Another late night.. almost 1 am and only one work call to go 🙂

Today had a great mix of meetings and got to spend time with the IBM interns in the extreme blue and smart camp programs. It was double fun because quite a few of the projects had an IoT component.

Also got to catch up with em old friends including Wing, Peter , Andy.. etc

We managed to get out for a walk in the beautiful nature reserve near the ibm site

 

there was a beautiful collection of small garden huts where city folks could go to be in nature.. it was all deserted this time of year which made it surreal

i ran in to my friend Peter.. had a great conversation and got to see his delorean material.. tomorrow I hope to see there real thing

spent the rest of the time meeting new folks, doing interviews and seeing some great technology

 

 

all of the events were in an old type write factory that used to be an IBM building.. Now its a high tech incubator. complete with a garden on the roof .

 

i loved looking at the cool tech that the startups and extreme blue teams brought in

 

including a teletype tied to twitter

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after the event, Frank took us to Haarlem and we met up up with my good friend Rolf and some of his friends. I’d met them all at at Rolf’s phD defense a couple of years ago

the 

 

now back to the hotel.. met up with the irish team again including my remind fiona

”

 

ok.. it’s 1:30 time for be.. good day..

night all, night sam

-me

Greetings form Amsterdam.. almost 2AM. back a bit ago from a really nice reunion with other good friends. Ran into friends at work. met some face to face  for the first time (RJ !) ..

around 6 my friend Bram picked me up at work and drove us to our friend Djeevins home. He recently left IBM ,, so it was really good to check in on him. t was great meeting his wife and kids and seeing his home base.  Here Djeevin and his son strap on some lights !

whats more he is an excellent thai cook.. the food he made was really amazing.. tam ka then a rice and veggie thai salad. I wish I had one more bowl right now

Got back here around 11:30.. then got into some more work calls. All done for the night..

must sleeeeeeeep !

night all, night sam

-me

 

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

 

Went for a run this morning and kept noticing the small brass plaques in the ground. On the way back I started looking at them they all had the word heir wohnt.. Or here lived.. These are all markers of the home address of people who died in the Holocaust. It took my breath away to think they had once lived in the same beautiful city, on this same beautiful Street and enjoyed the same beautiful weather which i was enjoying on this particular morning

 

Night all, night sam

-me