Anti-Resolutions for 2023

 

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For several years, I would write a yearly Gartner blog post with my anti-resolutions on or about January 1. They were “anti” because rather than talk about what I intended to do, I would describe what I think other people should stop doing. I stopped writing them because I was afraid they made me sound too grumpy. They have all disappeared since I stopped working at Gartner, so it is impossible to judge. I felt like doing them again, so here they are for 2023. 

Stop Worrying About How AI Will Destroy Us

I started getting bored of SciFi books, movies and series where the AI or a robot decides to kill everyone soon after Colossus: the Forbin Project in 1970. Now that it looks like they really could do so, I still find most of these discussions boring. 

Figuring out how to use the amazing capabilities of AI effectively and safely is a far more interesting discussion. These discussions revolve around questions like who owns the technology and the answers it generates, how can we protect intellectual property when it sucks up content created by others to learn, and how do we know if content is created wholly or partly by an A. or do we even need to know?. These and 100 others are all important issues to debate, thrash out, and ultimately deal with. I purposely avoid the word “solve” here, as I don’t think there will be a single mechanism or innovation that will resolve any of these issues, much less all of them. But we can learn to control them if we resolve to do so. 

The boring discussions circle endlessly around how to stop the evil moguls behind these cursed creations from achieving their evil plans, or how to get this genie back in the bottle. Good luck with that. Those really are the wrong questions to be asking (or at the very least they are boring), so please stop it. 

Don’t Depend on Great Men to Save Us All

When I was a Gartner analyst, I always found it amusing to visit one of the tech companies led by one of the Great Men of Tech. I can remember a hush falling over the room when beefy bodyguards flowed into the room, signalling the imminent arrival of Larry Ellison at an Oracle event. I loved the look of awe that would come over acolytes when I would mention briefly meeting Bill Gates at an early Silicon Valley reception. 

By the way, I feel justified in saying Great Men because so far only males have accumulated the truly ridiculous baggage that I am talking about here. Carly Fiorina, Marissa Mayer and Elizabeth Holmes did their best but managed to avoid these levels of awe and expectations. I think that is a good thing. 

It is normal that the leader of a large organization will generate interest, even admiration; but the level of expectation and wonder around people like Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban, and especially Elon Musk has grown beyond reason. There is too much evidence that shows that these are intelligent people who do smart things sometimes and also do stupid stuff. A great part of their success is inevitably down to luck. Yes, they have exhibited hard work, careful preparation and extraordinary insight. But lots of smart people work hard, plan ahead and analyze carefully without accumulating economy-busting fortunes. Everyone needs to stop assuming that they have some special god-like gift that transcends them beyond normal human experience. 

This extreme adulation also seems misplaced. Microsoft became an objectively better company after the super-sized personalities of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer left the stage for the more human-scaled Satya Nadella. As brilliant as he was at pushing product designs, it is unlikely that Steve Jobs would have led today’s Apple as well as the more even-keeled Tim Cook. 

I still think excellence and achievement should be rewarded, and don’t expect tech leaders to all be boring apparatchiks. I am just asking for a bit of perspective, is all. A dumb idea is not smart because it comes from a smart person. 

Gendered Articles Must Fall

This one is totally unrelated to tech. Gendered articles need to be recognized as unimportant in the languages I need to speak. There, I said and I mean it.  I try to speak Dutch, French and sometimes German. I adore languages and revel in the subtle differences between them. I love it when an idea is expressed perfectly in one language but impossible to adequately translate into another. 

But I have always struggled with those stupid hets, des, les, less, ders, dems, dies and dases. I made an effort to find a system, or memorize them. Sometimes I would just mumble my way past them and hope no one notices. I would feel embarrassed and inadequate when I got them wrong. 

I have now decided this is a waste of time and energy. They add nothing except stress, confusion and difficulty.  I am done with all that. I refuse to give in to this tyranny of gendered articles. Life is too short to devote energy to something that gets in the way of communication rather than encourages it. 

I encourage you to join me. If you know the correct article, by all means use it. Otherwise, don’t sweat it; just randomly sprinkle het, de, le, la, der, die, das, etc. If you are listening, let it go especially if you are a native speaker. You know what they mean. 

