warm, intimate birthday party in Boston

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Today we went to a really nice birthday party (family celebration) with my sister's friends, their kids, grandparents, my sister, and her kids. I discovered my younger niece is a child prodigy piano player and caught a few seconds on video. We watched a privately performed marionette (puppet) show that was knock-your-socks-off fantastic -- unbelievable in every respect from the art of the puppets and stage to the story line to the talent of the puppeteers. They had a pirate to help open the presents (which was silly and did not add much to the party). The lunch conversation was stimulating and I enjoyed meeting everyone. Now I must set off to catch my flight home.

math night in Weston

Friday night 3/28/08 Weston had a cool “math” night gathering at a local elementary school.  I took my niece and her friends there.  We had a great time.  In addition to some interesting math puzzles, we learned how to cut shapes out of 3x5 cards.   They served Pizza, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, & water for $2 so we were well-fueled to solve math puzzles.   The theme was early 1960s rock-n-roll bands, songs, and trivia.  Each table had a song title.

                                                                                               

And my niece has some really cool friends

who are great at Math.  Izzy here is solving

the “estimate the number of drops in the

clown” puzzle.

 

 

 

 

 

Check out my “yellow submarine” design!  I used shallow angles and

Cross-spars to make it streamlined.

Teaching in Cambridge 3: Microsoft's facility

The other side of the elevator on the first floor is under construction so it is basically a big, gutted, open space

















On the second floor, the Softricity people have a cool break room next to the cube farm that includes a pseudo-wall made from panels that turn on on a central vertical axis. They have white board surfaces on one side and carpet (accoustic dampening) on the other. People in the break froom who are eating do not bother the people in cubes on the other side and vice versa. When there is a big all-hands meeting and people crowd around the break room, the panels swing 90 degrees to enable everyone on to see / hear the speaker. It is quite the sate of the art from the 1980s. I don't like cube farms.


There is a nice stairway between the first and second floor so Microsoft people don't have to wait for the elevators to move between floors. Softricity is pushing to get their release out now and there are cases of red bull in the upstairs break rooms as well as late night meetings in the conference rooms.

Teaching in Cambridge part 2 -- Microsoft in Cambridge, MA

The well-equipped work-out room at the Marriott was quite crowded at 6:00am. I finished listening to _Spook_Country_ on the treadmill then hit the weights. The valet parking guy pointed at the Microsoft building down the street and told me it would be much faster to walk.

Microsoft really is two blocks away from the Marriott; despite my problems at the Marriott it is very convenient. Also, there are lots of small restaurants in the area with plenty of variety. Both the street outside, and the Microsoft building itself are undergoing major construction. In the building they are re-constructing the lobby, installing a fitness center, a Microsoft cafeteria, and more office space. The location (right next door to MIT) is fantastic so I anticipate explosive growth, especially for the Microsoft research team. The people in my class are all from the Softricity acquisition -- http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/default.mspx.

They are about to ship their first major release since we acquired them so some of the people are getting called out of class to service emergencies. Softricity was in a low-rent neighborhood of South Boston; this new facility is a big step up for the employees. They are all in a large cube farm on the second floor; their labs are on the first floor with conference rooms. The first floor also includes a very sparsely (10%) populated cube farm, a reception area, and major construction.

The training room is not yet completed; the projector and sound system work but there is no podium machine, no white boards, no easels, and no supplies (paper, name tents, stickies, 3x5 cards). The podium faces away from the audience. The tables were arranged conference room style but I was here early enough to set them up as group tables. We were also "agile" in our use of stickies on the wall to stack rank challenges. We used printer paper for name tents and graph paper instead of laptops for wideband Delphi. I got the presenter's mouse to work with PowerPoint but it is a little flakey on Vista. The lunch time movie streamed too slowly over corpnet so I used the public Internet channel9.msdn.com for behind the code instead.

The students are remarkably mature and experienced, with deep wisdom (and typical developer cynicism) about quality, process, scheduling, and collaboration. It appears the commute is quite terrible for many of the employees; trains are unpredictable; driving is impossible. I do not miss the East coast.

Teaching in Cambridge part 1 -- the trip to Boston

Getting up at 0600 on a Sunday morning to catch the shared van ride service at 0615 was no fun. The flight was over-booked and I considered getting the free ticket to Hawaii but I would not have arrived in Boston on time to teach on Monday so that idea was nixed. I bought a bad, expensive breakfast after clearing security, and waited in the lounge. I started listening to _Spook_Country_ by William Gibson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spook_Country). The story and characters are great but personally I think the editor should have cut some of the boring descriptive prose where it does not develop the characters or move the story. It's a fun ride and I anticipate listening to the rest of the book on this trip.

