Real Time View

Enjoying lunch in our new community, the lifestyle afforded by being in Florida and living alongside the Emerald Coast’s intracoastal waterway certainly has its upside. Having only recently taken up full time residence – yes, Margo and I are now in possession of our Florida driver’s licenses – we are beginning to come to terms with a lifestyle balanced equally between a vacation-like atmosphere and the quieter side of a planned retreat. It seemed only fitting that our first true guests joining us for a luncheon at the Jimmy Buffett styled Chill and Grill, was none other than my former partner in tech, Brian Fitzgibbon with his wife Nancy. They happened to be working while vacationing nearby and it proved a time of reflection. Not so much being right next to the water, mind you, but rather times spent living and working in Sydney during the last years of the 1970s.  I feel a little edgy I feel a little weird I feel like a schoolboy That's grown a beard I'm livin' in the ...

On a sunny and oftentimes breezy Boxing Day in Sydney a gathered fleet of yachts makes a dash to the headlands of Sydney Harbor where, with just the right conditions (and from this photo and the set of the sails, that looks to be the situation), they will turn south and for as long as they can, these yachts will be on a reach, the wind coming from the north east. Navigators will be pouring over displays to determine the likely conditions for the passage across Bass Straight hoping for smooth sailing all the way to Hobart. It was the summer of 1973 when I had the opportunity to be among the spectator fleet onboard Theme, the yacht I raced on for four seasons. Looking back on the day, we were witness to one of the favored yachts, Bumble Bee III, destined to compete in the upcoming Admiral’s Cup regatta out of Cowes on the Isle of Wight, ran aground on the rocky Sow and Pigs reef. Amidst the great expectations held for this yacht when it makes its appearance at Cowes, there was shock. S...

A long time ago, walking around the campus of Tandem Computers we would watch Lockheed P-3 Orion aircrafts returning from their mission of surveillance over the Pacific. One of our colleagues with a military background would explain all this and tested us with a question from time to time as another Orion flew past “and what is its mission?” Around that time, I was attending a Meta (now Gartner) conference in Phoenix along with other participants from Tandem and the night sky was putting on quite a display. Picking out the constellation, Orion, one of our group participants turned and playfully asked our military coworker, “and what is its mission?” And it continues to resonate with me to this day. I am constantly being challenged on what is my mission and, in many instances, the context is unclear. Am I looking at the night sky or am I focused on items much closer to home. When it comes to missions, they can be given to us or self-imposed. To execute we need to accept them, of cou...

As winter days became shorter, Margo and I found our way deeper into Florida. We drove up and down the Florida peninsula stopping by Orlando and then Ft Lauderdale. The temperatures climbed the further south we drove; this was expected. Overnighting in Orlando gave me an opportunity to capture the mood of central Florida in a series of happy-snaps on my mobile phone. The view from our hotel room highlighted a bridge that provided passageway between both banks of the lake. This week I was reminded of this as we watched the Superbowl. There were surprises just as there were a number of outstanding performances – outstanding, yes, just as they were unexpected. However, having driven the length of Florida it took little imagination to think back to 2007 when the Superbowl was played in Miami and to the halftime spectacular centered on the entertainment provided by Prince. Just minutes before Prince was scheduled start his performance, the rains descended in earnest. When asked whether ...

No sun on the Rockies, not even the light of day I feel that old cabin fever coming on It won't be long before my ship comes in Gonna sail right out of Colorado Songwriters: Clint Patrick Black / James Hayden Nicholas I am a storyteller. As a storyteller, I am also an observer and as an observer I am yet to say that I have seen it all. Quite to the contrary, I am convinced that there is still much more to see and when it comes to IT, each and every time I speculate that a new dawn has come it seems that such an observation is only ever short term as with one dawn appearing over the horizon there is always another, and another, about to appear. Such is technology that nothing lasts forever to quote a popular song. I chose the photo above for its symbolism. Hard to escape? It’s a lighthouse. It may be decorative but they illuminate the location just as effectively. Dropping our gaze to the dock we see that there’s a warning: Snakes and Alligators. Who remembers that popular ...

  Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas. We got eighty feet of the waterline nicely making wake. A lot of attention is being given to sailing events. There is the solo race around the globe that sees participants now battling each other in the Pacific Ocean. However, for a Sydney boy such as I remain at heart, it is not just about sailing around the world but rather, taking on some serious and oftentimes totally unpredictable waters of the Tasman Sea as the annual Sydney to Hobart blue-water classic takes place. I have loved sailing for almost all of my adult life. I spent four years racing sloops on Sydney Harbor where our crew managed successive wining seasons with me deftly balanced on the foredeck, raising and dropping headsails with hoisting spinnakers, all part of the job at hand. Being on the foredeck meant little time to understand the finer points of actual sailing, when it did come time for me to take the helm in the annual Flinders Island race, I proved ineff...