My CSA offered tulips as add-ons, and I ordered a small bouquet of the Monarch Beauty. I love them! They are getting more and more beautiful every day!
Tulips from My CSA Delivery
Category: everyday life
The Lake In Winter
There have been a couple of sunny days since I came back, and although I am mostly working all day long, I had a couple of opportunities to walk on the winter beach and say hello to the Lake!
Ribbon!
Since McCorminc skating rink closes at the beginning of February for the second year in a row, I decided to try to go to the Ribbon when I am back from my trip, and yesterday, I went there for the first time; and not just this year, but actually for the first time to the Ribbon.
I absolutely loved the skating experience, it’s way more enjoyable than McCormick, but getting there takes more time, so there is absolutely no way to go there over the lunch break, even the extended one. The only option is to go after work, and you need to take both your backpack and your skates, and also take them home. Additionally, you have to rent a locker because there is no option to leave even your boots, let alone the backpack, in plain sight: it’s not a circle, it’s a ribbon :). Minor things: there is no free skating; even if you have your own, it’s $5, and a locker price is $3 for a small one, where you can fit nothing, as I realized yesterday, and $5 for a bigger one.
A travel time from my office, including renting a locker and putting my things there, was almost 40 minutes, so once again, I need to figure out how to fit it into my schedule and how often I can do it, but I am really glad I went and figured it out. It was a little bit pushing the boundaries 🙂
Magellan
Magellan is the Philippines’ Entry For Best International Feature at the Oscars, and the reviews were raving. I decided it’s a must-see, even though the movie is almost three hours long. Judging by the description, I expected more or less a traditional, colorful historical movie with a pronounced social message:
At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Gael García Bernal) navigated a fleet of ships to Southeast Asia, attempting the first voyage across the vast Pacific Ocean. On reaching the Malay Archipelago, the crew pushed to the brink of madness in the harshness of the high seas and overwhelming natural beauty of the islands, Magellan’s obsession leads to a rebellion and reckoning with the consequences of power. A vast, globe-spanning epic from Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz (NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY), MAGELLAN presents the colonization of the Philippines as a primal, shocking encounter with the unknown and a radical retelling of European narratives of discovery and exploration.
My first reaction was disappointment: it felt more like a Tarkovsky movie, just with prettier landscapes. Iwas even thinking of quietly leaving the screening. But gradually, my perception changed, and I kept watching. If you watch the trailer, it does not give a good impression of the movie. The trailer is more dynamic and less picturesque. And doesn’t show even a percent of violence.
Maybe three hours is too much to say “colonialism is bad.” You decide.
Mom
It turned out that my mom fainted when she went to the grocery store with her caretaker several days after I went on my trip. I knew something had happened and that she was hiding something because she missed a day of emailing me. I figured I would find out anyway, and I finally talked to her caretaker over the weekend. It sounds strange because the store called the ambulance: they took her vitals, and absolutely everything looked perfect. But now she is afraid to leave the house on her own, and the caregiver can be there only twice a week. Also, it appears that her glasses didn’t change from outdoors to indoors immediately when she entered the store, so she is afreaid to wear them,
With all of that, in addition to the work crisis follow-up and some super-urgent Prairie Postgres matters, I had to make tons of mom-related calls. Now, her case manager is coming on Friday, and we will discuss adding more help (she has tons of allowed hours she does not use).
I also scheduled a visit to her family doctor for next Monday, ordered new glasses for her, and dropped off the frames.
She was at her biannual checkup on January 5, but she never tells the doctor what her problems are and says everything is fine. Having her vitals remarkably OK, it’s challenging for me to explain that not everything is OK. Last time, I left a note for the doctor before the visit, noting that she had complained about her left leg. But when she was at the doctor, she said she didn’t have any pain, so he let it go.
We’ll see how it will go this time,
February
The Sunday weather was gorgeous, but because of my 50-hour work day Thursday – Saturday, I had to stay at home most of Sunday, finishing some urgent chores in all areas of my life, and I got out of the house just once.
The Dance Of Death At The Steppenwolf
I didn’t really get this play. I chose to go because I haven’t been to Steppenwolf for a while, and they had discounted tickets for the Chicago Theater Week, and also, I wanted to take my friend Y to a show. When we talked about it, I didn’t know that I would have a work crisis! There was supposed to be nothing going on this weekend, and I asked her which show she would rather see at the Goodman or at the Steppenwolf, and she chose that one. The description looked interesting, and I didn’t know the play, so I readily agreed.
