Category: everyday life

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.

A button-operated shower

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!)

The area by the hotel cafe

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.

I brought cookies for those people who didn’t want to rely on the mercy of the Postal Service

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.

Speakers and volunteers photo

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!

Thursday, Friday And Going To Vienna

Thursday and Friday were super-hectic because my time-sensitive project at work re-emerged with almost the same deadline, but now with me traveling. In addition, I needed to significantly modify both of my PGConf.dev submissions. I submitted everything more than two weeks ago, because I didn’t want to submit at the last minute, and I had to do it anyway, with the submission deadline being the EOD Friday.

With all of the above, I had very little sleep since Wednesday. Even though the show on Wednesday ended early, I couldn’t go to bed because I saw a new conference sponsor sign up, so I had to respond immediately and send a contract to sign.  For some reason, I could not fall asleep for a while after that, and this pattern has been going on since then. Usually, I can fall asleep immediately when my head hits a pillow, and that’s one of the reasons a short sleep is enough for me. Something got broken, and even though I was very tired, I couldn’t fall asleep, and since Wednesday, my sleep pattern is completely messed up, so my goal for the next several days is to get it back on track.

Since I was packing for my trip in a half-sleep mode, I was sure I had forgotten something. One thing I realized on Thursday evening was that I couldn’t find my new good presenter, and it was already too late to order a new one. Boris said he will lend me one of his, but I know it won’t be as good as the one I had, and I can’t figure out why mine was missing.

What appeared to be more critical was that it wasn’t until I arrived in Helsinki last night that I realized that I hadn’t pack any extra jeans. I am not sure how this happened, but now it’s a problem – we left for Vienna early in the morning, and we will come back late on Tuesday evening, so no shopping till Wednesday sometime. Unfortunately, airport duty-free shops have only super-fashionable jeans, and I do not like the wide-leg look that is now popular. And I do not want to spend time shopping in Vienna – we have better things to do!

To finish on a positive note, one of my Thursday accomplishments was moving the box with all cookie-related items back to storage. This box is huge and so heavy that I dreaded taking it down and putting it up on the top shelf, and I still do not know how I managed to do it, but I did!

Eureka Day

On Wednesday, I went to see the first show of the year of my Broadway subscription: Eureka Day.

This Timeline Theater production was performed at the Broadway Playhouse by the Water Tower. I have mixed feelings about this venue: it’s further from the Loop, so I need to plan for an almost 40-minute commute, including the wait (or walking for approximately the same time), and also, it is often very cold inside, but I really like the house layout (a better view from virtually any seat), and faster commute back home.

The plot is as timely as it can be. A private school in California, based on principles of consensus and inclusion, where no decisions can be made unless all Board members agree, faces an outbreak of mums. The events take place during the 2018/19 school year, when Zoom is still new and largely unfamiliar, and a quarantine decision is not taken lightly. And then comes the contradiction between parents who want to change the school rules to make vaccinations mandatory and anti-vaxxers, some of whom have deeply personal reasons to refuse to vaccinate their children.

I really liked how the Zoom message exchange was displayed on a big screen, revealing very common conversation patterns between the parties.

For those who have time to read the Behind-the-scenes booklet for Eureka Day, here is the link. There is a lot of interesting information about the history of vaccination in the world and in the US specifically. The most interesting part is that the play was actually written in 2018, before the pandemic, and now it’s hard to believe the choice of dates isn’t intentional!

Unfortunately, I didn’t find any video clips from this play. If you find any, let me know, and I will add them to the post!

2025. Health And Wellness

Health

The most important health-related event of 2025 was regaining sight in my left eye. Just to be clear, my vision is not perfect, and my two eyes still see differently and are still not completely synchronized. But I can get around without glasses or contacts most of the time, and that gave me the long-forgotten level of freedom. My only inconvenience is that because of the lasic in my right eye, I can’t wear a multifocal on it anymore, which means that when I wear contacts, I need to put on reading glasses any time I need to read something, not just some of the time. And unfortunately, multifocal glasses do not help. But those are such minor problems compared to the situation two years ago that I can’t complain. I probably should try to get a better multifocal prescription.

Because of the eye surgeries, I missed at least one routine test, even though I promised my GP I would schedule it. Now I need to have three procedures in 2026 :), but I already scheduled everything, so chances are they all will happen.

I definitely feel aging this year; the first area is reduced flexibility, and the second is facial aging. I think I’ve come to terms with the latter and hopefully figured out how to age gracefully, but the first one is a concern. Last year, I noticed for the first time that if I do not practice yoga for more than a week, I lose flexibility, and if I do not practice specific poses for several weeks, I lose them as well. That was an alarm bell for me, and I am trying to be more consistent with yoga than ever before.