Avoid “Reply All”

I traditionally close this post with a request to never use Reply All, but I actually don’t feel as strongly about it as I used to. I rarely see abused distribution lists anymore. I am not sure if it is because I am outside of a big organization now (likely) or if people really are minding what they do more (very unlikely). So either keep up the good work, or get with the program. 

How Work Will Change Post-Corona

Life is beginning to look a bit more normal these days, at least in my corner of Europe. I went to a restaurant for the first time in three months last week and regional travel is looking more feasible. What will "normal" mean though as we come out of our shelters, blinking in the sunlight to see what the world looks like now? Certainly, a lot has changed. Some of those changes will stick. But an awful lot will remain the same. We will need wisdom to tell the difference.

The Obvious Stuff

Let me get the obvious ideas out of the way first. These are the things that everyone has been talking about as the first impacts of Corona on the workplace.

Working From Home Will Increase Substantially

The main surprise about the sudden move to work from home is how well it went. When I was an analyst, I spoke with many companies who kind of, sort of thought they should adopt a work from home (WFH) policy, but never really got around to it, citing how difficult it would be. If you looked hard enough, there was always a reason not to do it.

Well, it happened even if it was not always easy. Most managed pretty well; there was no choice. Necessity swept away all the usual discussions of policies. management styles and security concerns so people just got on with it.

Once employees get used to working from home, it will be hard to get them back into an office. Tech companies like Twitter have acknowledged this and proactively promised that employees can work from home forever if they choose. Organizations have been forced to change policies and develop processes that let people work from any location. Even if everyone does not stay at home forever, there will be many more taking advantage of WFH possibilities.

Business Travel Will Be Much More Rare

I live in Europe, but have always worked with clients in the US. When they wanted to do a longer meeting and I suggested doing it by video rather than sitting on a plane for 22 hours round trip, they usually reacted with surprise. "Are we not important enough to come see us?" I could sense them thinking. Sometimes they would say it out loud.

From now on it will usually be the opposite. Travel will not go away, but will be far less common.

Industry Events Will Be Hit Hard

In three months, events have gone from being an industry mainstay into something unthinkable. In February, I was mapping out which events I would be able to make it to this year. In June, it became hard to even contemplate boarding a plane to go spend a couple days in a hotel conference room with thousands of other people. I think events at the scale and prevalence we knew them will not come back.

No Handshaking, But Hand Sanitizer Everywhere

Maybe more people will use it now.

The Less Obvious Stuff

Looking a bit further out and a little deeper, some changes are not quite so apparent.

There Is No Such Thing as "Post-Corona"

Despite the title of this post, I don't think that it will make sense to talk about post-Corona anytime soon, if ever. The virus itself is not going away, although the rate of infection will go down with any luck. Even if researchers find a vaccine, the effects of the virus on how we live and work will not disappear. I will never look at a jammed concert hall or crowded economy class flight the same way I did before. Even if I decide to buy a ticket and put myself in those situations, there will always be a nagging disquiet in the back of my mind. An organization that assumes that they just have to wait for clients to come back could be in for an unpleasant surprise.

If you find yourself saying "After Corona is over, we can do XX," then you are doing it wrong.

Anyone putting off plans or implementing changes until after this "Corona business is over" is thinking in the wrong way. Even if governments ease social distancing and travel restrictions, the effects on how we travel, socialize and do business will not fade away. Instead of putting things off until we can get back to a normal that will never come, we need to redesign how we work. This post provides some ideas, but questioning assumptions about all of these interactions is a good way to start.

Digital Transformation Works

Companies that already had adopted digital technologies generally made it through this crisis much better than those which had not. Organizations which already made extensive use of the cloud, had renovated their applications, and used digital channels to communicate with clients, employees and suppliers were able to cope with the demands brought on by the virus much better than those which had not.

Those who relied on processes that involved moving a piece of paper from one desk to another to process orders or who managed by seeing who was at their desks at 8:30 every morning had a hard time. They were scrambling to modify their processes or get equipment issued to staff that would allow them to continue to work.

This should not be surprising. Better agility and resilience are among the most important benefits that digital transformation is supposed to deliver. Guess what? It does. There is no excuse to not go digital anymore.