In the high stone tower of an isolated naval fortress, Alice and Edgar are about to celebrate 25 years of wedded bliss—if decades of resentment, recrimination and mutual sabotage count as bliss. But when an alluring visitor arrives, the delicate balance of their tedious arrangement falls off its axis, cracks growing into canyons. In Conor McPherson’s wicked take on Strindberg’s masterclass in marital warfare, a twisted love triangle waltzes off the edge of a cliff, plunging us all into the deep.
The play was written in 1900, which I didn’t realize before I came to the show, and that probably explains why “I didn’t get it.” For example, it was challenging to figure out the nature of the relationships between Alice and Kurt and the “vampire kiss.” When I read more about the play, I got an impression that it was a “symbol” of something. I think it was all about symbolism, and as I have recently realized, I do not understand it or like it.
One thing is for sure – the acting was superb. Even when you can’t make any sense of the plot, the acting is incredibly believable. My friend enjoyed it just because of that, and texted me later that it was a great experience, but to be entirely honest, I think she was just happy to see me :).
Flying Bask (With Adventures)
I updated the post about Prague with the hotel pictures this morning. Before that, things were really intense, and they still are.
On Thursday, I had to do several things after I got back to Chicago. An additional challenge was that my flight from Prague arrived at 10:50 PM (not a delay; that was how it was scheduled), and my flight to London was at 7:50 AM the next day (with a 7:20 AM boarding time). Boris crafted a morning route using public transportation that was not longer than a taxi ride, and we had to leave the house at 5 AM.
I packed almost everything in my large suitcase (the one I would take home) before my departure to Prague, but I still had to move things from the small luggage to the big one, and I had to pack yogurts from the fridge right before leaving the house. I decided that, in addition to having breakfast in the Finnair lounge, I would also take a shower there. The plan was very tight, especially because I also needed to check in a large luggage. The plan worked perfectly.
After we boarded the aircraft, the captain announced that there was fog in London (surprise :)), and all flights were queued, and our turn is 1.5 hours from our original time. I started panicing, but it was not much I could do, except for hoping that the long flight will be held to pick up all late passengers. Also, since we were scheduled to be delayed, the crew got permission to distribute care packages; the best you could possibly imagine!
Fortunately, we were allowed to take off about 30 minutes later, so everything looked manageable. We landed in London about 20 min behind the schedule. Since the connection time was short from the start, and I had to go to anothe terminal, and to the furthest gate there, it was still very close, but I made it.
The only thing which went not as planned was that I wan unable to connect to the in-flight internet from ny work computer. Typically, I do not work on the flight, but this time, I had two big things coming upon my arrival. One thing had to be performed on Thursdays after my arrival, and 4:30 PM, and another one on Friday. Both of them requiered some prep work, and I was almost on schedule with the Friday one, but I didn’t prep for Thursday. It was supposed to be a fast and easy thing, but I was hoping to script the work while I am in the air, and I couldn’t.
The flight to Chicago departed on time, and it landed an hour earlier. All was great, except for I was still unable to connect to the internet from the work laptop. As it always happens in ORD in the situations like this, there was no gate for us, so we spent another 25 min taxing, but still arrived 30 min earlier. As it is common these days, there are no lines for the border control at all, and the most time-consuming part was waiting for the luggage.
Last time when I waited for Uber for more than 20 minutes, I made a note to myself to use a regular cab instead, and it worked perfectly. There was no wait (same as in Helsinki), so things looked perfect for the rest of my plans for that evening. I still had time to prep for my 4:30, which should have taken no more than 15-20 min, and I was even hoping to stop by my mom before heading to the Opera.
And that’s where my plans derailed. When I came home and logged to work, I realized that I had to do something else, and I only started prepping for my 4:30 PM at about 3:45. Then I realized that some information was missing, and that overall things were not as easy as I thought. Long story short, I worked until 6:15 nonstop, then checked that Salome had no intermission and realized it’s not even worth trying to get there, because , at a minimum, I needed to change from the clothes I wore since departure and to put the contacts in.
