The Q Continuum

Composing

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:22:00 +0000

I've done a fair bit of writing in my time. I had kept a bibliography on the web at one point, but that page needs serious updating to cover the recent things I've done. Most specifically, I haven't included the two books on Small Business Server that I wrote in 2005 and 2008 on that list. I also maintain three blogs (this one being my personal blog, my technical blog, and my MVP blog) , and contribute to my company's blog and the blog over at Third Tier.

I don't have a complete list, but I've also been writing music for nearly 25 years as well. The most notable compilation of those efforts is the album available over on iTunes (along with other digital distribution venues, but the iTunes link is the only one I have handy). One of my early blog efforts was a venue to share my musical creations and to try to get me in the habit of writing music on a regular basis (similar to what my brother has been doing of late).

I'm also in talks with my publisher about a couple of possible upcoming technical titles, even though I swore off major technical writing projects for a while after finishing the SBS 2008 Unleashed book. What can I say, I must just be a sucker for writing.

Which makes my announcement (well, more of a statement of fact, really) that I've been working on a series of mystery books for several year not really all that surprising. No, this isn't any sort of press release that I've inked a deal with anyone to release the first book in the series or anything like that. It is, in fact, an admission. Not an admission of guilt, but an admission that any other writer will understand, an admission that it's not just a passion I have for writing. It probably borders more on a sickness, but it is what it is. But the only cure I know of for this affliction is to succumb to the illness and write. In this case a blog post, but bigger things are afoot.

You see, earlier this morning, a little after 2am to be precise, I awoke from a dream with a major plot point for my mystery series firmly planted in my head. I often will drift off to sleep while running story details or character backgrounds in my mind while awaiting the sandman. Sometimes I dream about the stories, sometimes the dreams provide ideas that I can work into the stories. Tonight's dream was the latter.

I finally realized how serious I am about actually crafting these mental notions into an actual publication when I got out of bed, came upstairs, made notes about the elements of the dream that so nicely packaged up a critical point in the series (this particular item doesn't actually come to play until Book 3 in the series, but now knowing that it's coming in Book 3, I can fully develop the set of characters impacted in Books 1 and 2) and then spent the next 90 minutes freewriting about the angle that had come to mind. And saved those thoughts. To a file that is stored in multiple locations. Just in case.

You see, I've had previous "Eureka!" moments regarding these stories that I have failed to notate anywhere, and those ideas ended up leaving my little grey cells, apparently never to return again. But not this idea. No, this element wraps up so many relationships that I was honestly having trouble putting together, so I couldn't risk losing it. And in the act of digits pressing keys, my brain launched into a free association activity that gave me dozens of new elements to include in each of the 4 books that I've outlined thus far. Yes, it's not bad enough that I've got this idea for just one book - I had to go and actually not only want to do a series, but actually came up with enough reasonable scenarios to get my protagonist into that the first four books came pretty easily. Well, the overall story outlines anyway. And now that I have the arc that ties them all together, well, it's bringing me several steps closer to actually tackling this project seriously.

Although, since I've been working on this project in my head for at least six years, I guess it hasn't just been a passing fancy. While I've always enjoyed reading mysteries, I never really got the idea that I could actually write one until sometime in 2003. Back then, I was working with a group of people who had a fondness for a particular card game, and we would regularly meet at lunch and play. Sometimes we would order food for delivery so we'd have longer to play since we wouldn't have to wait for people to go get lunch before we could start playing. [And for those of you reading this who were in that group, it's been WAY too long since we've played, and we need to get the gang together again!] One afternoon, I posed the question about what would happen if someone died while we were playing (no, I don't have a morbid streak, and there wasn't anyone at the table I particularly wanted dead), which then turned into "what if someone were murdered while sitting at the game table?" The next natural progression was "and what if this all happened in outer space" and I was hooked. I started penning this missive at work (hey, I had received word that my team had been outsourced and since my position as manager wasn't needed at the outsourcing firm I was getting laid off, so my motivations may have been a little different) and while the story came out OK, I clearly needed to work on my writing skills. I fully intended to get back to that story, but my next position took all kinds of time, and then after I started my own business, well, you can imagine what happened to "spare time" after that.

But while attending my 20-year reunion with my high school class, I had an encounter with a former classmate that planted the seed for a completely different kind of story, one that fit in with another idea that had been germinating in the back of my mind for a while. What if someone got murdered at a high school reunion? (really, I'm not that morbid, and again I have no death wish for anyone I attended classes with. seriously!) And what if the suspected killer was another attendee at the reunion? Yeah, I know the formula had been done before, but this chance encounter at my reunion gave me the twist that would keep a story based on that completely different from the others that have incorporated that setting. Only that couldn't be the first book featuring those characters, they'd actually have to be introduced in a previous book, so this notion immediately became the idea behind Book 2. And if I really wanted to make it happen, I'd have to come up with an idea for Book 1.

Eventually, the storyline for Book 1 did come around, but not without lots of effort. And while I was working out details for Book 1 (I ended up purchasing a software package to help keep track of storylines and characters and notes), the inspirations for Books 3 and 4 came along as well.

Have I penned a single word that will ultimately end up in one of these books I have envisioned? Sure, and you've seen most of them here. In this post. Common words. Like "and" and "or" and "the" and "a" and "them" and "here." Have I written the hook for the first book? Yep. Multiple times. Still trying to get it exactly like I want it. Part of that will be determined when I decide if this will be told in 1st person or 3rd person, but the jury is still out on that call. I have written the cliffhangers to end Books 1 and 2, but will probably revise those multiple times before I submit any kind of manuscript. I've also got a solid working outline for the first book, although I need to do some research to nail down a few plot elements in there. The second book outline is fairly complete, but still in its infancy. The overall story arc for the third book, and the first four in truth, is now much more clear, and Book 4 has finally come more into focus as well.

So now that I've decided that I'm really going to pursue this notion of converting at least one of these stories into a novel, I'm going to have to get serious about it. Which means doing actual research. Talking with actual people about these crazy notions in my head and seeing if I'm even close to on track with some of these ideas. Carving out time to enter all of this information into my software. Getting everything in order so that the only thing left to do is actually string together words in such a way that the reader gets from Point A to Point B along the line I've laid out for them, and enjoying the journey along the way.

Can't be that hard, can it?

