‘Halfpad Een Ding’/’Half of One Thing’ was written and published earlier this year in Afrikaans and in English. The author Zirk van den Berg is from Namibia, but now lives in New Zealand.
Today was the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France.
I finished reading my book about another war, last night on the flight home : the Second Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa. The fictional story revolves around a New Zealander called Gideon Lancaster that joins the British forces in the Boer War, and becomes a spy. Soon, ‘the enemy’ and ‘betrayal’ became impossible to pin down in his mind. Legendary Boer general Christiaan de Wet, and scheming to capture him, is also part of the story. (The general never was captured. But his brother Piet de Wet who was also a successful Boer general, was captured by the British toward the end of the war. He then became a member of the National Scouts – Boers serving with the British forces!).
It was madness (OK, all wars are madness) for the Boers to take up arms against the British Empire, of course. We learned of Lord Kitchener’s ‘scorched earth’ policy in school : burning down farmsteads and slaughtering all the live-stock. And during the later stages of the war, the British rounded up and isolated the civilian Boer population in concentration camps, one of the earliest uses of this method by modern powers. To this day the United States Army uses case studies from the Boer War to teach ethics in combat.
It’s Thursday, and so I get to go home. As I stepped into the taxi outside the Denver office, it started to rain : big fat splattering drops. Soon after, hailstones came down with the rain as well.
My view from inside the taxi on the way to the airport : highway I-70 and its traffic getting pummeled by heavy rain and hail. The hail pellets were plentiful but too small to cause any damage.And the latest picture from the Denver airport hotel and convention center, viewed from the check-in counters inside the airport. I suspect by next Thursday the glass windows will have been added all the way to the top.
[From Wikipedia] The Logan Sapphire is a flawless specimen from Sri Lanka, a cushion-cut stone which possesses a rich deep blue color and is the second largest (blue) sapphire known, weighing 422.99 carats (84.6 g). It is currently on display at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.The 800-lb gorilla company of business software (SAP) is hosting its annual ‘Sapphire’ conference this week, in Orlando Florida. Since I have never been to one – even though I have made a career out of working with SAP – I try to read about the conference proceedings on-line, and hear from my colleagues that attended, what was said.
Well, everything is moving to the cloud*, and that includes the sprawling suites of business enterprise software that SAP has been so successful in selling worldwide to large companies since the 1990’s. The challenge for SAP is that its marketing team has to assure its customers that they can move their SAP software to the cloud at their own pace, and that their concerns about security and system performance and availability will be addressed.
SAP CEO Bill McDermott noted that ‘The most intractable CEO issue of our time is complexity’ and that ‘At SAP, we see a dream for a simpler world, for a simpler SAP, and for a simpler customer experience’. Also check out this recent front-page article from Bloomberg Businessweek that it callsThe Trouble with IBM as it relates to the ‘cloud’.
*What is the ‘cloud’? Let me borrow some words from an on-line post from PC magazine here : In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. The cloud is just a metaphor for the Internet. It goes back to the days of flowcharts and presentations that would represent the gigantic server-farm infrastructure of the Internet as nothing but a puffy, white cumulonimbus cloud, accepting connections and doling out information as it floats.
There is an entirely different “cloud” when it comes to business. Some businesses choose to implement Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), where the business subscribes to an application it accesses over the Internet. (Think Salesforce.com.) There’s also Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), where a business can create its own custom applications for use by all in the company. And don’t forget the mighty Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), where players like Amazon, Google, and Rackspace provide a backbone that can be “rented out” by other companies. (Think Netflix providing services to you because it’s a customer of the cloud-services at Amazon.)
I read this article in the New York Times with interest, since it mentions ‘accountants in the middle of their firm’s busy tax season’ and it also explained the success of the Costco wholesale store, which we I visited just this Saturday in Seattle.
From the New York Times article :The way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep. Here’s the rest of the article in the New York Times‘Why You Hate Work’
Results from the survey of the Energy Project (mentioned in the New York Times article) which was done in 2013.