I texted my neighbor that I had a work crisis, and that she would have to see the opera without me (she was already on her way). It was actually good that I didn’t try to go, because one more issue popped up.
The advantage of me not going to the opera was that I had time to go to see my mom, and also, I had time to sort my mail and unpack the packages, take care of my plants, start my laundry, etc. However, while I was done with my Thursday work, more unexpected details for Friday kept coming, so I ended up going to bed at almost 11:30 PM, and had to go to work on Friday. OK, I didn’t “have to,” but I had no food at home, so it made sense to go to the office and relocate home for the evening work.
In case you didn’t know, January 31 is a National Croissant Day. I pre-ordered special croissants from Vanille while I was still in Prague, and picked them up before relocating home for the rest of the day- evening.
Once again, the work was supposed to start at 4 PM and go for 2-3 hours, at least the part where I was involved, but things didn’t end up as I planned yet another time. I still didn’t have food in the house except of what was left since before my trip (surprisingly, even the milk survived). I had a CSA deliver, but there were still some items I needed.
Since Amazon Fresh repeatedly said there were no delivery slots, I ordered food deliver directly from Jewel Osco, and it was such a pleasant experience that I will continue doing it (no out-of stock at the last minute, could use my coupons, local delivery, etc).
As of now (Saturday morning), the work is still not done, and thought technically I could be still busy at that time, I didn’t expect to be :)). I hope that everything will be done in the next three hours, because I do not want to derail more plans!
Prague Postgres Dev Days
When I planned my trip to Prague, I thought I would be able to take extra days off for an “unpaid conference,” but in 2026, the PTO tracking changed, and as a result, I no longer received “unpaid conference time.” I am still going to contest it, because I still took my work computer with me, and I still did quite a bit of work while there.
But as for Monday, it was a legit working day. I didn’t go to co-working because I had to leave for the airport before 3 PM, and I still wanted to have some time with Boris. I worked from 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM, with only a break for a 30-min walk, and then we headed to the airport, where I kept doing things from the lounge, and still did one work meeting from the hotel, and still dialed in to work a couple of times on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Aside from that, the whole trip to Prague was uneventful in a good way and very productive. The hotel where I stayed (Vienna House Diplomat) was much better than the one I stayed at last year, in all aspects. The room was better, and the gym was on-site and very well equipped. The reception told me that there was an extra charge of 10 euros per visit, but it was totally worth it. The gym had everything, was way more spacious than the one at my Helsinki coworking space, and opened at 6 AM (actually, even a little bit earlier than that!)
This time, I knew what the venue looked like, so I didn’t spend time wandering around the University campus. There were no technical issues with my workshop; the class was full, people listened, reacted, and thanked me many times.
Also, this time, I didn’t have to leave on the same day, so I could stay for the speaker’s dinner and for two-thirds of the talks on Wednesday. I met with everyone I planned to meet, had some unplanned meetings, and all conversations were very productive. I hope that I secured a couple of new sponsors for PG DATA 2026.
My friend Gulcin promised a birthday cake for my belated birthday celebration, and brought a box of delicious pastries! Everyone who was there tried at least a little bit 🙂
People still can’t believe that I turned 63. Gulcin asked me what the secret of my youthfulness is, and as usual, I responded that the secret is that I always do what I want to do, and never do the things I don’t want to do :). She and another person who was there even posted about it on LinkedIn, which was funny.
Also, the Lighting talks organizer convinced me to submit a lighting talk, so I gave a five-minute into to my new project, and used this opportunity to advertise PG DATA.
Overall, despite many problems I currently have at work and with many of my non-work activities, my mood is significantly better than before the conference.
I am finishing this post on my flight to London, and for some reason, my Google Photos is not available. I will add more photos from the hotel when I am on another provider 🙂
Last Christmas/First Birthday Gifs
During the past week, two more gifts arrived by mail. The first one was presumably the last Christmas gift from one of my German friends:
The reason I didn’t post it right away was that I forgot to take a picture of the cookies, and then I kept forgetting, and the cookies kept disappearing :). I still have some left back home, but now I am traveling, and I thought it was not fair to wait till February :).
And on Friday, just a couple of hours before I headed to the airport, I received a package from my friend Lena form Ann Arbor:
And I am sure you guessed which one was my favorite: a kolacki ornament!
