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.