Observations

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:36:00 +0000

This week, I saw two great examples of how NOT to do things and the consequences that came down as a result. Ironically, both came from the world of collegiate athletics. One example you may be familiar with as the story has made national attention in sports media, the other example was witnessed by only a few people and shared with only a few others. But both incidents are really, really good examples, and since I try to learn from the mistakes of others (and not just from the myriad of mistakes I make all on my own), I'm certainly going to take these to heart.

Example #1: Texas Tech vs. Mike Leach

Now, I'm not taking a particular side on this issue, simply because I do not have all the facts and thus cannot take all factors into consideration. I don't know exactly what transpired between coaching staff and player, nor was I a fly on the wall in the meeting where the decision to fire Leach was handed down. What I can say with almost absolute certainty is that the entire thing was handled poorly, and unfortunately Texas Tech has pretty much lost any credibility in the collegiate sports arena. There are so many ways this situation could have been handled, and I mean more than just the decision to place Leach on suspension or to fire him, that just about ANYTHING that the school had done differently would have been better than what has transpired. Sure, Tech may have been looking for an excuse, ANY excuse, to terminate the official relationship between school and coach, but is the damage that's been done to the football program at Tech worth it? How many recruits that had committed to Tech, or were considering Tech, because of Leach are going to keep that commitment? How many current players, especially players who, right or wrong, think that Leach was mistreated by the school are going to look at other options where they might not have before? And what quality coaching prospect is going to even consider filling the sudden vacancy left in the program?

Some would say that this should serve as a "wake up call" to collegiate football coaching staffs. I think this is a "wake up call" for anyone who thought about affiliating themselves with the Texas Tech athletic program. If there is indeed documented evidence that proves that Leach violated the terms of his contract in the spirit of the agreement, there are ways that the coach could have been dismissed that would have landed far less egg on the school's face. As long as Tech has been trying to gain respect in the Big 12, much less Division 1, any progress they've made over the past decade just got thrown out with the bath water.

Lesson leaned: avoid handling internal personnel matters in the national media, especially when the national media is predisposed to think you're a few cards short of a full deck in the first place.

Example 2: Improper motivation

Earlier this week, two Division II women's college basketball teams met for what should have been a run-of-the-mill regular season game. The two teams weren't even from the same conference, so while no one likes to lose, the outcome of the game really had absolutely no significance for either team when it comes to conference post-season tournament seeding.

The coach of one of the teams decided his team needed a little extra motivation going into the game. So, while on the court with his team prior to the start of the game, he shared with his team his opinion of the expected performance from the other team. Unfortunately, he shared this opinion loudly enough that it was heard by at least the other team's coach, and probably by players on the other team, and his opinion just happened to include the word "suck."

His team promptly went out and got railroaded by 39 points. Not because they played poorly. In fact, given their score and shooting percentage, they had a decent game by all other counts. It's just that when the opposing coach (and perhaps players) heard his proclamations, the team was energized to show everyone what they thought about his opinions. And they did, scoring well into the triple digits for the game.

Lesson Learned: If your team is coming into a sporting contest with a 2-10 record on the season, you might want to avoid telling your team how much the other team sucks, especially when the other team (and just about everyone else in the venue) can hear you.

2009

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:06:00 +0000

As 2009 draws to a close, I've been thinking about how to summarize the year and use that as a source for one last blog post here before getting into 2010 and the insanity next year promises to bring (along with lots of good stuff, don't get me wrong). So while I was sitting in the office waiting for the mail to get delivered so I could make one last run to the bank, I sat down to start collecting my thoughts for the end-of-year summary post.

Then I got distracted.

The kind of distracted you get when you're totally unfocussed and stream of consciousness takes over and you just let yourself wander. At one point in my mental walkabout, the term "patient zero" popped into mind (no, I don't recall the specific trigger for that though, it was just there). Curious about a number of possible meanings for the term "patient zero" I popped on over to Google to continue letting my mental fingers to the walking. From a Wikipedia page on "Index Case" I saw that there was a band named "Index Case" and wandered over to that link. That ultimately got me thinking that there might be a band named Patient Zero, and found that one, too. Then I decided to do the annual self-Google, only this time I Googled my old band name, not my own name.

For those who don't know, I had a band in college (let's not talk about how many years ago that was) called Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste. The very brief history of the band (the full history in painful detail can be found on the "official" web site) is that we spent a lot of time practicing, developed a good bed of material, had one public performance, and then pretty much everyone involved in the band moved away. Before letting them escape for good, though, I managed to book time in a studio and the album Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets was born.

This was the first time in a long time I'd Googled "Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste" and I was really surprised at the really large number of results I got back. Most were from music sites, as a few years ago I set up the album for digital distribution through iTunes and other online music resellers, and those links have really propagated. The one that really surprised me was the reference on Amazon.com.

I wasn't surprised that the album and the individual tracks were available for purchase at Amazon.com (OK, yeah, I was, but not terribly since I'd gone through page after page of seeing download links for the tracks on other music sites). But the link that really surprised me was when I searched on Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste in the Amazon search field. Down at the bottom of the list was a link for the album, Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets.

Only the link was labeled:

Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets [Explicit]

That just struck me as really, really funny, since the album isn't "explicit" at all. In fact, the title track is instrumental, which got me wondering if you can label an all-instrumental album as "explicit" or not.

And that, dear readers, is when I decided to chuck the idea of a 2009 summary post and share the giggle I got out of finding the Green Chili album somehow got labeled as "explicit" by Amazon.com. So now you know. And I'm still chuckling about it.

Wild Olive Band Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:15:00 +0000

This pen is from the other wild olive blank I got from Zambezie Exotics that I turned with my barrel/band style. The black band in the middle of the pen, separating the two segments of the pen, is actually two pieces of thin laminate glued to the ends of the blanks prior to turning. With the lighter woods, it really stands out and ties in nicely with the black band on the pen clip (not visible in the pic). The pen was finished with shellawax.

Black Walnut

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:51:00 +0000

I've been doing a lot more work with Black Walnut on the lathe (actually, I've been doing a lot of work on the lathe, and just not blogging about it), and I'm really liking working with that wood. I've been able to get a lot of the black walnut from Anna's grandfather from his stock on the farm in Kansas. Here are just a few of the projects I've been doing out of the black walnut.

These toothpick holder/keyring kits came from Craft Supplies USA and were my first real non-pen projects. I turned these about a month apart. Both were finished solely with walnut oil.

