Category: everyday life

***

Boris flew in on Friday, and it took him almost two hours to get through the immigration. He said there were just two agents for several hundred people. Then, we made a mistake. Or rather, I let this mistake happen.

Since we moved to the city, Boris said that now we do not need to take Uber to the airport because we can take L. I told him it would be a very long trip because you need to get into the city and get out again. Last time, I called Uber because we were fixing things until the last minute.

Now he mentioned it again, and I said – let’s.

Because the inner airport train is still not operating, it took us 30 minutes to get Terminal 5 to Terminal 2. And then – another two hours with all the waits! I told him – at least, it was on the way from the airport, not the other way 🙂

I hope that one experiment was enough 🙂

Biking Along The Lake

I bike towards the lake almost every morning. Soon, the sunrise will be too late to bike before 6 AM, and then, I might retreat to biking on the weekends only. But for another several weeks – every morning!sSome days, it it windy and stormy

Other days, it is calm nd peaceful:

One Sunday morning, I went to a rather long bike ride, and ended up by this “windmill” sculpture:

It’s still very far from being able to cover the whole Lakefront Trial!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, Or How I Donated a Mirror

I had a small gym in my Palatine home, and in it, I had a wall mirror from IKEA, which consisted of twelve separate pieces. You might remember my previous pictures from there.

Since I already knew I would have a gym in the new building, I gave away a lot of equipment, but there were several pieces I wanted to bring with me to the new building. Among these items, there were a wall clock and a mirror. You won’t usually think of them as gym equipment, but you notice when they are not present.

I asked the association whether I can install both on them on the gym wall (I was not sure whether I am allowed to make holes in the walls :)). They replied that they would ask a maintenance person who was in charge of these things. The wall clock was easy to install, and also I needed it, so I installed it myself. As for the mirror, it required multiple holes, and I thought that it should be installed by a professional.

A very long email chain followed. Periodically, I asked “where we are” and when the morrow will be installed. I placed the parts and the hardware by the TV so that they would be visible. Twice, I was told “the next week,” and I had to ask again in a week. Finally, I was told that the mirror was installed and that the maintenance person” won’t charge for it.” I went to the gym to check it out.

You won’t believe what I found out!!!

There was a small mirror that somebody brought in a long time before I moved in, and this mirror was standing by a wall. And that was the mirror he installed!!!

I laughed, took the pictures, and emailed the board :).

Finally, ten days later, the correct mirror was installed!

One More Step Toward Normalcy :)

Although I am absolutely happy at my new place, the move itself was quite disastrous, and even a month after I moved there were still numerous problems not fixed. Moreover, the moment one thing got fixed, another would break (just remember my air conditioning story!)

But recently, the havoc retreated, and multiple things got back to normal or were resolved.

Accepting the offer on my old house was one of these things (although I didn’t close yet). Finally starting my new job is another one. The fact that Etsy returned me money when one of the sellers didn’t ship the shelves to me was another nice and almost unexpected thing.

Saturday was the day of major progress: I finally (almost) resolved my ceiling fans problems.

Among many things which were wrong with this condo were the ceiling fans, none of which were fully operational. It was especially frustrating because they are expensive light fixtures of excellent quality, but I didn’t have either remotes or users’ manuals. In three places, the fans were not working. In the living room and the guest bedroom, the fans were moving, but the lights were not turning on.

Both Vlad and John tried to address the problem, and Vlad even sent me a link to purchase a remote, but neither he nor John could connect this remote to any of the lights. I knew I needed to find a proper electrician, but things were piling up, and I just didn’t have time to start solving this problem.

Finally, I made an effort and went to the NextDoor to search for posts about electricians. Soon I found a person who had a problem similar to mine and was looking for an electrician two months ago. I messaged them and asked whether any of the contractors who were recommended to them worked. I added that everybody tells me good electricians are hard to find.

