Running in the Rain

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2008-09-30T04:09:34Z

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My last post on Livejournal

2008-09-30T03:41:10Z

Well, it's been fun, but I have pulled up my tent stakes and moved over to WordPress. From here on, you can find me at http://davestewart.wordpress.com. Now is a good time to update your bookmarks or Google Reader or feedreader. If I find a way to modify FeedBurner, I'll redirect that one too.

Here's how the transition went:

The big questions I needed an answer to were: would the site be visible from China, and did I get sufficient value from a free account. I have too many associates in China now for me to have my personal blog blocked from there.

Although I am not wedded to a free service, I noticed that I got almost nothing I wanted from paying for one year of LiveJournal service. So why pay out of the box for something I don't plan to use?

(note that I realize that some people do get value out of a paid LJ account - more avatar pictures, more themes, no adverts - but I was trying to get more scripting control over my pages, and I didn't get this.)

WordPress got an extra vote in part because of strong community support. Here in Portland, there was recently #wordcampdx, which probably tipped me over the edge.

I am able to export my LiveJournal entries (without comments) and import them into the Wordpress blog. Nice, I moved over about a month of my last LiveJournal entries. I suppose I could do them all if I was inclined. (LiveJournal only appears to allow exporting one month at a time.)

Rather than use the Livejournal "friends" page, I subscribed to the pages I care about in Google Reader.

A riddle

2008-09-23T13:13:39Z

I wave. I shimmy. I undulate.

I flex gently both up and down and side to side.

I float above the heads of the mean traffic and mess of the streets below. But sometimes I nearly touch the buildings next to me, allowing me to peek shamelessly through the windows of those buildings.

I stretch nearly eight miles from the center of Shanghai to the old international (and now domestic) airport in Hongqiao (Hong Chow).

What am I?

I am the Yan'An East-West Elevated Road in Shanghai.

My very first experience of Shanghai was being driven along this road by a hired car driver at night. My jetlagged senses were only reading this endless strip of light with 30 story sentental buildings crowding the entire length of the drive from downtown to Hongqiao.

Most of my 20 other trips to China have included some part of Yan'An. But this time, I decided to see it all from street level.

So, at 5:00AM on last Saturday morning, I ran the entire length from Hongqiao into Old Shanghai, then up the Huangpu (Wang Pu) river until things got too sketchy for me to continue.

This run painted the entire spectrum of modern urban life in China. From the swanky apartments on Hongqiao road where celebrities live and die, to the cramped barrio in Old Town. And everything in between.

There isn't much activity in Hongqiao at 5. But by the time I hit the barrio in Old Town, within the old city wall, things were very alive. I had run down a random alley, in the general direction of the Yu Yuan Garden, a major tourist spot, and didn't realize I would get caught in a dead-end slum. Mental snapshots include the place with a line of live ducks sitting all side-by-side, not caged, quacking quietly. And the guy mucking out something with brown liquid whose smell nearly made me throw up. Quickly now, out to the main street and Yu Yuan.

Along the way, I ran past the "Rendezvous Merry Hotel", which was actually sleek with marble and brass. With a name like that, I bet it's merry.

Much construction: a new Kerry Center (Shangri-La Hotel) and what I think is the site of the Shanghai Expo 2010. Past a statue of the expo's mascot, a blue Gumby clone, standing by the Wang Pu.

Finally, after running past a lone Hyatt sitting in a forlorn neighborhood which may one day be the new cruise ship dock, I turn and pick up a waiting taxi for the drive back to my hotel.

I spray hand sanitizer all over the soles of my running shoes, and wash out my running clothes in the hotel sink before breakfast.

When worlds collide

2008-09-22T04:26:57Z

"You Americans don't save any money. Why?"

The question came over a dinner in Beijing, and it came in the context of differences between our respective countries.

My Chinese friend was seeing this lack of personal savings as a systemic cause of economic weakness in the US, dollar weakness, etc. "You may be right," I responded, "but let me tell you what we try to practice." And I proceeded to describe our family's practice of giving 10% of our gross to charity, saving 10% for retirement and 10% for general savings. Within this framework, we try to live within our means and pay off our credit cards each month, although admittedly we don't always succeed.

