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The Twitter Diaries: October, 2008, part 2

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@rosso well, damn, you couldn’t have waited for me? ; ) 8:02 AM Oct 17th in reply to rosso

“…open source is on a run away adoption curve and will relegate companies relying on software licensing revenues to history’s scrap heap.” … 8:09 AM Oct 17th

caricature artist in action 9:20 AM Oct 17th

@missbhavens that would be way worse if there were flies already on them 12:31 PM Oct 17th in reply to missbhavens

Looking for cupcakes and Wiis. Don’t ask. 12:32 PM Oct 17th

@alanc actually, I was just wondering whether there’s any beer left in the lab fridge over here at BRM… 1:51 PM Oct 17th in reply to alanc

Does anybody really care about politicians’ sex lives? So bored of the panting hypocrisy around these things. 3:19 PM Oct 17th

came home to find flowers had arrived from my dad. Very sweet. 5:47 PM Oct 17th

@jowyang your equation would need to take into account the many countries where there are few pianos and very few tuners 5:49 PM Oct 17th in reply to jowyang

@billstreeter almost as scary as the larger version 5:50 PM Oct 17th in reply to billstreeter

@Cinegage I have rarely seen anyone as vapid-looking as that Bachmann 8:31 PM Oct 17th in reply to Cinegage

looking forward to chatting with my vlogger buds in 12 hours. hope I can wind down enough to sleep tonight. beer wore off 8:53 PM Oct 17th

“Republicans Rain Negative Automated Calls on Voters in Swing States” – glad I don’t have a home phone! only the Obama campaign has my # 8:55 PM Oct 17th

The Streets of Colorado 9:34 PM Oct 17th

just back from videotaping people about why they’re working for the Obama campaign. Powerful stuff 1:04 PM Oct 18th

wow, I’d be cringeing if I were from Johnstown PA http://tinyurl.com/65z5tm This is not the America I want to be part of 2:37 PM Oct 18th

my Obama volunteers video is compressing now. 7:02 PM Oct 18th

“Why I’m Volunteering for Obama” 8:27 PM Oct 18th

@ThinGuy I am SOOOO jealous. Saw him in Austin and embarrassing number of years ago 8:46 PM Oct 18th in reply to ThinGuy

@jowyang probably basic salaries for wait staff are actually enough to live on in Japan. Also helps when businesses are family-owned. 10:48 AM Oct 19th in reply to jowyang

if I ever watched TV with ads, I wouldn’t right now: http://www.nytimes.com/2008… 11:07 AM Oct 19th

I hardly need to look at Google News anymore, let alone TV. I get all the important stuff, including good links, from my Twitter buds. 1:21 PM Oct 19th

“…all towns have values, not just small towns…” – Why isn’t Colin Powell running for president? 1:54 PM Oct 19th

some actual data on votes: http://tinyurl.com/4ofnwj 2:19 PM Oct 19th

I got the band I wanted for the SC08 party: http://www.thesinghsband.com/ yay! 7:58 PM Oct 19th

it’s warm enough tonight to have the windows open, so I can hear coyotes yipping down by the lake. American wildlife amazes me 8:03 PM Oct 19th

@DavidHowell Americans’ Phobia of Socialized Medicine 9:41 AM Oct 20th in reply to DavidHowell

@Cinegage botched healthcare happens everywhere, regardless of system. No system is perfect, but some are fairer than others. 9:42 AM Oct 20th in reply to Cinegage

Jon Stewart, my hero: http://tinyurl.com/6j7pvt (born the same day as me, too) 10:02 AM Oct 20th

@DavidHowell gee, I had no idea I was so divisive. ; ) for anyone who’s wondering, here’s the URL Americans’ Phobia of Socialized Medicine:  10:04 AM Oct 20th in reply to DavidHowell

@DavidHowell it would be more interesting if @edubya put a comment on my article 10:06 AM Oct 20th in reply to DavidHowell

@Cinegage for the value of “better” where better= “available to all”, yes, it’s better 11:46 AM Oct 20th in reply to Cinegage

@Cinegage why shouldn’t health care be a universal right? Clean water is. Police and fire protection are. 12:40 PM Oct 20th in reply to Cinegage