People Will Be Harder to Find But Easier to Contact

The WFH imperative has made most people accustomed to more flexible ways of working, which means they cannot find each other physically they way they used to do. To accommodate working from wherever, effective teams have consciously or unconsciously developed a way to contact each other even if they cannot find each other.

I have worked from home since 1995, so no one can expect to wander down the hall to find me (except my wife). To make it worse, I split time between France and The Netherlands and speak with an American accent. Colleagues and clients would never know where I was, but know that they could contact me on IM, email, Whatsapp or my mobile phone. There is less need to find me if they can easily contact me.

Industry Events Need to Adapt

It is obvious that Corona damages the events industry severely. It is less obvious what event organizers can do about it. Many events have done an admirable job at quickly switching from in-person meetings to virtual conferences run over web conferencing. While this experience is usually... fine, no one has really cracked the code of making it great. It is OK in reaction to an emergency; for some occasions, it is fine. But sitting in front of a computer at my desk is no replacement for a good conference.

Good events are so much more than just hearing a speaker. I want to meet other people, gauge the reaction of the crowd, see which stand on the show floor is the most crowded. One of the main benefits is being able to get away from daily work for a couple days and really focus on a particular topic. Virtual events don't really provide any of this.

The business model is another barrier. We have come to expect that online events are free, which undermines the financing model for events. Unless you are a vendor pushing a product, it is hard to see how anyone could invest the resources needed to put on even a virtual event if no one will pay for it. Event organizers will have to experiment with new models that attendees might be willing to pay for, perhaps combining regional locations with a live feed from a central location, or enhanced technical experiences using AR/VR technologies.

So far, I am not impressed. One event I saw asks attendees to pay €99 to listen to a virtual panel discuss the future of work, while charging €249 if you want to ask questions or €399 if you also want a wine package and swag bag to enjoy at your desk. I am not sure what the right model is, but I doubt that this is it.

SPOILER-ridden post on my theory about the origins of Rey in Star Wars VII​: The Force Awakens.

I've now had almost two weeks to think about the biggest question left unanswered in the new Star Wars​ film.* Obviously, if you don;t want to see spoilers, STOP READING.







Really. Go back.









Last chance.

The Last Days of Rishi Antall

Note: This is a companion post to the previous one about a Nordic Larp I did in Sweden in March set in the world of Battlestar Galactica. To give a better feel for what went on, I wrote this one from the first person view of my character, Rishi Antall. I stole this idea, er... was inspired by Thomas Be, who did a much better job with his character's writeup. 

I have no idea how Rishi is writing this from beyond the grave. That kind of thing happens a lot on the Celestra. I have to warn you: Rishi is not a very nice person. 

I spent last weekend in space. How was your weekend?

Last weekend (March 8-10) I had the geekiest, most fun and rewarding experience I can remember doing, pretty much ever. For three days, I was in space on a spaceship in the Colonial Fleet. Let me tell you about it. 

Ship's insignia

I am a fan of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica (BSG), one of the best shows that has been on television in my opinion, up there with The West Wing and Star Trek: TNG. I follow a BSG forum on Facebook and in January noticed an item that looked interesting. A group in Sweden was creating a real life game based on the BSG universe. They would create costumes for participants, rig a 1950s Swedish destroyer to look like a space ship and come up with the story line to be played out over the course of a weekend. 

That sounded pretty cool. I wavered about doing it, but my wife encouraged me. Hennie said "You have to do this. You will regret it forever if you don't." As usual, she was right. 

Initial briefing outside the ship

This is called a larp (live action role play). I had never heard that word before, and googled it, expecting it to be some Swedish term. It turns out that larping is a huge scene pursued by thousands of people, with all sorts of sub cultures (black box larping, fantasy larps, medieval larps...). I had heard of medieval fairs or war re-enactors but that kind of thing never interested me. This sounded, and was different. The group organizing this event did a huge amount of preparation to create a realistic, involving and engaging experience. I really feel, no I know, that I was in space, fighting Cylons and finding a way to live together with refugees from the other colonies. 

A prop notebook 

This would be a Nordic larp, which emphasizes improvisation and emotional involvement more than winning or competition. One of the Italians I met on the boat described their preconceptions about Nordic larping as "People crying in a corner because their character is so sad." Most people were shocked when I said that this was my first larp. Most have been doing it for years, and treated this one as the ultimate experience they had been building up to. 

