Category: everyday life

Matter Does Not Disappear!

At the beginning of April, when all the world was in the lockdown, and I thought that Boris and I would never see each other again, I mailed him a parcel. I put in it several small items that he purchased on Amazon for the upcoming biking season and which he was planning to pick up during his March trip, which did not happen. Also, I put some cookies that I baked for Easter and some vitamins, which I meant to give him to take home. And I mailed it, expecting it to travel slowly.
Well, it was sitting hear in Chicago for a while, it moved from one facility to another, and finally, it left O’Hare on May 5. And then I lost a trace of it.

I asked Boris to contact the Finnish postal service, but he didn’t feel like doing it :). He re-ordered some of the things which got lost, and I brought them with me at the end of July. And then, a week after I left, he received a notice from the Finnish customs. It turned out that somebody swapped the street number and the apartment number (I wrote it correctly on the envelope, so it might get messed up in the system). They actually wanted Boris to pick it put at the customs, but since they were trying to contact somebody else all that time, the parcel was marked as not claimed, and the day Boris got the note, the parcel was sent back to me.

I got it today. As expected, the cookies were gone bad, and I guess all the bike parts are still good :).
I am glad that “matter does not disappear,” it would be worse if the package would never be found, but still…

Monet In Chicago Exhibit

The Monet Exhibit in the Art Institute opened last week. I didn’t have time to attend during the members-only days, but I was also hoping that the second week won’t be so crazy. 

It turned out that although the line outside was small, the virtual line for the exhibit was massive. I came in only twelve minutes after the museum was open on that day, and the first hour of each day is a member hour. 

I guy with an iPad was standing at the entrance, and he asked whether I was planning to visit the Monet exhibit and if yes, he can put me in the line. There was already 30 minutes wait by that time!

While waiting, I went to a permanent Impressionists exhibit. It is one of my favorites, if not the most favorite collection. The room, which usually exhibits Monet’s works from the permanent collection, was vacant for the time of the new exhibit, and I was thrilled to see that it was repurposed to show tons of Toulouse-Lautrec works! I don’t know whether any of my friends love Toulouse-Lautrec art with the same passion as I do, but let me tell you, it was a real treat! I am posting just a couple of works, which usually are not on display. 

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Office Dynamics

Thursday was the first day when we had three people in the office at the same time. By then, I made two more kitchen improvements. First, I plastered the sign “DOES NOT WORK” on the front of the Nespresso Machine. Otherwise, everybody coming to the office for the first time is trying to use it and just waists a pod or two.

Second, I bought a Brita water dispenser. Our water coolers are taped, and initially, our HR purchased bottled water, but it is all gone, and nobody is reordering.

First, I wanted to buy a pitcher, but then I saw that this water dispenser cost the same, and decided that it will be better when there is more than one person in the office. Here is it, and I instructed everybody not to let it dry!

Also, for the first time after six months, I have two meetings next week scheduled with an in-office option. I could not believe my eyes 🙂

Adjustable, and a Perfect Color!

Today’s Highlights

This post didn’t get published lat nigh for some reason, so now those are yesterday’s highlights, and more details to come),

There were three people at the same time in the office first time since the office is open.

My manager scheduled our next 1-on-1 for the next week in the meeting room, not on Hangouts.

I went to the Art Institute and saw the new Monet Exhibit.

I went to the Youth Shelter first time since February. And we had dinner and the actual convesation.

It started raining in the afternoon, and my feet are wet, and this also didn’t happen for many months. Because I was not walking in a distance from home for many days, weeks and months.

Something Good I Never Mentioned

I wanted to end the day with something good because my only post in two days sounded like “life is horrible,” and it is not at all! Sometimes during the day, I stop for a moment and enjoy this feeling – everything is great!

Perhaps, it’s a strange feeling during the pandemic, but I feel that there are so many things going well in my life, despite the pandemic, no matter pandemic or not. I feel lucky in so many ways, to the point of being guilty of being so lucky.

One good thing about which I was reluctant to write for a while is that I can walk substantial distances without major discomfort. It was already so many times after my back surgery that I felt things are better, and then they turned for worse again, that this time I was taking time to make sure they are better indeed.

