Libby Says...
You gotta love it when I blog at 1 am (and later) after having 2 or 3 Guinesses and a whiskey or two... Garrett, who works with me, and I, have been on our trip to SF and LA, as I mentioned. We flew down to LA last night, from San Jose. FYI, if you're ever in the San Jose airport, I highly reccommend the Martini Monkey bar -- great service, a good pour on the drinks, and a fun name to boot. So, anyway, few down yesterday (Wednesday) night. We're staying a god-awful hotel -- the Four Points by Sheraton at the LA airport -- avoid if at all possible. We drove down to Irvine and Laguna Beach for our appointments today, then came back to the airport area for dinner and... wait for it.... Karaoke. Yes, we found the best karaoke bar in the LA area -- it's Prince O Whales in Playa Del Rey. They do great karaoke on Thursday nights. The crowd was so nice -- a guy named Alex made sure I got up and sang, even though I was feeling a bit nervous tonight -- and everyone was having a good time. I ended up singing Morning Train (Sheena Easton) and Garrett and I did Don't Go Breakin' My Heart (Elton John and Kiki Dee). That was all I did tonight, although some others that I might be talked into at some point include: Summer Nights (John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, from Grease -- I've done this one before, but it has to be right for the crowd...), The Sign (Ace of Base), Sumnmer of '69 (Bryan Adams), I Wanna Go Too Far ( Trisha Yearwood ---I would've done this tonight, but she didn't have it...). Other than great karaoke tonight, we also had a great lunch today in Laguna Beach -- the Sun-Dried Tomato cafe. Last night, I had room service and worked a bit. I tried to watch a movie, but I was just too sleepy. I've started the same movie again; we'll see how far I get tonight. Tomorrow I'm off to Germany. I'll be asking Chris to help me out with some guest blogging... Perhaps my colleague Garrett will make an appearance as well -- but let me warn you to take anythying Garrett says with a grain of salt and a determination not to be offended. Garrett is a little fiesty, to say the least. Anyway, I leave tomorrow from LAX to head to Germany for DNUG. Wish me luck on the looooong trip (did I mention it's long?) and the not-so-long battery life. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
First stop on the grand tour: San Francisco. Had a few vendor calls today -- lots more tomorrow and Wednesday, before flying (we hope) down to LA to do a few more calls. After business today: visiting with some of my good friends in SF. We had dinner at a Thai place in the Castro. And, since I bought my new tiny little Casio Exilim EX-Z4U camera, I took some pics with it. It's not what I told you I thought I was going to get, but it's better, I think: it's smaller (which was very important to me) plus it still has the 4 megapixel and both digital and optical zoom. Happy Libby. :-) I'm still trying to figure out the software that comes with it, so that I can make nice libraries and show off my pictures to you, but for now ----- this is the Castro, via the new toy. Other pics here. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Here's a map of the SD fires, as of this afternoon. I put a blue dot about where my house is -- if the fires get to me, you know all of SD is burnt to a crisp. That said, I hear that it looks as though it snowed from all the ash, the air is chocked with smoke, and many of the freeways (15, 805, 52, 8) are still closed, at least in parts. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Rocky liked my Getting to Know You quiz so much he made up his own! Here are my answers: WHAT CLUBS WERE YOU INVOLVED WITH IN HIGH SCHOOL? Choir, debate, swim team, drama, humanities club, German club, National Honor Society, Mentor program (we did career internships), Special Experiences (sounds bad, I know -- it was this program where we got to do day-long special events, we curated a museum for the school district, self-published books, taught classes, all kinds of cool projects)... I know there were others that I'm not calling to mind right now; I was such a "joiner." DID YOU PLAY ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS? IF SO, WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE RACE/CLASS COMBINATION? Nope... Does that mean I fail? I didn't pay D&D until after college. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SCI-FI/FANTASY NOVEL, BESIDES LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY? Too many... Let's see, everything by Robert Heinlein, to start with, with Time Enough for Love or Glory Road as the favorites, although I like them all. Mmm, then I'll have to go with favorite authors, since I can't even narrow it down to books:Tad Williams, Mercedes Lackey, David Eddings, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Dan Simmons (Hyperion, Endymion, Fall of Hyperion, Rise of Endymion), Vernor Vinge, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula LeGuin, Patricia McKillip, David Weber, ... WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER GO TO - A SCI-FI CONVENTION LIKE DRAGONCON, OR A RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL? Renaissance Festival - I actually worked at the Texas Renaissance Festival during and after college, for about, umm, 5 or 6 years... Yep, I was wenchy. There are pictures, many of