A few weeks ahead of the event, I got a short overview of the character I would play: Rishi Antall, a sublight engineer on the Celestra crew. I was encouraged to fill in more details myself within the guidelines of the character sketch. A week or two later I received a more detailed outline which also described the political and social environment I would be in. 

I already knew most of the background from watching BSG. In the BSG timeline, this event would start just after the mini series and before "33" for those who know it. A lot of the Celestra story deals with Tauron culture, so I ordered the Caprica series on DVD. Caprica is a far inferior prequel to BSG, but it has useful information about what it is like to be a Tauron. 

Me and my fellow sublight engineers. 

I got to Gothenburg on Thursday March 7 and met up with some of the other sublight engineers. The next morning, I got my costume and we set off of the ship.  We got some final instructions and went aboard. 

Torpedo console

 The organizers had done a marvellous job kitting out an old Swedish destroyer to be a ship in the Colonial Fleet. Many of them were game designers I found out later, so they built custom consoles for helm, navigation, torpedo control, power distribution and damage control. The atmosphere on board was exactly how I expect an interstellar space ship would be. 

Engine room

Galactica and Celestra officers in Ops/CIC

I would spend most time in the engine room and at the power distribution console. We quickly figured out the tradeoffs of which function (helm, communications, damage control, weapons...) should get how much power, how hard to run the reactor, battery charge level and waste buildup. The engine room had lots of satisfying levers to throw and knobs to twist that we associated with various ship operations. 

Ladder to engine room

From the time we entered, the organizers made sure there was plenty to do, with military officers from the Galactica coming on to our civilian vessel to "help" us (that did not go down well), Cylon attacks, religious fanatics uprising and a corporation seizing control of parts of the ship. 

While some events were initiated by the organizers, each participant (there there 120 of us aboard) chose what they wanted to do. There were suggestions and some expectations derived from your role on board, but each person created their own story. 

Aftermath of the shootout

And there were LOTS of stories. Rishi got involved in a Holoband session with some cousins he didn't know he had where he found out why his mother left her clan, a rebellion where the engineers took a politician hostage, and later on in the game a bloody shootout associated with a criminal organization that was on the road to becoming a force for good. Those were just the ones I was involved in. 

While the broad outlines of the story were defined ahead of time, each character's story arc was completely up to each individual. There were at least 20 other story lines going at any one time. I didn't hear about most of them until the after-party. There were Cylon interrogations, religious rumblings, a (possibly) fixed election, execution of a Tauron sympathizer, sacrifices and love affairs. I learned about many of them afterwards at the after party or reading the discussion forums for participants. 

Damage control console

The overall story is too complicated to describe (if you are familiar with BSG, you know that nothing is ever black and white, and it is always complicated), but it was masterfully done by the organizers. It fit perfectly into the BSG world and enough surprises to amaze the participants. Another participant did a great write up on his blog both from the character's perspective and from his own as an experienced larper. I copied that idea to write a blog entry from Rishi's point of view.   

Me, post-game. The bandages indicate where
I got my ultimately fatal wounds. 

The biggest revelation to me was the idea of larping. Everyone was committed to creating a great, believable experience even if it meant something bad for your own character. It felt like an extended theatrical improvisation, except it was aimed at us, not at an audience. I saw and experienced deep and moving emotions as participants discovered things about their characters and themselves. I was able to get totally into a character who is very different from myself, taking actions instinctively that were right for him, but I would never do. 

Some larps are built around a quest (Free the princess, defeat the dragon...) but we were encouraged to "play to lose." If everyone wants to win, the game gets boring. It is far better to make your character lose if it makes for a good scene. 

I am not sure that I will be pursuing the larper lifestyle after this because I am not sure I would be interested in most of the subjects they explore. It would also be hard to top this experience. But I would highly recommend this particular one. 

Thanks to the photographers I linked to in this. Most of them are mine, but I borrowed some from a communal photo board. I am not sure who took them. 

