|
Friday, January 5, 2007
Guts, so to speak 
| | I've been sick and skiing. After we got here, settled into our little hotel room on Main Street in Park City, we went out for a fabulous meal at the remarkably expensive Mahso (my wife calculated the price-per-scallop of one $48 entre at >$15 per scallop). Not long after that the lower digestive crisis that had been brewing for the previous 24 hours fully developed, and I was up all night with gas pains and other miseries. The work I wanted to get done didn't happen, before we spent the next morning looking for a ski area that had openings for our 10-year-old rookie skier. |
| | We found one at The Canyons. I expected that we'd send him off to learn his new skills while I sat out the day and caught up on stuff; but it turned out that the best way to help the kid out was to take a parallel class myself. This would also get discounts for the kid. So I heard myself saying yes, even as my guts (literally) said no. |
| | Bear in mind that, although I love to ski, I've actually gone skiing maybe a total of 25 days in my life. I started at 43, and spread those days widely over the 17 years that have followed. I am still, technically, green. As well as fat (again) and out of shape. |
| | I got there early, and the instructor told me to warm up by taking a quick run on the nearby bunny slope. So I got on the wrong lift, went to the top of the mountain, and faced a choice of long blue (intermediate) runs. To my delight and amazement, I flew down the mountain in just a few minutes and had a great time. The instructor turned out to be a 78 year old guy with kids my age. He was from Brooklyn and talked about "keepin' ya weight fowad" and "lettin' ya skis do the woik" making "toins". |
| | Last night I went to bed early with chills and leg cramps. This morning I'm up early (typing this in the dark) getting woik out of the way before heading up there with the kid four our next lessons. |
| | Should be fun. Six inches of powder fell while we were up there yesterday, and another six by midnight. It'll be a chore just getting over there. After which it'll be zero degrees up on the mountain. Oy. |
| | By the way, there is no working Internet here at the hotel. No wi-fi and no Ethernet jack. For the first time since I got it, EvDO has been truly worthwhile. My wife isn't skiing and needs to get work done, and EvDO does the job. And I'm using it here now too. We're getting 556kbps down and 114kbps up. Not the best in the world, but good enough. |
Ringing Dell's bell
| | Dell may never get Jeff Jarvis back, but they might stem the tide of ill will (it goes way beyond "bad PR") with this blog. And posts like this one. |
VRM roundup
| | On the second point, one of the reasons I think the time is right for VRM is that there is very likely already a pile of technologies and practices laying around that simply need to be put together in new and useful ways. OPML, RSS, XML, XRI/XDI, XMPP and the growing pile of user-centric identity technologies are a few that come to mind. |
| | To me VRM is about equipping customers with tools for independence and engagement. As Chris points out, some of those are already there, waiting for repurosing. |
| | Thought: In a democracy, VRM should also serve candidate and elected representative relationship management too. That comes to mind after reading this. |
Copyright 2009 The Doc Searls Weblog
|