Now get this: the question had come in response to some joking from us Americans at the lack of openness of the Chinese government to criticism. For example, this blog is not visible to average people in China, because livejournal.com contents are blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

It makes me wonder - is this the most fundamental values mismatch between our peoples?

In China, wealth is highly valued. This comes primarily from a deep-seated drive to provide for the next generation. The best thing that a Chinese person can do is leave a name, a legacy for ones children. Saving money and passing it on to them is a key way to achieve this. Chinese will sacrifice all sense of personal freedom or openness to protect this basic value.

In the US, we primarily value freedom. We treat it as the most basic dogma that freedom is the most cherished and valuable commodity in life. We're willing to die for our freedom, even willing to sacrifice financial gain for freedom. We naturally assume everyone has the same value.

So it's not surprising that the Chinese would shake their heads and tut-tut our lack of savings while we do the same about their lack of freedom. It really comes down to what you value most.

Why China will never elect a president

2008-09-19T20:44:12Z

Recently I have been conducting an informal poll amongst my friends and co-workers in China on their thoughts of American politics and their idea of who will win the US election in November.

But it has given me a fascinating insight into what the Chinese people think about government in general. Depressingly, it's now much clearer why a western-style democracy is not likely to come here soon, if ever.

And these are basically spiritual discussions as well. Political philosophy is in essence rooted in spiritual philosophy.

At the core of Chinese thinking is the Confucian idea that there is hierarchy in human relationships, or there will be chaos. So the parent is over the child, the boss over the worker. At the very top is the emperor.

If you are in the lower position (child or employee), you need to follow the directives of the person above you and obey. The person in the upper position needs to take care of those under them and provide for them.

At the top of this hierarchy sits the emperor, who would be the wisest and have the best character of anyone to be in that position.

Can you see why this is so different from our thinking in the West? The West believes that there is nobody "better" than anyone else, nobody is above the law. Children are supposed to honor their parents or boss or president, but are trained to show independent thought and action, to take initiative.

I'm truly amazed when the Chinese government will order something like a radical change in national holiday dates or driving schedules, and everyone obeys! According to one friend, the Chinese are accustomed to 5,000 years of strong government. If the government were not strong, then there would be chaos because people would "do their own thing" without control. In the US, we have a relatively weak government according to me friend. It works for us, because we trust people to do the right thing, and society functions well without a lot of external control.

Reread that last paragraph. This is why the people of China really don't want Western-style representative democracy at their core. Yes, the government needs to take care of them and maintain moral authority. But so long as they care for society, they can rule China forever.

There is another, economic values mismatch here as well. I'll talk about that in a future post.

Raise those steins, comrade! (Shanghai Oktoberfest)

2008-09-19T09:32:14Z

Last night I took my team for a thank-you offsite dinner. (At least, as many who were not on vacation or leave of some kind). I suggested we might want to go to the 11th annual Shanghai Oktoberfest, being held at my hotel, the Renaissance Shanghai Yangtze.

German beer, German food, and an oompah band completed the experience.

The band was particularly fun. Here one of their members was playing the saw in a rendition of Edelweiss. The accordion player doubled on the electric guitar, so they also did a set of 70s hits like "YMCA" and "Sweet Home Alabama" to get people up and dancing.

And dance they did - here a large group from Johnson Controls is standing on their benches and partying like it was 1999. They were helmed by a couple of white guys who were singing along with the traditional German drinking songs.

At another time, the chefs marched through the tent carrying a whole piggy, banging pans.

Never having been to Oktoberfest in Munich, it seemed like they had a lot of traditional-seeming elements, plus the 70s music and the odd Chinese love song.

What was really funny is that my Shanghai team didn't really cut loose and dance a lot. I asked their manager later, and he said that they liked the event, but this was the kind of thing they did in college, and they are a bunch of old married men now. Hmph.

Warning: Someone may be watching your pat-down search

2008-09-17T08:22:22Z

In my last trip to China in June 2008, I did my usual Beijing / Shanghai loop. I was surprised that in both of these cities, I was flying through brand spanking new airport terminals.

Shanghai Pudong International has basically doubled in size by adding a second terminal, which is essentially a duplicate of the original. Between the terminals is the station for the high-speed magnetic levitation (mag lev) train to the city.

