PatHelland's WebLog : Personal

SeaFair in Seattle!

PatHelland — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:05:25 GMT

One last personal post and then I'll get to the work stuff. Last Friday we got off the ship... Saturday was moving the office with Bob... Sunday we went to a SeaFair party!!! I've lived in Seattle for 14 years and never really paid any attention to SeaFair but it was a blast!

So, SeaFair is a combination hydrofoil racing and airplane exhibition featuring the Blue Angels. It turns out that some friends John and Wendy have an amazing house overlooking Lake Washington right above the hydrofoil races. We were invited to a party, the weather was awesome, and we had a blast! I have to share some photos and our thanks to John and Wendy for including us!!!

All these photos were taken from their lovely deck!

- Pat

I Moved into My New Office in Building 35

PatHelland — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:05:54 GMT

So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am starting in the SQL team this week after the one week vacation. My friend, Bob, came over on Saturday with his pickup truck and we moved everything from building 42 to building 35. The Microsoft moving organization always gets confused when I move myself but there's no way a standard moving team can deal with my office. They did move my phone, though...

I am now moved into my new office which (this time) does not have a window... we're supposed to do an office move in a few months and I should get a real window. In the mean time, I have a substitute window so I can still have a window office. Also, as evidenced by the hallway outside, my office is definitely considered to be the place where a bunch of asses hang out.

It's great to be relocated into the SQL team! It was a long (seven hour) Saturday moving stuff! Thanks for the help, Bob!!

- Pat

A Fun Cruise to Alaska with Friends

PatHelland — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:45:23 GMT

I'm starting this blog entry on the bus riding to work on Monday, Aug 4th... it's taken all the bus rides until today, Thursday, to finish. There's NO computer stuff in this post... This is a vacation travelogue!

Wow! We had a good time in spite of Lisa being seasick for 1-1/2 days and the weather in Alaska (mostly) sucking... Still, it was FUN!

First of all, it was lame of me to think that I was going to exercise every day on the ship... the exercise room was small and had no water or music. I worked out one day and went to the buffet lines the rest of the time. I am back in Seattle now and working hard to get rid of the two or three pounds I packed onto my butt... I weigh within two pounds of what I did three years ago (but more is muscle so I am in 36 inch pants for the first time since the 1960s). Giving away clothes when you get smaller is an important trick! When the clothes get tight, STOP EATING SO MUCH... My clothes are a little too tight after the cruise!

I did, however, succeed at my other goal of reading all 750ish pages of the last Harry Potter book. JK Rowling is VERY creative and the book held lots of surprises! I have a lot of respect for her work and enjoyed it immensely.

So, we started off Friday by meeting up with the other two couples, Bob and Rita and Kirk and Kathy, at our condo for brunch and then we caught cabs to the cruise ship dock which is TWO MILES from our home. It was literally a 10 minute cab ride. We can see all the cruise ships, including Rhapsody of the Seas coming and going from our living room. There are two or three cruise ships in Seattle every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday each week from May through September. Frequently, I am up at 5AM (at least on Fridays) to watch them arrive. In the evening, at around 5pm, it is normal for them to all pull out within minutes of each other. Most of them back out of the Port of Seattle and do a 180 degree spin right in front of our home. I call it the cruise ship ballet! Here are a couple of photos of the ship we took (Rhapsody of the Seas), taken from our home as it departed the evening after we arrived back in Seattle.

So, Friday (July 25th) was the day to arrive and unpack. We got on board at around 1PM and started exploring the boat with our friends. The luggage arrives over a few hours so you need to kill time a bit and then unpack. So, we discovered the Windjammer Cafe. This is the place where there are GOBS and GOBS of mediocre food, crowds of people jostling to pack their plates, and then (at some times of day), seriously insufficient tables to sit down and eat. Now, here and there, you can find something really good in those buffet lines but it is VERY hard to do appropriate portion control because you think you've found the right stuff and the right amount of food but then you walk over to the next stuff and there's something else you want to slap on your plate! Still, there is always something there and that's kinda' nice when you're locked up on the ship, you can always get something to eat.

Shortly before departure, we had the mandatory lifeboat drill... we all have to practice getting on our life preservers and going to our muster station where we can look at the 150 person lifeboats. It is a necessary hassle. Here's my wife, Lisa, looking beautiful in her life preserver!

Here is the view of Seattle as we were departing Seattle. This photo includes the building with our condo. It's the shorter one which is darker on the top half in the center of the photo.

Next year, we're moving to a different building only one block from Pike Place Market. Here's the view of it under construction with the yellow crane in front. Both of us LOVE downtown living and it was pretty darned cool to only take a 10 minute cab ride to catch an Alaska cruise!

I mentioned the "Cruise Ship Ballet" from Seattle. Three ships set off at basically the same time that Friday. Here is a Celebrity ship in from of us and a Holland America ship following behind us!

We went to the opening show and had a great time! Dinner was fun and we met one of the singers at the next table having dinner with her mother and aunt who were cruising that week. This set a pattern where we made a big point of sitting in the front row every evening and cheering on the performers... it was a blast!

As we cruised up the Pacific on the outside of the British Columbia and Southeast Alaska islands, the weather got a bit rougher... our stateroom was quite a bit forward and Lisa got seasick. Consequently, she stayed in the room on the second dinner (which was the first formal dinner). So, there were only five of us at dinner that night. Here's Bob and Rita (all dressed up)

and Kirk and Kathy (all dressed up)

and me (in a tux) posing with Kathy since Lisa was upstairs in the stateroom being miserable. She made it clear to me that I should go to dinner since if I stuck around while she was sick, I would annoy the heck out of her and make her MORE miserable... she was right!

On the third day, we pulled into Juneau and saw that it was in a beautiful location but it was POURING rain... Other than Lisa, none of us brought rain gear. It turns out to get to town you need to board a bus but the line was outside in the rain. We waited for a while and then set out to get onto the bus. Standing (and freezing), we decided to bag it and go back into the ship... That was NICE and WARM. I found time to read that last Harry Potter book!

Again, we very much enjoyed dinner and the show in the theater on the boat as we were getting underway from Juneau to Skagway.

The next day, we went to Skagway. It is a cute little tourist town which will get between 5000 and 10,000 tourists every day of the week during the 5 month season. We spent a couple of hours walking through the shops and exploring. It was a nice break getting off the ship.

Again, we really enjoyed dinner (casual attire) and the show... it became a lovely rhythm as we met each day to spend the evening in the dining room with friends and head off to the show!