@cristianconti mh, potrebbe sempre cambiare in peggio. E’ questo che vorrei evitare. 1:42 PM Oct 20th in reply to cristianconti

@Cinegage so that should only be available to some people? it ain’t easy, but other countries manage to share that wealth of skill 1:43 PM Oct 20th in reply to Cinegage

supportive working environment = your boss provides whiskey (the good stuff) and chocolate on request 3:03 PM Oct 20th

@Cinegage again: no system is perfect, but this system could be a lot more equitable 3:04 PM Oct 20th in reply to Cinegage

just had a thought: constitutionally, what would happen if McCain dropped dead before election day? 3:23 PM Oct 20th

@deirdresm yes, but who then gets the position? The VP-elect? 3:42 PM Oct 20th in reply to deirdresm

@lbridenne76 in reference to the whiskey? dunno about the best job (tho I love it), but certainly one of the better bosses 7:11 PM Oct 20th in reply to lbridenne76

the kids gunning down the road are probably in the same van I noted earlier with a grenade sticker on the back window. American yobs. 7:26 PM Oct 20th

I feel sick: http://tinyurl.com/56zz33 7:36 PM Oct 20th

why expats go to a lot of trouble to vote: http://tinyurl.com/64hhr6 7:56 AM Oct 21st

contemplating an escape to an island8:20 AM Oct 21st

@trine Nope, someplace warm, where I can drink vanilla rum on a beach and sleep a lot 9:04 AM Oct 21st in reply to trine

@Chuckumentary does anyone ever ask these people (a) define socialism and (b) why is it so scary? 9:32 AM Oct 21st in reply to Chuckumentary

ugh. Apple hold music is a really smarmy version of “Forever Young”. Some songs just don’t need to be redone, ever. 9:55 AM Oct 21st

I need a Halloween party to go to so I don’t have to spend all night giving candy to kids. Yes, I am the Halloween scrooge 11:27 AM Oct 21st

crunching video of Bill Moore talking about SSDs 11:32 AM Oct 21st

came home early for a rest, last-ditch attempt to shake this cold. I can’t be sick now! 1:46 PM Oct 21st

“Are we like getting closer and closer to like socialism and stuff?” http://tinyurl.com/6j7pwk 9:28 AM Oct 22ndIn the office, trying to believe I’m not really that sick. Have to fly to Minneapolis this afternoon. 7:57 AM Oct 23rd

are any of my followers TCKs? http://www.beginningwithi.c… 9:50 AM Oct 22nd

(actually, can think of two off the top of my head – Tim Bray and Rick Ramsey aka BigAdmin) 9:51 AM Oct 22nd

the Google news thumbnails showing Palin are starting to look like the ones I used to see for Hillary: strident, ugly, aggressive… 11:26 AM Oct 22nd

@dfugate I assume you meant INcompetent beauty queen…? ; ) yeah. I don’t like her, but this treatment looks misogynist to me 11:34 AM Oct 22nd in reply to dfugate

video: The Solid State Storage Revolution, Andy Bechtolsheim: http://tinyurl.com/6bsj67 11:35 AM Oct 22nd

revisiting very old pages as I (slowly, painfully) move my site, here’s a classic 12:48 PM Oct 22nd

@markramsey wow, that’s amazing. My dad, 69, ran the (failed) campaign to try to elect a black mayor in Beaumont, TX ~1965 12:50 PM Oct 22nd in reply to markramsey

looking at very complicated travel arrangements, but worth it if we can make it work 3:37 PM Oct 22nd

tired of everyone claiming to be or know or speak for the “real” anywhere. There is no single reality, or viewpoint, anywhere in the world. 4:35 PM Oct 22nd

In the office, trying to believe I’m not really that sick. Have to fly to Minneapolis this afternoon. 7:57 AM Oct 23rd

today’s vids on http://blogs.sun.com/storage/ – ZFS Boot in Solaris 10 Update 6, Flash Performance in Storage Systems 10:35 AM Oct 23rd