Denver has four major taxi companies operating at the airport. A fifth one’s application was turned down by the authorities in 2008; the founders sued, the Colorado Supreme Court finally found in their favor, and now Mile High Cab will start operating as well. Then there are the new digital age taxi business start-ups called Uber and Lyft that operate very differently. Drivers bring their own cars, are ordered by one’s smartphone with all one’s payment information set up already, enabling the passenger to literally hop in and out of the car without ever needing to deal with cash or a credit card to pay the driver.
For now I still use the traditional taxi companies when I emerge out of the airport, mostly because there are always cabs available at the taxi stand right there. So the wait time for me is zero. Yes, on the back-end I have to pay with cash or credit card – not as smooth as it would have been with say, Uber, but that’s OK. If I had used Uber, I would have more trouble to deal with up front : wait for a little bit, and then be on the look-out for the driver/ his car’s number plate, or tell him exactly where I am.
Here’s the view from Brighton Blvd as my Freedom Cabs taxi approaches downtown Denver from the airport on the way in on Monday morning. My cab looks the same as the one in the picture ! When Freedom Cabs started in 1995, it was the first completely new Denver cab company allowed to launch in nearly fifty years. But now there is a new business model around with Uber and Lyft.
It’s a little after 10 am here in Denver and I made it into the office. I got to bed so late on Sunday night that I slept all the way here on the flight from Seattle. One of those flights where I go ‘Oh, are we landing already?’ as I wake up !
This is 4.55 am on Monday morning at gate A5 at Seattle-Tacome airport. The sun comes up very early this time of year! .. at 5.14 am. I’m sitting by the window, and on the wing in 12A.
We are into a long stretch of sunny and mild weather days here in Seattle, and Saturday was beautiful outside. We will still have to see what the summer weather brings, though. I read on Cliff Mass’s weather blog that we have had the wettest spring and early summer on record here in the Seattle area. We have now broken the previous rainfall record total for 1972. It didn’t feel that ‘wet’ to me, but I suppose with all the travel I do away from Seattle, that my perceptions of the local weather are skewed.
A lamp post poster I found Saturday in downtown Seattle for an upcoming bicycle festival. Mr Anteater is evidently enjoying his bike ride, with his tongue hanging out (or is he tired?). Anteater is actually a generic name for several species of these creatures, and this one looks like a tamandua. (I suspect a giant anteater would have trouble riding a bike, even in a cartoon).
I took a package to the post office on Friday and as usual inquired what ‘nice’ new stamps they might have. Yes, the ‘forever’* ones with the little birds on, I said. The mountain bluebird on one of them reminded me of an article I read recently in the New York Times of a writer whose mother was a member of the North American Bluebird Society (NABS). Their mission : ‘A non-profit education, conservation and research organization that promotes the recovery of bluebirds and other native cavity-nesting bird species in North America’. Sparrows are not native to North America, and said her mother: ‘think of them as feathered sharks’. Read the rest of it here : The Truth About Sparrows. It is somewhat shocking what some Bluebird Society members will do to save the bluebirds! But I guess it needs to be done.
*Note to United States Postal Services : Nothing is forever! .. not even your forever stamps! (Forever means these stamps are good for first class mail, no matter if there are future increases in the stamp prices. Hmm. I’m going to wait 20 years and send a letter with one of these stamps).
When I arrived at Seattle airport, I saw that the temperature in the house was a bearable 63°F (17 °C). But I like the temperature in the house a little warmer, at 68°F (20°C). And so I turned it on with my phone, and by the time I got home, it was nice and cozy inside.
It was a short stay in Denver this week with Monday’s Memorial Day holiday, but I was ready to go home on Thursday nonetheless. I had to put in long hours to support the second cycle of testing the system that we are building.
As for the new train terminal and 519-room hotel construction project at Denver airport – now estimated to cost $544 million – it is 9 percent over its original $500 million budget. When additional ‘related’ costs of $128 million are added, the project is 34% over budget. The project may very well impact other capital plans at the airport, says the Denver Post. Denver winds play a role in the airport’s runway needs. When strong winds blow from the west, which is a common occurrence, only two of the six runways may be used for take-offs and landings. A seventh runway would give the airport a third east-west option. A master plan in 2011 forecast that a seventh runway would be needed as soon as 2015 to avoid flight delays. The airport capital plan listed it as a “must do” project. A year later, the runway was delayed, but the airport still budgeted $36.7 million for 2018 to begin construction.
