Goodbye 2008

Few more hours and 2008 is soon over. 2008 was an interesting year for a lot of reasons, but in general hoping that 2009 turns out to be better than 2008 was.

Financially hoping that we at least stop hemorrhaging value in things like IRAs, 529s, home equity, etc. Did everything right but the portfolio is not what it was at the start of the year.

Will see how the career side shapes up - will see what happens in the next few weeks regarding kangaroo's regulatory hurdles.

Wrapping up the year

It's that time of the year, wrapping up all sorts of stuff so can start off 'fresh' as of January. Given we are not live yet, and due to the way the holiday calendar looks we are closing down the office for two weeks. We've been all out trying to get stuff working, I know everyone in the office will be happy to have some down time. I'll still have stuff to do, but all of it can be done remotely.

I'm back in the states for two weeks with the family, looking forward to having more than a few days of time with everyone given I've been gone as much as I have been.

Time, Time, Time

I've been meaning to keep up with this more but I'll give myself a FAIL. Have all good reasons but in the end I've been running on overdrive for the last two months

At work we continue to work on delivering a service. We had a bunch of news last week about the competition commission issues. I'm most certainly not in a position to comment on this, about all I can say is I wish the process was over so we can move on in what ever fashion we can.

In the mean time I'm out looking at London private schools, coming from public school in the states - let me just say OUCH ££££££££££ and then lets add some more ££££££ to the mix

I've been flying back and forth to the states, was back for a week for Thanksgiving and I'm back again for two weeks for the holidays. I'm getting pretty good at adjusting in advance for the jet lag which really does help. Somehow though I'm not going to make platinum on American this year - odd with all the flights I've done but seems my Delta and BA flights have done me in

Interesting week

Well it's been an interesting week at the office as my ceo resigned last weekend. I did manage to get a bit of press out of it myself.

Time will tell what this really means. I continue to focus on delivering an actual product, we've been unable to get anything out the door for lots of reasons. I can't do anything about any of it so best to just let things sort themselves out and go from there

I just can't think about the fact that the pound is at a rather low mark (1.48 today against the dollar) and I earn in pounds. Good thing I don't have to transfer funds back to pay US expenses right now.

hope for the future?

For today it's a great day to be a US citizen - we've sent a message that the American Dream is really alive and you need not be a wasp to get to the top. To not admit we've just put real hope into a lot of Americans is to undermine just how historical this is

The cynic side of me says somehow politics as usual will return. As an independent who has voted both republican and democratic in past years lets hope President-Elect really does move to the strong center, brings real fiscal responsibility back (as our republican administration has failed miserably at these last eight years) and does the right thing for the people. I'll gladly pay more taxes for that

It matters: As Americans we've really never been about nation building, lets just go back to having respect of each other internally and externally. The idiots of this world will continue to harm us regardless, lets live the way we want to and not let others dictate how we live

Week Four in London

I've been swamped the last few weeks and have been bad on updates. Had promised to myself I'd do more updates but I've been busy with work so twittering is about all I've had time to do.

My observations of London so far:

1. I get why there are the 'look right/look left' painted on the ground in tourist areas, but why do they exist on my street corner? No tourist is going to step off the road the wrong way here
2. The circle tube line is - well - as a friend at CBS likes to say, it has "square wheels"
3. The weather is strange. Sunny and somewhat warm to rainy and darn cold on the same day. I've had the fortune of being in London in October with snow coming down - first time in over 70 years and I was here. Feeling a bit like poester with nyc disasters ;-)
4. Why would one order a 'half pint' of ale? Brings to mind little house on the prairie.

Fair enough, that's all being petty so lets move on. In all honesty I don't yet feel like I've done anything but acclimate to the time zone. Work right now is not that different from the states and my family is not here (though they came over last weekend) so it feels more like an extended business trip.

That said over time I'm sure it will dawn on me that it's really a different country, I've been warned by others to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking things really are the same - so I try to keep the mind open.

I've started the process of looking for schools, anyone have suggestions on things to look for please advise as I've got to get this taken care of somewhat soon. Will be a driver on where we end up living

In London

I've gotten to London and start in the office in the morning. Stayed in the Hilton near my flat while I moved items back and forth. At this hour I've got everything over and fairly well setup. Made a bunch of runs to the shops nearby, trick on how expensive London is - just don't convert into dollars ;-)

Nice that I already had banking setup prior, debit and credit cards both work after a few calls to the bank over the last few days. Still can't make some online purchases due to addresses not matching. Have to deal with that.