The next day, we got up at 6AM... The original itinerary had us seeing the glacier in Tracy Arm Fjord. The Captain announced that we would not be able to get very close (like 2 miles away) from that glacier because there were so many icebergs floating down the fjord that he would need to stay way back for safety... Instead, he would take us down Endicott Arm Fjord and we would see a different glacier (Dawes Glacier) much closer up. To make that happen, the visit would need to be much earlier so... we all got up! Lisa and I met up with our friends in our stateroom to hang on our balcony... I didn't see it but I understand there were hoards of guests (many in their pajamas) on the 10th deck (with no wind protection). We had a great view from our balcony. Here are shots of the approach up the fjord and of the glacier as this huge ship did a 180 degree turn only a few thousand feet away. Our stateroom happened to be on the port side and so it had a magnificent view!

While in front of the glacier, the crew lowered a lifeboat so they could capture some pieces of floating ice. It just so happened that the boat they used was directly below our balcony! One of the pieces of ice was later carved to become a salmon and put on display.

We were right behind the bridge and saw LOTS of fun stuff with the glacier...

So, later that day was the second formal dress night. Lisa loves getting dressed up and (with her help), I think I am doing OK at it!

There was a very cool drum and dance act from Argentina and we had a blast with Bob and Rita at the show.

At the end of the evening, we found a cute folded towel puppy with Lisa's reading glasses on the bed in the stateroom.

The last stop on the cruise was Prince Rupert, British Columbia (necessary so that the ship makes an international stop). It was a pretty town but there's not much to do there... Lisa was thrilled to find a sushi restaurant, though!

So, this takes us to our last cruising day home through the inside passage. It was mostly a quiet and uneventful day (as captured in this photo):

We were taking the inside passage (going South or home to Seattle). This winds its way between Vancouver Island (which is about 400 miles long) and the mainland. There are beautiful views and narrow passages between the various islands. Coming home was the top line in this chart:

At lunchtime on that last day (Thursday), the ship was heading through a narrow passage while we were sitting down and eating. Now, Bob and I have done quite a bit of boating in our day (especially Bob who is a licensed captain). We were fascinated (but not worried) when the boat started listing to the starboard by what we thought was about 8 to 10 degrees. This went on for a minute or two and LOTS of desert plates fell, carts went rolling, and people were quite surprised! A couple of minutes later, the ship's captain announced that the ship was fine and not to be stressed.

Now, there is quite a difference between a roll (where the boat goes back and forth) and a list (where is stays for a while in one direction). When the seas get rough, everything gets stowed and you may get a roll (or a pitch) motion which can involve a lot of motion. When the seas are calm (like in the inside passage), stuff comes out from being stowed and it will fall if there's too much movement.

So, this was an UNUSUAL event! The cruise ship company doesn't like to have this happen. Both Bob and I could tell from the motion that we had been moving through a pass with a following current. The islands and other geography in the inside passage are a special area. As the tides change, you can have large bodies of water a few feet (or more) higher than what is lying on the other side of the narrow passage. Consequently, the water squirts through one way (landing onto some calm but lower water) for a few hours and then when the tides change, it squirts through another way. We could feel this in the motion of the ship.

Now, when a 79,000 ton ship does this, normally everything is lined up, it runs through the shoot and people barely feel a thing. Both Bob and I (sitting at lunch) notice the slight variation and were chatting about it. When we listed to the starboard (right), that got our attention as we could feel the rudder had gone over to make a turn to the port (left) and the following current was pushing the ship on the port side causing her to lean (or list) to the starboard side. This lasted only a minute or two and the ship recovered nicely.

Later that day, Lisa and Rita went to a Q&A with the captain and his senior crew. He described that he was definitely responsible (and on the bridge) while the pilot (a fellow NOT with the cruise line but who knows the local waters) was at the helm. As the Rhapsody of the Seas was shooting through the pass with a 5 knot following current (which is a very noticeable but reasonable current to sail through), a couple of fishing vessels cut in front of the Rhapsody of the Seas and the pilot needed to take evasive action to avoid hitting them. That caused us to make a slightly uncomfortable maneuver. He claimed we listed 5 degrees (although it seemed like more to Bob and me). Also, the captain said that was the worst unexpected listing in his 47 year career. Anyway, for a couple of boat-geeks, it was cool!

Finally, on the last night, we had a Las Vegas style juggling and balancing act (Justino and Daniela) who were great! It seems that the singers in the theater group set me up... I could tell that Justino normally doesn't call on someone from the audience but he was clearly looking for the bald headed guy in the front row. He came and shook hands. Then, a few minutes later he made a comment and asked me my name (and I told him "Pat"). Again, a few minutes later, he asks me to stand up and hands me three juggling balls with the comment "Would you please hold my balls?". Of course I said yes at which time he produced a long-haired wig for me to wear... I kept it on for the next 45 minutes since I certainly am not going to back away from a good joke (and I was VERY glad I didn't get asked to help juggle). When the singers came on about 15 minutes later, they were only a few feet above me and struggling VERY hard not to bust out laughing! It was fun!

Here's some pictures of me with Justino and Daniela after the show but before I returned their wig to them...

And then, the last evening's dinner and a goodbye to Rocky from Beijing who brought us cocktails with a warped sense of humor ("I'm the 'Boozer', not the 'Loser'!").

That night we packed and set the suitcases in the hallway. We awoke the next morning to see the Holland America's Amsterdam backing into her berth right in front of us and then a very familiar view of the Seattle skyline. It was GREAT to be back home!

I spent the rest of Friday, August 1st, reacquainting myself with my laptop and deleting most of the 538 messages in my inbox!

Saturday was the office move to building 35 and the SQL team (more on that soon).

It was a LOT of fun to just goof around for a week!

- Pat

Transferring to the SQL Team

PatHelland — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:17:40 GMT

Since I returned to Microsoft in March of 2007, I've worked in the Developer Division on a project in the area of RIAs( Rich Internet Applications). This is a fascinating space in which lots of fun stuff is happening. I've been privileged to work on a wonderful team developing an upcoming project in this area. While I have had a blast and can see the impact of my work, my real passion is scalable distributed back-end applications and data management. Maybe I'm in a rut, but I've worked on variations of this space since 1978 and still find it fascinating.

For many years, I've worked with my friends in the SQL team on a number of different projects (both directly on the projects and by coming over and offering various opinions to rile them up). Now, it turns out there is a really special opportunity for me to join a team in SQL called SIA (Strategy, Infrastructure, and Architecture). This spot allows me to work on the business, technology, architecture, infrastructure, and more for one of the industry's leading products. It also allows me to participate in driving some of the new changes in scalable cloud computing (which is, of course, where I am extremely passionate). The leaders of the team and most of the folks working on the team are old friends that I thoroughly enjoy! Also, it is a natural part of the job for me to be communicating externally and, hence, you are still going to see me causing trouble at a number of Microsoft and industry conferences... Expect to see me at TechEd EMEA for sure!