Marvelous Idea from Australia

I came across this picture this week from a trip I took to Australia about a year ago. I was so struck by what a marvelous idea it was that I had to stop and take a picture. That black rectangle is a rubber mat, like you sometimes see on children's playgrounds. This mat keeps the roots from the trees along the road from buckling the sidewalk. In Amsterdam (where I live),the city solves this problem by cutting down trees that get big enough to push the sidewalk up with their roots. I find this solution far preferable.

I took this picture when walking to an ex-colleague's house in St. Kilda near Melbourne to have dinner. I found out later that he and his wife had moved to the country, and lost everything to the recent brush fires while going to the grocery store. The devastation of these fires has been unimaginable, in a magical part of the world. The Australian Red Cross is accepting online donations for victims.

From my Gartner blog

Why I Tweet

Summer Camp in January: Lotusphere 2009

Kickoffs, but not as we know them

Gaining Time with Blackberry; Not Always a Good Thing

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my first month of Blackberry use, and the drawbacks I found. One of the reasons I held off on getting a Blackberry was that I was afraid of the messages I would send while on the move. When I'm in a rush, I don't give good email. Like most people, I've been guilty of pissy, sarcastic communications when there was little or no justification for it. Almost all of these happened when I was in a hurry, leading to groveling and embarrassing apologies.

I was afraid that being able to send messages from just about anywhere would make that worse. Recovering snatches of otherwise unproductive time is one of the advantages of having one of these things, even if the snatches are brief. Small amounts of time can lead to boo-boos, however.

Today I did it. I was catching up on messages from other analysts while waiting in an airport security line. I had what I thought was a salient comment to add and just saw enough time to squeeze it out before I had to walk through that portal. Fifteen minutes later I was trying to remember what I said, and smacked my forehead. This is what came out:

If the vendor sells an unlimited plan, they cannot complain when people use a lot. They can't get the marketing cake of using the term AND the cake of capping or punishing users who take them at their word.

There was a real thought buried in there about having your cake and eating it too, but it didn't survive the transition from head to thumbs to message.

Maybe Blackberry needs something like mail goggles.

Changing Reactions: Thank You, Mr. Obama

Little nice things I notice: Three times in the last week, someone has noticed my appalling accent when speaking bad French and reacted nicely, offering a few English words. One person even said I had a nice accent, but I know she was lying, just to be nice. It has always struck me as grossly unfair that when Americans speak French, we usually sound like rubes killing a beautiful language. When French people speak English, it makes me want to melt. Just listen to this:

Melt me, M. Deneuve

I have been living as an American in Europe for over 20 years (as a dual Dutch-American citizen for the last five years). I have never seen open hostility or anti-Americanism directed at me, perhaps because at least for the last eight years I have been as disillusioned with the US government as pretty much anybody. While I never got hostility, most people let me struggle along. I was in France, so I should be at least trying to speak French.

This week though, that changed subtly. When hearing me speak, or talk with my wife, they smiled. I am sure they were thinking of a tall, skinny man speaking from a podium in Chicago to adoring crowds, and the hope he provides. Even the most anti-American Europeans (and several Canadians) I have met make a distinction between the government and the people (for the last 8 years bad and still good, respectively). Those smiles show that hope travels around the world that these two can be reconciled. 

For this too, thank you Mr. Obama.

Thing I Dislike About Cannes

A few weeks ago, I posted here about why I dislike Orlando, the traditional location of my company's Fall user conference in the US. I feel obligated to post a similar list about Cannes, the European venue.

It will be a much shorter list, as while there is one thing I don't like about the place, I generally find it quite pleasant. The main thing it has going for it is that it is a real city, an actual place. One can wander into town, see people going about their lives with their ridiculously small dogs in tow, and escape the conference bubble without too much effort. None of that is possible in Orlando.

So here it is, the one thing I don't like.

1. Cannes is expensive and pretentious.
   I mean really: €14 for a beer? The polo shirts are nice, but am I really supposed to pay €140 for them because of the logo?

That's it. Not really too much to get excited about. I can't even get worked up about the famous rudeness. I either seem to not attract it somehow, or it feels right. I expect a brusque reception at a busy brasserie, even if it is not that busy. A stern warning that I shouldn't expect to order a full meal at 4:00 PM makes it feel authentic and familiar, mostly since I only wanted some oysters anyway.