What is hilarious about this to me is that this airport was brand new when I started coming to China in 2001, and at that time it was almost ghostly in how big the place was and how empty. I wouldn't say it was full by any stretch of the imagination, but now that it has doubled in size, it seems really sepulchral to me.

I also flew through the new Terminal 3 in Beijing. This place is a marvel, truly a totally humongous space, actually two major wings connected by a shuttle.

In June, my experience flying out of Terminal 3 was marred by my petite mal freak out because I didn't seem to have reservations on any flights. But this time, I had lots of time to cool my heels before the flight. So I used my United Premier Executive card to get into Air China's Business Class lounge.

The lounge sort of floats over the terminal in a balcony, with a view of the runway out of one window. Over the other side, you get a fantastic view of ... the security lines.

That's right, sportsfans, the security lines. So you have the specter of these indolent frequent flyers who are sipping their free drinks and nibblies while watching people get their pat-downs by security.

Here's the other fun thing about Chinese security lines: almost nobody makes it through the metal detector without a pat-down. You get one chance, and then it's patty cakes! (I've actually managed to escape this now for most flights, we'll see if it continues).

I couldn't believe the poor planning! Or, perhaps it was intentional. After all, this way they give the passengers live entertainment.

I was too embarrassed myself to watch...

Pretending to be an Olympian

2008-09-17T00:45:54Z

Yesterday I discovered that my Beijing hotel, the Shangri-La, is within 1 mile of the

Beijing 2008 Olympics course. So this morning when I was looking for a route to run, I
thought "what could be cooler"?

So I ran the course along Zhonguancun Road north from the Vollyball venue! Some things
I noticed:

Running at 4:00AM in Beijing is a nearly perfect time to run. Hardly any cars on
the road anywhere. So for some parts of the course, I was able to run right down the
middle of the three-lane road without fear of being hit.

I passed a misting station, still set up. I noticed these on TV, a "beat the heat"
strategy. I was surprised that these were still hooked up to barrels of water and a
pump. Maybe because of the Paralympics. (Unguarded, these wouldn't last 5 minutes in
New York City).

Anywhere along the route where there was a patch of grass, there were erected cheery
bits of temporary decoration. I saw two types: One was a 15 foot tall banner with
silouetted runners. The other was a string of 5 monolyths, painted in the colors of the
Olympic rings. These would repeat periodically along the course wherever there was a
grassy place in front of a building.

All construction sites along the route were sheilded from the street with a wall and
identical "Beijing 2008" dressing. Remember, construction work was halted city-wide to
curtail air polution during the games. Now, every site supported an exactly identical
banner outside of the sites.
Above decorations all seem temporary, like they will disappear in some collector's
attic once the paralympics are done. This is because monolyths and banners were mounted
on 2 by 4s or other temporary foundation.

Of course, as with all major streets and expressways, the flowers are in bloom and
all of the landscaping is brightly spiffed up, with street cleaners hard at work at
4AM. It's like a city-wide Disneyland treatment!

Too much fun - I could imagine the screaming crowds but still run only an 8 minute pace!

Today in China

2008-09-16T19:40:26Z

Greetings from Beijing, in the month after the 2008 Olympics!

LensCrafters seems really huge here. I am accustomed to scads of American brands here like Coke, McDonalds, Nike, Pizza Hut and Subway. But LensCrafters? The signs are very basic black and white, so I thought it was a rip off. But I have run into maybe 5 or 6 already this trip.

The sky was blue when I landed on Monday. Driving restrictions are relaxed on September 20, so I suspect the air quality will return to Beijing normal soon.

Main roadways have been dressed very nicely for the Games. You see "Beijing 2008" on a number of highway signs to indicate location of a venue. Drove by the ping pong venue yesterday, it still seems in use for the Paralympics.

I have not been able to run up to the Summer Palace from my hotel like I did last trip because I am only doing early morning runs when it is still dark, and I don't trust a largely unlit and isolated river path without views to the street when it is dark. OK, call me a weenie! But, comments aside, I may run this morning on part of the route for the Olympic Marathon... might be cool if I can dodge the cars!

The General Manager of my hotel is George Wee. (It says so right here on the letter I have from him). Makes me thing he is not very tall.

People here ask me: What do you think of the financial crisis in the US? Do you think our business will be affected? Um... how can it not have an effect?

