride. So it was literally me walking into the Jarvis station and realizing the train wouldn’t stop where I needed it. Also, I quickly realized that I have no time to figure out an alternative route, and the only way for me to get there was Uber, which had two major disadvantages in addition to having to pay for it: 1) it was slower than the L-train, especially on Saturday evening 2) I could not do anything productive during the ride, so it was wasting both time and money at the same time.

Finally, I arrived at the Apple Store at my appointment time (6:40 PM) and waited for a technician until 7 PM (as expected). But then he told me that, because it’s too late in the day, they can’t repair it while I wait, and I need to either leave the phone with them or come one more time. He assured me that if I come any other day before 4 PM, all parts will be ready and they will fix the phone while I wait.

I had to pay for another Uber ride to get home, because I didn’t want to spend an extra 15 minutes walking to the Brown line, and an extra 15 minutes waiting, first for the Brown line and then for the Red.

I didn’t want to come back on Sunday because it would still mean taking an Uber, and I decided to work from home on Monday, especially since it would be the last day Boris and I would be alone (I will have people staying with me during the conference).

Based on what I was told on Saturday, I headed to the Apple Store right after lunch. When I arrived, I was told that the wait time for repair would be three hours, “because we are busy,” and I still don’t understand why this couldn’t be scheduled. I can’t go anywhere without my phone because even my Ventra card isn’t physical anymore. And in any case, it’s 30 min in one direction.

It ended up being three and a half hours, and given where I am now with work, conference, and stuff, I am beyond mad. I had a couple of other maddening things today, all related to time wasted, so it’s very difficult for me to get into a calm mood.

A Long Bike Ride

On Sunday, Boris and I planned a long bike ride with a breakfast stop at Lea. For anyone else, Boris would be considered an Early Bird, but he still does not feel that a wake-up time of 4:30 AM is normal, so we compromise :).

We left the house at 5:40 AM with the goal of going as far south as we could, so we’d be back at Lea by 8 AM. There was a really strong wind from the south, so at some point, I regretted making these plans, but in the end, I was happy we went!

Below are some pictures from the Lake Front South; each time I go there, I do not want to go back north. I wish I could fly to Monroe Harbor each time I am going for a morning bike ride, and then bike south…