Twittamici italiani: figlia cerca forum dove italiani discutono l’elezione americana. Lasciate un messaggio http://www.fotolog.com/ross… 11:23 AM Oct 23rd

comment on my site: “you say litrally WAY TO MUCH it annoys me so yea just thought id let you no” Uh, honey: writing about TRANSLATION 3:14 AM Oct 25th

just got a call from the Obama campaign in Alaska. We Colorado voters are certainly getting a lot of attention. 3:25 PM Oct 25th

Always pleased when I put friends together and they really click. Two martinis make me very mellow too 8:08 PM Oct 25th from twitterrific

geez, I’m missing all the fun in CO – could have gone to a “Women for Obama” house party with Kevin Costner Monday. And missed Hillary yday 10:12 AM Oct 26th

rebuttal to Palin’s fruit fly remarks 8:43 PM Oct 26th

@Cinegage given the hysteria over the label “socialist” in the US, neither side can admit that their proposals and actions are, in fact… 9:34 AM Oct 27th in reply to Cinegage

@italylogue for many years Castroni was the only place in Italy to get exotic spices, that’s far from true anymore 9:34 AM Oct 27th in reply to italylogue

the smells of a Minnesota hot dish lunch are overwhelming 8:47 AM Oct 28th

feeling like crap. Maybe I can take a day off and sleep on Friday before filming all weekend… 11:04 AM Oct 28th

“If Italy managed to make everyone pay taxes, or collect only half of the 100 million euros evaded, it would be a very different country.” 12:56 PM Oct 28th

for my fellow antique business machines fetishists: http://tinyurl.com/5twrze 1:20 PM Oct 28th

Arrived Denver too tired to stand in the aisle as usual. Learning experience? 10:11 AM Oct 29th from twitterrific

@Happen2bBlack I’m not typical but i consider the attempt to define “real” Americans, unamerican 10:33 AM Oct 29th from twitterrific in reply to Happen2bBlack

moving into a new office. Windows! Sunlight! 2:42 PM Oct 29th

@italylogue thanks, enjoyed that! 6:53 PM Oct 29th in reply to italylogue

temp over at NREL http://tinyurl.com/6o8lgz is climbing rapidly – something on fire over there? 7:08 PM Oct 29th

@ThinGuy Halloween is Nevada Day? There’s something way too appropriate in that, at least as concerns Las Vegas. 7:19 AM Oct 30th in reply to ThinGuy

home sick, trying to wake up enough to face a long and very complex mail-in ballot (which I will hand carry in) 7:24 AM Oct 30th

trying to understand the welter of amendments and referenda in this Colorado ballot 12:25 PM Oct 30th

next up: benefits enrollment. Life is way too complicated. 12:28 PM Oct 30th

I went, I saw, I voted. Well, turned in my mail-in ballot by hand. (I’ve been living in Italy, I don’t trust postal systems.) 2:42 PM Oct 30th

interesting the number of people who are photographing and posting their completed ballots this year 3:11 PM Oct 30th

thoughts for the day: http://tinyurl.com/5kz2hv and http://tinyurl.com/yfaqsg (need I say it: tongue in cheek!) 5:25 PM Oct 30th

followed this http://tinyurl.com/6l6dfx to https://implicit.harvard.ed… 8:03 PM Oct 30th

dunno why I’m subscribing to food blogs. No time to cook anymore. 8:23 PM Oct 30th

at least for me, online ad revenues are plunging. Traffic is up, clicks are up, but earning is way, way down. Damn. 8:52 AM Oct 31st

my feelings exactly: http://tinyurl.com/5jfzhj 9:57 AM Oct 31st

!@#$@!#$ Dopplr doesn’t know where St. Barth’s is. Trying to send me to Arhus, Denmark. ?!? 12:26 PM Oct 31st

dopplr is missing the entire FWI? 12:28 PM Oct 31st

@smaragdis if you continue trying to give her freedom, yes. Worked with mine! (19 now) 12:36 PM Oct 31st in reply to smaragdis

I’ve been heroic enough for today. Let this next video finish uploading and I’m outta here. Besides, working Saturday and Sunday… 2:26 PM Oct 31st

harangued my daughter about why this would be a really bad time to walk away from a scholarship. 3:59 PM Oct 31st

the Obama campaign has done some of the cleverest marketing I’ve ever seen. My marketing hat would be off even if I didn’t want him to win 4:04 PM Oct 31st

we’ve lost a great one: http://tinyurl.com/5akmem 4:16 PM Oct 31st

The Economist endorses Obama: http://tinyurl.com/5gl2yg 4:41 PM Oct 31st

@trine I once saw a pediatrician dress up as a beaten baby. 4:51 PM Oct 31st in reply to trine

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The Bi-Professional Couple: A Conundrum Close to the Bone

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My life is lived in multiples.