I am heading out on an Alaskan cruise on Friday with my wife, Lisa, and two other couples who are dear friends. We will return on Friday, August 1st and then over the weekend my friend, Bob, and I will move my office to building 35. Needless to say, moving the office is a project!

While I am not going to disclose anything about the project I've been working on for the last 15 months or so, I do have a whole bunch of thoughts on RIAs. I plan to drive to get this thoughts out as blog posts over the first few weeks of August but I've decide to actually leave my laptop at home and not take it on the cruise! It's time for me to read the last Harry Potter book...

I want to thank the Developer Division, my bosses, Shanku Niyogi, ScottGu, and Soma for the wonderful opportunity and blast it has been working in DevDiv. Also, I can't forget to thank all the wonderful members of my team who will remain good friends!

Talk to you soon!

- Pat

A Weekend at Foo Camp

PatHelland — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:29:03 GMT

Well... I was lucky enough to get invited to Foo Camp (which was last weekend) and I figure "What the heck! Let's do it!".

Foo Camp is held at the O'Reilly headquarters in Sebastopol, CA which is 1 to 2 hours (or more depending on traffic) north of San Francisco. It is an invitation only event whose name stands for "Friends Of O'Reilly" and involves about 300 diverse and interesting individuals from different walks of the computer industry (and related industries). Tim O'Reilly host it at their headquarters and supplies very nice buffet food, showers, rest rooms, and meeting rooms. I was informed that the best way to enjoy the event is to camp there which means either pitching a tent on their lawn or finding an available space in a meeting room or hallway to throw a sleeping bag. It was an option to get a hotel room in town. Now... I haven't camped in about 20 years so this required some thinking...

I concluded I had two options:

Stay in a hotel room and ensure I remained sober enough to drive at the end of the evening, OR
Buy a tent at REI in Santa Rosa and then hit the high-end liquor store in Santa Rosa to buy enough whiskey to lubricate a serious subset of the 300 attendees.

Naturally, I chose the second option and bought six bottles (some of my favorites and others I hadn't tried).

So, I flew from Seattle to SFO late Friday morning (July 11th). After picking up a car at Avis, I hit the road north (and the traffic) at around 1:15PM. It took until about 3:30 to get to Santa Rosa and the REI camping store. Buying a tent was an experience, too. REI doesn't have any cheap tents but, boy, do they have some nice ones! So, I ended up with a two-man tent which, in reality, was exactly the right size for me, my duffle bag, and the box of whiskey. By the time I'd hit the REI, the liquor store, and driven all the way to Sebastopol, it was about 5:30 and things at the O'Reilly campus were really hopping.

The campus has three buildings and is the regular workplace for quite few people. Naturally, some of the areas were labeled as not for the Foo Camp attendees since not everyone wants someone sleeping in their office filled with all their things. Lots of the space was graciously made available. A large circus-style tent was set up for dining and around the back of the campus were a number of tents with chairs set up for meetings. It was really very well done.

So, the next job was pitching the tent (which is NOT my forte). The lawn had been pretty well staked out by the time I got there so I went around to the side of the dining room tent and found a spot between the big tent and the sidewalk. This made me the closest tent to the beer and wine which really wasn't a problem for me (I brought earplugs) but the WELL lit sidewalk meant my tent was, well, WELL LIT. This, too, didn't phase me but obviated the need for the flashlight I'd scored at REI. I was surprisingly successful at tent construction and soon moved into my new 54" by 80" abode.

At dinner on Friday, I saw my friend Jesse Robbins who (I believed scored me the invitation to Foo Camp. I met Jesse during my tenure at Amazon and he is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about Disaster Management. Jesse has been trained as a firefighter and is ALWAYS thinking about how can a data center and its applications survive failures. It was good to see him! At dinner, I met Adam Jacob who is working with Jesse at a new gig called HJK Solutions which is working to help companies develop their operations. Cool stuff! I also met Brady Forrest of O'Reilly. I had known of Brady because of the work he has done in running various conferences.

So, the format for Foo Camp is pretty informal. There is a large board set up that has columns for rooms (or tents) and rows for time slots for meetings. People rush over and slap up a topic that they want to present. Partnering with people of like interest is encouraged. It is also encouraged to reduce your one hour time slot to 30 minutes if you think your topic is best served by a shorter period. The entire conference is self-organized and pleasantly quirky.

The first evening was random discussions as people drifted in before, during, and after dinner. There was beer and wine and lots of fun people to talk to. After a while, I realized I was tired and set off to find a place to brush my teeth. Having succeeded with that, I crawled into the sleeping bag at 11:30.

So, camping is (sort of) OK... One thing I remembered from my youth but, now, vividly remember is my LEAST favorite part of camping. That's when you wake up in the middle of the night and REALLY have to go pee. Now, to politely accomplish this, you have to successfully unzip the sleeping bag but the zipper always gets stuck. Then, you have to put on enough clothes to avoid getting arrested or, worse, hit on by a Foo Camp attendee. Don't forget your shoes as you are about to search for a Men's Room... yuck.... Finally, you have to unzip the tent flap AND the rain cover for the tent and crawl out on the lawn. Hopefully, you remember the location of the facilities in your exhausted stupor. After finding the Men's Room and returning, you have to undo the entire process in order to get back to sleep. I hate this part!

On Saturday morning, I was pretty close to the first one up since I was seriously wanting to take a shower. Remember, there are a couple of hundred people competing for one men's and one women's shower. Unlike at most baseball games, the ladies have the advantage in contention for scarce resources at Foo Camp. So, I scooted into the shower at around 6:15AM (not too bad since I crashed at 11:30).

The sessions started at 10AM and I went to a number of excellent ones. Sometimes, it was hard to select between the various cool sessions. I remember the following ones:

Data center power -- James Hamilton (my friend from Microsoft) and Jeff Hammerbacher who leads the Facebook data team (but will be leaving soon). Both James and Jeff were filled with information about running large and dynamic data centers. The power issues for data centers have been on my mind the last few years and I find that James is a wonderful font of knowledge. I most definitely love that he is at Microsoft and my friend... I plan to come pepper him with additional questions in the months to com. Jeff, also, has tons of knowledge from supporting the data needs of Facebook as it has undergone its explosive growth. This was a fun and invigorating discussion in which I met an attendee, Roger Magoulas who is a research director at O'Reilly. I have a feeling that there will be opportunities for me to work with Roger, too.
Parallel Programming -- Kerry Hammil of Microsoft Research. We had a fun discussion of the difficulties of getting applications (and, indeed, their libraries and OSes) to be parallel. There were about 25 great and interesting people participating in this group and, not surprisingly, I participated, too. This was such a lively discussion for me that it ended up in the hallway and we skipped the next session.
Beyond Relational DB -- Emil Eifrem (of NeoTechnology) and Terry Jones (of Fluid Technology) -- These were really two different folks with two different reasons for wanting to build a datastore that is different than relational. For NeoTechnology, it was about making an optimized graph representation of data. By custom designing for a graphs, they can do specialized queries quite fast. For Fluid Technology, they are allowing data to be represented in a fashion where annotations (or additional attributes if you will) can be stored by any observer of the data. Basically, if you can look at an entity, you can add an attribute which is then stored in YOUR store with your privileges. Filtering of the entities can be done based on whatever attributes you can see (ones you've stored or others you can see). Both systems are interesting. I had a number of discussions during this session (and afterwards). During this, I met Esther Dyson (who is an investor in Fluid Technologies and quite a fascinating person). I also met Jeff Jonas (who I very much enjoyed, too).

