Monthly Archives: March 2013

Friday night – Ides of March

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Today is the Ides of March… The day that Caesar was killed in 44 bce. We all remember the story in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where the old seer warned Caesar beware the Ides of March after looking at the guts of a chicken. Cesar saw the old man on that day and And remark to the man that the Ides of March had come to which the old man said aye ceasar, but not gone. This is one of the few lines of Shakespeare I can remember and I can never say it without doing it in a pirate voice. Don't ask me why it must be the Aye

I had no chicken Guts nor pirates nor fortunetellers in my day. But I did eat some Caesar salad dressing to Mark the day

Hope your ides was as good as mine.
Night all, night sam
– JC

 

 

 

Thursday night – Pi day / Geek test

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Happy Pi day everyone.. March 14th == 3.14  the geekiest  day of the year.!

Geeks everywhere are celebrating by shining their slide rules .. I know my work neighbors had a big Pi(e) celebration in the cafeteria.. but I was traveling back to the states..    You know.. i should take this more seriously now. I was thinking about it yesterday how much I’ve grown to be the nerd I always dreamed of being. The hobbies, the look, the poor social skills. …the whole stereotype !.  Its only a very happy accident of fate that has equated being nerdy with being cool again.. where would I be if hat hadn’t happened ?

This week in Turkey I met with many other wonderful  nerds and geeks at work.. one of them pointed me at the Geek Test . Its an online test of just how geeky you are.. I noticed a sec ago that it’s even been updated for Pi day.. how geeky is that ?  It’s many pages long.. so give yourself a good 20 minutes to do it..

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Anyway..   the fine folks in IBM Turkey asked me to take the test and submit the results.. I came in with a score OF 60.51661 % .. a solid “extreme geek”.. I actually would have done “better”.. but Im not into sci-fi, video games or RPGS… actually.. with those three strikes against me, I should be proud of having any geek cred..  I did score bi on electronic gadgets, peculiar interests, anti social habits , .

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I’d be interested in hearing what you, gentle reader, score on this test.. i suspect that there are some Geek G-ds lurking out there..  please try it and let me know !

 

anyway.. happy Pi day everyone !

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Wednesday night – Constantinople

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3AM and I’m still on a phone call. trying to multitask and get these photos posted.

good productive day here in Turkey. got to spend more time with the IBM team which is always good. Did have some email connectivity trouble, which made for the late night…

I got a nice run in after an 8 AM meeting… did the hills around the beautiful residential section near the hotel.. what a climb !

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had a great Lunch meeting with my friend Esra.. It was very good catching up with her. .. she’s awesome.. she used to work on traffic (like me) but now has a new job in the area I’m working on..  we had our meeting while walking around the modern art museum and ate there..  it had an amazing view of the bosphoros.
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when I got to the IBM site i was surprised to see riot police with water canon watching a protest.. evidently a long standing one. in front of a nearby business. They hadn’t paid heir employees in 2 years.. pretty tense.. .
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I spent the rest of the day working in the busy 19th floor open office where Nihal and Esra work.. the setting is really nice.. but I could NEVER work in an open office setting like this..i am way too dis tractable.  i couldn’t help listening  every ones phone conversations.. (and I don’t even speak the language)  and kept looking up when new folks walked by.. I know Id drive everyone around me insane as well. I
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we even had some surprise drop by visitors.. !
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the place was still buzzing when I left at 7PM..

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my good freind Reha came by to give me some cool new toys.. he’s given me one of his cellular sensor nodes.. he gave me an assembled one.. and a DIY one.. that’s all surface mount.. how cool is that !!!
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Reha’s old boss and freind Guseli cam in to say hi, too
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around 7:30 i met Zegnap , and Nihal for dinner, We picked up Viktor. (Czech Republic) . then drove down to the Genovise district.. where we met Christina (romania) , Elena (Spain), Guron (Macedonia) , Laura (Poland) for a great  Anatollian meal.

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then we stopped for a Raki overlooking (you guessed it) the bosphorus..

on the way there, they showed me this resturant thats totally dark with blind waitstaff.. interesting !
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now its really late.. I love this country.. i love the people..

thanks so much Turkey..

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – more istanbul

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Good, long day here.. my talk went ok.. the event was great. Met many nice folks from IBM and our clients. learned quite a lot…

Wireless is down in the hotel, so I’m doing this over my phone connection.. so gotta be a little short..

Beautiful spring here… and Attaturk is in bloom everywhere 🙂

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started the day with grape juice/orange juice mix .. the traditional cohn drink for super strength.. to give me strength for my talk.. it sort of worked.. ;-0

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the ibm event was GREAT.. over a 1000 folks, mostly clients.. i love talking with them.. listening to them.. the show was kicked off by a band..
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then Isabella, the contry GM gave a good talk.. after her John Pi, then me..
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as I milleed around.. i found several old friends include Jale and her team.
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Reha..

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and my good friends from Comms..
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I even got to meet Nihal’s husband.. who turns out to be a client of ours !
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after a long day (I worked a good part of it in a quite room i found)   we went to egap’s place to drop our stuf. Her place has a grat view of the bosphoros and the blue mosque.

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inside her house where most women would have rock posters or something.. she had.. you guessed it.. Attaturk pictures !!
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we then headed out for the team dinner in the hitoric section.. it was a great meal.. all finger food..

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Seda and Aytek hamming it up..
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Artul (i can never spell his name.. he’s so awesome) took us on a quick tour of a nearby mosque..
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then back to zegnaps to pick up her stuff.. We met her mom.. She’s a breast cancer survivor and cancer awareness activist for an international cancer advocacy group. She was great to get to know !

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on the way how, Aytek took us to a Hookah bar… very cool !
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Ellena (from Spain by way of Czech republic) and Scot (from Vermont by way for the Czech Republic) give it a try..

it was very cool.. tasted like apples !
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ok.. Very late.. and I have tons of stuff to still do.. More tomorrow

nite all, nite sam

 

-me