The Boys are back in town

Or, how to turn a perfectly normal conference room into Igor's lab in 15 minutes. The product specialists- Alex and Nick have arrived to create the magic of the show. Their classes are already a sellout (again). I spent that afternoon doing their class as a test and it’s awesome.

Wincing over to the dark side

Today, I got a new phone. It's a Microsoft wince phone. I'd tried one a few months ago before and found it to be utterly unusable. But this all new shiny version 5.0 phone promised to trully wonderul experience.
It wasn't entirely the case and by 5:45 in the evening it crashed completely, requiring to remove it's battery in order to get it restarted.
Still it does keep all of my contacts and calendar synced with my laptop and I can listen to my music and podcasts without an additional piece of gear in my pocket.

This week...

See http://ardbeg.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-work-life-in-pictures-by-rod-aged.html

At first he was sad that nobody showed any interest in his booth, but by the end of the evening he had gotten several punters!

Science Fair

This week was Alexander’s school science fair. Being in Kindergarten his project had to be simple, so we chose making paper airplanes.

I spent several weeks teaching him the folds of the best paper plane ever.

Yet more Skype ravings

Having a 3-way conference all from my couch in Los Gatos with Lauren in the Sunnyvale office and Joel in bed somewhere in England for free while sendng edits at the same time, is definitely cool. I Skyped with Steve at MPE and his comment was "Skype is definitely the broadband kill app!" I must agree.

My Work Life in Pictures by Rod aged 4(4)

So you thought you'd like to go to the show? 2006 Version

So you thought you'd like to go to the show? 2006 Version

Apologies for the lack of blogs these past 3 weeks.There are two reasons for this: (1) I can't tell anyone what I'm doing. (2) I don't have time to tell anyone what I am doing even if I could. My cryptic postings may give some clue as to my state of mind.

It's the Embedded Systems Show 2006 and the crew are flat out making the best show for ARM ever!

Saturday, I cut back on the caffeine big time (only 2 cups for breakfast) in attempt to mellow out with da' family. Result: I crashed big time, and fell asleep around 3:15pm. This was bad news 'cause I was driving the family back from Santa Cruz at the time, but I made it home and slept for nearly 2 hours. Sunday, I snuck of to Los Gatos Coffee Roasting around 4:00pm to get a single cap and write some "stuff" but spent most of the time chatting with Lauren about the "stuff" I wrote the day before.

Anyway life's not all bad, my article in "Information Quarterly Magazine (IQ Magazine)" was published this week and folk have called to say they like it!

My Work Life in Pictures by Rod aged 4(4)

Home Alone with the Hi-Fi

We finally got all our CD's ripped onto the hard drive of our server (and backed up) so we can listen to them around the house. We have clients in the family room and our bedroom and of course we can also listen in the office where the server is located.

Tonight Dena took Alexander and Fiona to one of Alexander's friends birthday party. This left me alone to do something that I realized I had never done before. Listen to "Ricochet" on my Bose Hi-Fi in a detached house, alone. Somehow in my life these three things hand never come together before now. Awesome!

Being for the benefit of Mr. K.

For the benefit of Mr. K.
I went to Walnut Creek today,
And ate Thai food.

The usual crew all were there,
I was late, they didn’t care.
All was good.

Having been one day in preparation
A splendid time was guaranteed for all
And today Mr. K was topping the bill

Twas the night before tomorrow

All is quiet in the house: Fiona sleeps, Alexander snores, Dena knits... I hack Smalltalk.
At last!

Today started last night when Alexander and Dena returned from a "Playdate/Birthday Party" rather late. Alexander had come down with a cold and so he snuffled/snored/grunted the night away in bed with me.

Fiona cried every 20 minutes all day- This was dementing! People think me weird when I say things like this. They look shocked, stop talking about their children and won't have lunch with me anymore.

But it is true, it just part of nature. It is supposed to be dementing!

And just because I understand it for what it is, doesn't mean I won't feel the way I am supposed to. If this makes no sense try having a baby scream next to you every 20 minutes.

Beyond the screaming: Fiona is growning fast, so fast in fact that the rocking swing we have nearly doesn't fit her. I was totally surprised by this, thinking she would use it a few months down the road.

My other solace today (apart from now) was phoning Andy using Skype which very pleasant and going to the gym which was frustrating- since after ramping up while on sabbatical I hit the wall of work and stopped again. So today, I didn't end up feeling good, just tired. I need to fix this.

Solidarity

Awareness

No Expense Spared

We have been searching for somewhere to stay on the Cowal for our summer vacation.
I came across the following:
Two luxurious self catering cottages are available... Prices quoted are weekly and include electricity,....

Aye well, that's luxury fer ye eh?

But having had tae pay extra for butter on ma bread, this doesnae surprise me.