It’s about 10:30 at night on a warm and drizzly night here. I’m just back from a very big dinner.. I’m mega jetlagged.. but I don’t want to fall asleep until I’ve had a chance to digest a little. That’s what blogging’s for !

I’ve got surprisingly little to report today.. it was another productive ll day meeting with my friends. I only stepped outside once before dinner. The food in the hotel is really excellent.. lots of choices . This morning, for example, they had four colors of juice. I was drawn to the green one… I poured myself a big glass

… then started thinking.. the last time I poured myself a big glass of something green .  and we remember how that went

Well.. no need to worry this time.. this tasted like fuzzy strawberry juice.. maybe it was kiwi or something..

The morning meetings went fine.. then it was time for lunch.. They had this great sashimi bar again.. Yum !

After lunch I had a good meeting with my friends Steve and Bill. Steve’s wife Helen died  about a year and a half ago. Bills wife Linda died last July. We’ve formed a small traveling support group around our shared experience of loss. Today we got together to talk about writing a short personal account of our experiences at work that IBM could give to people who have experienced loss, their management and their peers. Our hope is that sharing our experiences of what grieving on the job has been like for us might help other folks  understand  how they can best help their employees and peers. Believe it or not, there isn’t much material to help people in the workplace understand what to expect with this kind of loss.. Maybe it will help someone.. maybe not. In any case, it will be healing to work with Steve and Bill .

The afternoon’s meeting was interesting and lively. I went upstairs to drop my stuff off  before dinner. I stuck my key in the door.. no green light.. it was read.. I tried again.. red light..

.. then it dawned on me.. My key had been in my shirt pocket right behind the Sam button I always have… And.. what’s on the back of my Sam pin ? A magnet !. I had completely zapped my key… I started laughing.   I had to schlep downstairs and get my key reprogrammed..

Funny trick, Sam…

A few minutes later,some of our local IBM colleagues came by and picked us up for dinner. It was nice driving around during daylight. It’s an amazingly topical place here.. I learned that we’re just 17 miles north of the equator. (or 70.. I wasn’t sure which)

Our destination was a Chinese seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean.

The food was delicios and plentiful.. They started us out on jellyfish

Eventually this guy showed up…

and some chili crab (a regional delicacy)

.. and prawny things..

.. and green stuff with abalone  ( i was about to sprout gills at this point)

then we ended up with seaweed based sweet agar

and finally shaved ice with coconut milk and tapioca..

I had eaten sort of sparingly but I was still so full I could hardly move.. Dinner was great as was the conversation. Here I am with one of our hosts.

and the other folks at out table. (Ragu’s leg, Curry, Lori, Chris, Fukinaga-san, Charlie…)

Here’s one of the other tables from our group viewed from outside.

As we walked back to the car we looked over and saw people water skiing.. but we saw and heard no boats.. as we got closer we discovered that this was a skiing contraption that used a system of cables and pulleys to pull skiers around this large lagoon. It was pretty cool !!  We didn’t have a chance to try it tonight..It looks like fun though.
 

OK.. that’s it for now.. My jet lag is taking over. More tomorrow. Talk to you all tomorrow. G’nite Sam
-me