- Work, wor,k and work
- Vlad’s wedding: menu for Family lunch, and all other details
- Chicago PUG meetup – less than ten days away, and I didn’t put any effort in organizing it
- Submit proposals for PG Conf NYC
- Performance book
- Next article for RedGate
- Plant the annuals
- Vegetable garden
- New fridge
- New oven
- Kitchen painting
- Windows washing
- Mom’s citizenship interview
- Mom’s occupational therapy
- … and live my life 🙂
Author: Hettie D.
My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996.
I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future.
I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life.
As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.
The Last Post About Ireland – Megaliths
I know you can’t tell it from the pictures, but by the time we left Trim Castle, the weather was horrible. We discussed whether it makes any sense to drive to the site of the oldest remains of civilization in Ireland – the Megaliths. Finally, we decided that we’ll make our way to the Loughcrew Cairns and then decided whether we felt like getting out of the car.
We did, and I couldn’t be more thankful to my friends who brought me there! Yes, muddy and rainy, and we had to climb the hills in the pouring rain, but it would be unforgiving if I would not use a chance to connect to these pieces of history,
Everything about them is unknown: who, when, and why put so much work into bringing the stones from all over Ireland into one place and worked so carefully on positioning the whole structure in accordance with the movement of the sun.
Standing there, I felt the presence of unknown forces, both empowered and humiliated simultaneously…
Trim Castle
This post was sitting in the drafts for almost a month. So many things happened after I traveled to Ireland! However, I still wanted to show the pictures of the city of Trim and its amazing Castle!
The city is very beautiful and very Medieval (I believe it is considered a city with the most Medieval building in Ireland.
Should a consultant know everything?
Originally published in The World of Data, but I think it goes beyond PostgreSQL
Although I am often asked to do some consulting and like helping people, my two consulting jobs left me with a strong opinion that I do not like to be a consultant.
Recently, I mentioned this fact in a professional conversation, and the reaction was somewhat unexpected. The conversation went like this: yes, some people feel uncomfortable consulting because you are expected to know everything, and then they are afraid that they will get a question to which they do not know the answer. But if you work for a consulting company, you do not need to worry about that because there are always others you can ask, and somebody will know. And the customer does not need to know that you used other resources.
I never thought about consulting that way because I never saw it as a problem that I might not know something. It is perfectly normal…
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Spring Arrives For The Second Time
The Lake, And Again – The Lake
I know that I won’t stop posting pictures of the lake now that I can bike early in the morning, and I know that all of them look the same. But every morning is a new morning, and sometimes, the lake is stormy, and sometimes – calm, and each time – beautiful.
Women Impact Tech Conference
I week ago, I attended one more conference, Women Impact Tech. Before the pandemic, I tried to attend similar events, mostly to support the movement. This was the first in-person post-pandemic event, and I was offered a free registration, so I decided to go and see where we all as women in tech stands, and what people are doing not only to attract more women to the tech industry, but also to support them at the workplace so that they won’t have to be “ten times better than any male applicant” to get the job, and so that they fell comfortable at the workplace.
I won’t say I had all questions answered, but I it was very refreshing to see so many women in leadershop positions and to hear their keynotes!
May 1
I went to the new plaque dedication at the Haymarket Memorial. The weather was miserable, so unfortunately, it was hard to feel May-Day-like. Probably, a part of it was that I was not that much in the May Day mode because of a conference and all other professional things going on. So, there won’t be a proper MayDay post, but at least some pictures of this very rainy event are here!
A Weekend Of Cultural Activities
I had my girls over this weekend, and that was the most cultural activities we ever had in one and a half days!
We went to the CSO for Kids concert, which was the first time for Kira. Straight from there, we went to the Art Institute and saw the Dali exhibit (Nadia actually liked it, and even Kira showed some interest). Fortunately, the Art Institute recently reopened its cafe, so we had lunch there and then headed to the Ryan educational center, where Nadia made a collage on the Salvador Dali theme. As always, we spent a really long time there and started to head out only when they were about to close.
