What have you been upto for the past little while?
I have been in Washington DC for the past 2 weeks. As I type this, I am somewhere over the mid-west... but wait, I can pinpoint where, thanks to the tv screen in front of me with real-time flight information. I am just a little South and West of Angora, it is -27 Fahrenheit (-33 Celsius) outside, I have travelled 2800km so far and am about to cross the Denver-Utah border. My destination? Well on this Delta Airlines flight, it is to the capital of Utah, Salt Lake City... the spiritual home of the folks of that famous Church and the place that held the 2002 Winter Olympics. Too bad I won't be able to take in the city, and since it is dark (7:34pm MT right now), I am unlikely to see much on my way into the airport.
So what have been upto in the past 2 weeks? I have been working hard like a dog over the past 2 weeks. I worked in the office till about midnight every day that I was there (including Saturday and Sunday) and got some work done. I do miss Vancouver a lot and I hope that I made up for missing the work there by catching up on stuff in DC. The second week of my stay in Washington DC was a little more pleasant.
The entire development team met for a developer conference at the Bethesda Hyatt. I got to stay there. On the 9th floor. With a King sized bed. A Giant TV. And a view! It was positively delightful. I must say that the Hyatt was very nice at taking care of any and all of my needs. My one major peeve with them: no free internet access. They had wireless internet access at 11mbps (so I assume 803.11b) but it was slow and cost me $9.95 a day. They cut you off promptly too the next day. I am past the border by the way right now, into Utah, just south of Randlett and at 11204m above sea level. The Hyatt has a Morton's right inside the hotel and the first day we got there, my co-worker and I were very disappointed that we had eaten a rather decent meal at Baja Fresh... everyone else who was staying there seemed to have had dinner at the Mortons. More on Mortons later.
The conference was about team-building and learning about the focus of the organisation for the next year. It was an eye-opener for me. I heard that it cost about $100,000USD to do this for the 4 days that we were there. I am very impressed in many respects with the way the Hyatt managed this conference for us and the coordination the development team folks in charge of various parts of it coordinated everything.
What did I learn? Well, for one, I learned what sort of toothpaste my co-workers use, how many siblings each of them has, how to build a catapult with pieces of string, rubber bands, a bucket and money... team-building exercises. I did think some of the events were over the top but I must say that my scepticism is waning... I am becoming a convert to the team-building mantra and the events that go along with it. For me, the highlight of this exercise was to meet my co-workers from the merged company, many of whom I had worked with via email or heard of and a tonne of whom I had never really had the chance to meet. The good news is that the combined company still retains quite a bit of the old company's charm. We are very similar in many respects. We have the geeks, we have the funny ones, we have the legends. And for the most part, the team is a strong, bright, young, innovative one. I can honestly say that I don't feel that terrible about working with such a talented bunch of individuals. There is still the corporate fluff that goes along with a lot of this (especially with the executive updates etc), but once you filter down to the average Joe, they hate their managers as much as we did at the old place (well hate isn't exactly the right word, but you know what I mean... there are times when you would see them eaten by a plethora of ant species for some of the monkey business they throw you into).
We learned about where our focus was going to be and I am happy to say that a version of our old product has some lease on life. We were not completely ignored as I expected (seeing as we are the "vanquished" in this relationship), and actually our folks have been working on things that will no doubt make them stars in the new company. I also learned that I no longer need to have the us and them conversation. We are one. We have to be to succeed. And we shall. This was a rather bitter pill to swallow for me, but after having met my colleagues in the DC office and "their" other employees and "our" Massachusetts based folks, I believe we are on the track to making good software and growing. That isn't to say that there won't be hiccups along the way. I see these people making the same sorts of mistakes I've seen in Vancouver and sometimes I get the feeling they don't want to listen to our ideas. They will have to though. We've crossed some of the same obstacles they are coming across and it is to their benefit to use us to the full for that.
I am back on a plane right now, a CRJ200 (a Canadian made Bombardier aircraft) on my way home. The plane is fairly empty. I was a little taken aback by the size of the cabin (width wise anyway) but I am impressed with the leg room so far. I was in Salt Lake City for an hour and a bit and I am impressed by their organisation. Things made sense, they recycled everything and everything had a warm and clean feel to it. In fact, I could almost call this Vancouver or some other nice city in Canada. Weird. This plane does not have the TV screens etc but is still fairly nice. The single stewardess seems like a jovial one.
