Epictetus

Heard a great quote today I thought I'd share:

You have two ears and one mouth; use them in that proportion. - Epictetus


-- Mobile post

Presenting in Paris

Things are going really well this week and we've been very busy!

I had thought I'd be giving one presentation to 500 people. Turned out they wanted more effective/intimate group sizes so while the 500 people part hasn't changed, they've been arriving in groups of 10 over two days!

My rough daily schedule has been:

1:30am: find bed under pile of notes and cables having completed revision list of the day.

Horrible reality siren at 5:30am (alarm), doze (10 min), wake up in panic at the time, quick shower (10 min). Answer emails (30 min), review demo script and pack demo gear (15 min). Suit up (5 min), admire how dashing self looks in suit (10 min) while putting on stupid tricky cufflinks (5 min). Elevator ride from 30th floor (5 min due to commuter traffic), arrive at breakfast meeting 7am.

Review daily agenda and implement new last minute changes to suit audience segment of day (30 min), arrive at venue and set up gear (10 min).

Smile.

Give demo and presentation (10 min) to groups of 10 people, answer questions (5 min), repeat indefinitely until dinner break.

Note to self that I haven't gone to bathroom yet. Briefly excuse myself and enjoy 5 minutes of solitude.

Arrive at dinner meeting. Review day, take notes, chew, swallow, begin alterations to demo based on daily feedback.

Repeat.

All in all, I wouldn't have it any other way, this has been a lot of fun. You know I love an audience!


-- Mobile post

Dune Bashing in Dubai

On my way to Paris I had a very long layover in Dubai due to a series of flight delays that resulted in a missed connection. Let's hope my trip home goes more smoothly!

This reminded me that I hadn't posted photos from the last time I was there in October. I'm a bit behind on my travel blogging and Dubai is really spectacular.

It's home to some really amazing man made marvels. From the huge man-made Palm Island, to the Burj Dubai, the modern engineering that's going on is really impressive. Sort of a modern day Atlantis!

The Burj Dubai (pictured at the top of this post) is the tallest building in the world, stacking in at nearly a kilometer high (roughly 850m)! Putting that in perspective, if you stacked the Sears Tower in Chicago on top of the Empire State building in New York, the Burj Dubai would still be taller by about 50m!

You can see from the photo just how much it dwarfs the other huge high rises around it. It's estimated to be fully completed this year. I was impressed to see a window washer way way up near the top. That's one heck of a big job!

Contrary to popular belief, Dubai does NOT have oil money. There was a time that it did, however, the reserves have long since dried up and now the city is sustained on tourism alone. The economic crisis has really hit them hard and most new construction projects are currently on hold. It was odd to see so many half-completed high rise buildings, especially so many very uniquely designed ones.


The Palm Island, more impressive by air, is a massive land-reclaimation project in the shape of a palm tree. The next big project is "the World" island, shaped like a giant globe.

After a bit of city touring, we went out into the desert for some good old fashioned DUNE BASHING! This was incredibly fun, even if we weren't allowed to drive. Our group even had to rotate through the front seat to handle the odd queasy stomach. Quite the ride!


Dune bashing!


More dune bashing!

After diving over the edge of the huge dunes in our Toyota Landcruiser we went deeper into the desert where we had a huge meal and were painted with henna tattoos.


Mike getting tattooed.


The famous Burj Al Arab. To get a room here, you need a minimum of $2000 USD. The most expensive room goes for $28,000 per night!

Reruns and sequels

It's about 1am and I'm preparing to leave for Paris for the second time in as many months. It seems my whole life is in reruns lately, doomed to repeat patterns of the past.

The flight from Australia to France is a gruelling one but at least I can catch up on some badly needed sleep! That's if I can remember how...

I've been given a tremendous opportunity to present a product integration to over 500 delegates at a conference being held about a block from the Eiffel Tower.

What I love about that is I actually had a hand in building all three of the products being integrated in this solution: two that I worked on in Canada and one that I worked on here in Australia.

My dedicated teammates from Canada and Australia have put in a lot of their personal time working nights and weekends to make this happen.

I'll be representing about nine years of independent product development work from four countries, wrapped together by a few weeks worth of commando style tactical integration work, being shown in a single live working (fingers crossed) demo in front of the top executives in my company and many industry leaders. It needs to impress!

Nothing like adding a little pressure to a presentation.

Lucky for me, this isn't so much a re-run as it is a sequel. This is the same integration I presented at the big product launch for the press last month. The audience will be more technical and have higher expectations, but I'm confident it will show very well.

I've heard it's snowing there. That will be a nice change of pace from the sweltering Brisbane summer heat.

So what does any of this have to do with the photo at the top? I snapped that picture of the man and his dogs on the street the last time I was in Paris in December. If I don't pull this off, that's what I've decided to do next... it doesn't look so bad! I bet he gets more sleep than I do...

My Mom the World Traveler

Happy New Year everyone!

This year my Mom came to visit over the holidays and as far as I know, this was her first big overseas trip.

We had a really nice Christmas, touring around the countryside on our own little amateur safari. She managed to get pictures in the wild of all the big Australian animals including a koala, a salt water crocodile, a pademelon wallaby, loads of kanagaroos, a kookaburra and lots of different lizards!

She snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef where she found Nemo and a large Green Sea Turtle. She even managed to see two sharks out there and volunteered to take a SCUBA lesson! We were all very proud of how adventurous she was!


Koala in the wild.


Salt water crocodile in the wild!


Holding a fresh water croc at the zoo.


A kangaroo in the wild.


I hope you all had a fantastic start to 2010!

Dolphin Diving in Zanzibar

Another very late Africa trip post but I want to get the last of the trip photos up before a whole new year begins.



We took a dive off the coast of Zanzibar in an area that was supposed to be too far north to sight dolphins but still a great dive site. After we completed our first dive, having seen loads of amazing colourful fish, a large family of dolphins came swimming into our area!





Our captain turned the boat and told us to get our masks and snorkels on. We dove off the side of the boat to intercept the school and got some really amazing up close experience with the grey bottlenose dolphins!





After touring the islands we stopped in Stonetown. In the days of tall sailing ships, Stonetown was a huge trading port for spices grown in the area.

The winding narrow streets are filled with people instead of cars and the huge wooden doors have large spikes embedded on them to keep the elephants from busting in for a drink of water!







We also had a completely random encounter with two people that we met on Kilimanjaro, Steffi and Daniel from Germany!



We had met these two on our very first day at the bottom of the mountain, getting prepared to climb. We ran into them again in the Ngorongoro crater on Safari just by chance at a hippo pool. Incredibly, we saw them again at the very end of our trip in Stonetown on Zanzibar!

We had a fantastic dinner together. It was an excellent way to round off the African leg of our trip!

Safari on the Serengeti

Procrastinate? Nooo not me, never! October wasn't all THAT long ago was it?

Our Safari in Tanzania (in October) took us from the base of Mount Kilimanjaro to the Ngorongoro crater and the Serengeti with a final stop at Lake Manyara. The pure abundance of wildlife was astounding.

We were extraordinarily lucky. Many visitors never see a single Cheetah, we saw two. Many people never get to spot a Leopard in a tree protecting its kill; we could have yanked the tail on one, and again, we saw two! It eventually got to the point where we would actually say "Hey, another big male lion with three or four females over there... but I'd have to use the zoom lens so... carry on."

Of the roughly 2600 photos from our Safari in Tanzania, we've managed to pair it down to a "top 100". Here's a small sample:

If you'd like to see the rest, just drop me a line and I'll send you a link to the album.

Thought-controlled prosthesis

Rome, Italy | AP
"A group of European scientists said Wednesday they have successfully connected a robotic hand to an amputee, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts.

The experiment lasted a month, and scientists say it was the first time a patient has been able to make complex movements using his mind to control a biomechanic hand connected to his nervous system.

'The approach we followed is natural,' Rossini said. The patient 'didn't have to learn to use muscles that do a different job to move a prosthesis, he just had to concentrate and send to the robotic hand the same messages he used to send to his own hand.'

It will take at least two or three years before scientists try to replicate the experiment with a more long-term prosthesis, the experts said. First they need to study if the hair-thin electrodes can be kept in longer."

Read the whole article here:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotic-hand-prosthetic-thoughts.html

Thanks for this Todd!

Mobile Paris

Nothing makes for a quality post like mobile phone photos on the fly:
Cherob Statue near the Eiffel Tower.
The Tuileries.
The Louvre.
The Arc de Triumph.
The Sacre Coeur.
The Moulin Rouge.
Notre Dame Cathedral.
A view of the Seine river.
Outdoor chandeliers on Rue de Castiglione.
-- Mobile post

Paris and the Continental Race

I'm now in Paris, France. I know, it came as a surprise to me too!

I was sent here very last minute by my company to help with a press event for a product release. We're unveiling an integration between the product I used to develop in Victoria and the product I currently help develop in Brisbane.

More importantly, this means in the last two years I've been to every single continent except Antarctica, all on a single passport! That's not all that uncommon for some of my globe trotting friends (Mel, Steve and Sean come to mind) but as I don't travel for work very often, this is big news for me!

My List
Asia: China, UAE (Dubai).
Australia: umm.. Australia.
North America: Canada.
South America: Brazil.
Zealandia: New Zealand.
Africa: Tanzania/Zanzibar.
Europe: France.

Zealandia you ask? Did I just blow your mind? No, this is not a trick to one-up my sister by getting to a "secret" continent before her... but then again, neener neener Kim! Don't worry, the score is still 5-2 in your favour.

Turns out New Zealand is not on the same continental shelf and so is not part of the continent of Australia. It is instead part of the submerged continent Zealandia which stretches from the north of New Caledonia to the south of New Zealand's subantarctic islands.

I know, it's strange, I always thought there were seven continents but here we are adding an eighth. I feel the same as I did the day Pluto stopped being a planet! I learned something new today... then my reality imploded so I got a latte.

Tonight, I'm strolling along the Seine river with a proper latte in hand in my warm wool jacket. The air is crisp and cool without being cold and I really like wearing wool jackets. Life is good, I love Paris!


You'll have to forgive the grainy iPhone camera shots taken at night.

-- Mobile post