The final concert of Kaunas Jazz 2015

It was a not so early August Friday morning. I was still in my bed lazily snoozing my alarm clock and browsing the web on my smartphone. In these days the majority of us do it. But I could compare it to a morning newspaper reading - it's the only newspaper time I have, while still in bed.
The article that a famous pianist is coming to Lithuania for a jazz festival, made me jump out of bed, run to computer and order a ticket. I didn't read properly when it's going to happen, I just knew that the prices of the tickets will go up very quickly or there might be no tickets at all if I delay my purchase. Well, as it has turned out, the concert is going to happen in December and that famous pianist is Omar Sosa. The first piece of him that I listened to was Toridanzon and it made me fall in love with his music. The very first notes of it covered my skin in goose bumps and carried my imagination away to a sudden summer rain with thunder. And every time I listed to it it still does so. So, there is no surprise that I somehow jumped out of the bed and was in the process of buying an expensive ticket.
Yesterday, the 18th of December was a day of his concert for Kaunas Jazz festival final concert of the year. I left from work earlier, rode to Vilnius(even stuck at the traffic jam) and there I was sitting in the front rows waiting for the magic to start. Usually in concerts, a pianist would be dressed in a black suit and even if his hands would become crazy in some moments, all his posture posture would remain straight and the rest of the body would be calm. When you come to a concert of Omar Sosa, you have to leave your attitude at home.
He walked into scene wearing white robes and somewhat futuristic hat, carrying a candle and some sort of an amulet in his hands. Some little rituals he made at the keyboard section(I don't know how to call a set of grande piano with 2 more large electric piano keyboards and one smaller one) and then he touched the keys. There was the magic happening right in front of me ten meters away. Other musicians walked into the scene one after another bringing a new musical layer for the song they were playing. Note after note it made me believe that I'm sitting somewhere else but the concert hall in Lithuania. It could have been Cuba or other warm island, showered in a light rain interchanging with the rays of sun. Extremely long musical pieces combining latin rhythms(of cha cha cha, son montuno), wild jazz and nostalgic piano solos nailed the audience to their seats, while the musicians were going wild on the scene. I admit I wanted to jump and start dancing to those rhythms. But being jailed in the middle of the seat row made it impossible to do so. And while this was a perfect place for listening and observation it was the worst place in this concert for me.
In this two hour concert I forgot that it was the middle of December outside, just a week before Christmas, that there was no snow outside, it was windy and foggy with a light drizzle. The days were short and it was dark outside and our streets were lit with cheap Christmas decorations. No, my heart became warm not because of them, but because of the light I found in the music that evening.

Report on BuildStuffLT 2015

The BuildStuffLT'15 is over and it's time to wrote my impressions about it. Again. Last year I attended this conference for the first time and absolutely loved it. At the end of January I bought an early bird ticket and waited eagerly for it almost whole year.
Last year the organizers of the event gave a present of personalized t-shirt design to everyone. This year there were cartoonists waiting for everyone to take a seat in front of them. On the third day their outcome was a long wall of portraits of attendees. If your brain started melting, you could switch from listening to various topics to doing something more fun - playing an escape type game with oculus rift, riding a one wheel, test your skills in typing or gather a team for a space flight game and win a raspberry pi(which I did!), watch the magician perform the tricks on others or you, write an algorithm to optimize stocks buying/selling strategy - getting involved in each of the activity - made you eligible to compete for various and quite serious prizes. Of course, at any time there was plenty of pop corn, coffee, apples. Anywhere you could meet and talk to the famous(and not so) speakers, ask them questions. Yes, they are rock stars of our trade, but they don't behave like ones hiding in a VIP lounge. The organizers really try hard to make us feel really comfortable - like at home - buy providing us with slippers. And on the third day I did enjoy them so much.
Topics varied from testing to thorough guide on aeronautics history, but the top ones were about functional programming, micro services and Docker. Physically it's impossible to attend them all, as there are five announcements in parallel. But you can watch them later online.
So what are these rock stars that blessed us with their knowledge? To name a few, Uncle Bob Martin, Michael Feathers, Venkat Subramian, Oren Eini(aka Ayende), with Kelvin Henney, Mark Rendle, Dylan Beattie giving both valuable and entertaining announcements as always.
Truth is that 90 percent of our tasks at work are very mundane and similar, and we rarely get to feel like hackers, ninjas and knights there. This conference made us feel like ones, breath in the fresh air of new, complicated stuff. It made us feel important and special. And finally it inspired us - to not forget who we are, to learn new stuff, apply it and simply be better programmers.

A lesson on history

It's past middle of November and it's BuildStuffLT conference happening again. I'm in Vilnius again, but this time I'm there under different conditions. My friends I was staying with last year moved out to Norway and Kaunas, and now I am staying in a hotel. And it is good to pretend being a tourist in your own country. I found a following booklet in my hotel room, which made me think for a while:

Was I given incorrect information in my history lessons? Between the first and second World Wars when the district of Vilnius was occupied by Poland, the capital of Lithuania was Kaunas for twenty years, being the second biggest city of Lithuania now. Maybe those twenty years is not enough to earn the title of historical capital, who knows. Anyway, this post is not about the wars of two major cities in country, or maybe... Good news is that, this year Christmas tree in Kaunas will be the best Christmas tree of Lithuania. You may ask, how do I know? Well, a long track of records of winning this competition. Book your cheap flight/bus tickets to Kaunas for December. I hear rumors that this year the Christmas tree will be a smart one, that is, connected to internet and similar stuff.