Back to my week in Bethesda. I went shopping one evening with a couple of co-workers. We went to the Nieman Marcus at Friendship Heights and also ventured into the Saks Fifth Avenue Mens store. Needless to say, none of us purchased anything. I did like the giant Williams-Sonoma store there, I think I will be getting my pots and pans from there. We shall see how it goes as far as housing goes.
On Wednesday, a couple of co-workers and I went to a crab place in Bethesda called Steamers. Allegedly, crab is the big thing around here and Steamers is the place to be. We went, we ordered crab, got a quick lesson on how to eat crab and then dug in. It was a lot of work and was messy. I did enjoy the food, though I wouldn't spend that much effort on crab too often. We then went shopping (as mentioned above) and THEN one of them decided he wanted a steak at Mortons and went in. As it turned out, we went in, bought into the sales pitch and I ended up getting not just the appetizer, but also a 14oz Steak! I told the fellow I hated him for making me eat steak, but I did enjoy it. Oh well, its not like I am going to do this often. I hope. We were done our second dinner around 11 and the steak was fabulous. One of the folks (who did not take part in the gluttony) remarked that we were drooling over our steaks. Fair enough. It was wonderful. Hopefully, no prions in the meat.
Thursday, after a full day of meetings and work groups (the Engineering ones were a lot tamer than QA; QA went on a scavenger hunt!), we went bowling to Strike Bethesda. We bowled lots, made friends and had a good old time. At the end of the evening, I even ended up making friends with 2 rather lovely college girls. Rumour has it that I left with them, didn't make it back to the hotel till 7am the next day. I cannot confirm or deny anything. All I will say is that it was fun. 
I learned that 2 of the Massachuesetts employees of ours that I have known forever by name are actually brother and sister. The New England crowd in general had a great time with the Vancouver crowd seeing as we have been together longer (at least via the phone and email). I will certainly be making a trip up to Boston to meet them. These folks are amazing. There was a humerous story of a lost pair of shoes in it somewhere too.
Friday was a short day conference wise. We had breakfast, we went to various meetings previously signed up for and then we went our own ways. I went to the Java Roadmap discussion, nearly fell asleep in the front row, went to the standards roadmap presentation with the Architects council and ended with the Oracle presentation. I must say that the Oracle one was fantastic. We learned about ASM and ADDM and things like that. I am very excited about those 2 particularly since it affects a lot of the work I do. We also got a lot of buzz on 11g, I can't wait for that to come out. Oracle does things well, and I like that.
After the wrap up of the conference a bunch of the remote staff took off for home. I had an extra day in DC and got on it. I went into DC and had dinner with 3 recently moved Vancouver staff. Popped in the office, did the favour I promised my manager, left the key to the room behind and even hopped on a Support call. Dinner was good at a Mediterranian restaurant. I saw the new Blackberry Pearl and drooled over it. Then I found out that my co-worker already had one. Then we walked around Dupont, went to what was alleged to be the communist Safeway (on account of the lack of materials, though I doubt that), got worried about how I am going to manage food and so forth on my own... and then got blown away by the quality of orchids there. These people have amazing plants! The pseudobulbs on these things were solid, the leaves good etc. One had some infection, but even then I was impressed with the quality and above all the variety of orchids they carried. Not bad for a Communist Safeway eh?
We saw the Sierra Leonean embassy along the way too. I went and watched Borat after that. Borat is amazing. I can't wait to see it again, though my head actually hurt from all the laughing. I did see a pair of rather amourous people going at it in front of me. They left soon after the movie started (I missed the first movie showing, it was sold out as I got there) and came back in about an hour to claim their coats... only to run away again. No points for guessing what they were up to.
The theatre I went to on Friday night was one in Chinatown and it was PACKED with people late in the night. The boundary between clean and safe and sad and probably unsafe was a matter of 2 blocks. I found that rather disenchanting. I also realised that despite the crowd, Chinatown is really a couple of blocks long and maybe a couple of blocks wide. I think some kind of sports stadium or stadia exist around there somewhere including the ice-hockey arena. I'll explore the area more when I get back to DC. I did see the Cirque tent along the way too.
I did want to mention how mild and nice the weather was. It rained on a couple of days (well more like drizzle on one day, and fairly decent rain on the other day) but was it ever mild. It was in the 20 degree celsius range for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I was very impressed with that. I am told this is highly unusual for DC for November and that it will cool down shortly. I think that will be the case over the weekend. At any rate, I loved it.
