Raible Designs

What a Trip - Amsterdam was a blast!

Last week's trip to Europe for ApacheCon EU was nothing short of spectacular. Amsterdam was an incredible city that amazed me with its awesome biking system (and usage!), incredible atmosphere and a nice sense of relaxation. I think the picture below sums up our trip nicely. The weather couldn't have been better - sunny and warm with a cool breeze.

ApacheCon was likely an excellent conference, but I'm proud to say I didn't attend a single session. I did manage to make it to Sun's party on Thursday night (thanks Dave!), but that was about it. At the party, the Wicket guys had a BOF, which my dad and I sat in on. Thanks to Martin, Eelco and others for the good conversation, even if we did have to shout.

After my talk on Friday, we scrambled for the airport. It was pretty hectic after my talk with our departure looming and the fact that I still needed to pack. To top it off, the power went out in the hotel shortly after my talk. After arriving at the airport, I realized I forgot my passport in the room - Doh! (you're right Neil). Luckily, I was able to sweet talk my way onto the plane anyway and we arrived in Stuttgart an hour later.

The weather wasn't nearly as nice in Germany, but we did have a great time. The folks we went to visit have same last name as my family. Roland Raible was driving his VW Bus through Montana in the early 80s, when he noticed the "Raible" name on our mailbox. Curious, he drove up our front road and made it all the way to the cabin. I remember him driving up the road - I was only 9 years old when it happened. He hopped out of his van and yelled to us "My last name is Raible!" We don't know if we're actually related, but Roland and my dad have stayed in touch ever since that initial meeting. My dad visited him for the first time last year, following one of his trips to Africa.

Roland, his wife Helga and their 2 children all live in Wangen, which is a countryish town in Southern Germany. It rained the two days we were there, but we did make it to "Fidelisback", a bakery that's been around for over 500 years. The beer was excellent, as was the food. On Saturday, we traveled to the Zeppelin Museum and some stone-age huts along Lake Constance. Both places were very cool and educational. We enjoyed the audio tour at the Zeppelin Museum just like we did at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

On Sunday, we left Stuttgart around 11 and arrived in Amsterdam at noon. Bruce hooked me up and left my passport in a locker. It was surprisingly easy to travel between The Netherlands and Germany with nothing but a driver's license. We arrived at my house in Denver at 11:00 on Sunday night.

If you ever get a chance to visit Amsterdam for Queen's Day - I highly recommend it. I know we'll be back.

For some photos of our trip, see my Europe 2007 Set on Flickr. Also, checkout Dave's Amsterdam vacation wrap-up for some good photos of Queen's Day.

Having fun in Amsterdam

My dad, Bruce and I arrived on Sunday morning in Amsterdam at the early hour of 8 a.m. I drugged myself with some Melatonin, so I didn't work as nearly as long as I would've liked. They did have an electrical plug (that required and worked with my MacBook adapter) so I was able to pull out the 15" and work for 5 hours. The flight was 9 hours and I managed to never step out of my seat (good ol' bladder of steel developed at The Cabin). Bruce said he slept 30 minutes at the end of the flight; my dad managed to get 7 hours.

The weather has been beautiful and we've been enjoying the sunshine and good beer. Queen's Day was crazy and quite a sight to see. The amount of boats in the canals and people in the streets was amazing. The only downside so far is neither my dad nor I brought our camera cords. If you're at ApacheCon EU and reading this, we could use a USB or Sony camera connector. I'll try to post some pics if I can borrow a cord.

The Flight to Amsterdam

Tomorrow morning, my dad, Bruce and I will be getting on a Continental flight headed for Amsterdam. We stop in Houston for a couple hours, then it's a 10-hour flight from there. Bruce found a diagram of our plane and it appears to have power outlets. Inspired by this news, I went out and bought an adapter for my MacBook Pro.

Now the question is - where there be enough room for my 17" laptop?

The last flight I was on (to Boston a few weeks ago), there was no room for a laptop. When the guy leaned back in front of me, I ended up with barely enough room to scratch my nose. A 15" laptop wouldn't have solved that problem. Has anyone out there flown internationally in a Boeing 767? We're in economy, so it might be tight, but I would like to get some work done on the flight. I'm willing to take both my MacBooks, but it would suck if I couldn't use either one. On the other hand, it'd be nice if I knew my 17" would work fine and I only had to take one. Thanks for any advice.

Update: The adventure/drama has already begun! My dad forgot his passport in Oregon and we've been on the phone with Fedex and UPS trying to get it here before our flight takes off at 11:20. Fedex was $384 for a "it should get there" delivery. UPS gave us a "guaranteed delivery" for $75 and told us it would get here by 9. Once they gave us the tracking number, they switched it to 10. Those bastards! Oh well, at least I'm on the flight - who knows about my dad.

Saturday @ 7 AM: UPS Tracking shows his passport is in Ontario, Canada (an arrival scan, no departure shown). WTF - the two hour flight from Portland to Denver wasn't short enough?!

Saturday @ 9 AM: Julie has the passport in her hands and is driving out to the airport to give it to my dad. He came with me an hour ago to check in and explain his situation. Looks like he's going to make it!

Chelan Cider to be carried by Hale's Ales

My sister (Kalin) posted some good news last week.

I met with Mike Hale yesterday of Hale's Ales and he is interested in carrying our cider!!

If you haven?t been to Hale's Ales in Seattle, please check them out on the web @ www.halesales.com

If you happen to live in Seattle and like hard cider, you may be able to pick up a bottle of Kalin's "hooch" at Hales in the near future. Congrats sis!