I forget words periodically, but it happens with the same frequency as it has been for the past three years – about once a week on average. I am keeping track of it and checking with my doctor. I am glad I asked to take a baseline test two years ago, so now I can compare myself to myself :).

Other than the above, 2025 was rather uneventful healthwise.

Physical Activity

I am reasonably happy with the level of physical activity this year. The biggest achievement was increasing biking distance (both individual rides and total mileage). This year, Bike the Drive was almost not challenging. All my indoor exercisers are on the same level as last year, although I figured out how to increase the intensity of my indoor biking.

I was not consistent with yoga; there were different reasons for that, but all came down to me not trying hard enough to make time, and that’s one of the things I am trying to change in 2026; I do not want to lose my flexibility.

Update: checking the app, I can confirm that most of my active calories came from more biking, and I was hitting higher daily totals during the biking season, especially in July and August. Funny enough, the exercise minutes were almost the same throughout the year.

Food

I have a follow-up appointment with my GP in February, because I need to figure out the reason for my cholesterol still going up, especially with the changes I made last year. Since it is not a one-time spike but a three-year trend, I want to get to the bottom of it.

Sleep

In 2025, I made serious efforts to increase my sleep duration to six hours. I know that my need for sleep increased slightly in comparison to my lifetime minimum, and I do need to switch from 5 – 5.5 hours to six. I am trying with moderate success, and I especially didn’t like the last five weeks of 2025, when I slept an average of just four hours a night. If not for this last stretch, I would feel more successful in this area.

Update: just checked the health app. According to it, my average sleep in 2025 was 5 h 18 min, with December being 4 h 37 min. Some months, the average was over 5h 30 min, reaching 5 h 40 – 5 h 50 min, but this didn’t stick. Also, I looked at the time when the app recorded “time in bed” in addition to sleep, and remembered that when I was trying to get to bed earlier, it resulted in more time in bed than more time sleeping. So I should probably set more realistic goals 🙂

To summarize: not bad, but lots of areas for improvement.

Early Birthday Gift

My friend from Kenya was in the US over the holidays, visiting her friends in Pittsburgh. I mailed her cookies to her friends’ address, and she mailed me the gift she brought from Kenya. It was a really bright spot in my challenging week.

Bruce Goff Exhibit

I briefly saw this exhibit when I was at the Art Institute with my granddaughters during their winter break, and I wanted to go back and see it one more time when not in a rush (and possibly more times later – I usually try to visit each new exhibit several times). My original plan to do it on January 3 didn’t work, so my next opportunity was this Thursday, when the Art Institute is open until 8 PM. I still had to visit my mom on that day, so I planned to be there for no more than 1.5 hours, and maybe come one more time later.

When I entered the hallway which led to the exhibit, I saw a sign “Free event today,” but since I had never seen any evening free events in the Art Institute (just fancy receptions sometimes), I thought that this sign was left there since midday. But to my surprise, when I walked into the exhibit hall, I heard a conversation which sounded exremely interesting, and I hurried up to join it.

It turned out that there were two docents conversing with the group of visitors. I can’t even call it a tour, because it was very informal, and both docents were passing the ball of the conversation to each other, happily including the visitors, and turning their questions into the prompts to tell more. It was a million times better than any lecture!

These drawings represented different music genres

Goff was an artist, an architect and a composer, and he didn’t want to follow conventional way in anything he did, including the choice of materials.

From Goff’s shirt collection. He loved extravagant shirts, and people were gifting shirts to him.
Continue reading “Bruce Goff Exhibit” →

Catching The Vanishing Christmas

For reasons already mentioned multiple times, I didn’t do enough Christmas in 2025, and during the first days of 2026, I was trying to catch the last bits of it. On Monday, I was working from home, and went to Charmer’s for breakfast. I almost ordered a cappuccino, but stopped myself and asked whether they still had any holiday drinks, and they had!

And on Tuesday, my 6:30 AM train happened to be a Holiday train (somehow, they didn’t have time to remove decorations!), and that was another treat, because it was the only time this season!

Now I checked all the boxes, and finally ready to have the Christmas season over!

Christmas Decorations Removal

Why did I do it so early this year? Because otherwise, I would need to do it the next weekend, and next weekend, I will have the girls, and it will be my mom’s birthday, and I will also need to get ready for my next trip, and review the training I am giving at the end of the month.

I ordered the tree removal for today, so that I won’t even think of keeping it longer :). It is faster to take the decorations down than to put them up, but still, it was a lot!

That’s how many boxes I had to move downstairs to the storage! It took me six trips up and down! I go up and down, and you think – why in the world am I doing this? Bringing all these boxes up, and four weeks later, bringing everything back down?!

I know that many people feel sad when they remove a Christmas tree and decorations, but for me, it symbolizes a fresh start: the holidays are over, and the new year has officially begun, and I am ready to make it great!