Almost 2AM, so I will make this short.-.. But it's not a short kind of day. Today was the Last day of IFA .I woke early and took a longish run through the beautiful tear garden. My goal was to visit the Jewish Holocaust monument…
The Holocaust monument is very movie… It's thousands of concrete rectangles various sizes and shapes on uneven ground… You walk into it and you easily get lost. It's very moving
I stood in the middle of it for a while and thought
I spent the bulk of the rest of the day trying to catch up from things that I've missed while being here… I had about five hours worth of email and meetings… Do you like that it was time for my friends Pat and Bills talk. It went very well… I was vicariously happy for them
Funny thing is the speaker before Pattonville look really familiar… When I went up to congratulate you guys further talk the previous speaker stared at me and said 'I know you! 'It was my old friend Trent from Saskatchewan Canada…about 15 years ago and two careers ago. We were both in analog CAD which was about the smallest community is you could have in this industry
We had fun catching up and then he told me that our mutual friend Jeannie, whom I know from loathing Belgium… Was now working for him… (I didn't even know the two new each other)… And what's more was going to be in town this evening. Crazy !
Next though Pat, Bill, will, Martin and I headed back to the hotel to grab a beer… Then I took Martin across town to meet up with my friend Henning and his wife Paula and two beautiful kids at a small pizza place in northern berlin.
… That was also a great connection… henning he has nothing to do with the conference I'm at, but Martin and I have just started working on the same topic that Henning is an expert in… It turned out to be a very useful meeting…when half of the table was talking tech and reviewing the paper… Well my side of the table was playing with our food and throwing french fries at one another
Unfortunately I had both 10 PM and 11 PM phone calls with work… I made it home and to the hotel in time to take the 11 PM but then I arrange to meet Jimmy at midnight at the subway station… It was so great seeing him after so many years… We had a great time catching up both technically and personally
I'm in Berlin and halftime and moving and were working on very similar topics right now. It's a wonderfully small world
OK after 2 AM and I have to wake up early so I'm going to stop here
Nite all, nite sam
-me