Next, came dinner... Actually, what happened was Esther, Jeff, and I slipped away to the big dinner tent and Esther spent some time online showing us a demo of a startup she is on the board for called 23andMe. This is a fascinating company which makes its money by allowing you to pay them for a genetic analysis. This analysis can yield information about how closely your genes are like those of your family. Esther had a large number of family members whose genes were processed so they could be compared to each other. We spent some time looking at the variance and similarity of siblings, aunts, parents, half-siblings, and more. It was very interesting. This then led to a discussion of the implications of certain markers that are related to different disorders. What do the genes mean? When should lay people gain access to information about their genetics? How can it be presented to people so they understand (and do not react improperly) what a certain pattern of genes will mean for them? Apparently, some states (I think California but may be wrong) are demanding that genetic information only be made available to someone via their doctor. What are the tradeoffs associated with that?

Continuing over dinner, I got a chance to hear more of Jeff Jonas's work at Systems Research and Development (SRD) which was acquired by IBM in January 2005. Jeff's interest is in processing VAST quantities of information to see surprising correlations. He applied this technology to help flesh out folks that were trying to cheat the casinos in Las Vegas (which is where he lives). Later, it was tapped by the folks at Homeland Security to find patterns associated with folks trying to do acts of terrorism. Jeff is very interesting and I hope to get the chance to work with him more.

So, after dinner at about 8:30, I figured it was time to break out the six bottles of whiskey (two scotches and four bourbons). There was a fire pit and that seemed like a great place to set up. The beer that the nice O'Reilly folks had supplied was brought over and soon we had a party going. One at a time, three other whiskeys were produced by other volunteers. A few hours later, I noticed some Gin and Tonic had been added. Since there were about 300 people, this was not an overwhelming amount of trouble. Also, a walk around the campus revealed many different people involved in different passions. There was one group in a meeting room with about 8 different musical instruments just making wonderful sounds. Others had people doing puzzles (I think my friend Pavel Curtis was one of the ring-leaders in that effort). Others were playing various games and I did notice some hula hoops in play. Someone had set up a croquet mallet, a ramp, and a rack to break old china... this makes a MARVELOUS sound whose effect is enhanced by whiskey. The following photo was taken on my friend Jesse Robbins camera by another attendee. You can see James Hamilton, me, and Jesse by the fire.

Check out James' blog for his perspective of the event. (Picture stolen from James' blog and, in turn, from Jesse's Flickr site).

So, I partied until about 2AM. I remember long and interesting discussions with Mark Fitzsimmons and then later on getting to know some of the Microsoft Research folks better including Lili Cheng, Jennifer Chayes, Christian Borgs, and Linda Stone (now ex-MSFT). Just an amazing group of people that I would love to get to know even better!

Then, it was back to the JOYS of the tent and the middle of the night zipper-fight. I managed to sleep until 8:30.

The next morning, it was waiting in line to shower and then I had to pack up all the stuff! I got all done except the sleeping bag and tent when I went off to see a talk by Terry Jones on the calculations to track the changes in Flu virus genetics and the challenges of creating an effective vaccine. Esther Dyson (who is both funding Terry's company and working on the board of the genetic company 23andMe) was there for the discussion. It was (and is) fascinating the extent to which data analysis of LOTS of information is having a profound impact on something as surprising as the design (and prediction) of the contents of the annual flu vaccine so as to create immunity to infection for what the scientists THINK (and hope) is going to be the dominant mutation of the flu virus. It was VERY interesting and Terry's knowledge was very impressive.

So, that morning, Esther realized I was heading to SFO asked me to give her a ride. What a treat to chat with here for a few hours! I scrambled to pack up the tent and give it away to a nice couple that are Foo Camp regulars... they keep a stash of supplies for later Foo Camps. I asked them NOT to keep it for me. Having discerned that there is at least one taxi in Sebastopol, if I get invited back, I will exercise a THIRD option:

3. Hit the high-end liquor store for whiskey, cause trouble on the second evening, call a taxi, and stay in a local... I think I'm spoiled!

Esther and I had a lovely chat and covered our respective backgrounds and passions (she is into space flight amongst other things). Quite a lady and quite an enjoyable drive to SFO. I dropped Esther off, returned the rental car, and managed to get an earlier flight home that I had reserved (which was GREAT since I needed the sleep and was happy to see my wife, Lisa!).

I hope I get the privilege to attend this eclectic and fun event again (but without the tent).

- Pat

Foo Camp was fun! Thanks to Tim O'Reilly for having me!

- Pat

I Got My Christmas Tree Up at Work...

PatHelland — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:12:39 GMT

My office is a bit unusual... even for Microsoft.

Anyway, during the Christmas Season, I like to add my Christmas Palm Tree that Lisa brought when she moved from Florida. I managed to score some motif appropriate ornaments last year. They are flamingos.

This would seem VERY out of place were it not for the rest of the office. I have a couch, recliner, fireplace, PEZ collection (please don't send me more!!), and lots of other paraphernalia. One of the nice things about using a laptop is that you can get rid of those pesky desks... I don't have any desk at all.

I'm quite fond of the fireplace (especially with the stocking I was given a few years back). That is a stuffed animal (teddy bear) bear-skin rug in front of it.

The PEZ shrine has been about 15 years in the assembling and it has gotten WAY out of hand. It takes HOURS to unpack and set up and I really, really don't want any more dispensers!

Now, the outside of the office can be noteworthy, too... It is known as the "Place Where the Asses Hang Out"

This got started when I decapitated the stuffed animal moose (serrated knives work WAY better for decapitating stuffed animals than straight edged knives). When I stitched up the neck and added Velcro, the neck stayed just fine but the body needed a suspension stitch since it kept coming off the plaque mounted to the wall. This led me to starting my "Head Collection"

You can notice in this last photo the two heads of vegetables, the "head of beer", and the "head" (as in the plastic toilet). These have taken a number of years to accumulate. I'm still working on a cylinder-head, a crack-head, and a head-of-state for my "head collection".

