Tag: conference

ADBIS 2025

ADBIS was the first conference I ever participated in. In this blog, I talked about ADBIS 1996, but there were four total conferences I participated in.

In 1993, I just sat there and listened, pretending I understood something.

In 1994, I had a chance to give a “short presentation,” which was supposed to be something like lightning talks nowadays: one slide, five minutes of talk. However, the session chair was either unaware of how that was supposed to work or didn’t trust me to be able to say something legibly. He just said a couple of sentences about me and my work and waved me back to my seat.

It was 1994, and I was not yet Hettie you all know, so I returned to my seat. The unexpected consequence of this disaster was that almost all of the “nobilities” approached me at the reception and told me how sorry they were that I was not given a chance to say a word. I became exceptionally popular on the spot, to the point that I didn’t have time to eat all the delicious food at the reception. And finally, in 1995, I had a chance to actually present the 20-minute talk, which was accepted by an international CfP committee, and was well-received at the conference.

That’s all to say, that this September, I am going to present a two-hour tutorial at ADBIS 2025! I am excited and a little bit nervous, but more excited :).

Beautiful People

During the conference, I had a chance to catch up with some people whom I do not see very often, and I also met several new amazing people. I was really impressed with the students and recent graduates. All of them were so enthusiastic, so eager to learn new things, ready to participate in all discussions, to volunteer! Truly amazing!

These students from Kenya are so sharp! And so fun to hang out with 🙂

A picture from Women’s Breakfast

pgConf.dev

I am very happy with this conference. The last time I attended this event was in 2012, and it was before it was rebranded. It was the first Postgres conference I attended, I hardly knew anybody, and didn’t understand most of the talks (and it felt like everyone was smarter than me!) Just to be clear, there were plenty of talks at this conference that I also couldn’t understand, I am just not afraid to say that

I will post more in my professional blog, but also wanted to wave my hand here – I didn’t disappear, all is good!

Pre- conference: Postgres Extensions Day

I didn’t plan to attend, but was convinced by the organizer, and didn’t regret!

First Day In Montreal

The only way to be on time with American Airlines is to take the first morning flight on Sunday! I am saying it for the second time within the past two months! Also, that was the only way to get to the airport from my house in 35 minutes!

Hotel Alt in Montreal:

The conference didn’t even start yet, and I already had so many interesting conversations, and learned about so many additional events which will happen during this week! I regret that I didn’t check all of them out earlier and didn’t sign up for some of the activities. My excuse is that the last couple of months were all bloody fights, and making sure the conference would be a great event, regardless of these fights. I hope that next year will be better, though! At least now I know what to expect and will look for the opportunities.

PG Day Chicago

I’ve stolen photos from every blog post about our conference :), and I hope nobody minds.

It was an amazing event! I am so glad I didn’t give up and was able to deliver a good event for my community!

Continue reading “PG Day Chicago” →

Last Wednesday

Keeping going through the last week. I hosted two conference attendees, plus Anna for one of the nights. My first houseguest, B., was a conference speaker from Madagascar. She is an absolutely outstanding woman, and I want ot tell more about her in the near future. That was her first time coming to the US, and she had a 22-hour long journey with two connections. I told her I would meet her at ORD, because it is very difficult to navigate this airport even when you are an experienced traveler.

Her flight arrival time was 7:30 AM, and I took the L-train there, because everything runs relatively normally on a weekday morning, so it was a 4 AM wake-up, leaving the house at 5:30. The airport was as quiet as it could possibly be, and we saw each other right away. I took her to the office where we left her luggage, and then to the Architectural tour, because Wednesday was the only opportunity for her to see something!

One of the conference attendees took the same boat tour with us, and then we went to the Art Institute. I didn’t plan to be at work on that day, but one of the customers kept having issues, and I was the only person who could fix them. I asked Igor to take over my Chicago guide responsibilities, and rushed to the office to save the world. My second houseguest, L. was arriving at 4 PM, and we calculated that with the luggage and the passport control, she would be at my house by 6 PM, so I had plenty of time. But then I was stuck with saving the world, and her flight arrived earlier, and by some miracle, her luggage came out very fast as well.

With all that, she waited for us for twenty minutes! At least, the weather was warm on Wednesday, and she just sat on her luggage in the sun reading a book. Nobody wanted to go out for dinner, so I made a quick meal and went to bed.

The next day, the actual work had begun.

Our NFP Updates

It is now official: a not-for-profit that I founded with two other brave women is now a recognized Postgres NPO and is proudly present on the postgresql.org website.

That means we will have fewer battles to fight and more time to focus on real work to benefit the community.

There is a conference week ahead, and two million things are still not done, but I see the light 🙂

What I Was Doing Yesterday…

DevOpsDay Chicago 2025

Hotel Dena

I loved the hotel, all its retro decor, my room, and the gym. The only thing that I strongly disliked was food, breakfast specifically, but I already lamented about it.

Now, some nice pictures.

Continue reading “Hotel Dena” →