Yeah, I've still been doing pens with the black walnut, too. I've been incorporating some differences in the design. I'm still using the slimline pen kits, but I'm turning a wider barrel in the middle by leaving out the center band and using a larger bushing on the mandrel. I've also started adding some black wood laminate at the joint of the two pieces of the pen. Still have some tweaking to do with the process, but I'm pleased with how it's turning out. All of these were finished only with walnut oil.

This perfume pen was also from Craft Supplies USA and was intended to be a present (and may still be, but it's kinda out in the open now). I have one more of these kits and may do something a little different with it, but the look of the straight turn with the black walnut just looks really nice. Finished solely with walnut oil.

Recovery

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Well, the surgery I mentioned in my previous post is behind me, and I'm well along the road to recovery. I'm sharing my experiences here to try to be efficient in retelling the story as I'm still not quite back to 100% yet.

The surgery itself went swimmingly. We checked in a little before 7am at the surgery center (the Carrell Clinic is an Orthopedic Hospital, and the vast majority of its facility is dedicated to orthopedic procedures) and went back to pre-op around 8:30. The insertion of the IV commenced immediately (I really, really hate IVs and my arms aren't too happy about them, either) as well as the shaving of my shoulder, chest, and back. After a quick visit with the surgeon, I was wheeled into surgery, and remember leaving the pre-op ward and that's about it.

I don't remember the post-op ward at all, but I apparently asked several times if I still had my right arm. That and my O2 stats kept dropping, so they apparently had to keep putting me on oxygen. Like I said, I don't remember that at all.

We got to the room for the afternoon, and shortly after the procedure, I had "breakfast" which consisted of really bland broth (is there any other kind) and Jello. About an hour later, I could eat lunch, and got to choose from a rather large (for a hospital) menu. I selected the chicken salad sandwich, which I figured would be the safest since I do occasionally have issues with my stomach after procedures. I was surprised as I was brought a gourmet sandwich with quality sides. This was not like any hospital food I've ever seen!

They showed me how my pain pump would work, and fortunately I didn't need to activate the booster at any point during my stay in the room. I did nod off from time to time, but got clearer and clearer headed as the day wore on.

I got a visit from the surgical technician who explained what they did with the surgery. They didn't do any repair on my labrum and my rotator cuff looked perfect, so they didn't touch it, either. There was calcification buildup and bone spurs in my upper shoulder which was impinging on the nerve that runs through the AC joint, so they cleared that out (a "decompression" procedure) and told me that they fixed for good the problem that had been causing my pain. I confirmed my follow-up appointment for the following Tuesday, and that took care of the surgical business. The nurse then described how I'd remove the pressure bandage and pain pump later in the week.

We decided to stay for dinner (since lunch was so good) and I had a delightful cilantro-basil pork chop with a Waldorf salad side. They apparently have actual gourmet chefs running the "cafeteria" for the hospital. All of the nursing staff said that I made a good choice staying for dinner because the food is so good, and I have to agree. I thought about staying overnight just so I could have an outstanding breakfast, but I really, really wanted to get home.

The first night home wasn't that bad. I set up my sleeping area in the sectional sofa upstairs, right in front of the TV, and pretty much went to sleep after spending some time visiting with my family. Anna had a harder time with the start of her second summer class, so that reinforced the brilliance of the decision to have family come and help us around the house for the week.

The next few days were pretty much eat, drink, watch TV, and read. Although I did go with my mother-in-law to pick up my prescription for the pain pills on Tuesday morning. My parents left Tuesday as well. I started doing my "pendulum" exercises immediately and did them several times a day throughout the course of the week. Wednesday night, the pain pump reached the end of its contents, so we removed the pressure bandage. That was more exciting that I had wanted it to me, for sure. It took three of us an hour to take it off, because there was one area on my back that was really, really sensitive and hurt like the dickens as we removed the tape, but we eventually got it all off. Then we moved into the kitchen (linoleum flooring) to remove the tube from the pain pump, and ironically it was my mother-in-law who had the most adverse reaction to watching me pull the tube (a looooooooong length of tubing as it turned out) from the hole that went into my shoulder. Fortunately, no one fainted, and I was finally able to really start moving my arm around, not that I tested my full range of motion by any stretch of the imagination.

Thursday my shoulder ached a lot more than it had, so I know the pain pump had been doing its job well. Still, by Friday I started weaning myself off the pain pills and started taking just Advil. By Saturday I was off the pain meds altogether.

My first real test of the arm came on Sunday and Monday as I had a customer with a server that failed to boot, and it took us several hours to troubleshoot and resolve the issue. I didn't experience any real discomfort with doing several hours of keyboarding at the time, but the aching did increase a bit after the fact.

Tuesday morning, a week after the surgery, I went to see my primary doctor to clear up the sinus infection that had been developing the previous few days. I was able to drive myself to his office (only 7 miles from the house) and back without incident. I still had a friend take me down into Dallas for my surgical follow-up, however, instead of driving myself.

The follow-up was positive. The surgeon was pleased with the rate of recovery and how the shoulder was healing. He also went over (in detail) what they did, and used the pictures they took during the procedure to show me all inside the joint. I'll post the "well, there's your problem" pictures later.

Recovery was going so well, we decided to go ahead and take the trip to Kansas that we had not intended to take because of my surgery. After the fact, I'll admit I probably shouldn't have driven the entire 8 hour stretch myself on the way up. And while there on Saturday, I took a brief spill (slipped, actually) where I ended up trying to catch myself using my right arm. It didn't hurt immediately, but over the next 48 hours the pain got really intense, to the point that I went back on the pain meds. I had a followup with the surgeon on the second Tuesday after the surgery to make sure I didn't screw anything else up, and I did not.

So at this point I've been clear to start doing shoulder exercises and to start weaning myself off the sling. I'll be going back into the office at least part time this week, and hopefully full time in the next 5-7 days.

I am really grateful that they didn't have to do any soft tissue work on my shoulder, as that would only have made my recovery even longer. It's still going to take 6-8 weeks, but I'm really not wanting to push it, because I don't want to have to do this again. All in all, though, I apparently didn't know just how much the shoulder was hurting, because after the procedure, I couldn't feel the pain I didn't know I'd been feeling. I'd gotten so used to it, it's like it wasn't even there. Until it was gone, and now I'm really relieved that I had the procedure done.

More later, but that's where we stand for now!

Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:34:00 +0000

While I haven't been a regular poster to this particular blog for a while, it's time for me to go on hiatus for a bit. I'm having arthroscopic shoulder surgery on June 22, and I'll be typing-challenged for a while after that. Currently, recovery time for the procedure could be from 3 weeks to 6 months, depending on what they actually do inside my shoulder. We know they're going to reshape my AC joint, remove some small bone spurs, and look at a small tear in the labrum. If that's all that's done, the recovery should be short. If they have to do more than that, then we'll be down a little longer.

At any rate, my online activities are going to be seriously limited for the next few weeks, so only the really easy or really important stuff will get done. I do plan to update status via Twitter which will also update my Facebook status as well, and the 140-character limits will probably be about all I can muster from my iPhone for the near future.

Thanks for all the well-wishes for surgery, I'm just ready to get it behind me!

Stinkwood Letter Opener

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:15:00 +0000

Fortunately, Stinkwood doesn't, at least while it's on the lathe. I wasn't really sure what I'd be getting into when I selected this blank for a letter opener for Anna, but was pleasantly surprised while working with it. And not just because it didn't smell bad.

This wood was surprisingly easy to work with, and it turned very quickly. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it was going to be anything special to look at while it was on the lathe. Once I sanded and finished it, though, it really did develop into a nice piece. I'll get better pics of this and the dymondwood pen after the hiatus.

I need to find a letter opener kit that uses a standard 2" segment for turning. The last two letter openers I've done had 2 3/8" segments, and that just enough longer than the throw on my drill press that it made boring the hole a little difficult. So I'm still experimenting with kits as well as woods.

I should also point out that the Stinkwood blank also came from Zambezi Exotics.

Dymondwood Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:01:00 +0000

This pen was made from a red and blue (duh) dymondwood blank set. A friend had cautioned me about some of the troubles she had with dymondwood, and I found out that she was spot on with her assessment (not that I doubted her in the least). These blanks were really difficult to turn (took almost an hour to turn this pen) and I splintered a previous set of dymondwood blanks, but I think I'll be able to salvage that in another project that will be posted later. The real problem came from the resins and glues used to laminate the colored wood in these blanks. The final result looks nice, but it was a hard road to get there, and I'm not quite sure that the end result was really worth the effort.

Again, no special turning, sanding, or finishing techniques used on this pen. And no, I don't plan on making a matching pencil. This was the only blank I got of this color/pattern. When I finish the other project I'll post it, but that will be well after the hiatus.

Wild Olive Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:25:00 +0000

The Wild Olive blank I used on this pen was also from Zambezi Exotics, but this one I knew would turn out really nicely, so I took pictures of the entire process. First, I started with the complete blank:

Next, I cut the blank into segments for the pen sections. The pen segments are just over 2" long, and the blank is 6", so there's a small chunk left over.

Then I used the drill press to bore the hole through the middle of the blank so a brass tube can be inserted. This brass tube is what the rest of the pen kit pieces mount to. This process is cumbersome enough that I generally try to cut and drill several sets of blanks at the same time.

After gluing the brass tubes into the blanks and letting the glue set, I put the blanks on the mandrel then put the mandrel on the lathe. Now the blanks are ready to turn.

I rounded off the corners to get each blank into a cylinder shape.

Then I turned the blanks down into the final pen shape.

Next I applied the shellac/wax finish to the segments.

Finally, I assembled the rest of the kit into the final pen. Here it is next to the leftover segment from the original blank.

I really like the way this particular pen turned out, so I'll take the other Wild Olive blank I have and use it for something similar. There's a good chance I'll do other work with this wood, as it was relatively easy to work with and looks really good as a finished project.

Coastal Red Milkwood Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:53:00 +0000

Another sample pen blank I got from Zambezi Exotics that looked really good as a blank, but I wasn't that thrilled with the results. That may be mostly because this was the most difficult wood I've worked with to date. It took well over a half hour to turn this blank down, mostly because my tools kept heating up from the turning process (very hard wood). Plus, the ends of the blanks chipped away right as I was finishing the turns, so some of the edges are rough. This is not a sample I'll be selling. For me, it just doesn't look as good as I had hoped it would. I still have another blank of this that I might turn into a pencil just to see if I have better luck with a different blank, but I'm not hopeful.

Of course, someone else might see this and think it's really beautiful, and if so, let me know because I'll make you a heck of a deal. :)

The pen was a standard turn with sanding and Shellawax finish with no stain or coloring.

Silky Oak Pen and Pencil

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:16:00 +0000

I turned the pencil of this pairing a couple of months ago and finally turned the pen today. This is still my favorite wood to work with right now. Silky Oak, which I got as part of a wood sampler kit from http://www.zambeziexotics.com/, is a softer wood, turning quickly, but it also has a great pattern and color, and has an interesting light reflection pattern that just doesn't reproduce well in a photo.

Both of these were standard turns, followed by sanding and a Shellawax finish without stain or coloring.

I'll be getting more blanks of this wood and turning a number of different projects with it.

Black Walnut Comfort Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:43:00 +0000

This was the first "comfort pen" I turned and I still have a few tricks to learn for this particular style. The wood was a scrap from an old black walnut tree on the Hillyard farm. When the tree was taken down, a good portion of the tree was planed into sheets that my brother-in-law used to build some projects for my nephews. There were some pen-sized blanks left over, and I took one of those scraps to turn into this pen. This will go to Anna's grandfather for his birthday, and I hope he appreciates the circle to get this piece back to him.

The wood was fairly easy to turn, a little harder than some of the woods I've been experimenting with, but not nearly as difficult to work with as others. After turning, the piece was sanded and finished with plain Shellawax. No stain or color was used in the finish.

I'm hoping that I can get more of these scraps to work with. The color and pattern of the wood looks good and it was nice to work with on the lathe.

Nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Like many people in my age range, I grew up watching Land of the Lost on Saturday morning TV. For years, I had an occasional reminder about the show and wondered about it. Well, with the new Will Farrell rendition of Land of the Lost, there's been a lot of buzz about the show. I've gone back and looked at the tv.com pages on Land of the Lost (how did I totally miss the 1991 series that ran two seasons?), reviewed the "official" Land of the Lost web site, and of course watched the movie trailers and clips from the upcoming film.

