My new baby
Yes, it’s a little off-topic … but I’m in love:
Tags: car, mini cooper s, mini, john koetsier, love
Asheville North Carolina trip
Just came back from a conference in Asheville, NC … up in the Smoky Mountains. It was freezing cold … -10 Celcius with windchill … so I only got out of the hotel once, really, and took these shots as I wandered the town.
Click for a larger image of each:
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Back from NC
I came in from NC last night. Stepping out of Sea-Tac airport was great: wet but warm.
(North Carolina sort of feels like the North Pole right now … I was in Asheville and it was about -10 Celcius, with a killer wind.)
Good to be back … will be posting some pix here soon of the trip …
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Lost in North Carolina
I’m in Asheville NC for a conference and it’s bloody cold here … colder than Vancouver, Canada which is (roughly) where I’m from.
Whoda thunk you could come at least 1500 klicks south, closer to the sun, and still be colder?
Live and learn!
Balboa Park
Memories of San Diego this past spring:
(And testing Zoomr!)
Tags: zoomr, flickr, photos, john koetsier
Osoyoos
Teresa and I recently took the kids to Osoyoos, BC, where we met up with 3 other families of relatives and spent a few days at a hotel. It was a much-needed break for all of us.
Check out the Flick photoset.
Unfortunately, Teresa broke her foot when we went horseback riding. The stablehands didn’t put the saddle on tight enough, and when one of the guides made her horse gallop for a moment, it slid off to the side of the horse - with Teresa on it. And, of course, she was holding Aidan, our youngest son.
Her foot was twisted in the stirrup - but we’re fortunate. It could have been worse - she could have been dragged.
There’s more to be said about that, but overall, even with that, it was a very enjoyable mini-vacation.
Blasted
I had to take a shot of this … it’s one of the hundreds of trees on East Badger Road, on the route I drive on most days on my way to my Bellingham, WA office.
I hate hate hate to see trees destroyed - some of them real giants, some of them beautiful, wonderful trees - and the worst part of it is that they are being destroyed because of people like me.
I don’t live in the neighborhood, don’t work there either. I just drive through.
The other tragedy of road-widening is the dozens of home that all of a sudden are 20-30 feet closer to the road … and not just a 2-lane road anymore.
Progress!
5,279
That’s the number of kilometres Teresa and I drove on our recent road trip to California.
(I thought I’d finally post it just to remove it from my list of to-blog articles!)
Note: 1500 of those kilometres were done on the first killer day: Abbotsford BC to San Francisco, CA.
Work the pond: networking seminar
Everyone hates networking … except those who truly understand it.
As a dedicated shmoozing hater, I logged into a free seminar today in my Bellingham, WA office: Darcy Rezac’s Work the Pond. (The seminar link is here, and Darcy’s site is here.) I have to say, it was an hour well spent.
I had recently read on Guy Kawasaki’s blog that the best definition of networking ever was Darcy’s: “Discovering what you can do for someone else.” Put that way - as long as it’s real, and not just a superficial gloss over an avaricious interior - networking becomes a lot more palatable.
It’s not just me meeting people and getting business cards because I think that one day I can sell something to them or get them to hire me or otherwise benefit me. It’s people meeting people and communicating and sharing and helping each other. Much easier to swallow, and much less off-putting - at least for me.
Keep reading for my notes from the seminar. Better yet, check it out yourself in a spare hour (if you have one).
John World Funk Mix
One of the things I did on my recent trip to San Antonio was to visit (quite accidently) the largest Starbucks in North America.
The entire first floor of this Starbucks on San Antonio’s riverwalk is what they call Hear Music. You get your java (or not), sit down at a computer station (stylish flat-screen monitors: network PCs, essentially), and start building your own CD.
It’s not a technological marvel - anyone with a CD burner can do the same. But it’s nicely packaged, there’s a cool selection of music, and you can customize the (cardboard) jewel case as well as the liner notes.
Which is cool, and which I did:
It’s the Texas style to commemorate my trip, but the music is much more world than country.
I called my disk John World Funk Mix, and it includes tracks from Adham Shaikh, Afro Celt Sound System, and Orchestra Baobab.
Very cool, a nice souvenir (small, soon-to-be-digital, useful, and memorable) and a great experience, all for about $15.
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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