One of my staff here is a total digital photography nut, so it's been fun to geek out with him on lenses, focal lengths, camera technology, etc. But others of my team here raise tortoises, play tennis, play video games...

Any questions you want me to ask the people of Beijing?

I'm running an informal poll

davestewart @ 2008-09-12T10:52:00

2008-09-12T18:29:34Z

I just hit a personal milestone on my work blog. Two years to the day of posting there. 100 blog posts, about one per week.

It's kind of fun to think about some of the changes over the past two years:

My friend Matt Singley was still in Oregon, and I can remember chatting with him about my work blog over drinks at Coffee People in Beaverton. Now Matt is in LA and Coffee People is only at the Portland Airport.

I was in a different job when I started the work blog. My work is now totally different but really enjoyable still. I'm a very fortunate person.

Back then, I could still read Laura's blog. No longer!

Having discovered Google Reader, it's a lot easier for me to follow a ton of blogs in record time. I'm a more efficient reader now.

I really hate writing blog entries. The user interfaces available for writing a blog really are terrible. I think I would love to just write some HTML in a text file and just mail it to a blog system. I'm sure that this must be possible with some blog systems, but not the ones I use daily.

Whither the National Parks?

2008-09-11T21:59:02Z

It is widely regarded as the worst Star Trek film in the series.

But embedded in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) is an extremely hopeful message about ecology. In the opening scene, our intrepid Captain Kirk is doing a free climb up the side of El Capitan, in what we recognize to be Yellowstone National Park.

The crew is chilling out on shore leave, and are camping, hiking and clowning around various natural sites. "Pack out your trash," calls Kirk as they are recalled to the Enterprise for active duty.

Given that this story takes place about 200 years in the future, it presents a hopeful sign that Yellowstone and other natural places might still be recognizable on the Earth of the future.

When Teddy Roosevelt created the national park system, it established a new value for our young country: blessed with incredible unspoiled areas, maybe we should reserve some of them for future generations, so they can experience them as well.

Wilderness areas - No touch (let's hope)

National Parks - Preserved in a natural state with limited development to allow people to enter the areas and appreciate them. Includes roads and lodges.

National Forests - Reserved by the Federal Government for careful exploitation of the natural resources

I admit that Glacier National Park was a total unknown to me before the Labor Day weekend. While we were in Montana for a family wedding, we took an afternoon in a rented car and drove through the park. The place was amazing!

We bisected the Park in our rented SUV, taking Going-to-the-Sun Road (named after the mountain, "Going-to-the-Sun" over the continental divide.

At the Divide, the forest service has a visitor's center staffed by a park ranger, who was giving a presentation. Amazingly, it was snowing on us up there in August!

There was a front coming through the day we drove through. Deb's dad chuckled that our views would not be very good due to the weather. I thought the clouds gave a really dramatic look to the peaks.

Amtrak for Labor Day

2008-09-10T01:04:20Z

Deb's youngest brother got married over the Labor Day weekend. The young couple chose to marry at Izaak Walton Inn in Essex, Montana. This Inn turns out to be on the last, lonely flag stop on Amtrak. We have talked about taking an Amtrak vacation for many years, so hey, why not now?

A "flag stop" means that the train will normally not stop here in Essex unless there is someone with a reservation or they "flag down" the train. There is no station or depot per se in Essex, just a high place in the gravel where the Inn's shuttle could port us the quarter mile to the hotel.

We rode coach out to Essex and took an economy sleeper on the return.

It's about a 15 hour ride from Portland to Essex. The Portland departure on the "Empire Builder" is at around 5PM, so you get this amazingly scenic trip up the Columbia River Gorge at sunset, then overnight to Montana. Around midnight, the Portland branch of the Empire Builder joins in Spokane with the branch from the Seattle, and the newly conjoined train shoots east from there.

The main deterrent for us taking the train before has been the trip time seems long and if you take a sleeper, the cost can be higher than an airplane trip. So unless you love the romance of the rails, it's not too good.

But for this trip, direct air travel was not a good option, because the closest you could fly in would be Billings, MT or Spokane. Then rent a car and drive the rest of the way.

I did a cost breakdown in my head a few days ago, but I need to hit the "Post" key on this one and do the cost breakdown later.

Google Chrome - first look

2008-09-02T22:34:49Z

Chrome is Google's new open source browser.

