Real Time View

Back in the mid ‘90s, a couple of us from Tandem were in Sydney participating in meetings with our Australian-based development partner. Our partner had just been sold to a large US-based corporation and the reduced emphasis on Tandem wasn’t what we were expecting, and it visibly saddened us all. On the last weekend of that visit, three of us found ourselves having dinner in the popular tourist area known as “the Rocks”. As the night wound down we stopped by a popular pub, the Orient Hotel, and listened to the band playing in front of a small audience. As the band was wrapping up a set, they concluded with the Rolling Stones anthem “Well, this could be the last time, maybe the last time, I don’t know …” And I thought about this as I was packing and preparing to return home from the SATUG user event last week. The picture I have included here is of Neil Pringle and I deep in thought although over what, I cannot recall. But it does capture the way in which senior HP management went ...

It just takes a long time to get to Johannesburg, South Africa. The route I took had me changing flights in Denver, and then again in Frankfurt. After 9 hours across the Atlantic, on top of the 2 plus hours getting into Denver, its then just another 10 hours to Johannesburg. The photo here is of me in Frankfurt between flights - the ubiquitous Starbucks behind me - and a little worse for ware! But I made it, and I am in my hotel nearby Johannesburg airport - and it’s a case of "welcome to darkest Africa"! This is the 7th time I have made the trip here to participate in the annual SATUG event, and I have always look forward to spending a few days with the community as it is one of the better user-run events on the calendar! This morning I am blogging directly from my blackberry - a first for me - and I am in total darkness, illuminated solely by the blackberry display I am holding. An hour or so ago, the darkness enveloped me, as the power in this part of Johannesburg went out...

This weekend I drove out to the Southern Californian coastline, and it was a real change from earlier weekends spent in Colorado. Sure it’s winter across the US but out along the coast, it was balmy days in the mid 70s. I was driving the roadster, with the top pulled back, and the picture here is of me beside the Pacific Coast Highway –or PCH as it is known locally - just north of Malibu. The drive reminded me of those articles you find in the airline’s magazines – three perfect days in “wherever” - and I had days about as perfect as you could experience anytime in LA. During the previous week, I was emailing folks in the UK as I was preparing to catch up with them next month. As these emails had been flying around, I made a minor mistake in the subject line – rather than proposing to meet for “drinks”, I was suggesting we meet for “rinks”! Of course this led to Sean Bicknell of XYPRO, and a BITUG committee member, to respond “I’ll bring my ice skates then shall I!?!?” Driving the PC...

The weekend before last I went to Houston where I caught up with the ITUG Board. Also in Houston were the leaders of Encompass and HP-Interex EMEA. The picture I have included is of me standing outside the HP premises in Houston (Entrance 13, in fact) as I didn’t participate in any official capacity, but I did join them for a couple of evening functions Those of you who are regular readers of this blog may recall the posting of October 17th ’07 where I wrote about my own observations of the ITUG Summit at HPTF&E event in Las Vegas. You may recall how positive an experience I had as ITUG collaborated with HP and Encompass and how the ITUG membership really benefited from the exposure to the full HP Business Critical Server (BCS) product line – even if the scale of it proved daunting for those unprepared for all the walking involved! Scott Healy, the ITUG Chairman, told an audience at HPTF&E that “IT shops are multiplatform today, and we all have to deal with inter-platform issue...

After returning to Simi Valley it really was a case of repacking the bags and heading to Houston for a weekend of socializing with HP and the ITUG Board before heading to Boulder for a few days of downtime. As I left Denver airport I drove into a winter snowstorm, but getting to spend some time in the old hangouts made up for the excitement of the drive home. The picture I have included here is of me having breakfast at the local café – a typical Boulder establishment without pretence, but serving great pancakes. And the range of topics overheard in this place has always proved interesting with topics ranging from IBM engineers talking about technology to the latest news about Crocs shoes! But this time, the conversation I overheard was off on a different tack entirely as a couple of scientists began discussing the connection between space and time. Since many scientists from Boulder have worked on the Hubble space telescope, the topic didn’t come as too big a surprise and I just coul...