Libby Says...
Well, dear readers and friends, I know I owe you an apology for the long silence. I do have a reasonably good set of excuses. First of all, I've been gone from San Diego since about, well, Oct. 11th. I was home for 6 1/2 hours between Germany and Houston, and for a few days between Amsterdam/Nice/Paris and SF/LA/Germany/Houston/Toronto, but during those few moments home, I've had momentous doings. Which brings me to number 2: We're moving back to Texas. (Apologies if some friends who I haven't told yet are finding out this way -- it's been a whirlwind!) Made the decision basically while I was in Germany (for a variety of reasons), looked for a new place while in Houston week before last, put the house on the market officially last Friday afternoon, and had an offer yesterday afternoon. It was low, so we counter-offered, and they accepted that today (while I was sitting here working at the Starbuck's, in fact!). Put an offer in on a house in Houston while I was in Toronto last week, which was accepted. So, by about the first of January, expect me to be writing to you from Houston instead of California! My mind is spinning a bit with all the details and all the work I've been trying to do while doing all that personal work, but I'm sure it will all work out, right?! I've got a bulging folder in my e-mail of other things I want to blog about, but this is foremost in my mind, so of course, this is what you get! Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, perhaps the power gods were susceptible to my feminine wiles or my pitiful complaints -- I am finally sitting in a seat in an airplane that has power and my laptop is plugged in and actually using said power. Yay, me! Well, I'm on my way back from speaking at DNUG in Kassel, Germany. There seemed to be about 500 people there, including Volker and Ed and Daniel Nashed... (I think that's about the extent of the people I knew going into the week, although I met some great folks while there). I learned a lot about the German market and really enjoyed getting to know this organization. Plus, I think my keynote went fairly well. I spoke immediately following Ed, which isn't the easiest thing I've ever done in my life -- he does a great job -- but on the other hand, it gave my presentation a very interesting perspective. Ed got to introduce the audience to the official Lotus story on Workplace, the existing products, Portal, etc. (It was good timing, too, considering the Workplace platform launch that took place this week.) Then I got to stand up and do some... reality checking, let's call it. I didn't directly respond to Ed's presentation -- mine was a bit more broad, covering a review of the trends from the 2003 Lotus market and an overview of where I think the market will go in 2004 -- but some of my comments about the future included my thoughts on the Workplace strategy, the portal strategy, and what it all means for those of us in the Lotus market. I won't reprint or rehash the entire presentation here, but this slide gives you an portion of what I talked about. Of course, the real value was in what I added to the bullets, but as I've been up and travelling for about 20 hours now, I'm probably not in the best place to get too strategic with you. We left Kassel before 10 a.m. (GMT +1), drove to Frankfurt, got on a plane around 2:15, flew to Chicago (about a 9 hour flight), changed planes for SD (about 2 1/2 hours on the ground and a 4 hour flight)... When I get back to SD around 9 pm (GMT -8) on Thursday, I get to go home, unpack and repack, and be back at the airport for a 6 a.m. flight to Houston on Friday morning. Whew. Beyond the DNUG conference, the trip was good in general. I got to add a new country to my list of places, as this was my first trip to Germany. Frankfurt on the weekend was quite nice -- did quite a lot of walking along the river, in the Hauptwache, and in the large park in the middle of the city. Drove to Kassel on Monday -- gotta love a Mercedes on the autobahn! I thought about my Oma a lot as we drove -- she's always liked it when we drive through areas in California that are farmlands and now I see why -- it reminds her of home. There is a lot of lovely rolling green farmland dotted with windmills (the modern variety) and fall foliage. Kassel itself was quite a nice town -- visited the monument the town is famous for -- Herkules. It's a statue of Herkules (you know, from Greek history/mythology) on top of a pyramid, on top of a big stone fort/castle. The whole thing is up on the top of a tall hill, overlooking a schloss (not quite a castle, but close) and the whole town. When we got up to stand on that hill and looked out over the town, the entire village was shrouded in fog -- it looked very much like a view of a very gray ocean -- you could've been fooled into thinking the schloss stood on a cliff overlooking the water, if it