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.
We had to replace several speakers because they either didn’t get visas or required sponsorship for their travel. While the latter one was no one fault, the visa situation was extremely annoying. People applied for visas way in advance, and they should not have wait for many months. I am still mad that it happened!
Additionally, there were several mini -calamities, like there were three speakers who forgot to register, and there was one speaker who’s flight was delayed multiple times, so he ended up arriving to the venue nine minutes before his talk! Our head of the CfP Committee was pacing the hallway with the phone in her hand watching for the speaker’s messages. I ran up to the registration desk and checked him in, so that he could have his badge ready. He made it!
I should also mention that our keynote was at risk until days before the event, but this was also happily resolved.
I know, I know… I know that people do not click the links, especially if this link leads you to several hundred pictures. I know, I know…
Still, I can’t select just a couple of pictures; I can’t even select a dozen or two. I love them all! I just went through the “everything”, which is around 900 photos, and painfully selected just about 300, and that’s the link I am posting here.
I am smiling, going through the photos. Although this time around, I was able to listen to some sessions, it was still a drop in the sea, and it brings me incredible joy to see an engaged audience at each session, everyone listening and asking questions; a great hallway track. Love seeing new faces, love seeing interest and curiosity!
Looks like we are rolling! I had tons of positive feedback about the conference; there were many great talks, and it looks like there were no major hiccups (although we will know next week!)
Several times a day, I think I should write down everything that happens over just a couple of hours: how many conference-related messages I receive, what they are about, and how many responses I need to send out.
It couldn’t be further from “me doing it all alone,” nothing like that! Many people are helping me and handling huge portions of the work, including catering, sending sponsor information, sending messages to attendees, managing social media, and more!
Still… each time I look at the phone or open my laptop to write something personal, I see yet another thing I need to take care of, respond to, or plan.
The conference is just a week away, and I can’t believe it. And there are so many things to do – still!
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
While explaining my choice of vendor for our conference merch, I was telling everyone that I would rather order from a local vendor than from “an unnamed Chinese company.” Alas, when it came to ordering lanyards, I gave up because I could not find a local company that would be open to the design I had in mind, and even non-local, but at least US-based companies I came across didn’t allow me to build the design I wanted. On top of that, we had a lanyard sponsor, so I was under pressure to make it perfect without overspending :).
That’s how I ended up with a Chinese company on Amazon, and I instantly liked the way they allowed me to change each part of the design to adjust the color, fonts, and all other pieces. They even sent me the proof. Since I still wanted to see the real product before ordering 200+, I started by ordering 50 lanyards and paid for expedited delivery (it was still within the budget). When the package arrived, I realized that the sponsor’s logo was not as visible as I thought it would be (it was a difficult choice of the lanyard color, and actually, the sponsor themselves approved). I know that blue is a difficult color, and it often doesn’t look the same in reality as it does on the screen. However, this time I couldn’t even say it looked different: it was just a subtle difference in shade that made the logo less visible than I would have liked. I reached out to the sponsor, and they came up with a white logo that would work.
I quickly put together a new order, but when I was ready to submit, I saw that it didn’t offer express delivery, and a regular delivery could be late. I became a little bit desperate because I didn’t have time for one more experiment with another company. Then I realized I had a human email address because a real person had sent me the first design proof, and I emailed him. The next morning, he replied: apologies, the person who is in charge of express shipping was on vacation, but now he is back, and you should be able to choose it when placing the order.
I thanked him and placed the order, and noted that I needed a design proof. When the proof arrived the next day, I saw that it was using the previous design, which I already knew would not work. Since I already received a shipping label notification, I immediately replied: “That’s a wrong design! The logo should be all white! Please make sure this big order has the correct design!” They replied: so sorry, my mistake! I will start working on the new design immediately!
The next morning, I received the correct design and approved it, and a week later, the package arrived. I didn’t have to acknowledge its arrival. After all, the sale was conducted through Amazon, but I felt we had already built some connection, so I emailed them back: “The lanyards arrived, and they look great!” They replied:
That’s really great. Thank you for your sincere feedback. Wish your event all the best.
At that moment, I realized that’s not an abstract Chinese company anymore 🙂
It was a good event, although I had a feeling it was too brief: not much time before or during the breaks. I was hoping to have more talks with the fellow organizers, friends, and sponsors, and I simply didn’t have enough time, especially because I only skipped one session; otherwise, I was actively listening.
My talk was very well received.
It turned out that Boris mentioned at the last Helsinki PUG that there would be an opportunity to have the Query Optimization signed by two of the three authors, and several people approached us with paper copies. 😀
I attended several incredibly interesting talks, and I am planning to follow up with some people because I want to explore more of what they are doing.
Three out of four PG DATA Org committee members presented at Nordic!
After the conference was over, those who didn’t leave to catch their flights went for drinks at the hotel bar. Boris and I wanted to take a couple of people whom we knew and who were in Helsinki for the first time, for one more round of Finnish authentic food, and we walked to the Konstan Möljä restaurant. Since my friend Zoya introduced us to this place, we’ve loved it! Our guests also liked it!
This year, Nordic PG Day was in Helsinki, which is why I submitted the talk, and I would actually go even if my talk won’t be accepted:). However, it is still a very busy time because all the other days are working days.
I arrived on Sunday, and Boris and I went to the Baroque concert in the Old Church. They performed a Resurrection Story by Heinrich Schütz. It was very interesting, definitely something I had never heard before, so I count it as a positive experience, even though it was difficult to stay awake after the long flight 🙂
On Monday morning, I went to VALO co-working, and as always, it was very welcoming, and the way their environment is set up really helps to focus on work.
In the evening, we went to the speakers’ dinner at Zetor. I passed this place dozens of time, and never knew that it is considered a big touris attraction. I didn’t have time to take pictures of the interior, because I was talking to people all the time, so the pictures are from the restaurant website:)
I think we were sitting in this section
I took some pictures of the food we were served. The salmon soup was not the one I was expecting, so this was an experience rather than a success:
The raindeer meat was awesome, as well as the dessert.
Boris and I went back home at the first opportunity, and I do not know how people who went to the bar afterwards, could participate in the conference the next day – this remains a mystery!
Hettie's Reflections 