I Don’t Know Why

For a while, I was trying to write something which would make sense, but it did not work. Several times, I started writing something like, “I can’t understand why some people think.” But there are too many things that I can’t understand. I am very sorry for all my friends in Russia who lived in an emotional hell for many years but especially for the past seven months. But for those who were saying that “it’s not so straightforward,” or for those who all this time pretended that “life goes as usual,” I do not have any words of sorrow. Why just now? Why all these cries about “not letting them go”?

I am not talking about those who decided “to defend the Motherland.” I still do not understand why these people think that their country is equal to the current government, and there are many other things I do not understand.

It was a very difficult day for me because I lost it at some point and allowed myself to worry about the situation, about how many lives would have to be lost until we see the blue sky again. My presentation went well, but I was hiding for most of the day from other social activities.

I will try to be social for this night, though. Most of my peers do not understand how I feel. And they are under no obligations. I know there are many sorrows in the world.

In NYC

I am in NYC, attending one of the most important conferences of the year. I have a talk, and I am a room host for several sessions. And everything that happens at the war front is a dark background.
I can’t be fully involved in this spectacular professional celebration, and I feel so weird feeling like I am the only person among these 200 people with this dark background… and I still have to do all the conference-related social media.

Flood Damage

The next day after I left for Europe, Chicago was hit by a heavy storm, and four inches of water dropped over the Northern part of the city, including Rogers Park. Both garden units in our building, the storage rooms and the gym, were flooded.
Somehow, I was not included in the original email chain and learned it all postfactum.
The damage is massive, and I have no idea when everything will be repaired:

Crossing The Border

I wrote this post yesterday and forgot to post it. I am not pretending I didn’t suspect what was going to happen, but still, what happened today, didn’t happen yet….

A very disturbing thing happened when I went through the border control in Helsinki on my way back. First, I was happy to see they now have the same machines as in London, where you can scan your chipped passport. Then I saw that I still had to present the passport to the officer. On my way back, I never ever encountered any questions. This time, the office started to scroll through my passport pages and asked me which countries I had visited and whether I was in Russia. Just to be clear, since I am a naturalized citizen, my country of origin is indicated in my US passport, but still!

The office kept scrolling, found the stamps from 2019, and looked at me inquisitively. I said – I haven’t been there since 2019. He kept scrolling and finally said: good; I see your entrance stamp. Because if you visited Russia at that time, we would have to question you (and he waved in an unspecified direction).

It was very disturbing but understandable. I know I have my share of guilt with everything happening, and it’s in Finland where I feel it even more.

And since I am posting it today, not yesterday, I want to reiterate – we stand with Ukraine! I saw these flags in the Southern part of State Street, quite unexpectedly:

There is propaganda, and then there is this

Today, Russian State Duma changed the penal code to increase penalties for conscripts dodging draft, put in penalties for willingly surrendering to the enemy and reviving Soviet-era penalties against “marauding” (while also adding what would count as extenuating circumstances, which includes participating in the armed conflicts). And there are also supposed to be referenda on joining the Russian Federation in separatist-controlled parts of Donesk and Luhansk oblasti (the self-proclaimed People’s Republics), as well as the Ukrainian territories Russia occupied since the start of the war. The logic seems to be that, if Ukraine continues its advance, they would be attacking Russian territories, which would justify putting the country on war footing and partial mobilization. (As many people, including some pro-war commentators, have pointed out, the Russian Federation simply doesn’t have the infrastructure and the personal for the full-scale, World War II style national mobilization – then again, I can’t entirely rule out the Russian government trying it anyway).

The whole thing is flimsy as hell – but again, so is a lot of the spin coming out of Russian state media.

Continue reading “There is propaganda, and then there is this” →

Trying To Beat The Cold Weather In Vienna

We toured the Schonbrunn Castle (and decided not to tour the gardens). Any photography inside is strictly prohibited, which felt surprisingly good 🙂 – we could focus on looking at the rooms!

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More Travel

Thinking about this week in Spring when we had both Nordic PG Day and PG Day Paris, I can feel the difference – there was too much travel for me this time! I didn’t need to travel anywhere for Nordic because I was already in Helsinki, and there was a one-day gap between Nordic and Paris. And now, I had to travel to Amsterdam and then skip a part of Uptime to travel to Vienna. And I was so tired! I will never do it again! Probably, I should have just traveled to Amsterdam directly from Chicago.

The PG Day Austria went really well. Although there was no emerging dessert table, the conference venue was splendid, and the talks were great.

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More On Amsterdam And Uptime

Both conferences’ schedules were packed, and there was not enough time to see the cities where the conferences took place. It was fine for Amsterdam because we visited it more than once, and also, we had several free hours on the day of arrival. We walked around, bought some souvenirs, and tried to find where we stayed in July 2019. I can’t believe it was a little bit over two years ago – it feels like another epoch.

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Uptime 2022

Pictures from the conference

The World of Data

Uptime 2022 by Aiven was the best-organized conference I ever attended! all the talks I attended were very interesting, my only two regrets are that 1) I could not attend two tracks at the same time and 2) I had to leave earlier to attend PG Day Austria.

The recordings of the presentations will be available soon, and here are some of the pictures I took during the event.

Floor Drees was everywhere at once and made the conference a success

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Hotel Jakarta in Amsterdam

For this conference, the organizers booked the rooms for speakers at Hotel Jakarta, which is located very close to the conference venue. It’s the most unusual hotel I ever stayed!