Category: everyday life

I Am In The Slow Mode For A Week, And Air Travel Surprises

Boris came on Wednesday, and this will be the last time before October when we are going to see each other in person. As usual, the adjustment from living solo to living together, even temporarily, is hard. This time especially, since I was unusually stressed with all the things going at work and in my professional life in general. I didn’t have time to adjust to the slower pace mentally. Our velocity of living is very different, and each time we are making an effort to reconcile these differences at least for a short time.

From Wednesday to the next Wednesday, I will have no volunteering activities, and I took one day work from home and one and a half days off. We shall see how it goes.

There was one funny thing about his arrival. O’Hare International Airport (ORD) has four terminals: 1,2,3 and 5 (do not ask me why :)). Terminal 5 is international, no matter which airline you take, the passport control and customs are located in Terminal 5. It usually always takes time to get out of it due to the long lines, even if you do not have the checked baggage. With the flight arrival time of 3-45PM, we agreed that I would leave work at about 3 PM. The CTA Blue Line, which goes to ORD is a little bit unpredictable, like the whole CTA in general, so although the stop is very close to my office, it could take from 35 to 50 min to get to ORD. Plus, Terminal 5 is the furthest from the CTA stop, so it’s a separate journey. Plus, the inner airport transit is still under construction, and there are shuttle buses between terminals, which also adds time. With all these calculations in mind, we agreed on the meeting time 3 PM and our usual meeting point. Since we both have vision disabilities, having a default meeting point helps a lot.

That was the first time he had a connection in Dublin, and I was watching the live updates on his flight. BTW, Google always knows what flight I am looking for, so I do not even need to type the number. It showed the arrival time slightly earlier than on the schedule (3-33 PM), and I decided to leave 5 minutes earlier, although we both know that this time does not mean anything. Some airlines report arrival at the point of the aircraft touching the ground, and there can be 10-15 min of cruising afterward.

I was on the CTA when Boris called, and he almost never calls the phone, because it is way more expensive than a video call. I was trying to tell him that I am still on the CTA, but then I’ve realized that he was telling me that he is on Terminal 3. And after he said so, I’ve realized that that’s what arrival information was telling me, but I chose not to believe it :).

After all, it saved us tons of time, because when I arrived, he called me again and said that he was already by the CTA station. But I was curious to find out what happened. Turned out that as he put it, “The US is expanding its borders.” If you ever traveled by air from Canada to the US, you know that the US border control is taking place in the airport in Ottawa or where else your flight starts. So when you are boarding, you are already on the US territory. The same thing happened in Dublin, and he didn’t realize that it was an actual border control, except he was puzzled by the additional security checkpoint. He only looked into his passport when it was announced that the arrival will be in Terminal 3 :). It ended up being very convenient, and now we know why the connection was three hours long!

CSA And Local Produce

I first started to buy stuff from the Middlebury Farms, because it was just good stuff, which other farmers didn’t have, and it was reasonably priced. And then they told their customers that they are going to do the CSA, and I jumped in because I like them and wanted to support!

Since that first time, there were good years and bad years, but that’s the risk you take! The best part of all this deal of CSA never failed me – the mystery of “what’s in the box” next week?

I try to cook everything within a week, and when I can’t eat it all, even with sharing with mom, I freeze the cooked food in small containers. It’s way better than freezing raw vegetables. The cooked meal, when defrosted, tastes not worse than freshly prepared.

I’ve already showed one of my deliveries several weeks ago, when I published my Cold Beets Soup recipe. Here is one more, from this week:

And this one is from the previous week:

Until mid-November, I do not think I will need to buy any greens, or tomatoes, or cucumbers. I will cooking and freezing lots of vegetable sides and making vegetable soups. And I will be sure to demonstrate if there will be something new and exciting this year!

Healthy Living For Baby Boomers

I often talk to people who are about my age or older, or a little bit younger, trying to motivate them to be more engaged in physical activities and overall, to have a healthier lifestyle. I am an excellent motivator :), so most of the time there are some positive outcomes.

Some time ago (about six months, to be exact) I came across the article in the Chicago Tribune, which I liked a lot. I decided to paste it’s full text here because people do not like to click on the links, and there are way fewer chances somebody will read it, if it is not copy-pasted.

The reason I often post my pictures with all the muscules exposed is not that I like to show-off, but because people believe more in what I am saying when they can see results not on TV, but on the real person. Most importantly, I try to draw people away from the preception, that their health should decline with age, that this is normal.

It takes moxie to flip an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one particularly for folks 60 and older.

Here is the article:

Most baby boomers approach retirement age unwilling to follow basic healthy lifestyle goals established by the American Heart Association, said Dr. Dana King, professor and chairman of the department of family medicine at West Virginia University, referencing his university’s 2017 study comparing the healthy lifestyle rates of retired late-middle-aged adults with rates among those still working.

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About My Nomination, And How To Vote

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

First of all, a big THANK YOU to everybody who reached out congratulating me for becoming a finalist in the “Technologist of the Year” nomination. This nomination is especially important for me, because I’ve always strived to apply the best CS theories for the success of the business. I do not believe in approaches, which can’t be used in practice. However, I think that applying the right theoretical principles in the industry can have a tremendous impact.