I have to find a way to make TV work, I've got BBC and other freeview channels working but I can't seem to get ITV and Channel 4 to work. A bit of an issue given it's important I have access to them given my company's ownership. I'll deal with that this week. Yes, I did pay the TV license fee.

The other thing I have to deal with is getting a real internet connection, seems with out a prior UK address this may be a bit of a trick. Will be making calls in the morning if I've time.

For reference on where I'm staying, here is the google map

New Position - "UK VOD LLP"

I'm able to say where I'm heading - I'm the new CTO for a company currently known as 'UK VOD, LLP" which is a joint venture between the BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 to supply VOD content to the UK market

There are some rather non-trivial regulatory issues with the company which makes this position just a wee bit risky, all of which are summarized here.

This will either be a great thing for me or my shortest career to date. I can't worry too much about the issues at hand and will let the legal groups figure it out and hope for the best. In the mean time I've got a product to help build and I'm looking forward to getting into it come Monday.

My first meetings are ironically on the west coast so I do not arrive in London until next weekend.

Leaving CBS

After 3,057 days (8 years, 4 months and 12 days to be exact, but who's counting...) today is my last day at CBS.

It's been an intersting run. Though my title remained largely the same, I've had about as many jobs here as I've had years of service. Recalling back to the summer of 2000 with the first Survivor series I would never have guessed I would still be here in 2008, but you just go with the flow.

Leaving CBS in a completely different place than when I started, it's a real business now and with the CNET merger promises to be a much larger one. Certainly, I can not take credit for where we are, though I'd like to think I played at least a small role.

For all CTOs there comes a time where you've done all you can do and it's time for new challenges. It is good to leave at the right time both personally and professionally.

I'd like to thank everyone I've worked for and with over the years as I've learned a lot.

For those of you that worked in my varous areas: I'd especially like to thank you as you made me look good. I just played the role of the train conductor on the "small screen".

What's up next?

I'll be public with what I'm doing next in a few weeks, but what I can say right now is that I am heading to London.

Should be interesting living on the other side of the pond. Marina and the kids are staying in the US for now due to the way things came about. Will be back and forth a lot but such is life...

Staff with too much time on their hands

I've worked with some interesting folks at CBS over the last 8+ years, some of whom apparently have too much time on their hands.

Jason Ainspan, who always has a habit of finding the most 'unique' pictures and/or youtube clips to just about every situation put the following two things together for me. Best to start with this lead in here - I'm being played by Alex Baldwin and Jason is played by Affleck

This flash file in particular is, well, you have to see it yourself. I can not imagine listening to myself in the various places he found me speaking, let alone cutting the audio clips of all these words.

Back from Amsterdam

We had a good week in/around Amsterdam and returned yesterday. Was strange not being with the twins for a week, they were very happy to see us when we got back. As is usual on return from Europe, went to sleep early and got up early. Hopefully back on US time tomorrow. Somehow it seems easier coming back?

Granted, that could be due to the fact that it's easier to sleep in one's own bed. Could also be due to the fact we didn't go out last night to a convention party.

Amsterdam

Marina and I arrived this morning in Amsterdam. I'm attending IBC and taking care of a few things. We've never been here before so got Marina's parents to watch the kids and we came alone. First trip for the two of us sans children in a long time.

Few days in Amsterdam, then heading to Rotterdam and the Hague and then return to New York on Thursday

Been silent lately

A bunch of stuff has been going on which I've not been able to go public on just yet. Will be able to in the coming weeks and then will be picking this up again on a regular basis

Yellowstone - July 2008

We got back from Yellowstone/Big Sky last Monday. Had a good 9 day vacation and finally caught up on sleep over the weekend and can post this. The agenda was:

Saturday - arrived and drove to Lake Yellowstone Hotel
Sunday

• Ranch' Dinner via horse buggy short distance into the park
• Stayed at Mammoth Hot springs

Monday/Tue/Wed

• Big Sky Montana: water rafting, horseback riding, pool for the kids.
• Interesting being in a ski resort off season. Place is empty.
• Took lift to the top and walked down

Thursday

• Caught up with my parents and my sister Deb along with my two nieces
• Stayed at the Old Yellowstone Snow Lodge

Friday/Saturday

• My other sister Laura, her husband and Deb's husband drove up from Denver
• They all stated at a campground, we stayed nearby at the Jackson Lake Lodge in the Grand Teatons

Sunday - returned on a long series of flights

Photos can be found here

Airplane Travel enjoyment

Got back from vacation in Yellowstone last Monday and somehow lost all of last week to 'stuff'.

