Two weeks ago was a whirlwind. I thought I'd catch up last week and blog about it, but it was so taxing that my fatigue combined with three germ monsters at home resulted in a severe cold that knocked me out.

The 8th

4:28am Amtrak BWI to NYP. I had the privilege and honor of visiting Club 101 in New York, NY to speak to the New York CTO Group. I spoke on the topics of (you guessed it) scalability and performance in Internet applications. I did my best to integrate some thoughts on cloud computing into the discussion. As is typical with a short time frame and a first presentation -- I have a lot of things I'd change. For one, I believe I came across as far too negative toward cloud computing. I considered the amount of published hype around cloud computing and I wanted to provide a reality check. Many thinks to Geir Magnusson and Igor Shindel. This was a truly wonderful experience and I can only hope that the audience was as impressed with me as I was with them.

The 9th

6:50am flight from BWI to BUF. I went on-site with Ciprian to a client in Buffalo. Various documents prevent me from discussing any details. Suffice it to say, it is an interesting problem and truly challenging technical and business problem solving on a day-to-day basis. The point? I leave there tired. Heading back two days this coming week.

The 10th through the 12th

2:30pm Amtrak from BWI to NYP. Jason Dixon and I went to NYCBSDCON. I had a speaking engagement on Sunday morning to reveal (first public presentation of) Reconnoiter. I think it went really well. I enjoyed meeting a lot of new people with different perspectives. It was an interesting crowd and a refreshing experience. Being as tired as I was and around so many chain smokers made me ill on Sunday -- that was no fun.

Last week.

I was hoping I could catch up on things last week. I'm preparing for a lot of action on the Buffalo front, a new person is starting (tomorrow) that will head up OmniTI's internal accounting and I toured many office spaces in search of new offices for the ever growing OmniTI. Running OmniTI takes pretty much all of my time away from home. I need to learn that adding more things just hurts.

Murphy certainly had his sights on me. I promised my wife I'd take a day of much needed vacation on Friday. I managed to get sick on Thursday which climaxed on Saturday morning. On top of that, I did my business real-estate tour on Friday morning -- my sick vacation day. I think I need a do-over.

Last night, I finally started to feel better. I'm sure the bottle of (local) La Grange Norton red wine and the outdoor fire (thanks Katherine!) helped a lot.

Oh yeah... In two weeks I'll be in New Orleans at ApacheCon! I hope to see you there!