I’ve read books, articles, and blogs about multicultural marriage, living, and child-raising. I have written about being a third-culture kid, raising a bilingual child, and living and trying to work in a foreign country.

But this is the big question, more difficult than any of the above: how can a marriage survive being made up of two people whose careers are equally important to each?

If you have ever been part of a two-career couple, you know how hard it can be to find jobs that make both of you happy in the same location, especially (but not only) when that location is far from home for one or both of you. When a couple expatriates for one member’s job, the “following” spouse may not even be allowed to work, depending on the working spouse’s visa in the foreign country.

When you follow a foreign spouse to settle in his or her country, there probably won’t be legal obstacles to your working (you may take on the citizenship of your spouse, or you can usually get a work visa), but there are many other hurdles: language, culture, job market, and your own feelings about who you are and what you want to do with your life.

When Enrico and I married in 1989, I gave up an interesting job just then getting off the ground (doing technical training in far-flung countries) in order to be with him in New Haven and give birth to our daughter. In retrospect, my “accidental” pregnancy was probably subconsciously designed to resolve our increasing conflict over my exotic (and from Enrico’s point of view, dangerous) travels: a baby was a reason we could both agree on for me to stay home.

And stay home I did: I was mostly a full-time mom for 18 months. I did not resent or regret this; indeed, one reason that I never had another child was that I would have wanted (and felt it fair) to do the same for any other child of mine, but, once I had got my career off the ground again, there was never a “right” time to take off 12-15 months.

Moving to Italy was, for many reasons, the obvious thing to do when we did it. Though Enrico, fresh out of a Yale PhD, could have landed a university position somewhere in the US, it would have been the usual long start to an American academic career: post-doc here, assistant position there, teach a lot, and pray for tenure.

The situation is very different in Italian universities: a ricercatore (researcher, the entry-level position) can stay in the same place as long as he or she desires, although (ideally) you eventually move up the ladder to become professore associato (associate professor) and then ordinario (full professor). Positions are few and promotion takes decades (and political savvy), but in the meantime you are guaranteed a stable, reasonably well-paid job in a single location. The teaching load is light, and Enrico can direct his own research as he pleases. Nice work if you can get it…

As for me, I didn’t have a strong desire to remain in the US, my putative homeland – I’d lived out of it as much as in it. I didn’t have a job to leave right then, nor was I established in any field. There was no strong reason for me not to move to Italy, and plenty in favor of doing so.

Enrico sought and won a university position in Italy, and to Milan we came.

I had no idea what work I might be able to do there (aside from the far-too-obvious: teach English), but I figured I’d figure something out, as I always had. In 26 years of being moved around the world mostly by others’ decisions, it had never occurred to me to express or even to have strong desires about the parameters of my own life. I simply responded as best I could to the situations in which I found myself.

It was mostly luck that I found a job in Milan; it took hard work and talent to develope that job into a career. But I was still in reactive mode: taking advantage of opportunities as they came my way, but not making any effort to create my own opportunities. It simply didn’t occur to me that I could.

The first proactive thing I did to influence my own future was the MBA (from the Open University, the world’s oldest distance-learning institution) that I began in 1999 and completed (with interruptions) in 2004. I had realized that I wanted a career in which I could really make a difference, and that an MBA was a basic requirement to thrive in the corporate world.

But it’s unlikely that I could have an important career in Italy. I work in high tech, and there’s not much original going on in high tech in Italy – not because there are no technical or entrepreneurial Italians, but because it’s so damned hard to do the American-style startup thing in Italy (which could be the topic of a long article in itself, but it would depress me too much to write it).

Many of the world’s large high-tech companies have Italian offices, but these usually concentrate on regional sales and support engineering. The things I’m good at are run mostly from US headquarters.