Riga's circus miracle

Second and the last day in Riga. Neighbors in hostel were partying till 6am. They didn't bother me a lot, but made sure I woke up before alarm clock. The other sound I heard in the morning was the one of the pouring rain. Weather forecasters were not wrong this time and I started planning in my head where to hide, but not totally waste my time till 5pm - when my bus leaves. Yesterday evening I went to cinema, so, I didn't to go there second day in a row. And it's not because I didn't like it - the movie was good, as good as the movie about James Bond can be. They didn't warn me that ads before movie are half an hour long. And it's not only movie trailers. I saw very little of those. Shouldn't the ticket cost less if I'm watching their ads? But, no, it was more expensive than in Lithuania.
So, today I decided to try something different. And much more expensive than cinema! Guess what!? Riga's circus! Established in 1888 the posters were boasting about unique show in Europe "Gigantic Fountain Show". Can you imagine the circus floor transforming during the show and making incredible fountains synced with acrobats and clowns performances. Add lasers to this and you have a spectacular sight. Not all performances were water-themed, if I were a circus manager I would have pushed it to the limits. But still, it truly made me laugh, and awe and clench my knuckles for those acrobats on the rope with tied eyes. And the last thirty seconds of water and laser effects are the best - it's hard to describe what I have seen- but at that moment I knew I wasn't feeling sorry for those 20 euros I paid. Ok, I wasn't thinking about money in that moment at all.

Sounds of Riga

This is definitely the best title describing today. But first things first.
I woke up with a hungry stomach, slight headache and strange feeling in my abdominal muscle. The last one can be explained by a workout for abs I did yesterday. First two didn't have a reason, but could be easily fixed(and that can't be said about the third sensation).
The girl at the reception pointed me at the direction of pancakes when asked about breakfast place. Looking at the map, it seemed that I would have to do some leg work before my meal. But maps are deceiving, and I was at the food place in no time. Self-serviced I ate almost three pancakes, reasonably priced. You can find it around Škúnu street.
In November on weekend 10am Riga's old town is quite deserted. But that's just a perfect. Especially if you find a cello player next to Riga's Dome. He was playing there for at least few hours in a cold weather - respectful. I couldn't last for five minutes without my gloves. At 12pm there was a short organ concert at the Dome. Powerful, scary and that kind of organ music can be, but I liked the middle peace - the waltz. It was so unexpected to hear it being played with organ, and yet the sound seemed transparent, fragile and nothing scary at all.
You can find a lot of museums in Old Town with great exhibitions, but to fully enjoy them - one needs a lot of time - to read through descriptions. But mostly tourists are wasting their money by running through all the things in display. On the other hand there are not many people who can handle so much information at a short period of time.
At the foot of Bastejkalns I found a saxophone player. The hill was covered with maple leaves in perfect shade of yellow - it looked like a hill of gold. I found my cup of cocoa there too. I was going back and forth in the narrow streets of Old Riga, sometimes looking up at the sky, at the rooftops - it was cold, the wind from the Daugavas river was freezing - the wind proof jacket was helping, but my jeans - not. Finding a place where to sneak in - was it a bar, a shop or a gallery - that's how I can describe my walking around. But the old town is small. Cozy, beautiful, but small - you just end up on the same streets over and over again.
The final piece of music was Krishna chanting. All day I was hearing different solo instruments - and finally, an "orchestra" of human voices and drums.
It was getting dark, I was getting hungry - I headed toward my home - hostel. Suddenly there was a loud noise coming from the sky. The screams of crows Were chaotically filling the space between the rooftops. I looked up. The view was like from A.Hitchcocks movie "The birds" or second part of "Night Guard". One could barely call it music, but it definitely was a part of today's soundtrack.

Best bus ride ever

How far one can travel for 1 euro? On rear occasions this can take you as far as Riga if your starting point is a capital of Lithuania. Technically, you need a half of euro to get there. The other half is for getting back. But don't start jumping and clapping your hands out of joy - you need to have a special discount code too to get this price. I ran 10 kilometers to earn it and not really knowing whether I'll be going or not I bought this super cheap ticket on Lux Express bus. And when I made it to the Riga, I can say that I totally loved it. I got more leg space than on cheap airlines plane. I plugged in my earphones and watched two movies on the screen mounted on the back of the seat in front of me. I could even take my laptop, plug it in and do some work, if I needed. And the free wifi is there too.
My hostel I'm staying in gives welcome shots of Latvian national drink - Rigas Balsams. I made a friend from Denmark-China. We are staying in same room and my bed is named Quito. I had to look it up - the capital of Equador - definitely worth putting it on my travel destinations list.

Autumn in Raudonė

 We don't have Halloween tradition in Lithuania. Young people could argue, but all the parties they have on the 31th of October is no ancient history, it's been brought to us by television and emigrants. What we do have is All Saints day. I couldn't say that it is celebrated in Lithuania, but we do have traditions regarding this day. The tradition is to visit cemetery and take care of the graves of those who have left, to light up the candle. In deed in the evening of this day Lithuanian cemeteries become the seas of the candles. Spooky but heart-warming at the same time.
Coincidence but at the same time all the trees light up as candles as well. Red, orange, but mostly in yellow and they slowly fade into the brown. At this time of year I like to drive the car and observe all this magical beauty. And if I have to go to my parent's home I choose a road with a good scenery - it is slower, but way more beautiful than a highway. It's the same road I rode with  bicycle this summer. There are few castles along this road and I didn't visit Raudonė during my bike trip. It's not that I was intending to fix this from the beginning. When I saw whole hill covered in yellow leaves I just could not help, but stop there. Like a hill covered with gold. I wonder how it would look like if the leaves were all red.