Distractions, reflections

Distractions, reflections

David Ing, at large … Sometimes, my mind wanders

2006/09/01 Suomenlinna, Helsinki

September 1, 2006
As a feature of the Service Engineering and Management Summer School at the Helsinki University of Technology, the group was to convene at one of the city’s special places, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Unfortunately, on the evening before, I had left my camera in a restaurant in the Forum. Arja lives in the city, so she drove us back into town, and we walked from her place, to the Forum, and then across the city towards the harbour.

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Unfortunately, our timing was off, so we missed the ferry to Suomenlinna by five minutes. We waited 30 minutes for the next ferry, and met up with the rest of the class in the Devil’s Church.

20060901_Suomenlinna_Devils_Church_front.jpg

We unfortunately didn’t get much time to see the sights on the island.

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I rarely get to Finland in good weather — school usually happens when the weather isn’t so great! — so maybe I’ll get another chance to tour Suomenlinna next fall.

2006/08/27 Rock church, Helsinki

August 27, 2006
I’ve been going back and forth to Finland since the beginning of 2003. I’ve stayed with the grace of friends (Simo, Minna and Petri) in Espoo (the suburb immediately to the west of Helsinki), and at the hotel at the edge of the HUT campus in Otaniemi.

On this particular trip, with funding from IBM Research for the trip, I made reservations in some corporate apartments in the city center. The first part of the stay was in an apartment behind the National Museum of Finland, and within walking distance of Kamppi (the central bus station)
20060827_Helsinki_Rock_Church_AP

Annaleena hosted me for lunch, and just on way back, we walked by the Rock Church. Helsinki is a relatively small city, but I really haven’t had the opportunity to see the local sites … since my high school Grade 12 visit in 1979!

2006/07/27 Another family dinner (L.A.)

July 27, 2006
Ben says that it seems that our family seems to have pictures where in or near restaurants, because that’s the occasion for which we seem to get together.

20060727_LA_OI_BI_MI.jpg

He’s right. Here’s another one, outside of a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles … not that you could tell! At least we do see other, occasionally!

2006/07/26 Old colleagues (Huntington Beach, CA)

July 26, 2006
The most direct way to get to a gig in Riverside California is to fly to LAX, and drive. On the way, I really owed a visit to Walt, with whom I last worked with circa 1992. He retired from the company, and the last time the whole family visited him in Yorba Linda, our kids were knee-high and chasing a ball with Walt’s hockey-playing sons.

20060726_Huntington_YM_WM_dinner.jpg

Walt is now living in Huntington Beach. He’s with Ying, who is a Thai chef. Walt invited me over for dinner, and I got to sample great home-cooked Thai food. (He remembered the kids drinking Martinelli’s sparkling apple juice, and had stocked up on that for me!)

2006/07/20 Back on the road (Alexandria, VA)

July 20, 2006
I’ve made the biggest change in my day job since 1994. I’ve moved from management consulting into a pre-sales role with Software Group. This actually means that I do more-or-less the same thing as before (i.e. IT strategy), but the work is “free” to the client, funded by IBM to accelerate sales. This is consistent with the spirit of Palisades, where “best customer is an informed customer”, and we can provide some intelligence/information on IT solutions that they might not otherwise get.

For me, this means I’m essentially back to life on the road. I’ll have a work permit to travel in the U.S., and, on average, will be away from home more than at home. The upside is that this new team seems to have a habit of staying away from peak travel times, so I may be able to avoid the Monday-morning crush at Pearson airport, as everyone tries to get through the U.S. immigration bottleneck. 20060720_Alexandria_VA.jpg

Continue reading “2006/07/20 Back on the road (Alexandria, VA)“

2006/07/08 Sonoma redwoods and wineries

July 8, 2006
I’m personally finding the challenge of keeping up with blogging on a regular basis, so I think that I’ll write less text, and show more photos. This will be a test of whether a picture is worth a thousand words! (I’ll have to manage down the backlog!)

I’ve been scheduled to attend the ISSS 2006 meeting at Sonoma State University for some time. I flew down a few days early to deliver a presentation at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose. In my 22-year career at IBM, I’ve never been at that location. While in the peninsula, Craig came over to my hotel after work, and we had dinner in a local Chinese restaurant. I continued up to Sonoma, and Craig drove up to spend the day touring the area with me on Saturday.

20060708_Armstrong_Redwoods_age_CDK.jpg

Continue reading “2006/07/08 Sonoma redwoods and wineries“

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