Twice during the Internet boom I tried to persuade Enrico that we should move to the US to let me pursue my career. The second time he agreed, reluctantly, to come with me for a year or two while I helped to launch Roxio, the software group being spun off from Adaptec in 2000-2001. For a number of reasons, that move was aborted, and I returned to Italy, beaten and frustrated, to the same distance-working situation in which I had previously felt so alienated and vulnerable. I quit after a few months, and would have been laid off soon thereafter in any case, as the bubble burst and the economic downturn began.

Fabrizio Caffarelli, my former boss at Incat Systems, is a rare example of a successful Italian high tech entrepreneur, and I was happy to join his new startup a few years later (as the consulting/tech writing gigs I’d had after leaving Roxio also dried up). I had high hopes for TVBLOB when it began, but four years in startup mode at a salary I could have equalled as a supermarket cashier… well, that got old, and personal circumstances conspired to force a change.

I began working for Sun Microsystems as a contractor in March of 2007; they hired me as a regular employee a year later, on the condition that I move to the US and work from an office.

I was ready to go. I had initially loved Sun’s willingness to let me, and many other employees, work from home. I still believe that this works very well for many people, especially those who have kids at home: workplace flexibility is a huge help in achieving the much-prized “work-life balance.”

But the year I had spent as a mostly long-distance contractor reminded me of all the problems I had experienced before, as a very long-distance employee of Adaptec. It’s hard to schedule meetings when you’re eight or nine time zones away from most of your colleagues; you end up having them late at night in Europe – not my best time of day, I’m a morning person. And when you can be neither seen nor heard by your colleagues… well, out of sight, out of mind, out of the decision-making loop – and, eventually, out of a job.

Conclusion: if I want a challenging job, I need to be in the US (or, at least, not in Italy). So here I am, with a job that I enjoy very much both for its current realities and its future possibilities.

But my life here so far is mostly about my job. So much for work-life balance (said she ruefully). It appears that I can have work or have a life, but not both. At any rate, I can’t have a regular home life with my husband, because his job is there, and mine is here, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to make the two meet.

And I don’t have an answer to that one.

Update, 2014: Enrico and I never did find a solution. We separated in 2009 and are now divorced.

Update, 2017: I have since found someone with whom I happily share both the personal and professional sides of me.

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The Twitter Diaries: August, 2008, part 2

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15: trying to start Girl Geek Dinners in CO Front Range. Don’t know when I’ll actually be around to attend…

On the road again. I suspect I live to travel

Made a surprise trip to California to help out at an all-hands meeting (Solaris Software) in Sun’s Menlo Park (MPK) office. Met with colleagues about two different media hosting sites.

Having indian food. Happy independence day, India!

Flew to Albuquerque to meet Enrico, who had given a seminar at the UNM math department. We ate dinner, then drove to Las Vegas, NM, to visit Sharon and Steve and Robin.

16: Heading back from Santa fe to las vegas nm. Nice day but tiring. Hot springs tonight?

Ooh, yes, we did. There are natural hot springs on the campus of the United World College, open to the public because they are ancient sacred sites. And very, very wonderful on a chilly, rainy night. Or any other night…

17: Just saw a pronghorn antelope running along near the highway!

northeastern New Mexico, August 2008. No, we didn’t really get this close.

Home on the range indeed!

home. tired.

lots of free-roaming wildlife in this part of the world is a constant amazement and joy

I’ve rarely, if ever, seen any wildlife in Europe larger than a marmot, though Enrico sometimes sees chamois and mountain goats way up in the Alps. I’ve seen them more often on my plate. All the animals in the Old World have been hunted so hard and so long that they’re barely clinging to existence, and certainly don’t let you get close. Except the wild boars – got plenty of those, and they are tasty. (And very dangerous, if met in the wild.)

18: finally getting a new video done. I’ve spent so much time lately talking ABOUT video that I haven’t had time to actually DO it.

@davest compressing the video of your OSDEVCON Prague talk now. Umm… can you live without previewing it?

this weekend’s trip: Pecos Pueblo & Santa Fe

doing household chores while also compressing and uploading video (Sun stuff)

Sometimes the computer just needs to be left alone to do its thing.