The outside of the hotel is taking shape. The hotel will be managed by Westin but be owned by the airport, and is scheduled to open some time in 2015. The train station will open towards the end of 2016.A model of the hotel and train terminal plaza. (The white canvas ‘Rocky Mountain’ roofs are in place already at the existing airport). Santiago Calatrava, a well-known Spanish architect, unveiled a $650 million design for the terminal redevelopment project in 2009. He eventually left the project after disagreements with the Denver team, and took $13 million in fees for his efforts.
Here’s the beautiful Granite Building here in lower downtown Denver. We had wood-fired pizza just across the street from it tonight.
From the Denver Post : It’s the four-story presence that looms over the southwest corner of Larimer and 15th streets, boasting a history that is appropriately rich, given that it was constructed stone by multicolored stone in 1882, just 24 years after gold prospectors founded Denver.
The Granite Building is also known as the Graham-Clayton Building. Built in 1882, it is 132 years old.
Check out these cool inventions I found in recent issues of Bloomberg Businessweek.
Check out this nifty little wireless ‘robotic’ printer.Spring for this DIY air filter by Gus Tate if you live in Beijing or Shanghai .. about $35 vs. an expensive $800 installation. It is equally effective at improving indoor air quality !Here’s inventor Frank Wang’s easy-as-pie-to-use-out-of-the-box drone, the Phantom 2 Vision +. Buy it on Amazon or at Best Buy for about $1,400. (Be careful where you fly it! Don’t get it shot down!).
It was Monday, Memorial Day of 2014, here in the United States today (a national holiday honoring fallen soldiers in the country’s wars); also the considered the ‘unofficial’ start of summer. We still have cool temperatures here in Seattle, so it always comes as a surprise to me to realize in May that the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere is less than a month away! Check out this infographic that explains the history of Memorial Day here in the USA that I found on-line.
It is a long weekend here in the USA with Memorial Day on Monday .. so I could relax and not start preparing for my weekly trip to Denver. We spent time on the Seattle Waterfront today, even though there was a steady drizzle all afternoon.
This is Pier 62/63, former site of the annual Summer Nights concerts at the waterfront, is now empty and lets visitors stroll out and look out over the water of Elliot Bay, or back at the Seattle skyline. The Norwegian Cruise Line cruise ship in the background was just setting sail for Alaska as we walked by there.
This ‘octopus’ bike rack is outside the Seattle Aquarium.This is Echo (a giant 46-ft tall sculpture created in 2011 by Jaume Plensa), and newly moved from New York City to Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture park. In Greek mythology, Echo offended the goddess Hera by keeping her engaged in conversation, thus preventing her from spying on one of Zeus’s lovers. As punishment, Echo was deprived of speech, except for the ability to repeat the last words of another person.The Seattle Great Wheel is a giant Ferris wheel at Pier 57, height 175′ (53 m). It’s been in operation since June 2012.Here we are inside and in the air and .. thinking deep thoughts? From left to right Gary, Bryan, Ken, Steve and Tony.And here is the bicycle parking ‘Squid’, by local artist Susan Robb. (Bicycles can be parked and locked on any of the tentacles).
My new fence is up! Yay! So this on the north side of my property. It’s a little higher than the old fence. And I have finally run out of excuses – like not enough sun – to put some ground cover thingies and other green in at the back, so I will have to get to that. The green bush was a lot bigger prior to the work on the fence, and will grow back to fill up some of the space as well.
Mr SQRL with his big fluffy tail seems unfazed by the new fence. The fence poses no obstacle, of course .. and he runs along on the few flat inches on the top edge.
Inside the Nest on my living room wall : an internet-connected, smart thermostat... and here is the outside. It says the temperature in the house is 69 °F (20.5 °C). The thermostat is set to 67 °F (19.5 °C), and will turn on the heat if the temperature falls below that. The thermostat can be programmed, or controlled from anywhere in the world with its wireless internet connection – or it can just be left to figure out on its own when to turn on the heat !The view from where I was sitting on my airplane at Denver airport waiting for us to get pushed back from the gate. The storm was evidently over with bright sunlight striking the airplanes.