Most of the new features are really in how stuff is implemented. These advantages are likely invisible for most users.

That said, if you have some inkling about technology, the Web Comic which was "leaked early" describing these technical details is a fun way to learn about them.

The UI does seem clean and simple, which was a goal.

The UI differences with Firefox are fairly minor or slightly annoying, depending on how much you like Firefox. In particular, with Firefox 3.0, I now like the way they did the back button history list.

The browser came up just fine for me and seems to run fast.

Some negatives:

No integration with Del.icio.us (or "delicious.com" if you prefer). That's a deal breaker for my daily use.

In fact, no published plug-in API at all from what Josh tells me. Support for all Mozilla plug-ins would be a nice step, yeah?

No Linux or OpenSolaris version. That's incredible! Even small teams like Songbird had Linux versions out for many revs, and a strong enough community to build an OpenSolaris version over a weekend developer summit. I love having my key apps on all of my work platforms. Another deal-breaker.

Since most of the advantages are "under the hood", you have to take these things for granted as advantages, unless you are the type who pops the hood open for a look-see.

It's a little like trying to demonstrate how good a particular motor oil is for an auto. There are some novel demos for such a thing, though most are pretty contrived.

Happy Birthday Anne!

2008-09-02T17:59:04Z

Glacier National Park
Originally uploaded by davest.

(Anne is the one in the middle).

In the snow flurries on August 31 in Montana.

Happy 20th!!

In the Form of a Question

2008-09-01T23:20:13Z

When I was growing up, we sang the national anthem every morning at the start of school. By the time I became an adult, the Star Spangled Banner was pretty much old hat to me. Although we learned the story of how the words came to be written, the story of the defense of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812, it didn’t have much significant meaning to me.

Then came our own Fort McHenry moment of our generation: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Rather than tear the nation apart, it unified us and reminded us of our common ground as Americans. The American flag started appearing on cars, on T-shirts and in front of houses. The Anthem started taking on more meaning.

Even today, as the emotional intensity of 911 has faded some, the playing of the Star Spangled Banner can evoke strong emotions from me, even at times, tears.

Part of why the Anthem has become more significant is it says a lot about what it means to be a part of this nation.

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,

For one thing, it is probably the most unusual national anthem in the world, because the entire first verse is an unanswered question. Remember, the lyrics to the Anthem were written by an American who had been taken captive by the British during the war of 1812, and was being held prisoner on a British warship in Baltimore Harbor while Fort McHenry was being bombarded. As night falls, the US is still in command of the Fort, as evidenced by the large American flag flying over its fortifications. The poem asks a British soldier on deck whether the Fort has fallen yet. Is the flag still flying? Has the invasion been complete? Do we still have command over the Fort?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.

This is the Question that forms the first verse. Even though the music to which the words have been set seems to reach a resolution, the question remains unanswered. Is it flying? Are we defeated?

Thanks to Wikipedia.org, I rummaged through the lyrics to a large number of current national anthems. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_anthems) Most of them can be summarized as “My homeland is wonderful, the people are wonderful, I will always be loyal and protect my homeland,” etc. Actually, the only “question” I could find was the Czech national anthem, which asks “where is my home?” but it is answered by the end of the verse (“The Czech land, my home!”)

There is evidently something uniquely American about this – we are forever questioning ourselves, reinventing ourselves. Never satisfied with the answers we came up with before, we constantly ask the unanswered question, are we complete? Have we prevailed?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there

Note also that the question is asked in the context of exploding missiles and bombardment. Without the glaring light of travail, we would be unable to see whether we have prevailed. In a sense, when Americans get too comfortable, if misery is too far from us, we stop thinking as clearly about what binds us together. That is why the attacks of 911 caused so much renewed patriotism. It is because we as a nation are defined in a sense by the tribulations that we suffer under.

I hope that this doesn’t mean that we are doomed to forever be defined only by war-making. The adversary might be a belligerent nation, but it might be the tribulations of poverty and disease. We can be just as unified and defined by the need to defeat our dependence on fossil fuels if we are so motivated. Nevertheless, comfort does not define us, it is pain.

O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’r the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The Anthem actually has more verses – four of them in fact. The other verses attempt to put on some kind of bravado in the face of an overwhelming foe, and struggle with the concepts of freedom. But it is this first verse, and it’s beautiful, unanswered question that not only defines us as a people, it brings a lump to my throat when I hear it ever more to this day.