19: @davest As I recall, you did. Including some nice photos of Prague. Going up today.

Dave Stewart strikes again

The video.

Sunday’s visit to Capulin Volcano

combing through stats (more, again, forever…) – trying to answer the question: just how many hours of video have I done for Sun (so far)?

Many. Many many.

cafeteria has a special on San Pellegrino. Nostalgic? No. But it tastes good.

my brain hurts, trying to figure out what all I need to have a working set of 2 lavalier wireless mics

about time. A much younger drinking age (16) works pretty well in Italy

I wish more college presidents (and other people) would get behind the Amethyst Intiative. A drinking age of 21 is stupid and counter-productive. If kids learn to drink responsibly at home when young, they won’t (usually) binge drink themselves to death and/or drink and drive. And it’s simply ridiculous to allow them to sign up to go get killed in Iraq at 18, then tell them they can’t drink. I wonder how the military handles that.

okay, this 6figure stuff is beginning to look like spam…

@jeffreytaylor then don’t fight it – just go to sleep! I never sleep better than when I have eastbound jetlag. So I indulge myself.

20: packing to go to Austin tonight! Happy to see my kid and lots of good friends, old and new. Woodstock Curry Club dinner Friday.

(part of) what I do for a living

We’ve open-sourced our software, now we have to open-source the knowledge so that others can contribute to it.

oh deary me, now I have to be in San Francisco Sept 3rd. MPK gang, prepare to be descended upon (again)

“The military knows that 18-year-olds… are mature enough to fight but not ready to handle alcohol” ?!?!?

I don’t have to underline how stupid a statement this is, do I?

21: in Austin, got to sleep at 2:00 am and had to get to campus by 8:30. Very sleepy now.

child abuse: taking a 5 year old to “The Dark Knight,” and laughing when she cries and says “I want to go home!”

Yes, this actually happened in Austin. The kid was terrified throughout the movie, except for a brief time when she was merely confused: “Doesn’t she love the Batman anymore, Mommy?” A handicapped child, at that; some sort of bone condition (I’m guessing) meant she walked, spraddle-legged, with a little rolling walker. Why isn’t there a required test for parenting? Far more people have been permanently damaged (or killed) by bad parenting than by bad driving.

22: hate being awake and hungry in the middle of the night

stirred up a pot of lentils/beans for tonight’s Woodstock dinner, now to try to get Ross up to decide on courses… on not much sleep

college seems a lot more complicated than I remember it being. And I didn’t even have any parental advice.

When I was in college, my parents were in Thailand and then Indonesia. Any parental help I needed would have taken a month round-trip by very slow airmail.

23: curry club dinner went great, tonight Ross is making Italian, & my college roommate (plus mom) are coming into town. Nostalgia week!

We had a WOSA (Woodstock Old Students Association) dinner, with guests ranging from the classes of ’42 to ’08. A good time was had by all, not least due to the warm welcome of Spankyville and Julia and Dani.

24: tired, tired, tired. Must find time to do something for myself instead of always being “on” for others.

25: Ross is signed up for her college courses, now I just have to pay the bill!

about to go check out party venues in Austin. yes, I have a hard job…

26: tuition paid. Thanks to Ross studying Hindi, far less painful than it might have been.

She’s not officially in the Hindi-Urdu Flagship program this year – turns out first-year Hindi at Woodstock was not sufficient preparation for second-year Hindi at UT. But they want to keep her, so she’s still getting the tuition waiver as long as she keeps studying Hindi (and gets an A- or better). The plan is that she’ll start the four-year program next year. Which means she can take a lighter course load and give herself time and brain space to adjust to life in yet another country – her third this year.

27: chili cheese dog at the airport last night wasn’t a good idea

@mentalmosaic a good chili dog is soul food

…when you don’t get food poisoning from it…

going to SFO to film next Weds, could be in MPK Thursday. Anyone I should meet with?

why is it that an anonymous female in the news is a “mom” before she’s a “woman”? You never see “Dad pinned in truck” or “Dad murdered”

long day btw work and coaching daughter thru first day of college. I’m *trying* to be hands-off Mom, but it ain’t working

I’m really not a helicopter parent (though parental involvement was expected and encouraged in Italian schools), but Ross seems to want me to hover. I will not stoop to giving her a wakeup call every morning.