I made it home on Thursday night, thankful that our flight out of Denver was not delayed by the weather.
On Friday my contractors Bryan and Paul completed the installation of a new fence on the north side of my property, as well as installing a ‘Nest’ internet-connected, smart thermostat inside the house for me. The device has a very elegant look, and can be controlled from anywhere with my smart phone. (Or it can just be left to ‘learn’ one’s typical daily and weekly schedule with its built-in activity sensors).
Yes, my old Honeywell thermostat was programmable, but there are holidays, daylight savings-time shifts, and simply times when one comes home ‘unexpectedly’ (vis-à-vis the programmed thermostat schedule). With remote access and control to it, I can warm up my house ahead of time so that I don’t step out of the taxi cab and into an icebox.
The Yahoo Weather app on my phone lit up every now and again with flashing clouds and a ‘lightning bolt’. (63 *F is 17*C).I’m just stepping out of my little Prius Metro Taxi. it was still raining very hard .. look closely at the road surface to see the rain coming down.
There were more warnings of tornadoes in the Denver metro area today, and an hour later, that was followed by a severe thunderstorm with lightning and hail just as I was heading out to the airport.
(Hail damaged six Frontier Airlines aircraft at Denver International Airport on Wednesday, forcing them to cancel some 16 flights. Wow. I wonder how hard it is to fix a fuselage or wing surface with hail dents in. Surely a hair dryer or letting it stand in the sun will NOT do?).
The little Prius taxi cab I was in took quite a pummeling from the cats-and-dogs-coming-down kind of rain, with some hail mixed in as well .. but thankfully none that would damage an aircraft !
Eek! Take shelter NOW! It is very rare for Denver to get tornadoes, though. Today six were spotted in the metro area, but there was no major damage anywhere.The Beaux Arts–style Union Station depot, built in 1914, is being restored and converted—by Denver firms Tryba Architects and JG Johnson Architects—into a 112-room boutique hotel with shops, offices, and restaurants, opening in July. The lettering below the clock says ‘Travel by Train’.This is the Ice House building at 18th and Wynkoop Street. Beginning in 1903, it was a refrigeration warehouse first for Littleton Creamery, then the Beatrice Creamery. Butter, cheese, cream and dairy supplies were stored here from 1903 to 1979. Today its interior has loft apartments on the upper floor, a tavern and a Brazilian steakhouse.
We had some mild excitement this afternoon in the office when severaI of us got tornado alerts on our phones from the National Weather Service, and an announcement by the building management. So we moved to the elevators and stairwells for 30 mins or so, until the coast (the Denver plains?) was clear.
Later on I walked down to Union Station to check on its remodeling progress. The work on it still needs a few more months, though, and I could only admire the exterior.
We had a team dinner tonight, and managed to steer clear of discussing work – for the most part. We all have travel stories and consulting ‘war’ stories to tell. We even retold – for those that did not hear it – one of the best ones, of the time one of our colleagues from Germany managed to clear everyone out of an entire Frankfurt Airport concourse in a classic cheese bomb incident. (Here is a similar story I found on the website Mother Jones, where I borrowed the phrase from : cheese bomb incident). He had bought a soft flavorful cheese in Russia, and at Frankfurt airport was questioned for the third time during his trip back about the suspicious substance in his carry-on luggage. ‘Open your luggage’ please, said the security personnel. Fed up, grumpy and probably feeling that’s he is German and should be trusted by his fellow citizens, he announced ‘Why should I? There is a bomb inside’. Whoah. Of course that triggered a major security alert, and everyone had to leave until the cheese was inspected properly. (Cheese not only looks like plastic explosives, some cheeses have vapors similar to the signature vapors of explosives). I don’t think our colleague spent time in a German jail, but he got in some serious trouble, alright.
The Denver clock tower on 16th Street was lit up in blue (violet?) tonight. The restaurant where we had dinner was just a block away from it.
I made it out to Denver with my usual early morning flight. I went for a walk tonight after dinner, to the Denver City Hall – forgetting that I have been wanting to go and check out the recently remodeled Union Station (train station) here in downtown. So I will have to do that tomorrow or Wednesday.
Denver City Hall at dusk on Monday night. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find out why the central rotunda is lit up in red.