Happy Anniversary Julie!

Julie and I got married seven years ago today. For our wedding, we invited all our friends fly down to West Palm Beach and party it up for a week. Most folks flew down on Wednesday, some showed up Thursday, and all enjoyed the festivities on Saturday. If you happened to be at the wedding, you might want to reminisce with some old pictures. If nothing else, looking at the pictures will show you how much digital picture quality has improved in 7 years.

To celebrate, we went out to a fancy dinner downtown last night. After dinner, we barely slipped into Comedy Works for John Heffron. The show was sold out, but some folks didn't show up so we ended up getting front row seats! We hadn't even heard of John Heffron, but it turned out to be a really funny show.

Thanks Julie for such a fun married life!

New Swing Set

Below is what Julie built while I watched Caddy Shack last night (I know, I'm a slacker). Abbie and Jack couldn't be happier right now.

Update on Sunday: Checkout the finished product - it has a climbing wall, slide and fort too boot!

Pizza!

From Stephen O'Grady:

YouTube - MLB - A Fan throwing a pizza at another Fan
this was the game i was at, sorry i missed this; the best part comes when Remy and Orsillo start cracking up

We need to plugin in less, not more

From David Van Couvering's Blog:

I just returned from a week in Mexico, a wonderful time with my family where we lived very simply - food, rest, physical fun. No TV, no movies, no cell phones, no computers. Bright sunshine, beautiful beaches, very friendly people wherever we went.

Then I came home to San Francisco and straight to the Web 2.0 Expo. The contrast has been a bit disorienting. I don't think it's a surprise that my one year old son learned to say "Hi" in Mexico - people actually greeted him there and interacted with him. Here in the conference, on the BART train, on the street, we are all in our own world. We are on our laptops, our phones, our iPods.

The keynote talks at the Expo underscored again and again an undeniable trend: there is an ever growing explosion of the use of consumer devices and connecting to the Internet. The vast scales of data and connections we are looking at are almost impossible to imagine. The whole world is "getting connected." And those of us at the Expo are generally very excited, and see lots of opportunities to make money and and to build things that lots and lots of people will use.

But I feel a sadness when I find myself in this environment. I feel like I am losing something. I watch myself "plug in," and I feel like I am actually losing connection. I crave the open sky, the deep stillness and power of the ocean, of the smiles of people who said "Hi" to my son.

David makes some excellent points in this post. I often find that I get tied up in the virtual world of blogs and technology and forget that the real world is the one that really matters. If my computer died tomorrow and I gave it all up to help Julie remodel houses, I don't think I would lose a whole lot. In fact, I think I would be more in touch with reality and would likely strengthen friendships, rather than confuse people when I talk to them about what I do.

A commentor on David's blog says:

I am glad you discovered, or rediscovered, the beauty of simple things. It happens to many people almost every year, after vacations.

This is why I try to take at least 2 months of vacation each year. I've been doing it for around 5 years and I don't plan on changing that anytime soon. Sure, I have lots of opportunities to work my ass off, make a bunch of money and store it away for later. But that's no way to live - I want to enjoy life now and every day going forward. Sure, I'm saving money for my retirement, but I don't see the point in working like mad in hopes it'll payoff someday. Some folks say "do it while your kids are young." I think that's bullshit - there's no excuse for being a bad parent at any time in their lives.

Fenway Park

Time in traffic: 2 hours
Cost for parking: $45
Seeing a Red Sox game at Fenway Park: Priceless

But that's not the best part. The good story behind it all is how my buddy Chris made it happen. I dropped him off at his office on Boylston Street this morning. On the way, I asked him if his company had any seats and if he could "hook it up." He said, "I doubt it, but I'll see what I can do." At 10:00 a.m., his National Sales Manager said that the individual who got the most new contacts in their territory would get tickets to the Red Sox game. Chris worked his ass of all day and won the contest! Not only did he win, but the seats he got were phenomenal - as you can tell from the picture below.

I've never been to a baseball game where the fans were so into it. Everyone stood up and cheered for the last 1/2 hour of the game. The whole experience was incredible - definitely one of the top 10 sports moments of my life. Thanks Chris - you rock!

Going to Fenway?

Today is my first attempt to see a Red Sox game at the illustrious Fenway Park. A couple of weeks ago, I convinced my client I should come out this week (instead of last week) because the Red Sox were in town and I wanted to see a game. Originally, I wanted to go to opening day, but a friend (Chris) who lives here said "It'll be impossible to get tickets, and if you do, it'll be $500 each." Then another friend (Scott) said he had 4 tickets for Thursday's game and I was welcome to one. So I made plans with both of them to go to today's game.

Of course, in the meantime, Chris managed to score a ticket to Tuesday's game and didn't tell me until last night - that bastard!

For most of this week, the forecast has been "snow on Thursday." When I woke to no snow this morning, I figured the game was on and I'd better start heading for Boston. I left my client's office around noon and I arrived in Boston about 15 minutes ago. After paying $30 (!) for parking, I'm now at a Starbuck's - waiting for the game to start at 4.

Scott backed out this morning because he's a sissy, but Chris is still in and scored some tickets off Craig's list. To be honest, it doesn't look good. It's hovering around freezing, windy and poring down rain right now. I got soaked walking the two blocks from my car (sidenote: I got a new Dodge Charger for $30/day from Thrifty - it kicks ass). However, I'm still hopeful. I'm from Montana, so I'm used to miserable weather and I'm sure there's enough tasty beer to make it an enjoyable game. I heard on the radio that they were going to "do their best" to make this game happen. My fingers are crossed. Go Sox!