28: making the content happen. Or at least making travel arrangements to go make it happen…

the tech world is way too small. One of the speakers at LISA I knew in my previous life at Roxio.

Yes, I will be going to the Large Installation System Administration Conference. No, I will not understand a word of it. Well, maybe one or two.

event planning has its perks: just scammed a free dinner for my daughter and a guest at a nice restaurant in Austin

She didn’t like it. Possibly part of the phenomenon that “you don’t value what you get for free,” the place had looked pretty nice to me.

scheduling shooting for several events, designing t-shirts, chking off AIs from meetings, creating a new dashboard to track it all…

Denver traffic looks like a mess, and I have to get my husband to the airport. Thank god for the toll road.

conversation with my daughter:

what your grandparents fought for

good god, a politician talking sense. Is that actually possible?

The way to reduce abortion is to reduce unwanted pregnancies. I don’t think I’ve heard a politician actually state this piece of plain common sense before (though, admittedly, I avoid listening to politicians as much as possible).

@ThinGuy yes, but that’s also true of all the rest of them, in all parties. At least he’s got mostly the right ideas.

and, like me, he’s a TCK

29: twidiots: people who follow you in hopes of reaching n followers, openly state that, & provide no earthly reason why you should give a damn

just ordered a Tivo, so I can keep up with the few shows I care about during my busy fall travels

seems like Americans spend an awful lot of time fundraising (schools, teams, charities…). Boh.

I feel overwhelmed by the constant tugs on my heartstrings and wallet by colleagues, businesses, celebrities, etc. Everyone’s got their pet cause, usually as a result of some personal or near-personal experience. In a sandwich shop, I saw a sign (complete with adorable picture “taken by her teacher who saw her just a few hours before”, asking for donations to cover funeral expenses for a little girl, niece of one of the employees, who had been killed by a car. I guess it was a way for the other employees to show sympathy to their colleague, but it seemed strange to ask customers.

You don’t see much of this in Europe (outside the many donation tins in shops in the UK), I’m not sure why.

corp travel site lists Bangalore as being in “India – Hindustan”. Who the hell designed this thing? An ancient exponent of the Raj?

@timbray <sigh> Here come more Mom headlines…

Re. Sarah Palin.

30: it’s a holiday weekend, time to do the all-American thing: shopping! (for stuff I actually do need… still setting up home)

I bought a dresser from American Furniture Warehouse, the closest Colorado gets to Ikea. It was a nice change to have the piece arrive already put together, delivered to the spot in my home where I wanted it, for about $350 total.

oh, great, if I want to watch convention reruns I have to install yet more software. From Microsoft.

31: @tehduh Probably low. But the evangelical right take such interest in everyone else’s sex lives, well, hoist with their own petard…

Re. whether the speculation in the Daily Kos about Palin’s latest child was “low”.

the Republicans can’t afford to blow it with Gustav. We’re too close to an election this time.

very hungry, but I have mopped myself out of the kitchen and have to wait for the floor to dry

…my Tweets are more often about mundane things like mopping than about politics. This is true of most Twitters I follow, for that matter.

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The Twitter Diaries: August, 2008

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Rocky Mountain National Park, August 2008

1: having a very irritating day. I shouldn’t be pre-menstrual right now, but sure could kill somebody.

will have to get a Tivo. Can’t bear the political ads, and they will mess up my fall viewing

worked out my frustrations at the gym. Last song to come up on my shuffle: “Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues.” in other words: margarita time!

can the news media think of nothing better to do than recall the anniversaries of everything that ever happened?

Facebook follies: I really don’t want to know that someone I know has joined [a Facebook group called] “Funky Dildo”

2: Ross rec’d her iPhone yesterday. First intimidated then: “It’s got GPS! Cool!”

3: hmm, surprise trip to California this week. Okay, all those folks who wanted to talk to me (or know I want to talk to you…), I’m on my way!

4: is Technorati even working anymore? My score hasn’t budged in months

barely cracked a sweat, but my knees are very unhappy about this afternoon’s workout… must be doing something wrong

5: how can my iPhone be at 20% battery when it was charging all night?

feel like someone tied my spine in knots. Have to figure out how to identify the right mattress for me.

