Procrastination can be a virtue, when it saves you from having to do ultimately doomed work altogether. I like writing about topics like lazy disk writing because I personally identify with them. But sometimes putting things off ends up costing you, and it can kill you too. We’re now reaching that point with the fall PostgreSQL conferences. The costing you part that is.
If you haven’t booked a hotel yet for Postgres Open, during mid September in Chicago…starting on Monday the conference rate is gone. You already missed early bird registration, but if you poke around, you might find some discounts still available. Like several of the conferences this fall, there are some great bargains to be had in both the sessions and the training classes at this conference. Compared with the typical commercial database conference and training, this stuff is quite cheap. Even if you ignore me, wait until the last minute, and have to pay full price.
#PGWest is at the end of September in San Jose. That you still have some time left for; schedule isn’t up yet.
Surge is in Baltimore that same week…early bird is gone for that already too, but you might still get the hotel discount. Maybe; get on that already if you want to go. Surge is near where I live, yet it’s the only conference I’m mentioning here I can’t make it to. It just wouldn’t be right for me to have an conference that’s easy to attend I guess, I need to do my talks completely frantic after various degrees of airport mayhem. Baltimore is also famous for being a place people go to die. We have a Poe house and museum, most notable because it was here old Edgar passed away at mysteriously. This tradition continues to current day television, with TV shows like “Homicide: Life in the Streets” and “The Wire” all being set here. The area where Surge is being held at? Nice part of town; you’ll have to wander away from there if you want the true Baltimore experience.
Speaking of places filled with mayhem, the PostgreSQL Conference Europe this year is in Amsterdam. You still have nearly a month left to get the early rates for that conference, but who knows what will happen to travel prices by then. This would be a good one to book early too.
The last of my conference visits this year is PGBR, held in early November in São Paulo, Brazil. I’m excited to be seeing a whole new group of people at this conference, while making my first visit to South America. I was also excited to see the conference is the day after Brazil’s Dia de Finados, “Day of the Dead”. In addition to reminding me of Baltimore and being an awesome horror movie, this gives me a chance while I’m there to celebrate the memory of things I managed to procrastinate working on until they were dead, nicely avoiding them. I intend to pay my tribute to Sun and Solaris this year, which are of course dead now that Oracle has ruined them. MySQL is still flopping around, but the migrations off it are accelerating under its new malevolent overlords; not dead yet, but getting there. I know they’re not as into the whole skull mask thing in Brazil like they are for this holiday in Mexico, but I’m going to keep a hopeful eye out for one that reminds me of Larry Ellison. Trying to kill off Oracle is one thing I never procrastinate.