Another aspect important to me is that all my innovations are related to PostgreSQL. If I were asked to name the three most important things which I’ve introduced at Braviant Holdings, it would be

  • The wide usage of FDW both in OLAP and OLTP
  • The usage of pg_bitemporal in both OLAP and OLTP
  • Abandoning ORM and using JSON -based data exchange between applications and databases

There is more in my blog about all…

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About Mornings, Breakfasts, And Getting Stuff Done

Today life was much better than the previous several days. When I was leaving my house at 8-10 AM, I looked around and thought that in most of the homes, people are just starting to get up. It is a weekend, after all!

As for me, by the time I was leaving the house, I have;

  • spoken to Boris for what originally planned to be a half-hour, and ended up being close to an hour
  • gone on a 40-minute bike ride
  • done 30 -min yoga session
  • showed and got ready for a day
  • got the breakfast ready and eaten it outside

I am obsessed with breakfast. I love making nice breakfasts and eating them outside. People find it hard to believe that my numerous breakfast pictures on Instagram are my real everyday breakfasts, not the sill life and that I am making them just for myself (if I do not have anybody staying with me, of cause).

But for me, this is an essential part of the day. I am a morning person, and to start the day with some physical activity followed by a yummy and beautifully arranged breakfast is the way to set me up in a good mood. Sometimes it can’t last through the day, but at least for some time.

Today I made myself a millet hot cereal. The original recipe is here

https://hettiecooking.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/millet-hot-cereal/, although now I make it with water and some nono-fat milk. Making it takes some time, but today I put it on LOW before going biking, and after I retured, I mixed in some defrosted pumpkin puree, and spices, and left it on LOW again. It all worked so probably I will be making it more often.

Finnish Blueberry Rye Cereal

Hettie D.'s avatarHealthy Cooking - Hettie's Way

They do not call it a cereal in Finland, and from what I understand the actual word means something liquid-ish, like a creamy soup, or a breakfast meal. But I can’t find a work in English with the meaning close enough, maybe my Finnish friends can advise.

I’ve got this recipe from one of my Finnish friends, and it is very Finnish since blueberry is a national berry of Finland :). I usually make it in the second half of summer, when the weather is still hot so that you would look for a clod breakfast, rather than for a warm meal. Also, this is the time, when Michigan blueberries start to arrive, and you do not feel guilty to consume the whole cup of them in one meal.

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On Time Management, And When It Can’t Help

I am usually doing great with time management, as all my friends attest. Most of the time I can squizz in three times more activities, that anybody can imagine. And this is not for the record – I love doing everything I am doing. Since I happen not to be Hermione Granger, and nobody gives me a Time-Turner, I have to be creative. But sometimes even my time-management skills are not enough.

And that’s how this week looked like. I feel like it was one long workday. Yes, I did a couple of activities after work. I cooked at the Youth homeless shelter on Monday, I went to the concert at Millennium Park on Wednesday, and I went on a casual bike ride with Palatine Bike Club on Thursday.

It might look enough – for anybody, except me :). Besides, I was so busy at work, that I couldn’t even get out for a short stroll or for an ice-cream. And I didn’t have time to email or chat with my friends. Ad I still have a little bit of work to do over the weekend.

So when my coworkers were asking today – any plans for a weekend? I would reply – to catch up with life! Hopefully, more blog post will follow 🙂

Postgres DEI Work Group

I am usually keeping my personal and professional life separately, but I wanted to share this one!

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

Last Friday, I participated in the first conference call of the DEI Work Group of PostgresConf. And if you are wondering what DEI means, it means Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion.

The whole conversation started at the PostgresConf  2019 in New York. There we had a diversity panel on the last day of the conference. I was mildly unhappy with both low attendance and somewhat too universal coverage of the issues of diversity. I think that the striking lack of diversity in the Postgres community is a bigger problem than in IT in general, and was expecting a more in-depth conversation.

And then a usual exchange happened. I am a person of action, and I can’t complain about anything without proposing a solution (even when nobody asks for one!). But this time I was actually asked whether I will be interested in doing something to improve the situation, and granted, I…

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More Pictures From The Outdoor Gym

I’ve already posted some pictures of our new outdoor gym in this post; now I’ve decided to show more pictures to demonstrate all the equipment we have there.

I took these pictures last Friday morning between 5-40 and 6-10. At that time of the day there is nobody except me over there :). Now as the summer rolls into its second half, the sunrise is later and later every day, which affects the early raisers like myself.
I am up before 5 AM every day, and most of the year, I head to the Anytime Fitness facility right away. But during summer months I try to do as much outdoors, as possible, and this new gym equipment was exactly what I needed. Now and probably for another week or two, I will only go to ATF if there will be raining. Otherwise, I start at my home gym, and in about 30-40 minutes, I walk to this outdoor gym and exercise there for another 20 minutes. I love the fact that I can work out when the sun is rising.

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I Can’t Even Call It A Salad…

Hettie D.'s avatarHealthy Cooking - Hettie's Way

I’ve chosen some vegetables from the last CSA delivery, sliced them and arranged on the plate.

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Ingredients: baby spring mix, zucchini, cucumber and radishes with tzatziki sauce

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