Finally, during my time at Amazon, they didn't give me a window in my office so I had to buy one... The brackets for the drapes were a project by themselves!

Anyway, I thought I would show you all my office while the Christmas Tree is up... Soon, the tree will go back into storage for the New Year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a wonderful New Year to you all!

- Pat

OK... A Mediterranean Cruise in November Was Not My Smartest Idea...

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:28:00 GMT

In retrospect, we had a good time on our first week of vacation... but we would have had a better time if we'd thought things through.

This trip was planned around TechEd EMEA in Barcelona running November 5th-9th. The conference was great and we had a blast! Our cruise covered Nice and Monaco, Florence and Pisa, not seeing Rome because we were exhausted, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast, a pain-in-the-butt visit to Sicily, and a day at sea. We saw a lot and we were exhausted. This leads me to the following advice:

Some Lessons about Cruising

Pay attention to the weather... it is no fun if someone is seasick and it is no fun if you are cold!
Decide why you are taking the cruise. If it is to enjoy the ship, cool. If it is to see the sights, cool. Know you need to rest, though!
Find out how close the boat will be to the sights you want to see... I was lazy and didn't realize Florence was 90 minutes away and Rome was also about 90 minutes away from where the boat docks... That eats into the fun and time.
Avoid tour busses at all cost!!! It probably cost you a LOT to get to the ship and to pay for the cruise. Think about a private tour guide if at all possible.
Come with some friends... it can make the adventure a whole lot more enjoyable.
Arrive before the crowd and depart before the crowd.

We were SO wiped out by this week that it really took writing this blog entry to realize HOW MUCH we did and how much we saw and how much fun we had. Both Lisa and I agreed we probably would have regretted the entire week except we enjoyed D'Arcy and Roger so much.

Another cruise is a possibility in the future but with MUCH better planning.

Next week, the exhausted travelers in Rome...

- Pat

Friday, November 16th -- A Day at Sea with a Major Storm...

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:17:06 GMT

Oh, my, it was moving!! I used to own a large power boat and have had it in 15 foot seas. Then, I experienced 30-35 degree pitching (forward-backwards motion) and rolling (side to side). I’ve been seasick on smaller boats and this did not bother me. Still, over half the people on the boat were seasick.

Lisa slept in (our cabin was near midship and didn’t experience too much pitching) and I went to exercise at around 10AM. The gym on the boat is near the bow with a lovely view forward. I estimated we were pitching 15-20 degrees which astonished me for a 140,000 ton boat. I was marking the horizon and counting and we seemed to have a 15 second or so cycle on the motion.

So, I’m working on the elliptical and thinking about a number of nerdy things. The boat’s length is approximately 1000 feet and the elliptical machine was about 100 from the front. That means I was standing about 400 away from the center of gravity of the ship. This means a circle including me would be about 800 feet in diameter and have about a 2400 foot circumference. If the boat was pitching at least 15 degrees, I was moving a 24^th of that circle or 100 feet each way back and forth every 15 seconds! That seemed cool to me! It was hard to work the elliptical as fast as normal when the relative gravity of the descent made my feet fly up into the air if I wasn’t careful… I got a great 30 minute workout but it was a bit unusual.

Lisa, D’Arcy, Roger, and I joined for lunch at the Johnny Rockets on board the ship and that was a lot of fun (we ate too much, though). The motion was really beginning to pick up as we got to noon. After lunch, we started to look around the ship together but Lisa had an appointment for a facial and to get her nails done. Unfortunately, the spa is on the forward part of the ship (one deck above the gym) and the motion was BAD for her! She barely completed these and then was down in the stateroom laying down and miserable.

Meanwhile, Roger and I went exploring… the crew had tied up all the deck furniture and closed off most of the outside areas. The winds were 60-65MPH and we were heading into the wind at 20 knots so this made a relative wind of 80-85MP. The waves were about 20 feet… The boat was MOVING!!!

I had always known that large ships (and even small boats) flex and twist in the weather. It was interesting to walk down the long halls containing the staterooms and look down watching the boat bend... Wow!

Lisa ended up skipping dinner and I ate with D’Arcy and Roger and brought her some food. The three of us had a fine time visiting but it is not that much fun having fun when you know your wife is feeling sick.

We had to pack that night and leave all our bags in the hallway before going to bed as we had an early departure. Of course, we brought WAY too much stuff with us and packing was a project!

The next morning was an EARLY departure to avoid the crowds and make our airplane flight to Rome.

Thursday, November 15th -- The Bus Tour from Hell and a Lovely Formal Evening

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:13:49 GMT

On Thursday, we had signed up for YET ANOTHER all day cruise… Again, Roger and D’Arcy had wanted to try the “Corleone Village and Wine Tasting” tour but hadn’t purchased tickets as early as we had.

So, off we were (without our new friends) onto yet another large bus (but seated in the front). This time, we were bus “1”. We quickly determined that this tour guide was VERY annoying. We hadn’t even gotten out of Palermo (where the ship was docked) before we really wanted off the bus. We drove through Palermo and into the hills.

Finally, we got to the town of Corleone, famous for its Mafia connections. We parked the bus in front of a run down coffee house and learned we needed to go in and buy coffee or water to use the (filthy) bathroom. Plus, it was really, really cold!!! Soon, we were marching as a group down the street to head to a church and museum. The recent rains had made stomping through the grape fields impractical.

Now, we were freezing our butts off waiting in a courtyard for the local priest to open the museum. He was much more interested in finding out which Americans were from Houston (since he liked Houston) than in opening the museum… we were COLD!

The museum had stuff used in everyday life in Corleone about 100 years ago…

We were not really interested (I think we were just too tired of being on a tour bus and being cold). Next, we saw the local church which was not impressive from the outside but really quite nice on the inside.

So, now it is around 11AM and we were turned loose on our own in Corleone. We were led to believe that lunch was minutes away but Lisa wanted to try the local pizza (and it was GOOD). I was very glad we had a piece. I went back to the crappy coffee house by the bus and bought a cup of coffee so I could use the restroom again.

Now, we drove for quite a while and then landed at a large winery for a tour. They were determined to show us the barrels and bottling before we had any food. Both of us were really annoyed by now. We did have a wine sampling but none of it seemed very good. It was after 1PM before ANY food was presented. All in all, we were trapped at the winery for over 3 hours before we could take our bus ride back to the ship…

Thursday was the most frustrating day!!! We would have paid good money to have avoided taking that tour. Some other folks just walked off the ship into downtown Palermo and had a pleasant time exploring the city. Too many tour busses can be a very bad thing!

