Friends..
    I’m not sure we’ll have time to post from LAX.. So I’ll try doing the blog today in installments. Diane got us all up around 5 this morning… another 4 hour sleep night.. ugh.. We were all moving pretty slowly.

 We got out of the house about 20 minutes later than we had planned. Chai was sitting there with her tail between her legs looking at us with those big sad eyes. At this point, she knows what’s up when the suitcases come out. We know she’ll be OK. there will be enough folks in the house while we’re gone to keep her happy.

    We got to the airport about 45 minutes before our flight.. but even so., it was a little too close for comfort. We slid into our seats just as the door was closing. The trip to Chicago was short and sweet. We had the same flight crew as the my flight from chicago last night… The flight attendand remember me and my seat mate Jim.. the guy with the ink yesterday. She told me he’d given him a free beer because he’d called her ‘babydoll’..and she thought it was nice.  Not sure I’d ever use that trick.. but hey.. it worked …

   Right now we’re hanging out in O’hare.. waiting for the flight to LAX.. we found a nice little cubby hole to camp out in..  We grabbed a bite.. and now we’re just hanging out..

I’ll send some more from LA.. Happy travels all.. happy travles Sam..
-me

Quick update in-route.. We’re now  hanging out in the LA airport ready to board our flight. We just found out that the plane stops in Tokyo for an hour… Oh-boy.. another airport :-)… Flight out was pretty peaceful.. we watched harry portter and I worked on my email backlog.. I got about 400 emails behind in the last 4 days.. eeeeeek

OK.. time to fly.. TTYL….

-me

A very unimpressive view of the grand canyon through the back galley porthole

Getting some horizontal

Flights to everywhere !

Friends…
    Interesting evening.. but I’m goign to have to ask everyeone’s patience and let me write it up tomorrow. I managed to change my return flight to get home this eveing (so I thought) because I really wanted to help get us ready for the trip to India. I got a ticlet on Jetblue for this eveneing.. but … the flight was canceled due to an equipmet probelem. i booked the first flight out ttomorrow at 6:40 am. I”m now at my friend’s Lori and Dave’s   with the chance to get 4 hours sleep before my flight. Lori and Dave were hosting the Academy TC meeting at their house.. It was a nice quiet evening of bonding after our full week of meetings here…   he most important part of the meeting for me was the opportunity to talk to Lori’s friend Patty who was helping with the dinner. Patty’s son Daniel passed away Dec 28th last year.. Lori put us in touch last spring… since then we’ve exchanged a few notes.. but this is the fira..st time I was able to sit down and talk to Patty, her son Jose and her mom  Dorothry. he’s brough a whole bunch of Daniels scrapbook and pictures.. It was so nice and so hard going throught them .  I got some pictures of the material that I’ll share tomorrow when I have more bandwidth and time..   Right now I should sleep..One other very cool thing. Diane called me from Higher Ground tonight .. she, Gabe and freinds were there listening to State Radio this evening. She called me right as the band dedicated the song ‘keepsake ‘ to Sam.. I sat there and listened to it over the phone. It was wonderful !

Right now. sleep sounds wonderfull.. more from me tomorrow. I love you all.. I love you Sam !

-me

Another day of meetings. Today’s started at 7AM and ended just before 7. tomorrow will be more of the same.. thought I’ve decied that I need to come home a day early We leave at 5AM on Sat for India and I just have too much stuff to get ready

 The day was pretty good. These Academy meetings are a wonderful chance to talk to friends from all over the place. It’s the best networking thing I go to each year. As I’ve said many times in these pages. The friends I have from this group are among the closest friends I have on the planet.

 One interesting highlight of the day was the opportunity to participate in a panel of my fellow Technology Council members. It was a highlight to me because I truly believe in what I’m trying to do in my new role   as America‘s VP for the Academy. My job is to help the Academy improve the technical vitality..  of all the technical folks in North. South and Central America .It’s all about people and I like that.. 

The audience of the panel

 The full Technology Council

After the days meetings we all went out in small groups to the restaurant of our choice . I picked Japanese and ended up with my friends Glenn from Australia . Chris from England .. and new friends Jane from Australia  and Clifford from South Africa.  My friends Gottfried from Germany, Philippe from Switzerland and Ralph from new York were at the next table.. This meeting always feels like the United Nations. The food and the company were really great. It turns out that Jane is a big fan of Brian Weiss, the past life regression guy,  so that made for an interesting conversation .

 Cool sentiments

Our crowd.

nice sunset

Shirt a woman in the hotel was wearing.. Max has this exact same shirt.

We got done around 10 so I grabbed a cab and headed over to my friends Brian and Moira’s. Brian and I have been good buddies since we started working together in the mid 90’s.. we have the same scars on our backs from fighting battles together at work.. actually he has some different scars now.. he’s been going to an acupuncturist regularly and she practices ‘cupping’. Cupping involves using small flames to create a vacuum  in a small glass vessel. The resultant  suction is supposed to  help extract toxins from the body.. it certainly gives you some cool markings.

She’s going to love this

I got to see Brian’s newly rebuild house and his new half a car.. he’s got one of the very few Daimler Chrysler  Smart Cars.. It’s so cool and small. 50 miles per gallon.. and no messy battery’s.  I got to ride in it tonight.. on the way back to the hotel.

It’s about 1 AM and I’m about to nod off. As I was uploading the days pictures, I found that through a coincidence of folder naming, I’d accidentally mixed them with an Oct 3^rd of a previous year. .. maybe 2005 ?  In there I found this good picture of Sam and our bird Gabby.. The picture of Sam took my breath away

I must sleep now. I love you all.. G’nite Sam. I love you

-me

Oy… I only have a few hours to sleep before I need to be in my seat and smiling at 7AM..   Sometimes it would be so easy to tell myself. I’ll blog tomorrow… but I have a tradition to maintain here..   I’ll make this short and sweet. Today was uneventful from the sense that I did not ever step outside of the comforting wrap of the hotel today. I cant tell you if the day was hot or cool, dry or humid.. . Inside it was cool, dry and interesting. This meeting is the one each year that draw all the 300+ folks from the IBM academy under one roof. It’s a great opportunity to connect with all my friends that live all over the world. The big thing we’re struggling with now is how to make sure that   the body we belong to is really reaching out to the more than 210 thousand technical folks in my company.. I like thinking about stuff like that.. In fact.. anything that involves people and their path to success really interests me..

One of the great things about this meeting is the opportunity to sit down and talk to friends I  have from across the US.. and in other areas such as the US, Canada  Europe, India, China, Japan. Mexico. Canada, Brazil, etc. One aspect of this is to come face to face with ‘failure’. I know that I have not been doing my best job over the past 10 months…   I may have a good excuse.. but that doesn’t change the fact that many things I was trying to drive at my work.. may not occur once I  take my  in-house sabbatical Nov  1^st I’ve been confronted by a large array of work folks today.. that have been asking  ‘where have you been’… ‘why aren’t you doing ,,… ‘x’ “   why are you letting us down ?

I don’t have an answer.. But I do know that I’ve been doing all that I can do given  my current situation. I’m learning to forgive myself for that.. to be easy on myself.. I hope that it works for the rest of you.

I keep  falling asleep.. so I need to stop now…   before I drop my laptop

Gnite all.. gnite Sam

-me

ps.. here are some pictures from the day

Out on 6th street

Bob. me and Al

Nick’s admonition

Akl the fellows  in a meeting

Religious message aside.. I DO !