Krispy Kreme bacon cheddar cheeseburgers

2008-08-26T01:22:36Z

Krispy Kreme bacon cheddar cheeseburgers
Originally uploaded by ccaviness.

I just learned about this photo.

Apparently, Google is making a few changes to its free food policy. But it still seems to be true that they have lots of tasty vittles that are free and not on the low cholesterol list!

This one is a particularly interesting concept. Dig in!

Multimedia message

2008-08-24T22:48:44Z

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by davest.

Shakespeare in the park

Pay or move?

2008-08-23T22:18:34Z

Got a notice today that my LiveJournal.com annual subscription fee is coming due in 12 days. I'm a bit annoyed, since I thought this anniversary would come at the end of the year.

I had originally gotten a paid subscription because I had erroneously thought it would allow me to embed javascript in my pages, and thus count visitors.

In an word... "Nah!"

But I do like the consistency of having a web presence that is more or less constant, no matter what.

So, I have the following choices in front of me:

Move this blog to another paid or free service. I got a recommendation for 1and1.com and Blogger. There is also the typepad mafia. Apparently, livejournal.com is blocked in China, so this would add the benefit of being visible to my friends there, without them needing to resort to a proxy.

Now that I have my zippy fast FIOS connection, I could always find a surplus PC and make it my server. This involves the process of installing all of the needed software, working out the security arrangements for a DMZ. Oh, and I suspect Verizon might not like me hosting a server on their network without paying the extra gelt for the priviledge.

Just leave things as they are on Livejournal like an obedient sheep that I am. But really to avoid the hassle of the move. For the move would be a major-league hassle, no lie.

What do you think?

Maker Faire

2008-08-22T22:25:22Z

I have heard the term "Maker Faire" a few times over the years, most notably at OSCON last month in Portland. I always thought it was a kind of an aging hippy thing like the Ren Faire.

What I discovered was some mind-boggling creativity, more than I have, all around making stuff.

At the end of this week's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel invited a number of Makers to join a "Maker Faire Celebration". Here is the blurb from the conference materials:

Join Intel for the IDF closing-day celebration featuring the Maker Faire. It’s Intel’s way of thanking you for attending IDF and making it a success. Come experience an eclectic mix of wild and wondrous creations that blend art and science with engineering and craft. It’s a unique DIY showcase of creativity and ingenuity that combines high-tech wizardry and low-tech craftsmanship. You’ll see the original, the unique, and the bizarre, all in one fun-filled party.

I happened to be still at IDF on the last day, because of business meetings, so I got sucked in... mostly to the weird music:

... and the squeeking, beeping and booping of R2D2 ...

... and the wonderfully bizarre sounds of the Bleep Labs toys.

... or was it the cracks and zaps of the spark generators (I think this guy looks just like Gordon Moore, the father of Moore's Law and Intel)

To please the tongue, there was chocolate from TCHO...

... or could it have been the instant ice cream made from Mexican chocolate, cinnamon and cayenne pepper, and liquid nitrogen and a power drill.

You get the idea... it was a lot of good clean fun, which was perfect for the attendees at IDF. But I noticed that the food service staff at the Moskone were fascinated by the displays too, when they were not serving food.

Multimedia message

2008-08-21T01:48:05Z

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by davest.

Woz draws a crowd at an IDF party

Multimedia message

2008-08-21T01:46:00Z

Multimedia message
Originally uploaded by davest.

Steve Wozniak Segways by me at IDF party.

The Reunion

2008-08-03T16:45:16Z

I was honestly a little worried. My memories of high school are really great. But when my class’s reunion committee reached out to me, I started paging through my year book, and started feeling a little anxious.

Realize I didn't hang out much with the “cool kids”. I had lost track of my closest friends over time, so it would have been good to see them. At the last reunion I went to, it didn't seem like they were there. So how would this one be?

Take a breath, dive in, who knows?

Well, the reunion event was terrific! The venues, food, and entertainment were great. I was able to break out the old tuxedo for the dinner party, and even able to sit at the table of some of the cool kids for dinner.

Some of the highlights, for the old memory book:

About the first person I saw at the Friday evening gathering was Mr. McGregor the well-loved vocal teacher. “Why didn’t you do more music?” he said to me. (Gee, that was what he wrote in my yearbook too).