Unfortunately, I don't have high expectations for the film. I'm not a huge Will Farrell fan, and, as I mentioned to my brother yesterday, the previews imply that the movie is basically Will Farrell trying to outrun the T-Rex. it might be an interesting gag, but I don't know that I'm up for 90 minutes of that.

While watching "10.5 Apocalypse" on SciFi last night (a guilty pleasure, watching B movies on Sci Fi occasionally), I saw a note that SciFi was running a Land of the Lost marathon on Memorial Day (today), so in a fit of giddy excitement, I set our DVR to record the episodes and planned to get up and start watching when the marathon started at 7am. I knew full well that in the 30+ years that have passed since the series ran, the special effects wouldn't be that great (compared to what's done regularly today) and that there would be a certain "camp" factor, but I was so enthralled with the show as a kid, I figured it would be an enjoyable trip down memory lane.

Sometimes the past is best left there.

I've been enjoying getting caught up with some old high school friends on Facebook lately, and it's made me a little nostalgic about my childhood. There are parts of my childhood that I've locked out of my memory and have no intentions to open up again, but getting to see how my old friends have changed over the years has been entertaining and enjoyable.

The same cannot be said for Land of the Lost, at least for me. OK, so I probably set my expectations a little higher than I should, and I can't say that watching the shows haven't been somewhat enjoyable, but the show just hasn't been able to stand the test of time. Sure, it was head and shoulders above other children's programming at the time, and certainly better than most children's programming today as well. But the special effects and other aspects of the show really detract from my fond memories of it. Don't get me wrong, it's not the absolute worst thing I've ever watched. I've seen far, far worse on Sci Fi and other places. I just really wanted to have this memory of the show be what I had hoped it was. In a way, I wonder if the memories I had of the show would have been better preserved if I hadn't watched the marathon.

Oh well, it wasn't like I was going to get any work done today anyway. It's just going to take a LOOOOOONG time to get that banjo out of my head...

Labrum

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:45:00 +0000

For the past 20 months, I've been dealing with a random, increasingly painful issue with my right shoulder. At first we thought it was a strain, then a pinched nerve, then a rotator cuff injury, then who knows what. I hadn't been all that gung ho about finding the source, because it only flared up once every two to three months, and then sometimes only was a mild pain. Occasionally it developed into a pain so severe that all I could do was sit and wait for the agony to subside 12-18 hours later, but that wasn't the norm.

Over the Christmas break, however, that changed. From December 28 through January 4 (my birthday), the pain in my shoulder not only flared up, but got worse and worse as time went on, to the point that we went to the Urgent Care clinic on Sunday afternoon of my birthday (as opposed to going to the ER) to try to get some pain relief. One shot of Tramadol and a Vicodin prescription later, I was able to get some sleep and went to see my doctor the next morning.

That was the point where I decided that I was fed up with this and it was time to get aggressive in treatment.

Now, I had already been to see an orthopedist on December 19, who took x-rays of the shoulder (no bond damage noted) and gave me a steroid shot and hoped it would go away. On January 5, we scheduled two MRI exams, one for my shoulder and one for my neck (c-spine). I also scheduled a follow-up with my orthopedist. The c-spine MRI didn't show anything, and the shoulder MRI showed a possile tear in the labrum. My orthopedist reviewed the MRI scans and scheduled another MRI of my shoulder, this time with contrast, so they could see the labrum more clearly.

Today, I finally got the results back from the third MRI, which I took over a week ago. The MRI shows a definite tear in the labrum and the doc wants to scope me to repair it. I'm scheduled to go in next week to discuss further.

One one hand, I'm relieved to finally see that there is something wrong in the shoulder that has been causing the pain. On the other, I'm really not all that crazy about surgery. Over the next week, I'm going to continue to do research on that type of surgery so that I can have a somewhat intelligent discussion with the surgeon about the options. Timing is a big concern for me, as I've got a trip to Seattle planned for March 1-4, and I don't want to necessarily go under the knife before traveling, but I also don't know what kind of risk I'm taking by waiting until mid-March to do the surgery.

Lots of questions still, and I won't know a lot more until next week's appointment, but at least we can point to something that *is* wrong and hopefully has a fix so I can get out of this pattern of worrying about doing something to aggravate my shoulder and end up in another pain episode or not. More details as they become available!

Murdered!

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:12:00 +0000

For those of you who were a little confused by my Twitter and Facebook status updates this evening, allow me to explain. As I wrote last year, Anna and I are in a murder mystery book clob sponsored by our local library, and our December meetings have been murder mystery parties. Last year, I ended up being the killer, and this year I was the victim. The setting was Prom Night at Fairfield High in 1959, and I was the quarterback of the football team, president of the student body, and about to be crowned Prom King (of course, yes, it is truly believable!), along with Karen, I mean Anna, who was the head cheerleader and Prom Queen. Over the course of the evening, I reveal how much of a scumbag I really am (no comments from the peanut gallery) and end up getting killed by arsenic laced chewing gum before I can even accept the prom king crown. Fortunately, I didn't have to lay on the stage for the later acts, so my lines were few and my effort minimal. But it was fun nonetheless.

So, David, I wasn't dropping acid, and that, Sean, is what I was on about. Can't wait to see what happens next year!

Election 2008 - Paper or Plastic?

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:15:00 +0000

So I finally broke down to go early vote today. Rather than fight the parking at the old courthouse where apparently most everyone else decided to go cast their early ballots, I chose to head over to the fairgrounds instead. While I was a bit surprised by the length of the line when I arrived, I was also surprised by how quickly they were moving people through the fieldhouse.

What really struck me, however, was that they were offering both paper balloting as well as the new electronic system. The last few times I've hit the polls, I've used the electronic machine, and I don't recall that paper ballots were offered. I haven't slept much since the last election/primary/coin toss, so I might just have forgotten that paper ballots were offered there.

The number of people choosing the paper ballot was also interesting, just from an observation perspective. If anything, I would have guessed that those who have participated in a large numeber of elections (trying to find a gentle way of saying "people older than average") would have opted for the paper system. But in my very limited sampling of people going through, it seemed that the folks choosing the paper ballot were my age or younger.

There was one poor fellow who either ignored the signs advising him to turn off his cell phone, or he just didn't know how to turn it off. Sure enough, just as he placed his paper ballot down and started to mark it, the phone went off. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was standing right next to one of the election officials. As soon as it rang, a chorus of election officials all shouted "cell phones off" and the official right next to him chided him rather loudly. About two minutes later, the phone, and the chorus, went off again. The third time it went off, immediately following the chorus of "cell phone off" he could be heard yelling "stop calling me" when he answered, which was immediately followed by someone else yelling "then turn it off" from the other side of the room. Fortunately, that third call came in just as he was leaving the room.

