At the PG DATA conference, we held a “Sponsor Passport” raffle: attendees could stamp their “passports” at each sponsor table, and those passports were then used as raffle tickets.
In case someone doesn’t know, I am not a lottery person at all, and the only reason I placed my passport in the box was to set a good example for others. I was called to draw, and imagine my surprise when I handed Pat the first passport and he said: Hettie!
I thought it was a joke, but it was not: I won a $100 Amazon gift certificate! Even funnier, two other organizers won the prizes, and then one of our meetup members!
Yesterday, at PG Day Boston, they also had Sponsor Passports, and I participated again, joking about my PG DATA experience. A couple of people who attended both joked about the “staged wins.” You will never believe it, but I won a $100 Amazon gift card again! And again, my name was the first to be drawn.
I became somewhat nervous, thinking that this luck is for no good. How did it turn out? I will tell you tomorrow – too tired now!
My friend and former colleague was in charge of Pg Day Boston; it was the first event in that series, and I promised him I would come. Fortunately, there are plenty of direct flights to Boston from Chicago, but Boston is one hour ahead of us, and to make it a day trip and to get most of the conference, I had to take a 6 AM flight, which meant I had to be up at 3 AM. That was an extreme even for me, but remembering how I stayed in line three weeks ago, I decided to be on the safe side. I even pre-ordered Uber, which I almost never do.
Also, remembering that there was no food on my flight to Vancouver, and that the lounge does not open before 5 AM, I decided to upgrade to First Class. I arrived at the airport on time; the priority boarding didn’t reopen, so I stayed in the line with others, but chose a shorter line this time. Then, I waited for 25 min for the lounge to open. I got a cappuccino, a small yogurt cup, and a small cup of chai pudding, thinking I would have a proper breakfast on the plane, but they didn’t have any food, even in first class! There were drinks and some snacks, like crunchy bars, and that was it. Oh, well. First World problems:)
The conference took place on the 6th floor of the Boston Museum of Science. The great thing about it is that it is very close to the Logan Airport. Since my flight was ahead of schedule, and the ride was less than 15 minutes, I only missed a small part of the keynote. The most difficult part of the whole day was staying awake, alert, and social while being up since 3 AM. I mostly succeeded :). I had several great conversations, made some meaningful comments, and reconnected with several of my former EDB colleagues. I probably could have stayed for the whole social hour after the conference and been on time for my flight, but I chose to spend this extra hour in the airport lounge and have a proper meal. Even though it was rush hour, it still took 15 min to get to the airport (most of the way it was an underground tunnel). No lines at security, great food in the lounge, free in-flight internet (now the norm with AA), early arrival, and a quick taxi ride home (I know by now that taxi is faster on tbd way back, and not that expensive).
I spent zero time in Boston, as expected. I am thinking – it’s sort of funny how you can actually go for a day to Boston with no luggage, no packing; just a regular backpack I take to work. I am not sure whether it was a justified spending of time and money yet, but we’ll see. I mostly went to support Tom, but he appears to be fine anyway. There was enough EBD people, which made up for the lack of external audience, and overall, he is just more relaxed about the whole thing than I :). Besides, he won’t be doing these conferences anymore; there is a new team coming next year.
Anyway, I guess it was good that I went. The event was different from mine, and it’s OK.
One more highlight from my Milwaukee trip. Anna promised me the best caramel apple shop ever, and she made sure to include that stop in our biking adventure.
I got the top right – Door County Cherry Dark
They packed it, and I took it home, because it’s not the kind of apple you can eat on the go!
And since Boris doesn’t care about caramel apples, it was all mine! It took me four days 🙂
I am in the final stretch of the conference prep, and there is not a 30-minute stretch when I wouldn’t need to do something conference-related, mostly answering never-ending emails and telegram messages. Boris arrived Friday evening and immediately jumped in to help me, for which I am immensely thankful. We spent Saturday on preparing the room host kits, ordering what else was left to order, and so on. In addition, I am not yet ready with my own presentation slides for the conference, and I realized I didn’t send the Prairie Postgres flyers to FedEx for printing.