them, but I don't have one to share at the moment... WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST COMPUTER? TRS-80 CoCo II -- The Trash 80 Color computer 2, from Radio Shack... with a (non-functioning on mine) casette tape drive for saving -- made learning to write programs very annoying and repetitive... WHAT 80'S MUSIC DID YOU LIKE BETTER - "NEW WAVE" OR "HAIR BAND"? Probably New Wave, although there were a frew hair bands I got into... OF THE TYPE YOU CHOSE IN THE PREVIOUS QUESTION, WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITE BANDS? Erasure, Duran Duran... Of the Hair Bands -- Rush! WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE STAR TREK SERIES, AND WHY? I'm torn between Next Generation (Jean-Luc was the best captain) and Voyager (gotta love it when a chick gets to be the captain) NAME THE LATEST "GEEK TOY" YOU BOUGHT YOURSELF Mmmm, I got my new Fujitsu laptop, my Toshiba PDA... WHO WOULD WIN IN A CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH - STEVE JOBS OR BILL GATES, AND WHY? Jobs would take him -- revenge for real life. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE, AND WHY? Formula language. It was the first time I thought I could actually program -- what a great feeling for an admin geek. HOW MANY HOURS DO YOU SPEND ON THE COMPUTER DURING A WEEKDAY? WEEKEND DAY? Most weekdays, between 9-12 hours... On the weekend... well, it depends. On a good weekend, 2-3. On a bad weekend... 5-8... WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SOURCE OF CAFFEINE? Favorite? Solid -- chocolate! Of course! Liquid? Chai tea, lately, or Thai Iced Tea. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Let us please have a moment of slience for the victims of the San Diego (and other southern California) wildfires. I can't even say how sad and scary and horrible the fires are. People I know have been evacuated, one the fires was moving west and south toward the downtown area, and both the San Diego and LA airports are closed. Of course, that put a not-so-small wrinkle into my travel plans today, when I was supposed to be flying to Oakland. Southwest cancelled all its flights out of SAN, LAX, and SNA, then the San Diego airport closed down. Luckily, I happened to have bought a refundable ticket on Southwest. After a few false starts (such as a try for a flight from my little Carlsbad airport, but that would've gone through LAX... not a good idea!) and was able to book a flight out of the John Wayne airport in Orange County to fly to San Francisco. It was the only flight that got out of that airport within an hour of its scheduled flight time, and one of the few flights that actually left southern California today. As unlucky as I felt for a while when I was trying to find a plane to get me to SFO, I started to feel a lot luckier when I started to actually listen to the news and hear how bad things were getting (and a LOT luckier when I was able to change my flight, the new flight went, I didn't have anyone sitting next to me on the plane, and I got to SFO in time to have dinner with my friends). It's funny, but almost the first I knew about just how bad the fires were was when I got the message on my cellphone that my flight had been cancelled. I mean, I knew there were wildfires in the greater San Diego area, and the ash had been falling all night, making our car a mess and making my 7 mile run this morning icky, to say the least; however, I really didn't realize where the fires were until I realized my flight was not going. Amazing. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
My very good friend Jack Dausman has just started blogging. Jack and I met a few years ago at some conference or another, and since then we've spoken together at a conference, he's written and spoken for us at e-Pro Magazine, and I've enjoyed knowing him and having his good great perspective on all things Lotus, education, and certification. Glad to see you blogging, Jack! (thanks to Rich Schwartz for the link) Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
As you no doubt know, food on airplanes has gotten steadily less as the airlines' finances have had more and more troubles. Well, fine, understandable, I guess, although it really sucks for those of us who fly all the time. Whatever. So, today, I get this from United.com: Purchase restaurant-quality meals during your next United flight in United Economy. Beginning October 31st, you'll have a choice to purchase and enjoy reasonably priced meals from such well-known restaurants as Bennigan's, Hard Rock Café, Au Bon Pain and T.G.I. Friday's on select United flights in United Economy(R). Buy on Board choices will be available on more than 200 daily domestic flights in and out of Chicago and Denver. On flights between 3-1/2 and 5 hours, you will have a choice of complimentary snack or you can purchase breakfast entrees for US$7, and lunch or dinners for US$10. On flights between 2-1/2 and 3-1/2 hours, you can choose a la carte items for purchase. We hope this enhances your onboard experience and helps you avoid grabbing meals on the run between flights. For more information, please visit http://www.united.com/page/article/0,1360,50584,00.html In some ways, this could be great -- the food might be somewhat tasty and I don't have to try to leap into and out of a restaurant on a short connection. Of course, on the other side, there's the whole issue of the of the actual cost -- not really cheap, although not too unreasonable, and then there's the issue of how it gets administered... It doesn't look like I'll have any of the routes it talks about for a while anyway, so I won't get to test it out right away... If you do, I'd love to hear how it goes! Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