I think it had to do with loosing the sleep at the start of the week due to Delta. Somehow we left on time out of Jackson Hole, then had a 1 hour connection in Salt Lake that also left on time. Headed to Cincinnati for another 1 hour layover and then got hosed on a 2+ hour delay while they found a crew for the plane that was sitting at the gate the entire time. By the time we got home and to sleep it was 230am and I had to get up at 6am to head into the office.

As to why we would have booked a return with 3 segments - we did not. Thanks to all the cancellations this was how Delta rebooked us. All that said, somehow we landed at LaGuardia fine and our bags all made it through the connections.

That said - I was sitting next to two ~19 year olds on the flight from Salt Lake -> Cincinnati who were all cheerful about traveling. He stated he did not travel much at all, and she was heading out on her first business trip and was looking forward to the hotel and the expense report.

I found myself just shutting up and listening. I don't mind the trips, but wonder when in the 1.4M miles I've got with American I lost the enjoyment of it all...

Heading off for a week

Heading to Yellowstone for the next week, should be a good trip.

The Jamaica trip a few weeks back was one of those last minute trips due to excess vacation time I had to use by the end of June. This vacation is our 'real' vacation of this year that we actually planned ahead for.

Hoping Delta does not completely mess us up. American on the last flights was less than great. Actually spoke to someone this morning that was in Jamaica the week after we were and had pretty much the same experience. Except he was in the airport far longer than we were

Moved email

Few years ago gave up on running email at home except for forwarding to gmail/yahoo accounts. As of last night finally bit the bullet and retired the old forwarding setup and just setup google apps account for kortekaas.com.

Pretty cool, worked quickly.

The only thing I really don't understand is one can't have a domain hosted with google apps that points to an existing gmail account? I ended up having to pull all the data out of the 'old' gmail account via pop to the new one. Then put a forward on the gmail account over to my personal account.

All works, except these pitas
- lost tags and chat contacts
- 2x the storage at google given I didn't delete old data out of paranoia
- still have to have the gmail account setup as a forward as have used both over the years
- still have to have the gmail account for non-apps services (analytics, reader, photos, etc).

Jamaica Trip Over *sigh*

We've gotten back from our last-minute Jamaica Trip. Had a bunch of last year's vacation time that expired on June 30th so took the last week off, Marina found out we could actually use some of the ungodly number of frequent flier miles and get free airfare.

Stayed at the Half Moon resort (halfmoon.com), and we had a great time. The fact that it was off season was, IMHO, a good thing in that the place was fairly empty. No worries about dining reservations, space at the pool, etc. Granted, it was June so hurricane season isn't as much of a worry as it would be in August.

Other than finding out the hard way that the American flight we were on has a historical record of being on time only 27% of the time that is... Turns out our 4pm flight ended up departing at close to 2am the next morning. But what's 10 hours between friends right ;-) Thankfully the hotel let us stay the extra hours in the room, otherwise we would have been stuck

Pics can be found here

Course going back to work on Monday is going to be painful. Our "real" vacation this summer is actually in a few weeks to Yellowstone, so the kids are excited we are traveling around

Power Outage

Lost power yesterday afternoon at home, still down as of now, some 18 hours later. Forget how much is tied to electricity these days, and how much we count on that to keep the kids busy.

First time in 2+ years that I actually spun up the generator for more than it's monthly power up. Found out that my reworking of the panels a few years back worked like a charm, but I missed too many lighting circuits. Guess it's good that it worked.

Would not have guessed this would have been in early summer and not the middle of winter, which is why I really have the generator in the first place.

How Software is Built

I talked recently with the guys that are running 'How Software is Built'. Interesting set of topics they have been talking about with a number of technology folks - take a look at my interview here

Adobe Flash

God knows I've used Windows Media for a long time - but over the last 2 weeks I've been really wondering if the announcement that Adobe made opening up the Flash format and removing licensing costs for devices is a really big deal:

From: Adobe
- Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
- Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
- Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
- Removing licensing fees - making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

The more I've thought about this the bigger I think this is in just 'ending' the format war we've had over the years. For Microsoft I wonder if Silverlight is coming to market simply two years too late?

Once the CE device users start to use this given the momentum that Flash already has.

Granted, Adobe needs to do a lot on the delivery side as FMS media server, to be polite, needs some work.

If I publish this...

Will anyone show up?