Monthly Archives: January 2005

There’s Still Snow in Pocatello

General

Getting home to my own place and my own bed is always quite satisfying. I’ve been out of town for the better part of three weeks and should now be at home for the next month of so. Except, of course, that we’re planning to possibly take a short trip around President’s Day to Arizona to warm up the bones and play with the grandkids. That isn’t really being gone — just like a vacation isn’t really being gone. Only business trips count in the “being gone” category!

And there is still a lot of snow on the ground. This morning the temperatures are right at freezing. Snow is both melting and falling from the sky. The weather maps indicate some heavier precipitation west of Pocatello and a little bit south. We’re headed to the Salt Lake Airport in a few minutes to pick up a friend of ours who is flying in from Denver to spend a week. Helen lives in Castle Rock, about twenty minutes south of the Denver Temple. We picked her up each week on our way to the temple and took her home after our shift working at the temple and become good friends. She’s in her mid-80’s and very spry and adventuresome and we’re quite delighted to have her come over for a week. The Denver Temple is closed for winter vacation this week making her time available to visit with us. We’ll probably drive through some snow on our way to the airport, I think. If there’s any weather around, it’ll show up as we drive over Malad Pass and into the Great Salt Lake Valley. Snow is a good thing, however. The water is very important!

Endings

E-Mail Musings

The Lotusphere Conference is ending, my trip to Orlando is ending, the stay
at the luxury hotel is ending — lots of endings! I do know, of course,
that as long as I’m still vertical, there are as many beginnings as there
are endings.

The conference has been very interesting. It may also turn out to be
useful! Lotus Notes is one of those capabilities that either become
foundation piece of a company’s infrastructure or you just struggle with it
forever. We’ve been struggling….

Orlando’s Disney facilities are first class. The price isn’t cheap, but
neither is the service. In the hotel and on the grounds, all the employees
greet you and smile at you. The customer experience is excellent and helps
make this a very comfortable place. There are also lessons to be learned
from that.

We’ll come back here sometime in the future (Nina assures me of that). I’m
looking forward to spending a real vacation time here. I think we should do
that in April or May before all the families with kids descend on the
place. People say this place is wall to wall people during the summer.
Vacation here would be a lot of fun, me thinks. So, this is only one ending
in Orlando!

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Space Flight to Mars

General

Mission Space

What an experience! As part of the Lotusphere Conference, one of the business partners salesplace.com had their launch party at Epcot Center last night. As part of the party we were treated to a ride or two on Mission Space, a new attraction in Epcot. I can only describe the experience as “stupendous.” Folks who have difficulty with tight, cramped spaces, spinning, and some disorientation probably need to stay away from the ride. I was able to get two rides in and would have gone several more times had the opportunity been there. Two thumbs up — four stars — V for victory — however it can be said, this is one awesome experience.

Blogging at Lotusphere

E-Mail Musings

I’m in a session being lead by Richard Schwartz and Declan Lynch titled
“Improving Collaboration With Blogs And Wiki’s in Domino”. It is actually a
very good overview of how and why blogs can be good for an organization.. He
has also touched on the ethical issues associated with employee blogging.

I’ve not thought very much about Wiki’s before. The idea actually sounds
useful but would certainly require some serious selling and education in
the company I work for. I’ll have to give this some thinking as it may be a
good way to author policies, procedures, and user documentation.

Finally, the number of live demo’s that don’t work is interesting, always
accompanied by the comment, “It worked Yesterday…!” Then they show a
previously created document or email or web page. All the presenters so far
have been prepared for the live demo to fail! They’ve been here before and
just know that even the most simple of demonstrations will fail at the most
inopportune time. I’m impressed.

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A Day Closer to the Average

E-Mail Musings

The best part about weather in this part of the world is that when the
weather is bad, it won’t stay that way very long! The Law of Averages
simply won’t allow longer-term deviations. Today the weather here will be
almost back to normal. Airplane travel across the northeast US should get
back to normal today. The Law of Averages is taking hold again.

A number of years ago when I was learning to fly, making consistently good
landings was very difficult. One landing would be pretty good — close to
the centerline of the runway, no significant bounce, and without serious
float down the runway — and the next would be a near wreck. After a flying
lesson one day, Jim Young, my instructor and all around great guy, sat me
down to explain the Law of Averages. “The goal,” he said, “is to improve
the average and to narrow the variability.” My landings were going to vary
from one to the next. He was first working on reducing the variability in
my landings. Once that was under control, he would sart working on
consistent improvement in the overall average of my landings.

It worked. After a couple of lessons that included several dozen landings,
none of them were near wrecks. I was much more consistent with where I was
relative to the centerline upon landing. Finally, the airspeed I was
carrying as I flared for landing became much more consistent. Then the
tasked changed so that I would learn to land on the center rather than
always on the far right side of the runway.

I learned from Jim Young a very valuable lesson about the Law of Averages.
I’ve been teaching this law to my staff for several years. It’s another one
of those invaluable concepts and rather immutable. And I’m quite satisfied
that the weather in Florida conforms to the law. Tomorrow should be an
Average Day!

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Brrrr!

E-Mail Musings

Last night was well below freezing, but the forecast is for mid-70’s by
Thursday. That is worth looking forward to! The conference is quite
interesting. Right now I’m in a session on Mobile Connections — how to do
that with IBM’s WebSphere “Everyplace” products. It’d be great if it really
worked as well as hyped in this presentation.

The damage from last summer’s hurricanes is still quite visible —
particularly homes and businesses with blue tarps on their roofs waiting
for insurance and qualified roofers to become available. There is still
some considerable damage visible on roofs and sidings of the buildings on
the Disney grounds.

The resort covers an area the size of Boston. Some 37,000 full time
employees and another 20,000 seasonal and part time workers make up the
workforce. The grounds are immaculate and very pleasant. The theme parks
are quite a way from the hotels, but regular bus (and watertaxi) service
runs through the entire complex. It’s quite the impressive place — with
lots and lots of kids! This is the slow season, so I can only imagine what
the busy season might look like.

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Curios Comment

General

When I got back to my hotel room at DisneyWorld this evening, I found that a comment to my last post was waiting for my approval. Apparently, someone at IBM searched through weblogs looking for references to Lotusphere and posted a comment to every blog that had this ability! I’ve approved the comment just for curiosity sake.

I expect that this comment has to do with the major winter storm that crashed into New England yesterday along with the big Canadian storm that came through the midwest at about the same time. Logan Airport in Boston was closed this morning along with other airports along the east coast. Meanwhile, many airports in the midwest like Detroit and Cleveland had most of their flights cancelled yesterday and today. That will certainly affect many people’s plans for getting to Orlando and attending this conference.

The weather here is Dang Cold! The temperatures will be much below freezing tonight with a crystal clear sky. There is a fairly strong wind out of the north as well on this almost-full-moon night. It’s nice to be inside a warm hotel room this evening.

Flying Again

E-Mail Musings

today I’m off to Orlando and IBM’s Lotusphere conference. I’m sitting on an
airplane in Salt Lake City while the passengers are boarding. The flight is
overbooked and will be completely full. All this with an airline that
posted the worst quarter ever in the history of airlines in Q4 2004. It
isn’t because of the lack of passengers!

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