In August I spoke at NYCPUG on Dumb Simple PostgreSQL Performance. The talk was well accepted and there was about 60 people in attendance. I have always enjoyed my trips to NYC but this is the first time I have taken a leisurely look at the city. I found myself enjoying a water front walk from 42nd, through the Highline, to Battery Park, all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge and over to Brooklyn to a great pub for dinner. What I enjoyed most about the walk outside of the 10 miles was the community that was present. I think it is easy to get jaded by "midtown" and all that is the tourist in that area. The hustle and bustle, the pollution and dirt of a city. The waterfront walk however reminded me very much of Seattle, there was green and water everywhere, very little litter, lots of families and bike riders. All around a wonderful day and it made me look forward to coming back to NYC again in March for the NYC PostgreSQL Conference.

Alas my travel schedule is just beginning. I will be speaking at the Seattle PostgreSQL User Group on Oct 1st. I will be giving the same talk as I did in NYC as it has been updated and always seems to be well received. If you are in town you should come join us:

1100 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle, WA 98102

I always enjoy Seattle and will also be making a side trip to Bellingham as it looks like I will be moving there soon. It will be sad to say good bye to the Columbia River Gorge but I am looking forward to the Mount Baker area as well as hopefully starting Vancouver, B.C. and Whatcom county PostgreSQL user groups.

Just three weeks after Seattle, I will be cross the pond to wonderful Ireland where it is bound to be cold, dark and wet. That's alright though as I will plan on staying from Oct 26th - Nov 3rd, allowing for a full trip of sight seeing. Of course I will be dropping by on Friday the 1st to speak on PostgreSQL Backups which reminds me that I need to update the talk for the new pg_dump features found in 9.3.