I really don't think I will be able to continue this thread much longer. The next US location is Las Vegas, and I wouldn't even know how to begin there. The next European location is Barcelona, and I'm not sure I could come up with anything I dislike about that place.

If you have anything you'd like to add about something to dislike about Cannes or Orlando, please leave a comment.

Things I dislike about Orlando

Please don't get me wrong. I am delighted to be at my employer's conference, to have the chance to see customers and colleagues. I just wish it didn't have to be in Orlando, one of my least favorite places to travel to.

Here are the things I don't like about Orlando. What can you add?

1. Large furry animals frolicking around at breakfast. Scary before coffee.


2. "Have a magical day"


3. Seeing so many people desperate to have a good time after spending money they don't have, and not enjoying it.


4. That sticky feeling you get when walking outside for more than 30 seconds.


5. Forgot an important toiletry item (see previous point). No real drug store accessible to get more at reasonable prices.


6. The $40 taxi ride to anywhere that does not look like the resort I am in.


7. The 90 minute shuttle from the airport because I am too cheap to spend my employer's money on a taxi.


8. Hotel windows that don't open.


9. Air conditioning set too high.


10. 20% service fees added for my "convenience."


11. The not quite natural look of the nature.


12. I'm sorry. Dolphins do not have scales
    
    
13. Food that is good enough to eat too much of, but not good enough to be worth eating a lot of.
    
    
14. I have to go back in January, June and October.
    
    
15. Toll booths every 5 miles.
    

Notice that I didn't say that I hate Orlando. There are much worse places in the world to visit, so I didn't title this "Things I hate." Hate is a pretty strong emotion I try to stay away from. As much as I dislike it, I don't hate Orlando, I promise. Actually, reading over this again this is mostly about why I dislike Disney World hotels. But they are in Orlando.

How can I be too busy to go to work?

It sounds strange, but I realized this morning that I am actually too busy with my job to go to work. Like many analysts, I work primarily from home. Combined with the time I spend traveling, I rarely get the chance to go into my "official" office. I think that the last time I was in the Amsterdam building was in April.

This month I don't have too much travel, so I was planning on going in this week to see my colleagues, check my mail box, and use the copier. My best intentions didn't pan out though -- I've been too busy, with too many overdue deliverables to get done. I can't afford the time it takes to get on the tram/metro and make my way out to the office, or even to take the car. I know when I get there, I will have less time available to produce the stuff I have to get done. One of the reasons for going in is to to talk to people, a good thing to do, but it takes time away from other work.

It seems odd to say that I am too busy to go to the office. Isn't that what offices are for? A place to do work? Not so much anymore, at least in my case. Increasingly I've seen the same thing with the clients I talk with. An office is a place to coordinate, socialize, and make connections. But as we increasingly adopt digital ways of getting things done, I can coordinate, socialize and make connections from anywhere. I can turn off email to get things done, and open up to email, IM, Twitter and RSS feeds when I'm looking for external input.

There still is a place for face to face meetings, but it won't necessarily have to be in the office. I meet colleagues at events, on audio conferences, and at client sites. In fact, I expect that the office will increasingly start to look like The Office. Depending on face to face, location-based management leads to abuses and inefficiencies. Showing up early and leaving late shouldn't be the key to success as much as actually getting things done.

Going all Official and Everything

Gartner has changed its policy on blogging, to encourage analysts to pontificate even more. So I will be slightly more active on the official Garner blog site. Watch out for my industry musings there. This blog will occasionally spotlight personal and non-IT related ideas.

Things I don't understand

I know, there are many things I don't understand. But some things I think I should understand, but don't. Like the people in this picture:
This was taken this weekend at Lyon airport during a bomb scare. Yes, a bomb. A package that could blow up. Notice how when asked to leave the building because of a suspicious package, most people chose to stay as close as possible to the building, standing in front of a big plate glass window.
Yes, several hundred people decided that standing in front of a plate glass window was the best place to be if an explosive device went off. And the police were cool with that. Notice where I am standing: on the other side of the car park.
Now, I know that these things have become routine, and it wasn't actually a bomb but somone's shopping that they left behind where they shouldn't have.
But still...

