Lisa and Chris Camping Trip!

A lovely chance for a weekend getaway... June 13, 14, 15

We are considering Loft Mountain Campground.

National Park Service PDF link

Embedded Map from Tysons Area

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the group site A037 and non-group sites seem to be available.

June Travel to Buckinghamshire, London, and Brussels

So I'm flying out on a little trip.

Sunday

Catch the night flight with United UA 920 IAD 6:26 pm > LHR 6:55 am

Monday and Tuesday

I'll be in Buckinghamshire, staying with my parents and preparing for the MicroStrategy London BI Symposium.

Wednesday

Travel on the train up to Kensington for the event. Catch up with the local MicroStrategy UK team.

Thursday

Present, and then dash over on Eurostar for a quick trip to Brussels.

Friday

Brussels

Saturday

fly back home to Lisa!

Lisa and Chris Housewarming

So we are moved in! Thank goodness. Lillian Court at Tysons Corner is so far mostly delightful and we appear to have good and responsive landlords. Some of the pictures are hung, the boxes are unpacked, and we are really starting to feel well settled.

What does this engender? A Housewarming party!

We have created and sent the evite, but I always forget the sheer number of local people I should invite - so this blog posting is serving as another kind of invitation.

Come marvel at the extra square feet!

Mental Health Break - Sneezing Panda

So I know I'm VERY late to the game with this one, but it's worth the 30 seconds.

Why does Wikipedia Exist?

Because we have time to do it! More seriously, Clay Shirky has written a super short essay on this, and a larger book.

Here is the direct link the essay. Now I'm thinking I need to add Clay Shirky's book to the larger reading list. Along with Dan Pink's. Once I'm finished with reading the Chips diaries (they grow on one), and the outstanding Presentation Zen book (thank you Lisa).

Hat Tip, as so often, to Andrew Sullivan.

"This is one of those essays so brilliant and fun and provocative it stays with you for a while. It's by Clay Shirky and it's about social surplus - or how human beings manage modernity. It's hard to summarize, so here's a taste:"

If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would've come off the whole enterprise, I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.

And what did we do with that free time?  Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

We did that for decades.  We watched I Love Lucy.

Virginia Camping

So I saw this Campground review book in REI, and thought "Why isn't that a blog for goodness sake, or at least a web site. Harrumph!" Next time I search What do I find? 

How superb! Books made free, sort of.

Now to use this for our next camping trip coming up in June. Maybe we can find something in between Lisa and Barb.

This is the best news of the month for me at work!

Boot-camp is hard. I found it a tough challenge. Thanks to the friendly help from Adam Biegeleisen and Nick Wakefield I prevailed.

This is a well-deserved success for Jennifer, and a great reason to smile a little more than usual on the way to work!

How many people live in our area?

Jochen and I were wondering about this as we flew back from the TDWI conference in Chicago.

Answer? 5.3M or 8.2M depending on which area you are talking about.

Phew

One can so easily be reminded of the important things in life.

Suhrud is keeping a cool head while his son gets past a fever. Nice work on the documented advice.

Moving right along

The move of boxes and etc went well, we have almost everything over at Lillian Court now, excepting some clothes and a few dishes, the cats and us.

Large furniture move occurs on Sat 10th May and that will be the end of things, thank goodness. On the 10th we will have to be careful on our route West. It is Arlington Day, and some central Arlington roads will be closed. Seems to me we will use U. S. Route 50 West (the same one that runs all the way to California!) and then the Beltway inner loop up to Virginia State Route 267 West. More on those plans Wednesday and Thursday.

I set up the computer at the new place and it works well, though of course now it is living at the other place so no computer in the evenings in Arlington for us. I posted the pics we used to document the scratches, defects, etc on flickr, but we will post nice pics sometime soon.  If we can find the camera charger, maybe we will even post moving day shots!

At lunchtime today I will call Dominion Power to make sure the account is transferred to my name. Washington Gas is done, and goodness me they took a time!

A Quick Thank You

Thank you to all those wonderful people who sent me gifts, cards, or a little email or blog posting of best wishes for my birthday last weekend.

My apologies for not writing much sooner, but as you may know - we're moving! :)  I promise to write more soon.

Time for a cup of coffee before we hit the road!

Much love,

Chris

Seth Godin on RFPs

Money Quote:

"The RFP is an organizational punt, it's a way of saying, 'it's all a commodity, we can't decide, cheap guy wins.'

The cheap guy, of course, never wins."

Pithy Seth. Hmm, now say that six times fast :)

Maybe Just the Thing for a friend in need

So earlier this week a friend asked for some career advice. This morning I find Garr Reynolds' super review and lovely short presentation on the wonderful new career book by Dan Pink. First watch the video trailer for this book:

Then take 5 minutes to check out the presentation. 5 Minutes? Yes. Even with 184 Slides? Yes. Maybe you might find value in Garr's tips on presenting as well :)

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Lillian Court

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Originally uploaded by chrisvonsimson

It's mostly empty, with some boxes. I'm tired. More tomorrow.