But the thing that tickled me the most about the entire process was when I got close enough to hear the officials asking each pollster "paper or electronic?" so they could prepare the proper resources for each person. The first time I heard that, I immediately thought "paper or plastic" and then realized that the latter phrase would have worked just as well, as the electronic polling machines are cased in plastic. Fortunately, I was able to keep myself from answering "plastic" when it was finally my turn to respond to that all-important question. Those people didn't look like they had much of a sense of humor...

Socialism

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:07:00 +0000

So it seems in the face of the new social networking. I can now blog directly from my cellphone to jott. Let's see what this does. listen

Powered by Jott

Horses

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:02:00 +0000

So this post is supposed to be about Marina riding a horse. Really, it is. We took Marina to a friend’s house so she could ride a horse for the first time in her life. And she did. And so did Anna and I. Unfortunately, I’m the one who got thrown from the horse.

Well, technically.

I did fall off the horse, after he decided he wanted me off his back and took steps (backwards) to make it happen. Anna and I hadn’t been gone on the trail very long when the horse I was riding, an Arabian named Remarq (no relation) began to misbehave. I thought I had him under control, so we continued on for a bit, but his antics continued, so I decided we should turn back and head to the house. That’s when Remarq chose to be the lead horse. I tried to keep him back, and he finally just started backing up rather quickly, not responding to my efforts to make him stop. In fact, I tried the trick of turning his head to the side (as instructed by Clint) and that’s when he basically sat down while moving backwards, tossing me out of the saddle. The scary part, though, was when he continued to roll over towards me on his back after I had planted hard on the ground, and rolled over my arm. Fortunately, he really just brushed off me, so nothing broke, but I’m expecting quite a few bruises.

But like I said, this post is supposed to be about Marina, so here is the evidence of her first experience riding a horse.

And here are the "before" pics of Anna and I astride horses.

4/17/08

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:36:00 +0000

The last official day of Summit stars over at the Convention Center for breakfast, and no boxed breakfasts this time. Back to the general breakfast buffet, but it was much better than the two previous days. After breakfast, we headed into the keynote room for presentations and Q&A sessions with Ray Ozzie and Steve Ballmer.

I’ll be honest, keynote sessions like this are mostly lost on me. Sure, it was nice to learn Ray’s background and his ideas for future software development at Microsoft, but I likely won’t be interacting with him directly. And while Steve Ballmer is an energetic and engaging speaker, well, I was probably just tired at that point. Drinking from the mental fire hose all week can do that to you. The Q&A session with Steve could have been more interesting, but several questioners were pretty much blatantly trying to get photo ops with Steve by offering clothing and other items, and I just don’t react well to that kind of activity. I’m sure a lot of folks got a lot out of the two sessions, so I’d honestly have to say that they were well received, I just wasn’t the target audience for that.

MS provided one last lunch after the keynote, and I managed to avoid eating more salmon. Honestly, the salmon I had this week was really, really good, I just don’t eat much seafood, and I thought we were in danger of having competition for the Mexican Food inside joke.

I ended up bailing early from the lunch to head back to the hotel and deal with some client issues, so I didn’t sit in on the optional afternoon sessions. I did head over to the Sheraton where the sessions were held and had several hallway sessions with other folks, including Jasminder, Andy, Jason, Jeff, and a couple of MVP Leads, including Brian who had interviewed me for his podcast on Monday. At 6pm, Steve’s SBS User Group meeting kicked off in one of the rooms, and we had an interesting presentation from a vendor who’s putting together a new service offering for assisting partners with streamlining SBS installs. And after that meeting we headed to the Elephant & Castle for food, drinks, and fellowship. I had a long conversation with Ted and Dave, and got the opportunity to interact with several of the user group members.
Again, the steam ran out before 11, so I headed back to the hotel. I knew my roommate, Jim, had a really early flight (left at 6am) and would be getting up really early (3am) to get ready and head to the airport, so I didn’t want to get in too late. And that ended my last official day at Summit.

4/16/08

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:33:00 +0000

Went down to breakfast again with Amy this morning, and sat with Tom and Debra Shinder. No Dalai Lama today (he and his entourage checked out yesterday) so we were in a different room, but the boxed breakfast returned. I opted out of the “warm” chipotle wrap, so Amy and I ended up making a run through Starbucks on our way to the bus. I grabbed a coffee cake, and she picked up a hot chocolate.

We bussed over to the Redmond campus again, and went through another full day of NDA material, some of it really, really, really NDA, which makes me wonder if I just violated NDA by saying that we heard stuff that was extreme NDA. Maybe not.

At the end of the day, we shuttled back to the hotel, and we got back early enough that Amy and I made a side trip over to a Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream (something I learned about Amy from our Australia trip is that she hardly ever turns down an opportunity for ice cream). We got back to the hotel and eventually took the shuttle over to the Experience Music Project (EMP) near the Space Needle.

Wow. Several of the MVPs mentioned that they had an event at the EMP two Summit’s ago, but I was blown away. First, they had karaoke with a live band (the band was great, the singing varied greatly) going throughout the evening. Second, they had a room dedicated to Rock Band performances (I lasted all of about 30 seconds in that room before I had to leave). Third, there were buffets and bars set up in multiple locations throughout the venue.

Amy and I browsed through the venue together for most of the evening. We started off in the Science Fiction museum, and wow was I impressed. Definitely worth a repeat visit when there are fewer people going through (and fewer people who either didn’t read/understand the “no photography” signs or decided to ignore them, leading to several staff members throughout the night telling people to stop taking pictures), but quite an impressive collection of historical items related to the Science Fiction industry. Brought back a lot of memories of favorite TV shows, movies, books, and magazines from my younger days. Also had me thinking that it’s about time to re-read Frank Herbert’s Dune series once again.

After we finished the Science Fiction Museum, we started through the Music Project proper. As it would take too long to describe all the exhibits we saw, I will point out that I spent most of my time drooling through the guitar history exhibit, longing to reach out and play a number of the guitars that were encased behind the glass. We also headed upstairs to the “studio experience” area (have no idea what it was actually called) where we witnessed (and got video) of Dean playing drums and Stuart either egging him on or trying to play bass along with him.