Thursday night was the second formal dinner on the boat (we had skipped the first). So, out came Lisa’s fancy dress and the tuxedo she had asked me to buy for the trip! Dinner was MOST enjoyable with our new friends! We watched the musical show and thought it was fun. We stayed up late drinking and talking with our new friends… it was a good time.

Later that evening, we found a hanging monkey towel creation in our stateroom!

Unfortunately, we were leaving the North of Sicily to have an open sea day to get across the Western Mediterranean. November is getting very late for this and the seas were projected to be very rough on our last day… Things were beginning to move as we went to bed.

Hmmmm....

- Pat

Wednesday, November 14th -- Pompeii, Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast, and Motion Sickness...

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 06:04:25 GMT

Naples! The evening cruise had been quiet and we were back at it with the tour busses. Our new friends had not been able to book with the Royal Caribbean sponsored tour to Pompeii, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast. D'Arcy had gotten on the Internet and found a private tour to these same locations. This was our longest and most expensive tour and we were hopeful that it would be enjoyable.

We started by going to Pompeii. I had always dreamed of seeing these ruins (having a keen interest in ancient Rome) and I was not disappointed. Our tour guide was nice, the bus was smaller, we had grabbed a front seat by some aggressive posturing for position, and even a little rain didn't disappoint us. Of course, we had to wait around in front of the gift shops while the others did their thing... One thing about a group tour is that you spend a LOT of time waiting and you spend a LOT of time doing stuff you may or may not be interested in doing. As you can tell, we were on bus "16"...

Pompeii is much larger than I realized. There are huge parts open for tours and even larger parts left for excavation. It is a true gem for archeological research.

That was SO cool to see Pompeii!!!

Next stop, Sorrento... We hadn't really realized we were signing up for so much windy roads along the coastline (that's what happens when you don't do your homework). Also, apparently Sorrento is known for its inlaid wood so we (and everyone else) had an hour stop oriented around a factory making inlaid wood items. We listened to the demonstration so we could use the restroom and then we took off to walk a bit. Lisa want to try the local pizza again and we succeeded in finding a very nice place a block or so away and really enjoyed the taste of pizza.

As we rendezvoused back at the wood factory (determined not to be the ones to make the tour late), I was taken aback because there were our new friends Roger and D'Arcy! They weren't even on a Royal Caribbean cruise but were on a private tour! We laughed with them for a few minutes and then said goodbye! It just seemed like we were destined to see them...

The next stop was a very nice lunch at a hotel perched up on cliffs above the ocean. It was, indeed, a lovely spot and many of us on the tour posed as couples while the others took our pictures.

Now, some even windier roads!!! Tiny and narrow, the road to Positano lies pearched high about the cliffs. Lisa was really nauseous from the motion sickness (again, poor planning on our part... we did ask enough about what the tour would consist of). Still, the views were breathtaking!!

Soon, we were in the darling little town and, fortunately, a nice lady also on the tour had some motion-sickness medicine she gave to Lisa. We walked down the tiny street and found a little store to buy a bottle of water and use the toilet. I stepped outside onto the street, and there was Roger!! I think his tour guide was following the same program but still, it was amazing to line up another encounter. I told Roger were were moving to table 567 at the early seating and he said their table was number 565 and had two empty seats at the table for six. We agreed to crash their table from then on!!

Positano was darling but we had barely started exploring it when there was a lightning flash and the whole town lost electricity. We then proceeded to get dumped on by rain and we scampered back to the tour bus and waited for the remaining stragglers. Here's some of our wet companions.

So, back to the boat to a change of clothes and a new dining experience! We met Sandra and Milton, originally from San Salvador but raised in Canada and now living near San Francisco. They are a nice young couple and the six of us had fun! Back at the stateroom, we had more towel art awaiting us!!!

Off to bed as tomorrow we hit Sicily!

- Pat

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 -- Our Second Wedding Anniversary (and NOT in Rome as We Had Planned)

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:52:27 GMT

After months and months of talking about our second anniversary in Rome, we decided not to go after all...

We started the day by sleeping in!!! What a joyous relaxation after TechEd and Tour-busses! We slept late, exercised, and had a couples' massage. This was simply two tables and two masseuses in the same room... no different than a normal massage except they ended it by massaging our hand and gently slipping them together so we ended holding hands. It was really pleasant! We just rested and puttered around the (very empty) ship that day... everyone else was in Rome!

We booked dinner in the separate dining facility called "Portofino" which was a nice Italian restaurant and enjoyed spending time together. They sang to us for our anniversary...

When we returned, more (very cute) towel art on the bed of our stateroom! Shortly afterwards, the head waiter asked why we'd blown-off three evenings in a row. We explained that the late seating at 9:30PM (which we had fought to get) was too late for our touring schedule. She suggested moving us to the normal (7:00PM) seating and gave us a new table to join some other people at.

Tuesday was my favorite day on the cruise ship...

- Pat

Monday, November 12th -- Florence, Pisa, and Challenges with the Tour Bus

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:46:14 GMT

We had determined that D'Arcy and Roger had tickets for the same 10 hour excursion to Florence and Pisa as we did... to get on the same bus, we needed to arrive at the theater together and get the same stickers. We met for a very fast (think inhaling) breakfast. We were down at the theater to get on the bus and Lisa was determined to ensure we were at the front of the bus. Indeed, today, we were bus number "1" and we scored seats up on the top of a double decked bus.

Unfortunately, it was a 90 minute drive to Pisa and the tour guide seemed to ramble in broken English. It can get pretty darned frustrating when you are driving through countryside that is pretty but not noteworthy and having nice conversations which are chronically interrupted with rambling non-sequiturs. This kept up for quite a while!!

We also had to handle the dispensing of the "walkie-talkies" which were little radios with straw like tubes to connect the sound into your ears. These apparently would be used to listen to our guide through Florence. The plastic tubes seemed really cheesy...

The first stop was the train station in Florence which our bus-lady so elegantly described as a "pee-pee stop". The train station toilet required a 70 cent entrance fee which could not be paid for by bills. You needed exact change but there was a change machine on the right that could cope with a 1 Euro or 2 Euro coin. At the entrance to the ante-room with the admission gates (requiring 70 cents) and the change machine was a short middle aged Italian lady whose mood was very foul. She was only letting one person in when another left and the mood was very chaotic as we tried to manage our "pee-pee stop"... The lady got very short with Lisa as she was trying to navigate the different approach to sing the toilet. Here is a photo of the chaos outside the not-so-friendly gatekeeper. Fortunately, no one was injured in the process.