Saturday, I packed and checked out of the Hyatt, paid my internet bill and got in a taxi and went to DC. I saw the embassies along the way on Massachusetts Avenue. Saw the Indian embassy, the Turkish one and many others. Also saw the Washington National Cathedral along the way from Bethesda. The ride in was quite quick, probably owing to the fact that it was a Saturday and fairly early. I had breakfast and headed off to do some shopping. Crystal city was closed. I think it may be because the 11th is Veterans Day in the US (Remembrance Day in Canada, Armistace Day in the UK, followed by Remembrance Sunday). Went back one stop to Pentagon City, and ended up purchasing some things. I didn't get to buy anything significant from Nordstrom and I am disappointed about that... they had a huge sale going on, allegedly. Nothing I wanted seemed to be on sale though.
Went back to DC, had lunch at the Sea's Catch Restaurant (I intended to wander Georgetown, but I ran out of time). Took a cab to the airport and made friends with the cab driver. He's from Ethiopia and sounded thrilled that I had spent time in Mozambique. He seemed to confuse me for having lived in Zimbabwe though and was telling me about Robert Mugabe. I know enough about politics in Southern Africa to keep up a lively conversation. I got to the airport around 3:20pm and checked in. No luck with the automatic check in... it doesn't like Canadian Passports. I then went on to drop my bags off at Security and watched to make sure they made it. They did. Security were rather harsh on the bags. They threw them about. I guess that is to be expected.
After security, I went to the real 'take-your-shoes-off' security. That took a while and I had 3 baskets worth of stuff: laptop, shoes and jacket, carry on and laptop case. After that, I went and sat by my gate waiting for the green plane... and that's where I started my story.
So, let me go on a bit about Delta. I never considered them much of anything. A co-worker had suggested it to me. He said they were good and to use Salt Lake as a transfer point. So far, I am impressed by their service. Their staff all around have been polite, they had clean aircraft with space, they had TVs for me on the previous flight. This ERJ is good too, they gave us snacks, water and so forth. I will fly Delta again, pending what happens to my baggage once I get to Vancouver. I am afraid something will happen to my bags now. I must say this trip has been good transportation-wise. Lets see how it goes. Now I am going to take a nap because I am on DC time still and it is 1:02am there and I haven't slept well in the last little while...
I have been in Washington DC for the past 2 weeks. As I type this, I am somewhere over the mid-west... but wait, I can pinpoint where, thanks to the tv screen in front of me with real-time flight information. I am just a little South and West of Angora, it is -27 Fahrenheit (-33 Celsius) outside, I have travelled 2800km so far and am about to cross the Denver-Utah border. My destination? Well on this Delta Airlines flight, it is to the capital of Utah, Salt Lake City... the spiritual home of the folks of that famous Church and the place that held the 2002 Winter Olympics. Too bad I won't be able to take in the city, and since it is dark (7:34pm MT right now), I am unlikely to see much on my way into the airport.
So what have been upto in the past 2 weeks? I have been working hard like a dog over the past 2 weeks. I worked in the office till about midnight every day that I was there (including Saturday and Sunday) and got some work done. I do miss Vancouver a lot and I hope that I made up for missing the work there by catching up on stuff in DC. The second week of my stay in Washington DC was a little more pleasant.
The entire development team met for a developer conference at the Bethesda Hyatt. I got to stay there. On the 9th floor. With a King sized bed. A Giant TV. And a view! It was positively delightful. I must say that the Hyatt was very nice at taking care of any and all of my needs. My one major peeve with them: no free internet access. They had wireless internet access at 11mbps (so I assume 803.11b) but it was slow and cost me $9.95 a day. They cut you off promptly too the next day. I am past the border by the way right now, into Utah, just south of Randlett and at 11204m above sea level. The Hyatt has a Morton's right inside the hotel and the first day we got there, my co-worker and I were very disappointed that we had eaten a rather decent meal at Baja Fresh... everyone else who was staying there seemed to have had dinner at the Mortons. More on Mortons later.The conference was about team-building and learning about the focus of the organisation for the next year. It was an eye-opener for me. I heard that it cost about $100,000USD to do this for the 4 days that we were there. I am very impressed in many respects with the way the Hyatt managed this conference for us and the coordination the development team folks in charge of various parts of it coordinated everything.