@penelopetrunk no point in having followers if you’re not saying anything to them. 4 tweets a day is not too many

ethnocentric, much?

I linked to an article on ANSA (the Italian news service, rough equivalent to AP, which translates a handful of articles into English) that’s no longer available, about the Pope opining that the Chinese will not be civilized until they… well, become Catholic was the gist of the original Italian article.

had a massage, back feels much better, but now I don’t feel like working. Ordered a memory foam mattress to see if that helps.

6: for the first time, a lost-laptop security breach affects me directly. But, according to the company, it’s not TOO bad…

I had done the first step of enrollment in Clear months ago, then was stymied by lack of a US driver’s license. A laptop full of their customer information, including mine, was lost at San Francisco airport, but later recovered, apparently without any critical files having been opened. Still, Clear shut down enrollment until they could put better encryption in place – on the very day I was heading out on a trip and had been planning to do the in-person enrollment at Denver airport.

@lbridenne76 sadly, don’t have the new Mac yet. The laptop referred to wasn’t mine, but one in the news lost at SFO. But they found it again

@gapingvoid I had a blast @ Sun’s IEC in Bangalore – young people, lots of creative energy. We made great movies (not edited yet…)

Well-known online marketing guru Hugh MacLeod tweets about his work for Dell and remarks that he should visit India and China. I may be missing an opportunity. I know a great deal about online marketing, and even more about India.

sitting in Denver airport, flight over an hour late due to weather. I will be way tired to drive from SFO to my hotel near Menlo Park…

And had a misadventure with a rearview mirror on the way.

7: not nearly enough sleep last night, so the Usabiity Bitch is back

My head is such a swirl of languages & cultures even I’m getting confused

My Italian is still fluent, but sometimes when I imagine a conversation in Italian, a phrase in Hindi pops in there.

8: my surprise visit to MPK has been productive, but damn I’m tired… my brain hurts

going to see Dolly Parton on Sunday. Either something’s weird, or I got stunningly good tickets at a reasonable price

9: the local ice cream truck tune is The Union Maid.

…though I’m probably the only person in the neighborhood who recognizes it. That’s what happens when you grow up with lefty liberal proto-Communist hippy parents. ; )

10: surely it’s illegal to run power tools in a quiet suburban neighborhood at 8 am on SUNDAY??

Dolly Parton fun, didn’t expect to see half of Denver’s gay population there, but, upon reflection, not surprising. She’s always been camp.

interestingly, her encore song about Jesus went over like a lead balloon

11: my daughter is 19 today.

Ross does meet some interesting people…

this week’s flight: DEN-ABQ to meet Enrico who’ll be doing a seminar at the university there, then on to Las Vegas NM…

I need something that automatically resets time zones on all my calendars etc. based on my GPS location

@IgorMinar what does it matter? the US public is far more concerned about Edwards’ sex life!

12: awake and irritable in the deeps of the night. Be relieved if you don’t have to deal with me tomorrow. Watch out if you do!

an already complex life may become still more complicated

briefly saw a WS classmate who is also a Sun colleague. So easy to talk to someone you’ve known for 30 years, thru much craziness and change

strange church name:

Broomfield, CO: Somehow, I can’t help thinking of a moth-eaten quilt

just watched The Princess Bride for the 1st time in years. Still an all-time favorite, though the book is better. Must re-read now.

13: banging my head against the wall is, not surprisingly, causing headaches. Probably not just mine.

Office politics. Still no fun, but I think I’m getting better at it.

@louordorica @helllyski if you want excitement, you can come sit outside my office…

coolio – gonna put an OpenSolaris background on my iPhone

14: have recently learned that I am an 800-lb gorilla.

I try to get expense reports done quickly, but this new tool is making that quite a challenge

amused that Lufthansa addresses me as “Dr. Straughan”

hmm. wonder how new ultra-portable Dells will stack up against the MacBook Air I haven’t bought yet

just got recorded to maybe be voice talent for some Sun multimedia projects. They liked it, and I wasn’t even doing my sexy voice.

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