I can't even count the number of recent complaints I've had about my blog design. Okay, so not even just recent. I'm sorry -- I've just been too busy to get my act together on the design. So, my dear, sweet, wonderful, appreciated (can you tell I'm brown-nosing?) friend Chris used his design and whipped up a little something for me (and yes, he actually did this quite a while ago, I'm the slow one) and I've finally gotten around to implementing it. So, yay Chris! Still a few little wrinkles to iron out, but basically, it's pretty good. And hopefully this resolves in the various browsers somewhat more nicely... At least, I have to assume so, since Chris hasn't been getting the same complaints that I have and this design is based on his. John? Volker? I'll be awaiting your thoughts... Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, I've had requests for pictures of my trip to Amsterdam and etc. Unfortunately, I didn't take my own camera along on said trip. I hate our current digital camera. It's not actually all that bad, but it's old and really the worst part is that it's BIG. Ick. I don't like carrying things in genral -- I'd rather stick some stuff in my pocket than carry a purse, for example, so of course, I really don't like carrying a big camera. My mom tried to help me out by giving me on of those "pen" style digital cameras, but it doesn't work quite as well as advertised. So, for the most recent trip, I relied on Chris's pictures. In fact, sometimes he was nice enough to take pictures to order for me. Of course, getting said pictures from him is another matter altogether, but hey, beggars can't be choosers or something pithy like that. So for now, check out Chris's site for his first set of Amsterdam pictures and pretend that they're mine too. Or at least most of them. So that I don't have to continue to rely on someone else's pictures (despite the fact that Chris's pictures are very good and likely better than anything I would've taken), I think I've decided to go out and buy myself a new camera before the next trips begin on Sunday. We'll see what I actually end up with, but the smaller, the better. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Yes, I know, you thought I'd died -- but really I was just off gallivanting in Europe. First there was the Domino Technical Conference in Amsterdam, then a few days in Nice and Monaco, followed by the top 10 sights of Paris in about 7 hours. What a walk that was. It was a great conference -- lots of interesting attendees and questions. We spent some great time hanging out with Philippe and Louisa from GSX -- they were the nicest hosts in Nice, too. I've decided I really like running in new cities -- in Amsterdam, I did about 8 miles or so along the Amstel River on the day I arrived. Then in Cap d'Ail (right next to Monaco), I did 3-4 miles along the Mediterranean. The left side was the water, waves crashing against the rocks; the right side was historical villas. The route near Monaco took me past some of the most amazing yachts I've ever seen -- the harbors are full of these huge boats. Unbelieveable. I intended to get up early on Sunday and run along the Seine in Paris, but that didn't quite happen. Next week, I'll get the chance to run in San Francisco and then the week after, in Frankfurt and Kassel, Germany. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
A man drove a car through a double security fence at San Diego's main airport Wednesday, then jumped out of the moving vehicle before it crossed an active runway and crashed into another fence, airport officials said. Hmmm, Libby sure is lucky that United Express flies into that tiny little airport in Carlsbad -- avoid the, uh, congestion at Lindbergh Field :) More > Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
"Yankees suck" Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Chris is over here putting pressure on me to hurry up and get a blog out there, so here I am in lovely Amsterdam... Amsterdam is fine. The flight was long, but not too bad. I changed seats so the lady next to me could sit with her husband, and ended up in the row over the wing that has the double size space between you and the seat in front. Lots of legroom is wasted on someone my height -- I actually have to put my laptop bag under my feet so that they are comfortably flat on the floor when I sit all the way back in my seat. I arrived about 7:30 Sunday morning, had breakfast, checked into the hotel, and went for a lovely run along the Amstel river. Our guess is that I probably went about 8 or more miles -- all the way to the next town, Oude Kerk aan de Amstel. I don't have a working pedometer, so I run by time -- it took me about an hour and 15 minutes -- I meant to only run for an hour, but I got distracted. The day was sunny and not too cool, the river was filled with rowers and scullers (I was jealous -- reminded me that I miss rowing). The other side of the path had nice houses, then some grazing sheep and cows, so also nice scenery. And there were lots of runners out there -- the Amsterdam marathon is next weekend, so I guess some folks are prepping. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