What did I learn? Well, for one, I learned what sort of toothpaste my co-workers use, how many siblings each of them has, how to build a catapult with pieces of string, rubber bands, a bucket and money... team-building exercises. I did think some of the events were over the top but I must say that my scepticism is waning... I am becoming a convert to the team-building mantra and the events that go along with it. For me, the highlight of this exercise was to meet my co-workers from the merged company, many of whom I had worked with via email or heard of and a tonne of whom I had never really had the chance to meet. The good news is that the combined company still retains quite a bit of the old company's charm. We are very similar in many respects. We have the geeks, we have the funny ones, we have the legends. And for the most part, the team is a strong, bright, young, innovative one. I can honestly say that I don't feel that terrible about working with such a talented bunch of individuals. There is still the corporate fluff that goes along with a lot of this (especially with the executive updates etc), but once you filter down to the average Joe, they hate their managers as much as we did at the old place (well hate isn't exactly the right word, but you know what I mean... there are times when you would see them eaten by a plethora of ant species for some of the monkey business they throw you into).
We learned about where our focus was going to be and I am happy to say that a version of our old product has some lease on life. We were not completely ignored as I expected (seeing as we are the "vanquished" in this relationship), and actually our folks have been working on things that will no doubt make them stars in the new company. I also learned that I no longer need to have the us and them conversation. We are one. We have to be to succeed. And we shall. This was a rather bitter pill to swallow for me, but after having met my colleagues in the DC office and "their" other employees and "our" Massachusetts based folks, I believe we are on the track to making good software and growing. That isn't to say that there won't be hiccups along the way. I see these people making the same sorts of mistakes I've seen in Vancouver and sometimes I get the feeling they don't want to listen to our ideas. They will have to though. We've crossed some of the same obstacles they are coming across and it is to their benefit to use us to the full for that.
I am back on a plane right now, a CRJ200 (a Canadian made Bombardier aircraft) on my way home. The plane is fairly empty. I was a little taken aback by the size of the cabin (width wise anyway) but I am impressed with the leg room so far. I was in Salt Lake City for an hour and a bit and I am impressed by their organisation. Things made sense, they recycled everything and everything had a warm and clean feel to it. In fact, I could almost call this Vancouver or some other nice city in Canada. Weird. This plane does not have the TV screens etc but is still fairly nice. The single stewardess seems like a jovial one.
Back to my week in Bethesda. I went shopping one evening with a couple of co-workers. We went to the Nieman Marcus at Friendship Heights and also ventured into the Saks Fifth Avenue Mens store. Needless to say, none of us purchased anything. I did like the giant Williams-Sonoma store there, I think I will be getting my pots and pans from there. We shall see how it goes as far as housing goes.
On Wednesday, a couple of co-workers and I went to a crab place in Bethesda called Steamers. Allegedly, crab is the big thing around here and Steamers is the place to be. We went, we ordered crab, got a quick lesson on how to eat crab and then dug in. It was a lot of work and was messy. I did enjoy the food, though I wouldn't spend that much effort on crab too often. We then went shopping (as mentioned above) and THEN one of them decided he wanted a steak at Mortons and went in. As it turned out, we went in, bought into the sales pitch and I ended up getting not just the appetizer, but also a 14oz Steak! I told the fellow I hated him for making me eat steak, but I did enjoy it. Oh well, its not like I am going to do this often. I hope. We were done our second dinner around 11 and the steak was fabulous. One of the folks (who did not take part in the gluttony) remarked that we were drooling over our steaks. Fair enough. It was wonderful. Hopefully, no prions in the meat.
Thursday, after a full day of meetings and work groups (the Engineering ones were a lot tamer than QA; QA went on a scavenger hunt!), we went bowling to Strike Bethesda. We bowled lots, made friends and had a good old time. At the end of the evening, I even ended up making friends with 2 rather lovely college girls. Rumour has it that I left with them, didn't make it back to the hotel till 7am the next day. I cannot confirm or deny anything. All I will say is that it was fun. 
I learned that 2 of the Massachuesetts employees of ours that I have known forever by name are actually brother and sister. The New England crowd in general had a great time with the Vancouver crowd seeing as we have been together longer (at least via the phone and email). I will certainly be making a trip up to Boston to meet them. These folks are amazing. There was a humerous story of a lost pair of shoes in it somewhere too. Friday was a short day conference wise. We had breakfast, we went to various meetings previously signed up for and then we went our own ways. I went to the Java Roadmap discussion, nearly fell asleep in the front row, went to the standards roadmap presentation with the Architects council and ended with the Oracle presentation. I must say that the Oracle one was fantastic. We learned about ASM and ADDM and things like that. I am very excited about those 2 particularly since it affects a lot of the work I do. We also got a lot of buzz on 11g, I can't wait for that to come out. Oracle does things well, and I like that.