We then walked to the Bean and then to the Chicago Cultural Center and stopped there to see a Tiffany Dome.
On Sunday, Nadia and I went to Joffrey Ballet to see “The Little Mermaid,” a ballet composed by Lera Auerbach. Everything about this piece is amazing: the music, the choreography, the instruments, the costumes, and most importantly, how the fairy tale is interpreted.
I read the synopsis to Nadia while we were waiting for the train, and while I was reading, I thought: well, this does not look like a ballet for kids. When I finished reading and said: so that’s a very sad story, Nadia asked: why is it sad? And then I thought that probably she is right because at the end, both the Poet and the Little Mermaid found new meaning in their lives.
I found a very interesting link where Lera Auerbach talks about the score and how she chose the instrument for the Mermaid’s voice.
Here are a couple of pictures I found. I do not think they convey how amazing this ballet is, but it is at least something!
This promotional video gives at least some impression of how it feels – imagine 2.5 hours of such intensity!
And imagine Nadia sitting through it, watching!
Getting Back To Normal
It’s ten days after the conference is over, and I finally started to get used to the situation when I do not need to run around and worry about twenty things. I think I still didn’t explain why it was “many.” First, I was a part of the Program Committee, with many responsibilities, including organizing the pre-party and managing volunteers. Second, I talked my company into Platinum sponsorship and was anxiously waiting for all legal details to be settled, nudging people who were not fast enough. Third, I was a community sponsor as a local organizer of the Chicago PostgreSQL User Group and had to design and order stickers and flyers. And most importantly, I was advertising the event, especially among local users, women, and students. There were some last-minute vouchers from the sponsors, and I tried to place them.
After all of the above was over, it took me a while to calm down, but finally, it was there. Although I have a lot of other things going on (it’s never just my work, always ten other activities), I am in a happy and worry-free state of mind.
Here is what I have lined up for May and June/
Work: Four projects which were “coming” for a while, and now I need to work on all four of them at the same time. I love them all, and I want to do them all, but I am hitting the limits of how one can stretch the time.
Health I finally started to meet with a therapist about how I should efficiently communicate with mom and, most importantly, what communication style would help her. Boris told me that I am getting visibly upset and frustrated when she says something that indicates that she does not remember things. I talked about this with my physician, and she recommended doing therapy for myself to help mom. Works for me 🙂
Mom. Finally started physical therapy for her. It was quite a project with lots of hours on the phone, but finally, she finally sees the same PT specialist as me. Although this office is close to both our homes, she still can’t go there by herself, so every week, it’s two hours of my life during work hours. Second, I went through the quest of setting up her online SSN portal, and next week, we will have a phone interview to apply for SSI for her. And yes, it’s again a lot of hours on the phone during work hours, and she has to be present, so I need to go to her place, which results in even more hours. And finally, her citizenship interview is on May 23. I sent a request on her behalf to make adjustments for her hearing loss, and we got a response that she could have somebody with her, and they would let her use a sound amplifier and many other accommodations. She is scared about each official paper that comes to her mailbox, and calls me…
My other professional activities. I signed a contract for the second edition of our optimization book, and the schedule is very aggressive. I agreed to run 8-hour optimization class for one of the local companies migrating from Oracle. Several smaller consulting requests. I plan to submit several proposals for PG Conf NYC and PG Conf EU. At list three blog posts and one article are overdue.
Volunteering I already described the situation in the youth shelter. I am often unable to do escorting, and I feel horrible about that. It might sound crazy, but I am thinking about returning to OMD.
Fun stuff. Vlad’s wedding is less than four weeks away! I am organizing a friends and family lunch the day before. And Anna’s family trip to Finland is coming in June!
More fun stuff – spring in Chicago!
Hettie's Reflections 