Dean "playing" drums (105MB, will edit and compress later)
Dean drumming, Stuart on bass (50MB, will edit and compress later)

I still managed to get totally exhausted fairly quickly, so we headed back to the Hyatt a little after ten. Still, an invigorating and exciting day all in all.

4/15/08

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:30:00 +0000

Tax day, and for once I’m not thinking about taxes. Except that I just mentioned it, so I guess I was. Starting off with a digression, not a good thing.

Headed down to breakfast with Amy a little before 7am. Today was the big event at the hotel with the Dalai Lama, and the meeting room next to where we had breakfast at the hotel was filled with the people for that event, and the line to get in was loooooooong. We were quickly ushered past the crowd and into the room where we picked up our boxed breakfast.

Yes, I said that correctly. Boxed breakfast. I’ve never had a boxed breakfast before. In the box was a muffin, a bottle of OJ, a fruit cup, and plasticware wrapped in a paper napkin. There was a separate bag you could get with a “warm” ham and egg croissant. Fortunately, my egg wasn’t runny. But it wasn’t that warm, either.
After breakfast, we headed over to the Redmond campus for our deep dive meetings. And, of course, I can’t talk about that.

We took a shuttle from the Redmond campus over to a dinner cruise on the lake at the end of the day, and spent a wonderful couple of hours on the lake mingling through discussions with many of the folks from the SBS and WHS crew, along with a number of MS employees. As was the case for the week up until that point, the weather was chilly and raining, and that kept most of the folks inside on the boat, but otherwise it was a delightful evening. I was able to have a number of discussions with several folks that were beneficial to me and my business, but most of all, it was good just to interact with the wide variety of people who were involved.

After the cruise, we took the bus back to the hotel, where I promptly went upstairs and went to sleep. Yeah, not that exciting, sorry. But that’s how it was. I’ve adapted to the time zone, but I’m still needing 6-8 hours of sleep a night, and hopefully I’ll continue to get that.

4/14/08

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:38:00 +0000

I’ve had to do these posts out of order based on my experiences today, as indicated in my last post. Just goes to show how much of an impact the Dalai Lama has on the extended surroundings. Not that I’m blaming the Lama or his entourage for delays in posting. But I digress.

This morning started with a deep dive session into Essential Business Server. By the time I got to the room (after making a Starbucks run with Jeff Middleton and getting sidetracked by someone asking about SBS, big surprise) there were few seats left, and the headache I woke up with showed no signs of abating. After about 10 minutes, I stepped out of the session, having picked up the product I needed to get from Dana Epp, and headed over to FedEx Kinkos in the convention center to ship it out. That process took much longer than it should have, but I completed the task and then ventured to my next stop – ibuprofin in liquid gel form.

I wandered the streets of Downtown Seattle and finally found the drugstore I had stopped in last year. I grabbed a small bottle of liquid gold, a granola bar, and a Gatorade (the “breakfast” at the EBS session left a little to be desired) and headed back to the hotel. On a whim, I decided to just grab a seat in the lobby rather than heading upstairs, and that’s when the day really started to get interesting.
I hadn’t been in the seat for more than about 3 minutes when someone walked up to me and asked if I was Brian something (I think). After confirming that I was not, in fact, that person, he indicated that he was looking for Brian to record a podcast. It was evident that this person was somehow related to the MVP summit, so I asked what Brians’ competency was. No, I don’t know that many people who do SQL, but I had to try. I asked the gentleman what his speciality was, and that’s when I found out he was an MVP lead. We exchanged “oh, do you know”s for a few minutes, then he reiterated that he needed to find Brian or he would have to vamp on his podcast. I mentioned that I did a weekly internet radio show that we also presented as a podcast, and he asked if I might be willing to fill in as a backup on the podcast. I asked the topic and scope, and found out he’s working on an internal Microsoft podcast and it introduces internal employees to key contacts in the product community. I love talking about community, and I’m always looking for ways to get my name on the positive radar inside Microsoft, so of course I agreed to fill in.

Fifteen minutes later, we finished up and he went off to his next meeting. I stayed in the lobby because it appeared that security was getting ready for another appearance or move from the hotel to his motorocade. I positioned myself in an out of the way area, and decided to try to capture a video as he passed by. Little did I know just how close I’d come to him, as mentioned in my previous post.

I met up with some folks heading over to lunch and the official start of Summit at the convention center. We made it through the keynote as Sean O’Driscoll gave his farewell presentation to the MVP community. Then we broke out into the Open Spaces sessions.
The first session I attended was the SBS Security Best Practice session facilitated by Carlos (way too many initials) de la Rocha from Brazil. The group was about 50/50 SBS MVPs and non-SBS MVPs. Carlos did a great job facilitating the group. Next, I went to Charlie Russell’s session on being a tech writer. Lots of good discussion from that venue as well. For my last session, I opted for the “getting involved with your local Microsoft office” but that ended up being a bust, and I needed to get back to the hotel and deal with a few things before heading to dinner.

The SBS 2008 Unleashed author team met our acquisitions editor, Loretta Yates, for dinner at a nice restaurant in the downtown area. This was the first time any of us had met Loretta, and we all had a good “get to know you” dinner. I had roasted duck that was absolutely delightful, and several others had the rib eye, which looked quite tasty as well.

Then we headed back to the hotel, and that’s when I called it an evening. Tomorrow is the first of the sessions with the product groups, so that should be good time.

Serendipity 1

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:44:00 +0000

I'm already having to break with my plan for posting about events at the MVP Summit. As I mentioned in my last post, the Dalai Lama is staying at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle, the same place where I'm staying for Summit. This morning I just happened to be sitting in the lobby when security started building up around the entrance. I thought, well, I'll try to pick a spot out of the way and take a video to see what I can see when he leaves.

Wow. I never dreamed I'd get this close.

The unedited movie file is large right now, about 64MB. I'll edit and repost later when it's a little more manageable.

4/13/08

noreply@blogger.com (Q) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:27:00 +0000

It’s finally here, the time to travel to Seattle for my second MVP Summit. Only the day starts earlier than I normally do, and even earlier than I had originally planned. When I booked the flight in early February, I had selected an earlier-morning flight for cost reasons (to the tune of $100 less for this flight than for later flights). Besides, we had a pretty full day planned in Seattle on the Sunday before Summit, so arriving early wasn’t a huge problem. Originally, the selected flight was scheduled to depart at 7:40am from DFW, meaning with the traditional arrival at the airport two hour prior to departure and the 30 minute drive to the airport, I’d be getting up a little before 5:00. Of late, I’ve been getting up at 5:30, so this wasn’t a huge change. Even though I knew that I’d not get to bed early the night before, it’s not really a big deal.