Soon, we met up with a new tour guide and, while her English pronunciation took some work to understand, we rapidly decided she was fascinating with a LOT to teach us with a strong background in history and architecture. Soon, we were following a different lady holding up a round "1" and seeing some beautiful sights.

Florence is, indeed, very beautiful! I think our 4 hours in the city did not do it justice and the tour guide was awesome (in spite of our need to follow the big round "1" and listen to her through the challenging headsets. Unfortunately, it was time to say goodbye to the cogent and interesting lady and continue the day with the lady who kept confusing and annoying us! On to a nice lunch (it was nice), and back to the bus! We had been given cards with the address of the restaurant when we started the tour in Florence. As we gathered to migrate en-masse to lunch, it became clear that a "Mrs. Adams" was missing... after 5 minutes of chaos, we went to the restaurant. Fortunately, the lunch as the gathering place meant that Mrs. Adams was able to find us (having missed a large part of the interesting tour by allowing herself to become separated). We enjoyed lunch and then back to the bus to be annoyed by our first guide as we trekked to Pisa.

At Pisa, the tour bus had to park quite a ways away from the interesting sites in the old walled city. We all walked together and had some free time seeing the leaning tower, the cathedral, and the baptistery. These are beautiful sites but an hour is plenty to see them. The leaning tower (and to a lessor extent the cathedral) are leaning due to settlement of the softer soil. The tower's top stories are actually twisted in an attempt to balance the tower (and so it is shaped somewhat like a banana). These are beautiful buildings and we had fun walking around them with D'Arcy and Roger.

As we waited (and waited) at the gathering place outside the walls to Pisa, a large array of street vendors were trying to sell very cheap imitations of watches and other stuff we did not want. We were (of course), waiting for 15-20 minutes as everyone regrouped. One very interesting (and worrisome) event happened when this man kept pressuring an older lady from the tour and would listen to her saying "no" to making a purchase. She had made the mistake of expressing some interest in the item (I think it was a scarf). She was getting more and more stressed as he wouldn't leave her alone. D'Arcy and Lisa intervened and told him to move on and leave her alone. I, too, proceeded to verbally engage with the seller. Roger, a former cop, watched and was ready to participate but knew it was better to stand back. The seller was SO aggressive (only verbally) and kept asserting that he had been selling there for 10 years and insisted on his right to pester the lady. He moved on after some serious staring-down but we were concerned he would return with reinforcements and so we told the tour guide we were heading back to the bus. After more waiting, the group was together an off we went.

We drove back on the bus still annoyed by the same talking guide (only about 45 minutes this time). The amazing memory from this stretch of road is that we were in the middle of the countryside on a two lane highway and we started to notice young women scantily dressed standing on boxes in the middle of no where. One car stopped to pick up one lady... Apparently, there is a military base nearby and this is a popular rendezvous point for activities illegal in Italy (and most of the US). None of us were surprised at the existence of this, just that it was occurring on a country highway with the ladies standing up on boxes in the middle of no where. Also, it was COLD!!! Still, it was interesting.

That evening, it was back to the boat and, again, we hit the buffet line with Roger and D'Arcy as we were too tired to mess with waiting for the late seating for dinner. Roger and D'Arcy were at the earlier seating and we wanted to continue visiting so we went to the buffet. The next day was Rome and they had made arrangements for a private tour. We knew we were planning to be in Rome the week following the cruise so we decided to cancel our short tour scheduled for the next day and sleep in! We just couldn't see 90 minutes each way to see a 2 hour overview of Rome (and we didn't want a longer tour because we were too tired). Rome would wait for next week.

We gave away our tickets to a nice kid working at the gym. He couldn't go but he made points with a nice young lady (also working on the ship) who was able to see Rome on her day off.

Monday was fun in spite of the challenges!

- Pat

Sunday, November 11th -- Nice, Eze, and Monaco

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:33:13 GMT

We awoke Sunday morning in the harbor of Villefrance which is close to both Nice and Monaco. By 7:30AM, we were in the theater at the bow of the ship sitting waiting to be called for our excursion and to get on the tenders to ride from the Voyager of the Seas to the dock (the boat was WAAAAY too big to dock there). I stopped to use the toilet before getting on the bus (a mistake) and so we ended up at the back... Not good for Lisa's motion sickness.

We drove around some beautiful (and windy) roads and ended up in downtown Nice. We had a wonderful walking tour of Nice and really enjoy the tour guide, Virginie, who would be with us for our entire 10 hour day. I had been in Nice in 1997 for a TechEd (at the Acropolis Conference center) and knew how lovely it is. Lisa was enthralled. We ended up in the market and Lisa was on a mission to try European pizza (this will be a recurring theme...). We found a lady selling pizza by the slice and shared two slices. They were reheated by a fire in a large steel barrel. We were in love with the one without cheese (but with anchovies) because it had a different spicy flavor than we had encountered before. Soon, we were parading through Nice following the lady with the one foot diameter "4" on it since we were one of fifty or so on bus number 4. Of course, at each stop we had a few people late and we were standing around waiting...

After an hour or so of driving around this beautiful area, we ended up at a restaurant in Eze, a medieval town. Actually, the restaurant was outside the old city walls (about 2000 people live in Eze total but only about 50 within the old walls of the city). As we were sitting at the lunch table, another couple approached us and asked if they could join us for lunch and we agreed. Roger and D'Arcy are from Bermuda and were out to see the Mediterranean for a quick one week getaway. We hit it off with the two of them immediately and laugh quite a bit together. Soon, lunch was over and we were climbing the stairs up and up to the old village and church. It was astonishing to me how easy it seemed to climb after all out work at the gym. Of course, we had a fixed rendezvous time to gather at the bus. Lisa was determined to sit closer to the front (to reduce the motion sickness) and so we made our way back about 10 minutes early and sat in the second row on the left side. We were astonished when Roger and D'Arcy returned to the bus and had the two seats immediately across from us... it seemed clear we were destined to spend more time together!

Soon, we were off to Monaco! More driving on beautiful (but windy) roads with magnificent views... Now, we were able to chat with Roger and D'Arcy as they sat right across from us on the bus.

Next, of course, was waiting by a sign with a big "4" while we tried to get everyone together. Next, we drove a short distance to the famous Casino in Monte Carlo so we could enter and see that. By now, we were having a ton of fun with D'Arcy and Roger. Here's a photo of D'Arcy, Roger, and Lisa in front of the Casino. Notice the orange sticker with a "4" brandishing us as members of tour group and bus number "4"

Of course, gathering after the free time at the Casino led to a major chaos waiting for one couple that seemed to have gotten lost finding their way back to the bus. We waited over 30 minutes with all of us on the bus and the tour leader (who we really liked) racing all over trying to find them... The rest of us are wondering if the big cruise ship is going to leave us and how the heck we would deal with that!!! Even on our first day, we were getting fed up with the bus thing... We did well in the traffic and made it back to the tender and ship just fine. Being tired and knowing we had an earlier start the next day, we decided we couldn't wait until our late seating at 9:30. Besides, none of us wanted to bother with getting dressed up for the formal night. So, we went to the buffet line (the "Windjammer") with our new friends and had a fun time eating too much mediocre food. It was fun!