Boris said that FedEx’s cutting of the badges (I printed a sample) was not good enough, and volunteered to print and cut them all. I believe it’s way more work, but I didn’t object.
The two non-conference related activities on Saturday included a med-length bike ride, and finally assembling the new coat rack:
Our plans for Sunday and Monday were the following: we had three tickets for Hillary Hahn matinee recital at the CSO (for Nadia, Anna and myself) and then we were all going to go to Milwaukee to visit (Boris haven’t been to Anna’s new house yet).
Nadia studies violin by Hilary Hahn’s books, and we tried to attend a recital last year, and it was cancelled; we finally made it this time.
(I forgot to get the third ticket until the last minute, so I ended up in the back)
This day was not without calamities: it was raining all morning, and I slipped on the Jarvis station steps. Twice. First time was OK, but the second time I 1) ripped my pants (I know it’s fashionable, but I do not like it!), 2) broke four nails, and 3) broke the iPhone screen, which I thought was unbreakable.
I called Boris from the train and asked him to put an extra pair of pants into my backpack, which he was going to bring to me after the concert, and I had to live with all the rest. (I went to do my nails yesterday, and I still need to find time to repair the screen!)
The concert was awesome, and dinner at Ryo Sushi was great as always, and we also went to Amorino, which probably was a mistake because the wait time ended up being 35 minutes.
Then we went to Union Station, boarded on time, but the departure was delayed due to technical issues, and we arrived in Milwaukee with a 1-hour-and-15-minute delay!
Still, the next day was great! Boris and I had chosen the bikes (Anna collected bikes from several friends so that we could choose the ones we were most comfortable with), and we set off for a 30-mile ride! My only regret is that I couldn’t take pictures along the way, and I hope to take them on my future visits.
I took a red-eye flight from Vancouver on Thursday night. It was not because I wanted to save one hotel night for my company, but because it was the only way to get home before Boris’ arrival on Friday afternoon.tio It’s not fun to depart at midnight, but even more so when I realized that there was no One World Lounge in that part of the airport. Same as in Montreal, they have domestic departures. international departures and US departures, which are none of the above :).
On top of that, the flight was delayed for over an hour, so by the time we finally departed, it was already 3 AM in Chicago, and we landed at about 7 AM local time, so I spent the whole day sleep walking, and still had to do some work at work, because I was out for four days
When I went to see my mom in the middle of the day, she didn’t have any pity for me, and just said “well sometimes, I can’t sleep at night”🤷🏻♀️. Somehow, I managed to do some work, ordered some food, went to Jewel Osco to buy the rest. unpacked, and even did a workout (because sitting in the airport for five hours doesn’t help the motion deprivation), and I also baked a creamcheese-rhubarb pie, and as always these days, sent a whole bunch of cconference- related ommunications, and all of this before Boris arrived.
And what’s next? Next is a final pre-conference stretch, which I will hopefully survive!
That was a very sweet conference :). During my free half-day on Monday, I walked to locate the venue and found it right by Gastown (the original settlement that made Vancouver, now a historic site). That’s where the Steam Clock is, and that’s also where I found an amazing coffee shop that sold gelato and all kinds of desserts. Since it was just a 2-minute walk from the conference venue, I went there multiple times, sent several people over there, and also brought several desserts to the conference.
Haselnut mousseMango mousseRaspberry mousse
I also shared with others a pear-haselnut tart, a raspberry-chocolate tart, and a strawberry cheesecake.
Lavenda-blueberry tart from another bakerySpeaker’s gifts were boxes of chocolateAnd my friend from Vienna brought me that!Also, since it was the 30th anniversary of Postgres, we had two gigantic birthday cakes!
This year, I felt way more “in the right place” than in Montreal last year. I do not know whether to blame the conference or myself :). Below are the pictures from the conference social media or taken by other people.