But a few days ago, I got an e-mail from Marina that American had made changes to our flight reservations for the return to DFW from Seattle as well as our later flight from DFW to NOLA, and she sent the updated information to me. I got on and checked my own reservations, and the changes made to her flights were reflected on mine as well (we had scheduled to fly together on those two legs of the trip, so it would have sucked to have her scheduled to a completely different flight). That’s when I noticed that my outgoing flight had changed as well. An hour earlier. Ugh.

So I got up this morning at 4:00am and had the shuttle arrive at 4:35 (ten minutes before the requested 4:45, but that’s OK). That early on a Sunday, there’s no way I’m going to ask Anna to haul me to the airport, like I normally do. I’ve done that a couple of other times as well, and it’s usually me and the driver, and depending on the driver, it will be a quiet or talkative trip. This morning is a bit different, however, as there’s already another passenger in the shuttle, so the three of us converse throughout the brief trip to the airport.

I was the first to be delivered, because I was “cutting it close” in terms of my arrival to the airport. I was dropped off upstairs at the ticketing windows instead of downstairs at curbside check-in. I was initially a little annoyed, but in retrospect I have no idea if curbside check-in is open at 5am. I got into the terminal and shuddered at the line for checking baggage. I was tempted to take the escalator down and see if curbside was open or not when I noticed that the First Class window also offered its services to “Group One” passengers. Well, since I’m an AAdvantage Gold member, I get Group One status, so I whisked directly to the front of the empty line.
And found out the terminals were down.

The agent walked me over to self-check and we got my baggage tag printed as well as an updated boarding pass. I normally check in online the night before a flight, and last night was no exception. I even double-checked before I left the house that I had my boarding pass in my backpack. Yep, seat 9A. Window seat close to the front of the plane (one of the advantages of booking that far in advance). But my new boarding pass showed seat 30A. I asked the agent about the change in seats, and she looked at me like I was from another planet. I showed her my printed boarding pass that clearly showed my seat as 9A, reserved in February in the year of our Lord 2008.

“This flight has no seat 9A,” she tells me in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Row 9 is an emergency exit row and only has two seats on each side of the aisle.”

OK, the equipment got upgraded from the MD80 that was originally allocated for this flight. Not the first time I’ve had an equipment change right before a flight, but I guess it got changed from the time we left the house until we arrived at the airport. Sure enough, I’m on a 757, not an MD80. And honestly with all the delays the last four days with American cancelling thousands of flights to reinspect their MD80 fleet, I’m quite OK with the change in equipment. Except that I’m in the back of the plane and not the front. No big, I’ll deal.

I got through security quickly, not needing to use the Group One expedited line, because there were so few other passengers going through. I still have about an hour before boarding, so I decided to check out the Admiral’s Club to pull out my laptop and make sure it’s charged in case I want to use it on the flight. This is my first time into the Admiral’s Club, so I’m not sure what to expect.

What I didn’t expect is that it wouldn’t be open yet. Which it wasn’t. At 5:15am.
In fact, I can’t recall seeing fewer people milling around the terminal, especially at DFW. Especially after all the flight cancellations over the previous four days. I’d call it a graveyard, but I don’t know that it’s wise to liken an airport with a death metaphor. So I didn’t. But it was empty.

I did find the Samsung lounge near the Admiral’s Club, and unlike every other public place in the terminal, it has power outlets and comfortable chairs. Chairs are available all around the terminal, power is not. Used to be, but now that they can charge for access to power, all the “public” outlets have been covered by pay-for-power stations. Except in the Samsung Lounge. I assume that there must be some catch for the lounge, like there’s someone that goes through the lounge and tries to sell you all the cool stuff that Samsung has, but not today. Because there’s no one at the airport.

Except for the line of very impatient people at the Starbucks.

About 15 minutes before initial boarding time, I made my way over to the gate. I overheard a couple of other folks talking about the Summit, but they were across the seating area, and since I had no idea who they were, I opted not to go introduce myself to them. I know there are a number of MVPs in the DFW area, and supposedly one other actually in Denton, but I’ve met exactly one. Tom Shinder, and I knew him before either of us became MVPs, although I didn’t officially meet him in person until Summit last year. Ah, the joys of the remote work force.

There weren’t that many people in First Class or Group One, either, because once they called Group One for boarding, I walked right up to the counter and to the plane. Where I had to wait for catering to finish unloading. Because there was only one of them. At 6:15am.

I get the significant impression that very few people fly at God:30 in the morning. Maybe that’s why the fare was so inexpensive.

Seat 30A wasn’t too bad, except that it was the window seat of a three-seat row instead of the two-seat row I was expecting. That meant that I had to inconvenience two people instead of one when I got up to head to the rear of the plane mid-flight. The window was nicely placed in line with the seat so I could see out without having to resort to unusual bodily contortions.

We did fly directly over Denver, and the sky was clear enough that I got to take a different kind of picture of Coors Field than the others we have. And no, it’s not because the field was not buried in snow (which it wasn’t).

We did get a nice view of Mt. Rainier as we approached the airport, and landing went without a hitch. Though I got in earlier than expected, I waited in the gate area for Amy and Jim to arrive on their Frontier flight from Denver. We had a spot of lunch (after working to find an empty table in the food court), got our bags, and headed to the hotel. Well, I guess calling the Grand Hyatt a hotel is a bit of a misnomer, but anyway. Did I mention that the Dalai Lama is staying at the Grand Hyatt through Tuesday? Yep, he is.

After a brief layover in the hotel, we shuttled over to an associates boat for a slow tour around Lake Washington, where we witnessed a number of sights:

The house featured prominently in Sleepless in Seattle.

An office for a small company named Google.

A small house owned by a guy named Bill Gates.

After returning to the hotel, we made two more stops for the night. We registered at the summit, then headed over to the Rock Bottom Lounge for the annual SBS pre-summit party.

Since I’m still adjusting to my old time zone, and getting up very, very early, I shut down pretty early for Seattle time and am heading off to bed. More tomorrow.