That was it! Immediately, several people replied to me with, “there are good electricians in Rogers Park!”
The one I hired promptly suggested that he come on Saturday (I couldn’t stay at home during the week of job changing).

After a little bit over an hour, the living room light/fan was working. The guest bedroom fixture could be operated with the new remote. We also discussed the plan to fix the rest of the fans and to get new remotes. Oh, and we also talked about Universal Health Care and Berni Sanders :). So it’s all close to eternal happiness :).

… Can you imagine the joy of being able to turn the lights on?!

I am a Featured Author for July

A Featured Author 🙂

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

ANd the last piece of my updates:

I am a featured database author for the month of July on Apress – check it out here!

View original post

Insurrection

So that we remember

rmichaelroman's avatarYip Abides

This is an outstanding and thought-provoking piece of work by the New York Times. It deserves to be circulated. Spread it around.

After watching this, I was left uncertain about my reaction to it and what I might want to say about it. So I’ll limit myself to a tangential observation. I’m not a pacifist so I hope I’m not sounding sanctimonious about this, but unless you have some ideological commitment to violent revolution, this is headed in the wrong direction. Whatever else this video is, it is a warning about how violence in politics feeds on itself.

View original post

Books About Pandemic

I wanted to mention two books that I recently finished; both are about the COVID pandemic. 

The first one is The Premonition, and the second is The Plague Year. It may feel that it’s “too early” to write books about the pandemic, especially because we are not out of it yet. But I think that both books are very timely. 

As you can imagine, the contents of both books overlap significantly, but even when they talk about the same events, they view them from slightly different perspectives. The first book focuses more on the political side of things, Trump’s inadequate response to the thread, and the health care officials who stood up against it. The second book touches more on science, epidemiology, details of vaccine development. 

Both are very informative. Some things I learned: 

  • that the vaccine was technically “ready” before the start of the pandemic; the scientists had to plug in the genome details; that’s why it was developed so fast
  • that most of the decisions about opening/closing/guaranteeing, which looked erratic at least, were based on multiple AI models. For example, there are certain estimates on the effect of schools closing depending on the level of infections at the time of closing.
  • more detail on the shortage of swabs for tests
  • why there were so many questions on the origin of the virus

And many other things! 

Also, these books allowed me to recall the events of the past sixteen months, how our knowledge about the virus changed, and how and why the health officials’ guidelines evolved. 

A Day Without Deaths

Today is the first day after the beginning of the pandemic when there were no deaths recorded in the state of Illinois. It does not mean that it’s all over. It does not even mean that there were no deaths. And we may wait for a while to see another day like this. But still – that’s the day to celebrate. To celebrate and to remember those who died during pandemic. That’s the day to multiply our efforts to prevent as many deaths as possible. That’s the day to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Oh yes, and the Crown Fountain is operating again 🙂

Grant Park Music Festival Is Back!

The Grant Park Music Festival season opened on July 1, but on that day, the weather was just a little bit too cool for the outdoor evening concert. I decided to give it a shot on Saturday (after returning from the Dunes) even though there was a risk of a big crowd.

And boy, there was a crowd! For a moment, I was questioning the sanity of my decision, especially because I asked mom to come and meet us there, but it turned out great!

We sat on the stairs, which instantly provided more distance. There was a large screen over the stage – new this year, so we could see everything that was going on on stage.

Continue reading “Grant Park Music Festival Is Back!” →

Biking To The Shakespeare Garden

I tried it once, and got lost :), so I was looking for an opportunity to bike early in the morning so that there will be no traffic, and on a day when I won’t have to go somewhere. Last Sunday, I decided that it’s now or never. The potential forty-minute round trip took over an hour, but at least I found the Garden!

The catch is that you can’t “bike to” that garden, you need to walk your bike on the last stretch. And Google was bringing me to the parking lot “under” the garden from where there was no way to get to the garden itself.

Some pictures from my bike ride to the North:

Continue reading “Biking To The Shakespeare Garden” →