It’s 3AM east coast time and I just got back to my room. I’m at the IBM Technical Leaders Exchange meeting in Anaheim. It’s in the 50s and clear out here tonight.. a far cry from the snow and slush that I think we’re getting back home. Here’s some Palm trees just to show that the whole world is not covered in snow.   (oops.. I don’t seem to have enough nandwidth to upload pictures tonight.. I get it fixed in the morning !  got it fixed.. here are the pictures)

The trip out here was uneventful. I miraculously got bumped to first class which was a nice and welcome treat. The flights were all on time which is nice considering the impending weather. I sat next to my friend Mark on the trip from BTV to Chicago.. Mark’s younger son plays in a band with our friend Nick Rose who played guitar at Sam’s memorial service. On the trip from Chicago to LA I just sat and worked quietly by myself.. it was really relaxing. The only noteworthy thing on the flight was that Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of the bird Iago in the movie Aladdin was sitting two seats behind me.. he even let me share his luggage bin. I talked to him for a bit.. he was very nice.. and kind of shy…

   I got of the plane and found a clump of IBMers and followed them to the shuttle bus to the hotel. I got here about 7:30 ish then headed on over to the conference site right next to the hotel. The conference officially starts tomorrow, but there are already a ton of folks here.

   I understand that there will be more than 5000 IBM technical folks attending this meeting. 5000 ! that’s significantly more people than live in Richmond. They are coming here from all different IBM divisions, locations and countries. Its such a strange thing to see folks I know from so many different places and jobs all together in one place. I must have run into 100 folks I new just in the 3 hours I went over for dinner. What’s more.. almost everyone I saw already knows about Sam.. I had so many people come up and hug me this evening .. it’s remarkable. It really does feel like a big family to me. Tomorrow I’ll start giving out some of the fresh SamStones that Jen brought over this morning. This group will take them all over for us. Well. I know this is a pretty non exciting post.. but I’m feeling a bit non-exciting myself. It’s hard traveling and being away from the family. It’s funny though.. I like the quiet time in the hotel room.. Sam feels very close to me here I love you Gabe, I love you Max.. I love you Diane.. I love you Sam.. Gnite !
-jc