Jeff goes dogsledding

This weekend, some old colleagues from the Uniface time came to visit for the annual Banaan (Bananna) skiing weekend. Banaan in Dutch is the slang word for the stretcher they use to carry broken bodies off of the ski slopes. About 10 of us from UNIFACE have been going off on a ski weekend for about 18 years. This year, it was just three of us (me, Roel Aldenkamp and Albert Beijlevelt) plus two honorary Banaan-ers: my wife Hennie and Edith Douqué.

To make things a little different, we decided to go dogsledding this year instead of just skiing. I organized it with our friend Juraj, the musher who set us up with dogs, sleds and guidance. Juraj is great with the dogs, and with us as well. The dogs absolutely LOVE being out there and pulling through the snow.

Our dog Betty (a semi-retired sled dog) was at the head of my sled team. I loved seeing her doing what she loves to do. She would literally jump up in the air (see the picture above) with excitement at the prospect of pulling the sled.

A great experience, even if I did
fall at the end of the day and bruise

my chest slightly. It only hurts when I breathe.

Here is a video of what it's like behind the sled.


Here is a video with the sound of the dogs before we set off again after lunch. Usually Juraj's dogs were silent and calm, but once we started packing up and getting ready to go, they couldn't hold back.

Buenos Aires

We`re back in Europe now, in the Air France lounge waiting for the connecting flight to Amsterdam (excuse the a<>q qnd other mixups; French keyboqrds!
Bueos Aires was a great alternative to Patagonia: dirty, busy, and exciting. We got there on Good Friday, qnd would have gotten the wrong impression if we hadn`t stqyed until Tuesday. All weekend, we couldn`t get over how quiet qnd relaxed everything was. We wqndered into great museums, strolled through markets with greqt stuff (buying some of it too), We had heqrd horror stories of how stressful, smelly and dqngerous BA was, but we found it delightful. We wandered thgough La Boca, saw some great museums, and thoroughly enjoyed the weekend


And then it was Monday, a normal working day after the Holy Week holidays around Easter when everyone leaves the city. The buses zere belching smoke, the taxis couldn`t move through traffic, qnd everyone seemed to be in a hurry. Not much time for tourists now. Two tours we tried to take (of the Congressos parliqment building qnd the Recolletto cemetery) didn`t materialize for unexplained reasons. We mqde one last visit to a parilla criolla restaurant for massive haunches of meat, which kept us up at night trying to digest it.
It was clearly time to go home. So we did.

Day 9: End of the World

Jeff and the others are attempting to climb up to a glacier today, but I`m taking it easy and getting ready for our departure tomorrow for Buenos Aires. I also need to find a nice (fun) restaurant for tonight, our last night all together.

That end of the world thing (fin del mundo) is getting kind of grating. I have seen the gallery at the end of the world, the bar at the end of the world, restaurant at the end of the world, the end of the world museum, beer brewery at the end of the world (EXCELLENT beer! Try Beagle beer if you get a chance).

The glacier walk was a great morning trip. We drove up to a small ski area (one lift, one slope). No snow now, but we took it up to save some walking then. We continued up to just below the glaciar. A bit of a huffy-puffy climb, but worth it. The last bit required real climbing, which we didn`t really want to do, but we reached the snow (pictures to prove it, promise!). The rest of the day was lazily seeing Ushuaia. You don´t come down here for the city, however. It`s the scenery all around that makes it worthwhile.

Day 8: to Ushuaia

The next day we had breakfast in their lovely kitchen and went for a walk to see the beavers.

Get this: some goof in some Argentine government thought it would be a good idea to import them and start a fur industry. They abandoned the scheme, but not before the beavers were firmly installed in the country. These people we stayed with can´t keep up with their construction/destruction. We saw dam after dam. They destroy trees, cover up good pasture land with water and generally are a pest.

Back in the van, we headed for Ushuaia. Every day, since we left, the landscape has been different. Steppes, mountains, lakes, water everywhere or land everywhere. Amazing. We rolled into Ushuaia around one and found it another goldrush dump. The place has grown from 10,000 thirty years ago to more than 60,000 today. Building is done in any style in any way, and not always finished. What the people have made is generally as ugly as the scenery around them is beautiful.

