Greetings from Istanbul.. I am here for a few days doing some customer presentations and some meetings.  Flight over was pretty easy.. worked and read.. and watched the wizard of oz with no sound a couple of times..  (if I only had a brain !@!!!!)

 

left a samstone midway in Frankfurt (and looked pretty suspicious doing so.. i think )

I love this place… though it seems like I was just here. It’s like summer here with weather in the 60’s.. some folks in shorts, others in winter coats.. very funny.

At the airport, at the hotel, everywhere I am greeted with the almost smiling face of AttaTurk.. the hero of modern Turkey.. That man.. who died way back in the 30’s did more to shape the modern country of turkey (and it is very modern) than any person in history. The turks all still adore him.. and for good cause.. i really like seeing him every where

 

just substitute the Holy Qoran for giddeons bible and this place could really be anywhere..

went for a run in the hot (60’s) weather wearing full sweats.. and sweat id did.. THe roads were jammed with folks enjoying the sunshine.. There were folks in shorts and folks in winter coats.. very funny @

here’s the castle I’ll be speaking at on Tuesday.. I’ve given talk there before.. It’s gorgeous.

Atta Turk came with me on my running route as well !

Got back to teh hotel from running just in time fo a quick shower before being picked up by my friend Reha. Rehas is one of my hacking buddies from my ‘hello sensors” team at work. he and his son and his colleague omar have built some really cool sensor demo boards that have GPRS and GPS all for about $50 bucks.. more on that in a bit. Their apartment is beautiful with a great view..

Reha’s lovely wife (whos name I never learned to pronounce.. much less spell) made us all a wonderful feast. She is an awesome cook and wonderful person.. She’d also been at IBM . Reh’s son Atesh is studying media arts like Max.. and is helping his dad program again like max.. so we had lots to talk about..

 

The dinner was great.. dolmas, cheese and spinach bueck, red lentil soup, lentil balls, seasoned rice and salted yoghurt to drink.. All so delicious .

 

 

After dinner.. we all got geeky..   Reha has designed these very nice sensor nodes that have a PRS transceiver, a gps a batter controller and an arduino compatible processor in a little 2″x2″ square for about 50 bucks.   Our goal tonight was to use some of the code that our team has been developing at work for easier  sensor integration to get this new node talking to our IBM back end software.

Reha does his own surface mount soldering .. his 48 year old eyes can do that.. I wonder if my 54 year old eyes could.. now i gotta get a microscope like his.

Back in Atesh’s room what did I see up on the wall ? A swimsuit model.. ?! nope.. there’s our man.. Atta Turk !.. you gotta know that he’s all that if he’s in a 21 year olds bedroom looking down at him all day..

 

I’m pleased to say it was soemthing less hthan a two beer job.. it actually took us less than an hour to figure out how to take his new piece of hardware and get its data on our platform.. Yeeeeee haaaa !

 

Success made us hungry  .. so time for tea and backlava.. yum !

we sat and talked for a whole more.. my jetlag was kicking in.. so i did most of my talking horizontally..

then it was time to go.. they gave me a really nice gift.. guess what ? .. You guessed . a glass image of Atta Turk..

I couldn’t beleive it.. So very cool !

reha drove me back to the hotel.. the mine search and metal detectors were the only thing that reminded me

that I wasn’t in kansas any more..

night all, nite sam

-me