weren't for the spots where the brightly autumn-colored trees broke into the mists. Really quite beautiful. Look for some photos as soon as I get the chance to get them off the camera. We also went to the Brothers Grimmm museum -- Kassel is the first city on the so-called Fairy Take Road -- a path of towns in Germany that all relate to the rich folkloric history of the country. Unfortunately, the museum wasn't quite what I'd hoped -- there were some interesting bits, but too much of the explanation was in German, and mine wasn't quite up to the task of translating it all. Ah well -- still some neat fairy-tale art, copies of the fairy tales (and the German dictionary they wrote), and some of not only their history, but also the history of the region. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, it took the better part of two days (left LAX at noon on Friday, arrived in Frankfurt at about 6 pm on Saturday), but I made it safely to Frankfurt. I had long layovers in both JFK and LHA (Heathrow). Pretty decent shopping in Heathrow, although not a single place to plug in a computer. I am continually power-challenged. I think somewhere along the line I must've angered the power gods. Evidence: Before I upgraded to my new Fujitsu, I had two Thinkpads. The battery in my personal laptop was so bad that it couldn't hold a charge for more than 1 minute. So, I ordered a new battery. About 2 weeks after I ordered and started using the new battery, the screen in that laptop died and I had to replace it. So, a brand new battery and no use for it, as the work ThinkPad uses a different battery. Sigh. Ok, then I bought the APC power adaptor that has plugs for planes, cars, and regular outlets. This would theoretically allow me to use the plugs on planes, right, so I could work for the full 5+ hour flights. Yes, well, nice in theory. I have yet to successfully use a power outlet on a plane. The first time I upgraded on United so that I could try out my new plug, the row I was sitting in, and only that row, had non-functioning outlets. Okay. Then the next flight had the outlets still covered over with metal plates -- the feature wasn't installed on that particular plane. The next flight, the outlets existed and I plugged in... Still no green light. In this case, the power was not turned on. It had been working the previous leg, the flight attendant said, but he couldn't get it to work on that leg. Then a couple of flights where I either couldn't upgrade (the outlets are only in first on United) or where it was a plane that didn't have the outlets. For my trip to Frankfurt, I flew American. I knew they had outlets in some seats in Coach, so I wrangled my way into one of those for the flight from LAX to JFK, even though it meant moving back a few rows and sitting on the aisle (I'm usually a window-seat kind of gal). I knew from talking to Ed that the outlets were installed and working on many, many flights -- he'd used them. Ok, so I got my hopes up, took out the laptop, pulled out the cord.... Now, the outlets are between the seats (one per row) at about the knee level, so to plug in, you basically have to reach down and feel around. Well, I did, and the outlet was actually there... Ok, making progress, I think to myself. Then I take out my plug and try to put it into the outlet. Doesn't fit. I ask the flight attendant and show her my plug. Well, apparently American uses the cigarette lighter attachment rather than the plane attachment. Ok, so I do actually have that attachment with me; I try that. Still no dice. It goes in, but won't stay easily and no green light on the adapter. I tried to look a bit closer, but considering where the outlet is, I'd've had to all but have my face in the person's lap in the seat next to me to examine the outlet. Needless to say, I gave up. Well, I'll be flying back to San Diego via Chicago and should have an outlet, so I'll keep trying. Anyone have words of advice on how to appease said power-gods? Ran along the Main river today for my run. Didn't quite make my 7 miles, but I did get out and do a few -- maybe 4-5 miles. For those who might be counting, that's 4 bodies of water (and countries) that I've run by in the last 4 weeks: along the Amstel River in Amsterdam, Netherlands; by the Mediterranean Sea in Cap d'Ail, France; cruising along the Pacific Ocean (SD and SF, CA); and down the Main River in Frankfurt, Germany... I should also have run along the Seine in Paris, but I had to settle for brisk walking, as I'd twisted my ankle. In two cases, I got to watch people rowing or sculling while I ran (and flew over what must've been a regatta flying into Heathrow -- the Thames was packed, bank to bank, with boats -- you could actually see the speed and clean drop of the oars, even from the plane!). Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link |
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