I attribute this time’s progress to the two factors. One is that I am doing my stretches and rolling twice a day, no matter what. The other is that in May, my physical therapist told me that she thinks that my left leg is a little bit shorter than my right and that this might aggravate my problems. She suggested I try the heel elevator, and I did, and it worked, and I was putting them in all my footwear since then. Gradually, it worked a miracle.

Make no mistake, I will be aware of my back for the rest of my life, but I can’t even describe how much my quality of life improved in the past couple of months.

It Does Not Feel Like a Weekend

I made a usual mistake of the long weekend – it felt like I can do everything when I have an additional day off. The most pressing thing was the next chapter of the book. The chapter which is due next is huge and very technical. You might think that “technical” is good because it is fewer words to write and more code to explain. But the problem is that with this book, I can’t use any of my previous examples! Everything has to be rewritten in our new training database. 

That means that each paragraph requires stopping, creating a new index, running an example, saving the code of the index, code of the example, execution plan, formatting everything nicely, and writing a new explanation because the tables are different. Each and the single paragraph.

I sort of forbade myself to write anything except of this chapter for the past three days. I was thinking about taking Friday off (it was the last summer Friday, so I could take just one vacation day and have the whole Friday off). But I thought that then chances are, I will have to do work over the weekend, and then what’s the point of taking a day off? 

Indeed, this half-Friday was very intense, I didn’t have a moment to waste, but now I can’t imagine how I will finish everything tomorrow. 

I have a couple of things I have to do tomorrow except of writing, so it won’t be like writing for 16 hours, and I think I will be able to finish. But I was hoping that there will be at least something else during this long weekend.

Well, nobody asked me to get involved. Or maybe somebody asked, but nobody forced me to agree!

Walking Chicago Loop

On Thursday, I took a long and speedy walk around the Loop intending to check which of the fast and not so fast food restaurants in the Loop had survived the lockdown. I already knew that to my deepest regrets, Pret left Chicago for good. It looks like the same thing happened with Cosi, so out of my to-go places, only Panera survived.

Also, although the sign on Toni’s door says, “we will return,” it does not look like it, which is very sad.
There are several new places on Michigan Avenue, maybe I will like some of them, but I miss Toni’s.
It looks like Jewelry’s Row has the most of the damaged shop windows, and most of the places are not only plywood-ed, but actually closed.

On a bight side – the city is full of people. Yes, it is far from the usual crowds in the time of peace, but equally far from the March emptiness. And as I already mentioned, 90% of people wear masks. Both of these facts make me optimistic :).

A socailly-distant line to the Art Institute – opening of the Monet Exhibit
Jewelers Row is almost empty, but the view of the turning L-train is as breathtaking, as ever
And no Trump can spoil this view!

Office Days

I know that many people are afraid to take public transportation these days. I didn’t take CTA yet, and I can’t judge how safe it is, but I am 100% comfortable taking Metra.

People go to work in the city, maybe, ten percent of those who used to go to the city before the pandemic, but the trains are not ghostly. The schedule is reduced, and when I started to go to the office regularly, I realized that this presents some challenges. One is that I can’t be late for the 7-24 train. It used to be “my” train, and I am glad it survived, but previously I could take 7-51 express if I was late for 7-24, and now there is no such an option (which results in lots of Starbucks breakfasts!). I have to say there is something good in having fewer options, too, because it makes me more organized.

I always thought of myself being very well organized and working from home just fine, but after being forced to work from home for months, it required some effort to get out of the house on time. Through these past months, I felt that I am accomplishing less at home, but only now I realized how much time I am wasting for nothing when I do not have my usual morning checkpoints.
In short – I am happy to be back to commuter train.

That’s how the train car looks like these days. The conductors flip the sears so that it’s always one person per four seats, so I have a luxury to always sit by the window, always having an electric outlet, always facing the direction of travel, and always having room for bags. What am I going to do when it is all over?!

By the way, it is also plenty of parking space at the station these days, so you do not need to rush to be able to park at the convenient spot.

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All You Need To Know About Kenosha

I have no idea whether the rest of the world know about the current events in Kenosha, but if you know, this post is for you.

Igor went to Kenosha five days after the shooting of Jacob Blake, on one of the few days when trains from Chicago were stopping at Kenosha.

As usual, he came back with a million photos. I am posting just a couple here, but please. spend ten minutes looking at all of them here, this is all you need to know about what’s going on in Kenosha.

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