The first day of spring .. and its snowing out.. Finally home after 2 days of travel back from Poland. My flight last night got canceled afte waiting at JFK until after midnight. Not all bad because it gave me time to catch up with my old friends and cousin-in-laws Bill and Deb who’d been on the same flight. The next available flight out was at 5PM today.. so I grabbe a hotel and worked all day from there.. not too bad..
I did wake to some sad news. My friend Bruce called to tell me that our old friend Martin Trotter died of pancreatic cancer on Mar 10th. Martin and I have been work buddies since the early 1980’s . Marin worked for IBM in Hursley England. In 1984 we swapped jobs // he came to live in Vermont while we lived there in England I was working at IBM and Diane was in grad school. .. Martin was one of the smartest and hardest working guys I knew. He was quiet and had a very fumy ., self effacing sense of humor. He always amazed me with hom much he could get done on his own at work.. I tried finding pictures of him online and came up with just these two… that’s so like him / Martin is back right in the group photo.
its so like him to be so accomplished.. and yet not very visible… We will miss you Martin
I downloaded Linkedin on my new phone. I was trying to track down some of our Martin’s old friends so I could tell them.. Somehow i accidentally managed to hit a button that sent out 547 LinkedIn invites to folks..
while I hadn’t meant to do it.. i managed to hear from a ton of old friends as they accepted the invites. It was a nice feeling which lifted my spirits…
if you are one of those old friends.. thanks for being out there today ..
On my ay home after a very good trip to Warsaw. Got some good customer, co-worker and university time in there. I absolutely love the people of Warsaw. They were so nice and friendly.. and very. very smart. I will be coming back here… I want to thank all the people that made my trip so productive and enjoyable !
The trip home was peaceful and productive as well. I managed to clear out my inbox completely. I can’t remember the last time that happened !
On a more serious note, I did make one pilgrimage while I was here. The wall of the Warsaw Ghetto was right outside my hotel. I ran by it the other day.. . This morning my friend Piotr let me get out and take a look again. It is a section of the wall of the old Jewish section of town.. it was the site of terrible tragedies during the holocaust. About half of its 400,000 residents were deported to concentration camps in 1942.
I was speechless as I stood before it . A stark contrast from the warm and friendly place and people i’d been visiting. It’s a reminder of how precious and fragile life can be..
One more night in Warsaw. I really like this town and its people. Today was super busy. Met with media in the morning, then had some great meetings and a talk at Warsaw University, then two sets of roundtables with the local IBM Crowd.
Then back for a quick dinner and 3/4more of a day of meetings. I’m really exhausted.. but happy.. Hope to come back here soon !
Happy St. Patty’s day everyone.. They say everyone is Irsih today.. and I’m feeling Irish.. even in Poland.
I’m here at the IBM forum in Warsaw.. my talk winet pretty well today.. I met a ton of nice folks.. Ibmers and clients.. a good day
exciting events.. I’m guess about 800 folks.. .. lots of cool talks.. and realllllllllly amazing lighting and music !
Tese are pretty
after client meetings, i had some meetings with the press.. then headed to the Polish-Japanese Institute of Technology fror a talk…and a meeting with the faculty. A great place for Big Data research. Hope we can get soem joint projects going with them.
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note the rainbow !
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Then back to the hotel for a few hours of work meetings.. then a great dinner in Warsaw old town.. It was one of the guys parents restaurant.. really great.. food and liter size beers ! (only had room for 1 !)
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