Heater is broken in my room so they have given me a space heater...spent the morning freezing. I thought it was just me, but turns out it was actually cold. Well, 60 degrees is not exactly freezing, but when you're used to 90 it feels pretty cold :-) The view is nice. And a cloudy rainy day in Seattle? How unusual. Summer will return by Thursday they say...
You know you're in Seattle I guess when the free coffee in the hotel is Starbucks...
With Darren from Amazon UK in front of the Amazon office in beautiful downtown Slough.
Snapped at the Slough train station, waiting for the ride back into Central London (in June 2010).
In Seattle!
Sent from my iPhoneSurfers near the Needles of Haystack Rock
Foggy day at about 8pm tonight in Cannon Beach. You needed a jacket but it was very nice as usual in Cannon Beach. There's never really a bad day at Haystack Rock, at least from the point of view of someone taking pictures. Off to Seattle tomorrow!
http://conference.tableausoftware.com/2010/speakers.html
I am not always the calmest guy in the world, but over recent years I have tried not to go nuts when things go very wrong. In fact, sometimes the worse things go, the more helpful it is not to get upset. I was not always like this, but perhaps all those years of studying Zen and the Zen arts have slowly changed me. Or maybe it was the birth of my daughter. But I think I am better now at not sweating the small stuff, and most of life is indeed the small stuff.
This AM I was to fly to Portland, Oregon. But when I went out to the parking lot behind my hotel in downtown Palo Alto, California, my rental car -- a Nissan hybrid -- was gone. Hmmm, was it stolen? Rats! Hope my insurance covers that! But wait, there is an art festival in Palo Alto today, the whole town is closed down for that. Was there a DO NOT PARK sign there last night that I did not see? There is no sign now, just an ink spot where my poor car used to be. Right, first thing is to call the police to see if the car was impounded before I report a stolen car (which I thought was very unlikely). Sure enough, my car was in the pound; it was towed at 4am for a parking violation. But first I had to pay a $125 fine and wait quite a while for an officer to do the paper work at the PA police station. It's Saturday, so few people around for regular business. Would I still make my flight? This was my worry. This was taking quite a while. I still had not had coffee...and yet I was calm and smiling and joking. The police officer was nice, and after I paid the fine he gave me instructions on where to get my car -- five miles away. D'oh! So I called a taxi to take me to the pound to get my car out of jail. The taxi driver was a nice gentleman from Pakistan who has been in the US since 1995. We talked about how we were both fans of the late Benazir Bhutto, though he liked her father better. And we laughed about the predicament I was in. "Oh no... but life is full of surprises isn't it, not always good ones!" he said half laughing. After about 10 minutes we arrived at the impound station. $23 for the taxi. No one is there, but after I call their number they said someone would come in about 20 minutes. Argh! Not going to make the 10:39 am flight. Then a very friendly cat comes to me and brushes up against my leg. "Meow!" Nice cat. He kept me company while I called United Airlines to change my flight to tonight. It's a charge of $125 or so to change, but the UA staff member on the phone waived that and put me in first class, I think he felt sorry for me. The impound guy finally shows up. "$350" he says to get my car out. Lovely, hope they take visa card. They do. While in his office he said that I was the nicest person he's ever had pick up their impounded car. Most people are rude and angry or just upset he said. I never thought about that: When you come to get your car out of the pound, and are given a $350 bill (after already paying the police a fine), that does tend to put you in a bad mood. But I kind of expected the high fee and I guess it is better than the car being stolen. So we talked about football and how his brother went to university in Palo Alto and today's art festival in Palo Alto that is the reason for my parking violation, etc. I could have been upset and gotten all worked up but it would not have helped my situation, and probably would have made it worse. The situation was what it was, there was no sense fighting it. And the thing is, maybe because I stayed calm, polite and smiled, the folks at the Police dept, the taxi driver, the airline, the hotel (need late checkout), and the impound guy were all very polite to me. "Shoga nai" (it can't be helped) is something we often say in Japan. This does not mean to be passive, but to be mindful and in the present and in control (without having to fight to be in control). Better to be like a leaf and go with the stream than to be a rock and fight against it. In the end the stream always wins anyway. This is a long way of me saying that if you are in Palo Alto today, maybe I'll see you on University Ave at the art festival. I am going to stick around until about 4pm now in PA. http://www.mlaproductions.com/PaloAlto/index.html
Get 'em while they are hot. :-)
Sent from my iPhone
With my SIlicon Valley buddies in Mountain View. Ric Bretschneider (eBay), me, Nancy Duarte (Duarte Design), Howard Cooperstein (Microsoft). These guys are funny and smart -- good combination :-)
Photo by Cory Jim. Thanks Cory and Yancey!
This presentation was streamed live. If possible we'll put it up as an archive in future.Left the east coast of USA to come out here today. Did not expect it to be so warm. It's beautiful, but uncharacteristically hot. Our place does not even have air conditioning (you usually don't need it, even in summer). Anyway, gorgeous here to be sure. Seminar here tomorrow.
At the Rock and Roll Museum. Johnny Cash used this bus form 1980-2003. Love Johnny Cash's music.
