One Aging Geek

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Pathetic

It's pathetic that I haven't posted to this in months. Since the last post I've been back to Amsterdam to teach my second class there, down to Sydney, Australia to teach, over to Paris for a customer visit ("I'm from headquarters, I'm here to help...") and day after tomorrow will be on my way back to Paris to teach a class again. Four international trips in 6 months is pretty astounding. Sydney is an astounding place. End of February, late summer, is a perfect time to visit. The harbor is beautiful. Took a ferry ride out to Manly that went smack thru the middle of an entire fleet of racers. Pretty cool. Amsterdam in winter isn't bad but I'd like to get back in the spring or summer to see the trees along the canal leafed out. On both trips I dang near got creamed by bicyclists. No issues with cars or trains but those cyclists are too silent. Oh, yeah, and I've survived yet another round of layoffs at my employer. I think that's about 14 rounds now. With each laid off person matched within a couple of months by a new hire in a country where labor is cheaper. Software development and testing is the new blue collar job. It migrates to where costs are low. The famous JWZ once said that big companies don't survive by doing great things, they survive by sucking less than other big companies. Sigh.