When Annie and I decided on this hotel way before Christmas, it had a beautiful Internet sight with soothing quiet music, advertised its restful harmony, etc. Amazing photography. The place is at the heart of the strip, and yet again we slept with ear plugs and a closed door. It`s so noisy at the end of the world!

We took a boat into the Beagle channel and saw sea lions and a colony of cormorants. Penguins continue to elude us. Sometimes we see them bopping up and down in the water, but they´re hard to fix.


For dinner we headed off to a Parilla - one of those restaurants where you have a couple of lamb carcasses roasting in the window. We ate like horses and had a great time. It was so noisy, but in a nice family kind of way. There appear to be tons of Argentine tourists here for the Easter holidays.


--> Now about the dogs. They`re everywhere. They belong to no one and everyone. They at first seemed sad, but when you get used to it, it appears sort of fun. They sometimes hang out in little groups - I saw one with a lab, a furry little thing and a Jack Russel type hanging out together, and this morning, when I went to give a little white dog some leftovers from our BBQ last night, he only half ate it - he was distracted by a buddy across the street. If you can get over the nasty back story (in Puerto Natales, the mayor has put poisoned food out for dogs, who then die in agony - along with any child who also happens to fancy what s/he finds) they`re adorable and demonstrate pure dogness. You can pet them, they`re not scary, and at their best, they have a certain joi de vivre about them. They always seem to sleep where there are people - like bus stops, in doorways. And they`re not as skinny as the working dogs we saw at the estancia.

Day 8: To Tierra del Fuego

We got up at 6 to leave early for the estancia (ranch), but Jeff couldn't find his passport. We were all set for plan B - separating and spending the rest of the day in the police station, when we saw Guy coming down the stairs with his backpack. We both jumped up at the same time and almost ran him down: Jeff and Guy have the same backpack (I got two almost identical ones at two different IBM conferences), and it occurred to us together that Jeff had put it in Guy`s backpack instead of his own. Yup, that`s what happened! All`s well that ends well.

We then had a had a long ride across the Patagonian Steppe. Hard to imagine a place with that much nothing, but so beautiful. We stopped at the Straits of Magellan for a ferry. A place that for so long had been a geography class test question now was in front of us: a real river-looking thing.

We crossed the border into Argentina, and had paved roads again (Aaaahhh!). In Rio Grande it was almost impossible to find the right road (hard to believe, since there is basically one road in from the North and one road out to the South, but no signs). Finally some man whom we had asked before and bumped into again - going the wrong way - showed us the way out of town and pointed us in the right direction. Rio Grande is notable for it`s big trout sculpture, and a large memorial to the Heroes of the Malvinas (Falklands) War.

We finally arrived at our estancia in the middle of nowhere a round 6 p.m. We were greeted in French by a very chic woman and served a cup of tea in a lovely pot with china cups. I could have hugged her. Tea until then had been a bag tossed in lukewarm cup of water, almost as an afterthought. The whole thing felt like we were in a Martha Stewart spread. Lovely furniture, gracious hosts, table beautfiully laid. We ate with the owner and her son and daughter who help her run the place. Slept like a log with the window open, no noise, and sheepskins on our feet for warmth.

Day 7: To Punta Arenas

In the morning, we picked we picked up a duffel bag full of now-clean laundry and headed out to Punta Arenas. We finally arrived, after another bumpy trip and gorgeous scenery, in a town that again had a goldrush feel, but more of a real city than Puerto Natales.

We split up and we went to a museum that could have been in any big European city. There was an exhibition of winning entries from a competition for young talent, and it was great to see local approaches to art. Plus the rooms where beautifully decorated in a Victorian/Colonial style. Super opulent and very glitzy. It was built by English ranch owners when this was a big cattle-producing area for Europe. That all ended when the Panama Canal ended.

We each bought an alpaca sweater for ten bucks each, and those goofy hats with the ear flaps - they`re a real lifesaver when the wind howls, and you don`t really care how you look! Our hotel in Punta Arenas was a nice example of a sort of twenties architecture that you see a lot here - left over from the glory days before the Panama Canal ruined everything for them. However inside it was a riot of colour and decorated to within an inch of it`s gaudy life. Again, noisy, but we slept, though not for long.