You've got to go, right this minute, over to Volker's blog and Wiki, where they're currently casting for LotusWars. I'm still laughing. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
When we moved to California 3 1/2 years ago, I decided that I lived in the perfect place to take up running. I had never been a runner, primarily because I am an asthmatic, and didn't think I could. As I got older and realized that my asthma was more controllable, I figured it was an easy way to keep in shape, even with all my travel. So, I got the doctor to give me a preventive inhaler and I started running. I wasn't very consistent with it, I must admit, although for a year or so, I did a bunch of 5K races with one of my girlfriends out here in San Diego. When she started training for half marathons, 5Ks were too short for her, so we stopped doing them. I quit running for a long while. All of a sudden, about a month ago, I got a sudden yen to do a half marathon myself. So, I downloaded a training schedule, did some reading, got my personal trainer to start working on my endurance, and started training for my first half marathon. The race is in January -- it's the San Diego Half Marathon on January 18th. I did a 6 mile run this weekend, in about an hour, so I feel like I'm making good progress. I'm still a little nervous about the race, but I love having a goal. Anyway, wish me luck in keeping up my training with my icky travel schedule -- it's always hardest to keep up the runs when you're not in your regular routine, and even worse when you're in a strange place. So far, a few people have given me advice on where to run in the various cities I'll be traveling to -- now I just have to do it. I decided that the more people I tell about the race and the training, the more I'll force myself to do it -- you can't back out when everyone knows what you're doing! Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
And someone out there is making the weather do just the right things: Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
I know I've been a bit quiet since Friday -- I've been in mourning. My poor Astros. Yes, the post season is here, but the Astros are not. Yes, the Cubs won and the Astros lost. If the Astros can't beat the Brewers, on the other hand, they don't deserve to go to the postseason. Let's not dwell on it -- there's always next season. As for who I'm rooting for in the postseason, I've decided that I'll root for the Cubs, simply based on the fact that I'd like to see a Cubs-Red Sox World Series. Of course, with all my travel, I probably won't actually get to watch the World Series (I think I'll be in Amsterdam), but hey... I also went to a really awful Padres game on Saturday night. Great seats -- on the field by the opposing team's dugout. But the Rockies, who are down there in the baseball basement, beat the Pads... The only good part (besides the seats) was the introduction of the some of the greats in Padres history -- they had folks like Tony Gwynn, Ken Caminitti, and Dave Winfield down on the field for part of the ceremonies for the last Saturday night in the Q. Pretty cool seeing them. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
All kinds of important Lotus-related things happened this week and I've been so heads down with real work and etc that I haven't blogged them. Of course, many of the rest of you took care of all of that for me, but since over half my googles for this week were for Lotusphere 2004, I thought I'd spend just a moment talking about it. LS2004 registration is open. You can register, get hotels, put in an abstract for presenting, and nominate your favorite business partner for a Lotus award (formerly a Beacon award). You can also check out the unoffical Lotusphere page at the Turtle's site -- yes, he's back, and I know we're all grateful for the surely soon-to-ensue hilarity that the Gonzo site always provides. As for registration -- pay attention -- you now have some discount options -- register by December 2 for $1395 and by Jan 23 for $1695. If you're a CLP, if you will wait until October 7th, you can get a $200 discount. Go to the Certification Zone (requires registration -- you must be an IBM Certified Professional for Lotus Software) for details. I think this year's Lotusphere will be an important one -- okay, I probably say that every year -- I've been going since 1998 or 1999 and I love the heck out of it -- but my point is that there are a lot of changes and growth in the Lotus industry this year and we all need to hear from the horse's mouth what their plans are so we know what our plans should be. While you can stay home and get the information from me, you'll get more out of it if you can make the trip yourself. Plus, one of the arguments I've heard in the past against going is that it wasn't technical enough -- from what I've heard and seen in the descriptions of the tracks, you won't be able to say that this year. The Best Practices track looks like it will be expanded and you'll also be seeing some hands-on sessions at the show -- how could you miss it? Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link |
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