It was a lot of fun to see how the years have dealt with people I once knew well, and some I have known since third grade.

We’re sure a lot nicer to each other than we were in high school.

I must have had a different high school experience from some. People were reminiscing fondly about the keggers they had, sneaking off campus to Burger King and Winchell’s Donuts, breaking into the school for an all night party. OK, well, let’s just say I didn’t experience any of that!

At the dinner party, I sat at a table with a very nice group of people who were probably the ones who were there that I knew the best. Sweet people!

Our senior class president, Lori Feiner, found her handwritten commencement address in her basement. She reread it for us after dinner. Interesting reflections on our dreams and how we would reflect back on our high school days in the future.

Curtis Hannum, another class alumn, gave a great stand-up routine. Referenced a lot of the people and memories of our class.

Food - Terrific, great selection and quality. The Hyatt DTC did a great job.

More photos from my Flickr site.

The venue for the dinner, the atrium lobby of the Hyatt.

Some of the ladies from my class who I had dinner with - Cindy Levin, Suzanne Abosch Wiesen (our school valedictorian), Annie Aspenwall Harrier.

More folks at my table - Jeff Hirshfield, Gary Eisenstat, Cheryl Aiken Shoemaker.

A few of us also attended Slavens Elementary School together. Back row, left to right: Annie Aspenwall, me, Jay Shoemaker, Cindy Levin, Shawn Flora, Rusty Martz, Shaun Baker. Front row left to right: Jeff Hirshfeld, Suzanne Abosch, Robin Bailis.

OpenSolaris Test Farm

2008-07-31T20:05:11Z

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Originally uploaded by davest.

ETA: This is a photo from my cell phone camera, so the quality is not great. Jim Walker, standing in front of his OpenSolaris test farm, which is a cluster of servers (blades and rackmounts) with a variety of chip architectures. These are present on the Internet and available for people to reserve to test their OpenSolaris code. Nice setup, Jim!

Sun's Broomfield engineering lab

2008-07-31T19:47:23Z

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Originally uploaded by davest.

ETA: I'm visiting Sun's Broomfield (Colorado) campus today. I'm in Colorado for some vacation, but dropped by the Sun campus to hang out with the OpenSolaris guys and give a talk later.

This is one of those mammoth raised-floor data center style labs with tons of cooling, lots of power and reinforced beams. Fantastic! My thanks to Jim Walker for the tour.

What's the best foreign language to know?

2008-07-29T22:06:35Z

What is the best language for you to study?

If you are like me, you only had a few options growing up. From elementary school through high school, I studied Spanish. I still retain a little of it today, and can understand what I read a little more than what I can say. It has helped me out in some of my travels to Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Columbia and Paraguay, and you can get by a little in Brazil.

But more and more, I'm amazed at how useful the English language is in most every other world situation.

Whether it's due to the British, Americans or Indians, English has become the second language of most of the world's population.

Let's say you are from Spain, and you are a tourist in Prague. If you want to rent a paddle boat on the Vltava River, you won't speak Spanish, and you won't attempt it in Czech. You both probably have English in common, so the transaction is carried out in English.

I have heard this story play out repeatedly all over the world. If a sign is in more than one language, English is most often one of the languages. If there is an announcement made to a bunch of tourists from different countries, the announcement is in English.

This is not the only way things could work out. Even 80 years ago, French would have been the universal second language. French was the language of diplomacy and international affairs. (As is often the case, Wikipedia has a very complete article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca.)

I notice that some of the most successful people I work with in other countries have the best English skills. Coincidence?

In the US, we often don't appreciate the advantages this gives our young people on a world stage. This probably makes it even more important to have a foreign language requirement for students to graduate. Without such education, our citizens wouldn't realize how really hard it is to become fluent in another language and will build the appreciation they have for English.

What will happen in future? Twenty years ago, people were studying Japanese because it was felt that Japan would take over the initiative in technology, culture and trade. Now people study Mandarin for the same reason. One billion people speak Arabic. 1.4 billion people speak Mandarin. In certain industries in the US, it is really vital to have a working knowledge of Spanish. But outside their native domains, they don't tend to be universal languages. What will be the best foreign language to know in 80 years?