I am, of course, using my Bluetooth stereo head phones and Windows Mobile phone as the mp3 player. I discovered that media player is smart enough to let you play games on the phone while it is streaming audio but media player pauses when a call comes in or an alert goes off. It just works. Kudos to the Mobile team. The head set and phone batteries held up the whole day -- long wait in the terminal, long cross-country flight, wait for the Avis bus, 10-minute Avis bus ride, etc. I was even able to call the concierge at the hotel (my printed directions were wrong and I forgot the GPS at home).

Parking is very expensive here at the Cambridge Marriott and the Internet costs $10 per day. I wanted to stay here because it is two blocks away from Microsoft (walking distance) and less expensive than the other hotels in the area. The view from the 20th floor is nice and the food is great. I may try to park at Microsoft. The rooms have a webtv device that is shockingly slow and user-hostile. And of course if you type in your own URLs it costs $10 so I backed out and watched tv instead.

Cougar Mountain Scouting Expedition 3/23/08

We went to scout out the Cougar Mountain area to plan a large gathering in May. We figured if Eitana (4 years old) could walk 3 miles so could the older kids.

Maddie met a younger doggie who was younger and faster. It was a ridge back / labrador mix. The two of them had a great time running and chasing each other through the woods. Maddie also jumped into the watering trough for horses and drank / swam for a while. Eitana was also very spirited, sprinting or splashing in puddles. She would not let us read the map, preferring to keep it to her self and tell us which way to go at trail intersections.

Here is a short movie clip of Maddie on-leash and Eitana:

cascade striders work out

The striders work out every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Today was the toughest work out yet. I am so happy when it is over! I shall be in Boston for a week and shall sorely miss the strider work outs.

Purim Musical 2008 at Herzel Ner-Tamid

Elisheva and I attended the awesome Purim “service” (musical theatre production) at our synagogue last night. It was amazing, outrageous, fun, fantastic, entertaining. When I see these people at any time but Purim they are in suits, formal, serious. Last night they were cross-dressed in shocking clothing, over-acting and singing (quite well). The camera phone does not do the scene justice.

King Ahashuarus was Elvis. Mordechai was James Brown. Haman was Mick Jagger. Esther was Aretha Franklin. The music and songs were wonderful. The audience was loud, bawdy, and fun as well.

Eitana and Pappa made a kite!

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Last night Eitana and I used newspaper, string, and some old dowels to build a huge kite. We still need to make the tail and then fly it.

Cycle of Distortion

The Jerusalem Post published a good editorial about the perception of Israel's struggle for existence. There is no "cycle of violence." Instead,

...What we have, rather, on the one hand, is a sovereign nation's desperate effort to live in its homeland, seek peace with those of its neighbors who will partner [with] it, and defend itself against those who seek its destruction. And, on the other, we have the forces of militant Islam, firing rockets across Israel's sovereign borders, murdering Israelis wherever they can be found vulnerable, indoctrinating their people with a vicious intolerance of Jewish historical rights in this region, and simultaneously spreading a perverted interpretation of Islam that purports to require each and every believer to carry out personal jihad in the name of God against the infidels - be they Jews, Christians or unbelieving Muslims.

Quick Trip to Philadelphia and Boston

My oldest three teenagers and I spent last weekend on jet planes and rental cars to honor my father for his 90th birthday. The party was near Philadelphia and was well-attended by my cousins. My aunt flew in from Jerusalem for the event. The party was fun. The speeches were moving and my slide show was well-accepted.

I grew up with my cousins as extended family; seeing them all again is always deeply nostalgic, warm, and wonderful.

My oldest, at Reed College in Portland, flew through Seattle to Boston. The three of us met briefly with her at the airport before we boarded our separate red-eye flights to Boston Logan. At Logan we rented a car and drove to Hanscom air field in Bedford where we boarded a private jet for NE Philadelphia airport. I was duly impressed with the “private jet” lifestyle – you drive up to the plane, board, and take off. When we landed 45 minutes later, rental cars greeted the plane as it taxied to the jet aviation building. That evening after the party and festivities, we unwound the same process, driving the rental cars back to the plane, flying to Hanscom, and taking the rentals to my sister's house. My sister fed us amazing foods (filet mignon, fresh fruit, fresh polenta) and my youngest niece crushed us at Wii games. All the kids did their homework around the table. The relaxed Sunday morning with family was even better than the party.

Eventually we headed back to Logan and flew home. I wish we could visit more frequently...

update:

Here are some more photos I just drained from the camera: