Category: everyday life

Prioritization

If someone thinks I was relatively quiet in the past couple of days, that was true. The work was fine, but I had a sort of writer’s block with my tutorial, and I started to worry whether I would be able to finish it on time, with all my other responsibilities. One of the things that really bothered me was that I knew that for a workshop of that duration, I needed 100 slides. Also, I knew that even though some of the slides in my presentation were still placeholders, I had already put out there everything I wanted to cover. And when I mentally reviewed my tutorial, I felt strongly that I already had enough material.

I had several industrial slides that required a lot of time for research, but still, there was not enough, and I knew that I shouldn’t expand this part of my tutorial.

Tonight, I was finally able to overcome my writer’s block. I finished all the industrial slides, and when I moved to the next section of my presentation, I realized that there were several placeholders that should have been replaced with three slides each, not one! Finally, I had 94 slides, and I am sure that the remaining ones are somewhere there:).

Finally, I am producing the slides at a normal speed, and I should be able to (mostly) finish everything over the weekend.

And yes, about prioritization! With all being said

  • I covered an early morning escorting shift before work
  • I didn’t go to the Art Institute after work
  • I stopped at Osco for a couple of on-sale items
  • And I went to the beach at seven. The lifeguards were out, the air was cool, and the water was warmer than the air, and I knew that the swimming season was about to end!

And also, our conference website is live! But I will showcase it tomorrow 🙂

One More Chicago Weekend

On Saturday, my houseguests went to Milwaukee to visit Anna and the girls. I thought I would work on my tutorial, but I ended up catching up on life: cooking and baking, talking with Boris for over an hour, home accounting, and Prairie Postgres business.

And then all of a sudden, it was their last full day in Chicago! It turned out that I didn’t have a chance to feed them an American breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, so I had to cover that, and then we went to the Loop to check out old skyscrapers, which we also somehow neglected to include in our prior excursions.

Then we headed North, stopping at the Bridgehouse Museum:

Then we went to the Starbucks Reserve, because I ike to change people’s opinion about the Starbucks. The only problem was that it was a weekend tourist crowd, so it took a long time to get everything we wanted to eat in separate lines, but we go everything, including the expresso martinies:

Finally, we went to the Glenwood Art Fest. I made a mistake taking a bus from the Starbucks Reserve. It was the Chicago Air and Water Show, and the traffic in the direction of Lake Shore Drive simply didn’t move! After an hour of staying on a barely moving bus, we got off and walked to the Fullerton station, and finally arrived at the Art Fare.

I know that my friends took more pictures, so I will post more when they share!

Photos With Friends

A couple of photos taken during my friends’ visit – there should be more~

Conferences Prep

Lots of people are helping me both for PG DATA and for Prairie Postgres, but I still feel like I am doing “something” related to both non-stop.

We are waiting for our official website to be completed and released to us.

I am building our event in the EventZilla.

I am building the call for papers in Sessionize.

Communicating with the caterer, although another team member did most of the talks.

Approving social media posts and newsletters.

Our regular September meetup is coming.

My talk at Django US.

Recording of my P99 talk.

My September tutorial is still only half-done.

I have houseguests, and I feel like I do not have enough timewith them.

I can keep this list going on forever.

And summer is almost over!

Friends Visiting

My friends from France are staying with me for twelve days. We planned this visit for over two years, and I can’t believe it finally happened!

We had talked so much about the lake, and the first thing they wanted to do when they arrived at my house from the airport was go to the beach. I was happy to do this because I believe that the lake is the best thing in Rogers Park, and I completely approve of the idea of the beach being more important than dinner.

I was even happier to see their faces when they got into the water and declared that it was exactly what they needed.

I took a day and a half off, so today we went to the Aquarium, and it was an absolutely perfect visit!

…and went to the beach again!

Tomorrow, they will have a whole day on the beach while I will be at work, but I think it still won’t be enough!

Amazon

That was the worst experience I have had with Amazon so far.

I placed a large food order with Amazon Fresh to be delivered on Sunday. Some time ago, Amazon began severely limiting the number of delivery windows available at any given moment, making it challenging to obtain the delivery window I really needed. It so happened that I had a chance to grab a slot while I was sitting at the Portland airport lounge late on Saturday evening. I placed the order and didn’t even look at the confirmation.

It turned out that I accidentally placed it at my mom’s address; I have no idea why it happened; I do not default to her address ever, but I had such a situation specifically with Amazon Fresh several years ago when I placed an order at Anna’s address, but I cancelled it immediately. This time, I only noticed the address was incorrect when it was out for delivery.

I started the Amazon support chat, but immediately noticed that the callback was available, so I pressed that button. A CR called back, and I explained the situation, and she said she would try to contact the driver. After some time, she reported that the driver is not picking up, and asked whether I want to cancel the order. Retrospectively, that’s what I should have done, but I told her: No, do not cancel, I will walk there and pick it up.

After I hung up with her, I saw a CR chat flashing with “Are you there?” I replied that I had already been contacted by phone, and my issue was not resolved. They said: well, let me try! I repeated the same story, and they double-checked that the addresses were within a mile of each other, and typed: trying to contact the driver. Then a new message appeared: I was able to contact the driver, do not worry, your order will be at your place in 10-15 minutes!

Thirty minutes later, I received an automated Amazon message: We are sorry, but your order could not be delivered. Would you like a refund or reschedule? I clicked “reschedule” and selected the last evening slot on Monday when I would definitely be home. After the reorder went through, I saw that it was again placed at my mom’s address!!!

I contacted the customer support chat again. The CR typed: let me see what I can do, and then – sorry, I can’t cancel this order since it was already placed (???!!!), I can issue a refund, and then you can submit a new order. I asked multiple times whether it is possible to stop the order delivery, and they were like” if this address does not existm the driver will return the order,” and I kept saying that the address exists, it’s not the point. Finally, he said: OK, I will take care of that!.

I placed another order and checked that it was place at the correct address. I received it on time, but forty minutes later, I received a message that my other order was out for delivey! I still hoped that it will be “not delivered” or at least they will contact me, but at 10 PM (!!!) my mom called me: I am so sorry for disturbing you, but there are four gigantic packages by my door!

So I had to walk to my mom’s place, take the packages, quietly discard behind her building a half of the produce so that I could bring the rest home, filled in my backpack and walked back, returning home at 10-45.

And, for the record, there is no good way to complaint to Amazon customer service. I tried, but it brings me back to the same chat, and the only thing I can get is a refund, which I already got. But no one will refund me a total of 3.5 hours!

2000 meters to Andriivka

I just watched “2000 meters to Andriivka” at the Siskel Center. I started crying even before the documentary title appeared on the screen. Then I stopped crying because there were no tears left. And then I started to cry again when they showed footage of the funerals. And for all these almost two hours, I felt eternal hatred towards those who started this war and those who allowed it to happen.

Horror. Hopelessness. Sorrow for all these lives gone, especially since Mstyslav Chernov tells us which of the soldiers he filmed were injured and died later. And the way he runs the excerpts from the news coverage from the days of the counter-offense, mentioning that “it didn’t deliver to expectations” or whatever the language was.

To say this documentary is difficult to watch is to say nothing. The official trailer below does not give even a remote impression of it. I don’t know how to keep living life as usual when you know that this actually happened, and that the corpses I saw on the screen were not props, and the captured Russian officer was not an actor.

P.S. If you are in Chicago, there are two more screenings.

The Lake In Many Different Ways

Before I sat down to work on my presentations last Sunday, I went for what turned out to be my longest non-stop bike ride so far (total distance 27 miles). I keep exploring the Lake Front Trail, going more and more South with the hope of finally reaching the Museum of Science and Industry. I already did it twice during Bike the Drive events, but it’s a shorter distance when going by the Drive, and also, there are stops.

I posted some pictures from my newly found lands 😀 here.

Here are more pictures from the shorter rides this week.

Very early in the morning on Monday
Very stormy weather on Tuesday
Today was equally stormy, but warmer, and I could not resist breaking the rules

This Week Was About Missing Out

This week, instead of saying “Yes” to a million things you can do in Chicago in summer, especially if “you” are “me”, I did the opposite. I was saying “no” to many activities, because I needed to catch up with my professional responsibilities.

My talk at PG Conf EU in Riga was accepted, which means I need to prepare it, because it’s a new talk. That’ in addition to the community event I am hosting there. I have things I promised to do for the ACM Chicago Chapter, and couldn’t find time for weeks, but most importantly, my big tutorial is only half-done.

And I have no more free weekends until that conference! My only “free” day will be upcoming Sunday, and it will be a day after the red eye flight back from Portland.

Do not take me wrong – I love all these activities, and I am taking this all completely voluntarely, but still 🙂

I Taught A CTA Employee How To Take Metra!

Today is Wednesday, which means I have a personal training session over Zoom. My trainer lives in LA, so even though he is an Early Bird, he can’t train me at 5 AM CT. We tried to work it out for several years, and our current arrangement is that on Wednesdays, I go to the office super early and we have a training session in our office gym.

For a while, I was able to take the shower 6 AM Metra train, and be ready just after 6:30, but when the new station opened, the travel time increased, and I opted for taking the Red Line (there are no Metra trains between 5 and 6 AM). I know that in order to be comfortably on time, I need to leave the house at 5:20. Five minutes later is still OK, but tight.

Today, I was ready at 5:22, but I stopped to check whether my flowers needed more watering and lost five minutes. I ran into the CTA station just at the moment when a CTA employee was putting up the sign “Service disruption.” He said he didn’t know what had happened, but something had happened at Thorndale, and the trains were not moving. I sighed and said, “Well, I guess I am going to the Metra station.” Another employee asked: You know how to get there? I said: Absolutely! The train leaves at 6 AM. I will be a little bit late, but not so bad.

I turned around and started walking when I heard her shouting from the station: Could you wait for me? I will go with you!

While we were walking, I learned a lot about her. She lives in Aurora(!!!), and commutes by Amtrak and then CTA every evening. She works night shifts Monday through Friday, and another employee who lives in Waukegan had told her a number of times that she should use Metra, but she was unsure how to get there. We talked about how Jarvis Station was so nice, and such a contrast to Howard, and about the homeless sleeping on the trains, and how it’s scary that Trump wants to put them into some facilities. I told her about my volunteering for the Bight Ministry, and how everyone is anxious, and living one day at a time. She said that the world is a scary place these days, and I must worry about my children and grandchildren. I told her that worrying is not productive, and I am trying to do good things when I can.

She said I inspired her with my active lifestyle, and that my energy was contagious, and that she will see me on the CTA :). I might actually see her when I am returning from the shows!