After the wrap up of the conference a bunch of the remote staff took off for home. I had an extra day in DC and got on it. I went into DC and had dinner with 3 recently moved Vancouver staff. Popped in the office, did the favour I promised my manager, left the key to the room behind and even hopped on a Support call. Dinner was good at a Mediterranian restaurant. I saw the new Blackberry Pearl and drooled over it. Then I found out that my co-worker already had one. Then we walked around Dupont, went to what was alleged to be the communist Safeway (on account of the lack of materials, though I doubt that), got worried about how I am going to manage food and so forth on my own... and then got blown away by the quality of orchids there. These people have amazing plants! The pseudobulbs on these things were solid, the leaves good etc. One had some infection, but even then I was impressed with the quality and above all the variety of orchids they carried. Not bad for a Communist Safeway eh?
We saw the Sierra Leonean embassy along the way too. I went and watched Borat after that. Borat is amazing. I can't wait to see it again, though my head actually hurt from all the laughing. I did see a pair of rather amourous people going at it in front of me. They left soon after the movie started (I missed the first movie showing, it was sold out as I got there) and came back in about an hour to claim their coats... only to run away again. No points for guessing what they were up to.
The theatre I went to on Friday night was one in Chinatown and it was PACKED with people late in the night. The boundary between clean and safe and sad and probably unsafe was a matter of 2 blocks. I found that rather disenchanting. I also realised that despite the crowd, Chinatown is really a couple of blocks long and maybe a couple of blocks wide. I think some kind of sports stadium or stadia exist around there somewhere including the ice-hockey arena. I'll explore the area more when I get back to DC. I did see the Cirque tent along the way too.
I did want to mention how mild and nice the weather was. It rained on a couple of days (well more like drizzle on one day, and fairly decent rain on the other day) but was it ever mild. It was in the 20 degree celsius range for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I was very impressed with that. I am told this is highly unusual for DC for November and that it will cool down shortly. I think that will be the case over the weekend. At any rate, I loved it.
Saturday, I packed and checked out of the Hyatt, paid my internet bill and got in a taxi and went to DC. I saw the embassies along the way on Massachusetts Avenue. Saw the Indian embassy, the Turkish one and many others. Also saw the Washington National Cathedral along the way from Bethesda. The ride in was quite quick, probably owing to the fact that it was a Saturday and fairly early. I had breakfast and headed off to do some shopping. Crystal city was closed. I think it may be because the 11th is Veterans Day in the US (Remembrance Day in Canada, Armistace Day in the UK, followed by Remembrance Sunday). Went back one stop to Pentagon City, and ended up purchasing some things. I didn't get to buy anything significant from Nordstrom and I am disappointed about that... they had a huge sale going on, allegedly. Nothing I wanted seemed to be on sale though.
Went back to DC, had lunch at the Sea's Catch Restaurant (I intended to wander Georgetown, but I ran out of time). Took a cab to the airport and made friends with the cab driver. He's from Ethiopia and sounded thrilled that I had spent time in Mozambique. He seemed to confuse me for having lived in Zimbabwe though and was telling me about Robert Mugabe. I know enough about politics in Southern Africa to keep up a lively conversation. I got to the airport around 3:20pm and checked in. No luck with the automatic check in... it doesn't like Canadian Passports. I then went on to drop my bags off at Security and watched to make sure they made it. They did. Security were rather harsh on the bags. They threw them about. I guess that is to be expected.
After security, I went to the real 'take-your-shoes-off' security. That took a while and I had 3 baskets worth of stuff: laptop, shoes and jacket, carry on and laptop case. After that, I went and sat by my gate waiting for the green plane... and that's where I started my story.
So, let me go on a bit about Delta. I never considered them much of anything. A co-worker had suggested it to me. He said they were good and to use Salt Lake as a transfer point. So far, I am impressed by their service. Their staff all around have been polite, they had clean aircraft with space, they had TVs for me on the previous flight. This ERJ is good too, they gave us snacks, water and so forth. I will fly Delta again, pending what happens to my baggage once I get to Vancouver. I am afraid something will happen to my bags now. I must say this trip has been good transportation-wise. Lets see how it goes. Now I am going to take a nap because I am on DC time still and it is 1:02am there and I haven't slept well in the last little while...
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