“DBA confessions”What is Postgres Compatible? with Jimmy Angelakos. Since this discussion was based on the results of a half-day event we ran in Riga, Jummy called it “Riga Consensus,” and I liked it!After “Women’s Breasfast”I am posing by the poster of my college together with his co-author.With Monica
I saw very little in Vancouver, but I liked what I saw. I liked the look and feel. I liked the bike lanes and the number of people biking to work early in the morning. I like that the traffic lights have a very short duration – that makes you less likely to try to cross on the red light. Somehow 60F which would feel chilly in Chicago, felt nice and warm in Vancouver. I would never dream to be outside in a t-shirt when it was just a little bit over 60 F in Chicago, but here it seemed fine. Moreover, I caught myself thinking that it felt more pleasan than 80F in Chicago on the day of my departure.
This half-day on Monday, when I wandered around, turned in different directions to explore the streets, and stopped at tiny coffee shops to sample desserts and gelato, was really magical. I felt it very clearly that being absolutely alone was the only way to completely relax, and that was a new feeling. I am OK attending events alone, and going placea alone, but in the past, I slways regretted when I visited a new place, and Boris was not with me to share these discoveries. This week in Vancouver, I felt differently; it felt increadibly good not needing to coordinate my moves with anybody. I saw an art gallery which was open; walked in, walked to the ticketing desk, read the current exhibits descriptions, changed my mind and walked out; all of this without checking on how a person next to me felt… and it was priceless.
Same as last year in Montreal, I am wondering why Canadian hotel rooms are of normal size? Even if you do not stay in the room much, it feels great to have space!
The hotel plazaThe night view from my window
There is a pool, a hot tub, and three separate gym rooms :), and there are many people starting from 5 AM (I was waiting to catch a moment when there would be no one around so that I could take a couple of pictures.
Monday afternoon was the only time, not just during this trip, but for many weeks, that I had all for myself. And it felt great.
My flight to Vancouver was departing at 6 AM, and usually I leave the house 3 hours before departure. At that time of the day, I could not rely on public transport, so I planned to Uber-ing there. However, I decided against leaving the house at 3 AM: I was moving West, so I would have a long day anyway, and also, the AA lounge opens at 5 AM. With all of that, and with hopes that the early morning ride would be faster than the average one hour, I set my alarm clock for 3:20 AM. I took a shower the night before, and my bags were packed, so it shouldn’t have been more than 20 min, and I don’t understand why it took me more than 40. And when I placed a request for Uber, it took them more than 15 minutes to locate the driver. I started to panic, but the driver told me we had plenty of time, and he was right – we arrived at Terminal 3 at 4:40 AM. However, there was another unexpected problem: there was a construction going on in Terminal 3, and the Priority entrance was closed! They only left TSA pre-checks, and there were plenty open, but I never got it, because Priority was always faster :).
Even though they do not ask you to take the liquids and electronics out of your bag anymore, the line was so long that it took the same time as the Uber ride! (Plus the time I was running around to figure out where to go without the priority entrance). I ran into the Lounge five minutes prior to boarding, but still had time to have breakfast:
I knew that was my only chance to eat until I landed in Vancouver, because they do not serve any food (even for purchase), even on the long flights, and I had two long flights with a very short connection in LA. So I did what I almost never do: I put an apple and an English muffin into my backpack. Well, at least they served coffee on both flights! (Some flights don’t do even that!)
I landed at Vancouver on time. I heard a lot of praise for Vancouver, but I was a little bit cautious about having high expectations. After all, people are going insane about San Francisco, and I like it “objectively,” as a tourist, but I do not love it.
I loved it. It clearly reminds me of Seattle: I know they are geographically close, but I was not even thinking about it st first. I can’t tell what I liked, it was just in the air.
On the train from the airport to the city center – it takes a little bit over 20 min
I was thinking, as I often do, why things are so normal everywhere else? Why can you just step out of the airport terminal, get on a high-speed train, and get to the city center in so many cities in the world, but not in Chicago? Or when will our Blue Line start to resemble these high-speed trains? Yes, I know that in many US cities, we do not have even that!
Hettie's Reflections 