We returned to the room to a cute towel animal crab from our very nice cabin attendant...

A fun day!!!

- Pat

Saturday, November 10th -- Departing Barcelona on Voyager of the Seas

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:15:38 GMT

Warning! There's nothing in this blog post but "what we did on vacation"... no computer stuff.

So, back in February when I decided to return to Microsoft, I told my bride, Lisa, she would love it. Before contacting Microsoft, I looked online to see when TechEd EMEA was happening and determined it was November 4th-9th. We looked online and found a cruise visiting Nice and four Italian cities leaving Barcelona on November 10th! Score!!! We put down a deposit before I finished talking to people at Microsoft about me returning to work there... I am not embarrassed about being confident at regaining employment at Microsoft but a little chagrined at my lack of judgement about a cruise in November on the Mediterranean... especially with a wife that gets motion sickness!!!

So, we have looked forward to this trip for over 8 months! Lisa had not been to Europe before and we spent many hours talking excitedly about seeing Nice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples, and Palermo (not to mention Barcelona). About 4 months ago, I realized that the Nov 10th-17th cruise ended the Saturday before Thanksgiving and a simple three more days off work could result in six more days in Europe! After much discussion (and concern about the November weather), we settled on visiting Rome from the 17th through the 23rd and flying home the middle of the Thanksgiving weekend. I am typing this on our flight home from Rome on Friday, Nov 23rd.

We were SO excited as we taxied from the hotel in Barcelona to the Voyager of the Seas (a 3000 passenger, 140K ton ship) in the Port of Barcelona. We arrived on board early and bypassed the crowds and explored the ship. We ran to the place where you sign up for excursions and we went for all we could... 9 hours of excursions in Nice/Monaco, 10 hours in Florence/Pisa, 5 hours in Rome (more on this below), 10 hours in Pompei and the Amalfi Coast, and 8 hours in Sicily wine tasting and seeing the village Corleone! We were planning to get the most out of this trip we could.

The two of us were very excited. Soon, we were in our stateroom and unpacking what turned out to be a LOT too much in the way of clothes. For me, we had business casual (for TechEd), a newly purchased tuxedo (for the formal nights), casual, spiffy-casual, etc... Just too much! At shortly after 7PM, the Voyager of the Seas (a 140,000 ton -- 3000 passenger ship) departed Barcelona for Nice and we hit our first rough weather. Lisa and I made through our 9:30 late seating for dinner (barely) before she was in need of laying down from the weather.

A worrisome start to a week on a boat!!

- Pat

TechEd Barcelona

PatHelland — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 04:08:42 GMT

Wow! What a fun week from November 4th-9th! I am recounting this on November 25th after two weeks of vacation.

Shortly after returning to Microsoft last Spring, I offered to present at TechEd EMEA held this year in Barcelona, Spain. I had proposed three talks:

I was confirmed for the last two and penciled into my calendar a trip to Europe with my wife, Lisa. We decided to plan a vacation in Europe to follow the trip to Barcelona.

Sometime around last summer, I was approached by the folks managing the content (Dave Webster and Mark White) with an email that read something like: "You're back!! You're coming in November!! Want to give a closing general session on something provocative and not product-oriented??" My response was "Heck, yes!!! I would give my eye teeth to do a big closing talk!" So we began the process of planning a new talk and I began work on:

4. The Irresistible Forces Meet the Movable Objects

The theme of the talk is that many different forces are bearing down on the computer industry. There are trends in processors, data centers, storage, communications, software-and-services, and more which are placing inexorable pressure on the way we design our applications. The talk posits that we are being driven to support offline and independent computation in which decisions are made independently even if we later need to apologize for what we have done. The notion of "subjective consistency" is defined as "Given what I know, make a decision and act on it!". Eventual consistency is the notion that as all the independent machines exchange knowledge, they will arrive at the same conclusion even if this involves apologizing for the actions of one of the cohorts.

Of course, this had to get finished in the speaker lounge at Barcelona! Life at Redmond is SO busy you rarely can get these talks done in advance. There were work meetings for two separate Microsoft internal workshops on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of the week ending November 2nd. Lisa and I boarded the plane on Saturday, November 3rd and arrived in Barcelona on Sunday evening... I was scheduled to meet press and analysts on Monday morning at 8:30AM!!! Still, I made it fine and feeling well.

On Tuesday, I did a brief interview for a videocast from TechEd on my upcoming General Session on Friday. This can be watched at the TechEd EMEA Day 2 Videocasts.

Just before my Tuesday presentation (#2 above), Lisa surprised me at the convention center and sat in the back of my talk from 13:30 to 14:45. That was really cool!!! Then we blew off and went walking for four hours along the beach and through random neighborhoods. At the end of the day, we spent two hours in the lounge at the hotel peacefully playing chess and drinking brandy… it has been years since either of us had played and we both suck roughly as bad… it was SO much fun to just be together and laugh and relax.

My presentations were scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and the big presentation on Friday. This was Lisa's first trip to Europe and I promised to avoid the conference center on Thursday and take her to see Barcelona. So, of course, that meant that I needed to work like crazy at the speaker lounge to ensure the talks were ready! Fortunately, most of the first three talks were repeated talks and so this was not TOO onerous a task. I succeeded in finishing my preparations by Wednesday and Lisa and I spent a lovely day sightseeing in Barcelona on Thursday.

On Thursday, we started out by taxiing to the Sagrada Familia (which is an ongoing construction of an amazing church in downtown Barcelona). We proceeded to see a number of different Gaudi buildings and parks. Barcelona is a beautiful place! It was a fun day together!

On Friday, the wind was blowing but Lisa accompanied me as we walked to the conference center and ensured I was ready to present on time to the crowd. It is always exciting to prepare for a large presentation and to present it. I had SO missed giving the talks for the Microsoft conferences and that was, eventually, what led me to come back to Microsoft. TechEd EMEA has always been one of my favorite conferences and it was a thrill to return.

At the end of the day on Friday, we attended the speaker party which was a blast!! We partied until midnight at which time Lisa went back to the hotel and I continued with some of the other presenters until 2:30 the next morning! It was fun before I went to sleep but not quite as much fun the next day when we checked out of the hotel as I suffered with a hangover... such is life!!!

The next week was the Mediterranean cruise...

- Pat