If you're anything like me, you usually run around Lotusphere tired and in pain most of the week, after overdoing it on the first day or two. You then stumble through the week and go home sick and ready to collapse. You may make resolutions before the show, saying you won't stay out too late, won't drink too much, and absolutely will NOT get sick this year. Ummhmm. I've been there.

This year, I have a new solution, and one that will let you take home new skills to put to use immediately (that's the holy grail of session promises, right?). For the first time, we're offering Lotus Positions for Lotus Geeks: geek-friendly yoga down by the Dolphin poolside, every morning from 7:00 am to 7:50 am.
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The idea may be a little bit outside of the norm, but let me make a few points. First, I know from reading your blogs and listening to your tweets that many of you are doing "get in shape" types of things, such as those of you who will be showing off your push-up prowess at the show. Yoga fits right in to this - an opportunity to connect with the community while keeping up your commitment to fitness - no easy task at a conference. Second, while you may think that you need special clothes, special equipment, or to already be fit or flexible, I'm here to tell you that it just isn't so. Come dressed however you like (although those in skirts and heels will have to do a modified version of some of the activities). It would make the most sense to come in something a little bit loose and comfortable, but jeans and a t-shirt will do fine. As for equipment - if you were to bring a towel or an extra t-shirt as props, it would make some things easy and fun, but the truth is that if we're going to do yoga that you can do wearing whatever you like, we're not going to be using a lot of props. That said, if you have a yoga mat (because you already do yoga) and would like to bring it, you may feel more at home. And for those of you worried that yoga requires you to be fit or flexible already...see the previous comments that you can do these poses wearing your normal clothes if you like. So, how contortionist do you really think we can get? That's not to say I couldn't do some headstands or splits or various other pretzel poses... but those aren't really what our geek bodies need to start out with.
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When I leave a yoga class, I feel tall, graceful, and happy. Since I'm neither of the first two, physically speaking, there must be something about the class itself that engenders this feeling. So I challenge all of you to take at least one morning off from the BoFs to join me at the Dolphin pool and learn a new skill that will make you feel great.

• what's the relationship between blogging and traditional media
• what has blogging done for you and your career
• when do you blog and when do you let it lie fallow
• how do you post your code
• who's reading and why
• what's up with the lack of commenting? how do we follow-up on the comments we've made at various sites?
• RSS, trackbacks, threading
• bookmarklets -- urls not for a page, but for a piece of javascript that do something
• how can we use blogs, wikis, etc in our company to develop community
• there are still a lot of non-bloggers, folks who don't know what blogs are about -- how do we reach out to those people?
• isn't it interesting how you can create real impact, both in the Lotus community and outside of it -- don't forget how powerful a medium the blog can be
• what about topics that could be.... off topic or antagonistic or... the internet has a very long memory -- be aware of what you're saying, what impact it can have on other people, and what impact it can have on your career... think about how much you want to put your opinions out there

1. What are the most memorable show tchotchkes for you? I know we've discussed this in the past at Turtle's site, but what do you still have hanging around? Why do you keep it? What did you have to do to get it?
2. What are your most memorable moments from the show, either from parties, or just during the week itself?
3. If you had one piece of advice to give to a person attending Lotusphere, what would it be?

• Plenty of other pictures and fun goodness over at Brightrock.com, Brian's blog/gallery
• More pictures in a shared kind of environment, over at Volker's blog/gallery

• And so it begins -- the first hint of what will be for Lotusphere 2004 is posted on Lotus.com today, although the www.lotus.com/lotusphere site still shows LS2003 information. And while the Turtle seems to have come back to life, the Gonzo Lotusphere site, also, is still set at 2003. How are you feeling about Lotusphere? The last two years, it has been much smaller than it had been for a few years before that, with much discussion over the relative merits of whether it's technical enough (versus a devcon, I guess) and worth the money. Will you have trouble convincing your bosses to let you go? It may seem early, but I suspect this is a good time to start getting the feelers out there. I think in the current environment, it's more important than ever to be on top of what's going on with the vendor that supports so many of our careers. While we will of course do our best to make sure the reports get to you quickly and accurately, we can't be everywhere at the show and we can't always hit what's important to everyone. So, I encourage as many of you that can to come join the fun and work at the 'Sphere.
• Even though it's been out for a while, I hadn't looked at CRN's certification survey results or report  -- there's some interesting stuff there, although, as often, I'm disappointed by how little attention they pay to Lotus or any IBM certifications.
• A few months ago, I wrote about rules in Notes mail as part of a push to combat the other kind of spam -- all that mail that we get from coworkers that we don't actually need -- some of it is purely personal (jokes, invitations, etc), some of it is work-related information, but secondary to your immediate tasks, and some of it is related to your current, immediate, i-need-to-take-care-of-it-now tasks. So, of course, I've been playing with my rules to try to keep some of the current virus e-mails out of my in-box and more coralled. I just love rules. I had 350 virus-related e-mails in my "spam" folder this morning when I opened my mail file and only about 120 in my actual inbox. Of course, that clearly indicates there's more work to be done on my rules themselves, but in general, they work wonderfully. In case you're wondering, the rules right now are just of the simple "if it has thissubject, move it to this folder" variety -- nice and easy.
• For those Lord of the Rings fans among us -- there's joy to be had in December. To run up to the Dec. 17th release date, not only are they re-releasing the first two flicks to the theaters, but on the day before the 17th, some theaters will be showing all three flicks (start Fellowship at 3 pm, Two Towers at 7 pm, and the premiere of Return of the King at 11 pm, which pushes it over into the official premiere date of the 17th. Oh yeah. I'm so there. Ten hours of pure LOTR joy.  (Thanks to Brian for the link.)
• A reason I will not be spending my hard-earned gas money at Exxon-Mobil any time soon: they score in the 5 lowest companies on their level of support for being gay-friendly. I don't like to support companies who are bigoted as a corporate policy. Ok, to be fair, the spokesperson says they don't discriminate, but there must be a reason they score so low. (Again, thanks to Brian for the link.)