I had forgotten how unpleasant the flight to England could be. I swear that American has removed another inch of legroom in coach (although business class now has “lay flat” beds), or maybe it was because the seat next to me had a person in it (which is rare on this flight), but I was pretty uncomfortable. The fact that the video service was unavailable was a pain too.

But we managed.

We landed at Terminal 3 in Heathrow. I thought since the service was new that it would be Terminal 5, but I assume that BA has taken all of those gates and thus American was able to get one of their older ones. It literally took less than 10 minutes for David and I to get through customs and to get our bags (I guess that getting our bags is a plus about Terminal 3). Martin met us at the airport and drove us to his house in Lyndhurst.

Lyndhurst is in the “New Forest,” and since it was founded in 1066 by William the Conquerer, “new” is a relative term. It’s a delightful place, and a great way to get acclimated to England.

We wandered around the village for a bit, and visited the grave of Alice Liddell, the “Alice” of Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland“. We also stopped by one of the two automobile dealerships in town, this one specializing in Ferrari and Maserati. I haven’t decided which one I plan to buy when OpenNMS becomes a large company with hundreds of millions in revenue (grin). We also stopped by a tea shop called the “Pages of Lyndhurst” where I tasted “scrumpy” for the first time. It’s a carbonated cider-like beverage made from apples.

Then we had time for a light lunch and even though I’d been downing copious amounts of tea it was time for a nap.

That evening (after watching Doctor Who) we went down the road to Bank and The Oak. I really like this pub and the combination of great company, good food and nice beer made for a perfect evening. Along with Martin and his wife Susan, we were joined by their son Tom, Bob Potter and his fiancé Wendy, and Craig Gallen (OGP). Bob and Martin both work at Arqiva, which is a large communications company in the UK that we work with (and is how I met Martin in the first place).

Tom, Bob, Wendy, Me, David, Martin, Sue and Craig

We watched a little television when we got back – a show called “Have I Got News for You“. It was sort of a televised version of “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me“. The host, Bill Bailey, reminded me a lot of Chris Dibona. Then it was time for bed.

Separated at Birth? Bill Bailey and Chris Dibona
Images yoinked from the web

I am at the edge of “West Texas” in San Angelo in preparation for tomorrow’s Open Source Symposium. I’ve never been to this part of Texas before. It was kinda fun to fly into the airport (SJT) which only has two gates, and I’ll find out on Sunday how well the free wireless works.

I didn’t know it until well after I was asked to speak that Eric Evans (OGP) was also going to be here doing a talk on Mercurial. He’s in the top secret projects section of Rackspace these days so I don’t get to work with him as much as I used to (it is hard to believe that we’ve know each other through OpenNMS for over six years now).

We hit a local Tex-Mex place for dinner, and they had Shiner on draft, which is always a good reason to visit Texas. I’ll update more tomorrow after the Symposium.

I’m currently writing this from my hotel room in Portland, Oregon. I like this part of the country, and if I didn’t already live in God’s Own Earth I would consider moving here.

I like the climate, the geography and especially the people. I’m here to visit with New Edge Networks (across the river in Vancouver, Washington), who have been using OpenNMS for a long time now. They are collecting data on over 82,000 network interfaces, which amounts to about one million data points every 5 minutes.

And they are doing it on OpenNMS 1.2.

The biggest complaint I hear about OpenNMS is the learning curve. While OpenNMS works for some people right out of the box, we designed it to be an extremely flexible tool, so it is more like a table saw than a toaster. In this case it provides a lot of value that would be hard to duplicate even with expensive commercial products.

I’m here to work on the migration from OpenNMS 1.2 to OpenNMS 1.6 (to be released soon). This will add even more performance and better integration than the existing system, so it will scale as their business grows.

Since I work in support quite a bit, it is always nice to see the positive side of the work we do. And being able to get out and share a pint or three is fun, too. (grin)

Clockwise: Jason, Scott, Me, Robyne, Ruth, James and Tina

It’s been something like 7 weeks since I’ve been in an airport. We’ve grown to the point where the travel can be spread out a lot better among the team so I get to sleep in my own bed more frequently, but a long stay at home like this is rare for me. Things will definitely change over the next couple of months, though.

Of course, the omens are not good for travel this week. First, American Airlines is having issues with its MD-80 fleet (the type of plane I am almost always using). Second, my laptop died. And yesterday my Dad fell off the roof and broke his leg in two places (he was trying to retrieve my nephew’s helicopter toy that managed to land up there).

While I sit at DFW he’s in surgery to place some pins that should help the break heal. He should be fine but I don’t expect him to climb a ladder again any time soon.

I might have cancelled this trip but for the fact that I have to visit one of our largest clients next week. My sister is helping mom with everything, and I should be able to see him when I get back.

Despite all of this, I’m really looking forward to LugRadio. We plan to have a real informal booth for the exhibition, and there will be some OpenNMS swag in the “nutsack” bags each attendee receives. I am looking forward to meeting the type of people who attend such a conference, as it is shows like this and SCaLE that are starting to represent the user community versus the bigger business shows like LinuxWorld.

Of course, with my luck this week we’ll have an earthquake.

I’m always intrigued with marketing. Not the usual “My Dad is bigger than your Dad” style that is so common in most industries, but the serious, hardcore, customer experience efforts of, say, Apple.

I use a Mac because there aren’t enough hours in a day for me to deal with a Linux desktop (although things are getting much, much better in that area), and the combination of stuff that “just works” combined with open source underpinnings is an unbeatable combination for me. But as I go and pay a premium for hardware the purchase is actually enjoyable due in large part to the way Apple provides an experience: from the clean and informative web site, ease of ordering, packaging, hardware and software design to their elegant and minimalist retail stores. It’s fun to buy Apple stuff, and it helps overcome the sticker shock.

This week I’m in Chicago working with a client. We have a rather large number of clients in Chicago due to the financial markets here. Many of these firms exist solely to make money for the firm’s owners, and so there is a bit of an informal yet high energy vibe at these places due in part to the lack of external customers. In every case there is a lot of technology being employed, and it is so highly customized that OpenNMS makes a perfect fit as a monitoring solution since it can be highly customized as well.

Of course, I never get to come to Chicago when it is nice outside. It’s usually in winter and it is incredibly cold, snowing or both. When deciding on a hotel, I choose the W since it was closest to the office.

I’m not cool enough to stay at the W.

Who ever came up with the concept of this hotel was a design junky. The hotel itself is rather old, but it has been fitted with modern furniture and funky art and lighting.

To my 42 year old eyes the average age of the staff is around 15. They are so friendly and outgoing that it borders on cultish. Seriously, I’ve seen less interest in my well-being from missionaries.

The “W” letter theme is everywhere. The catch phrase from the staff is “Whatever/Whenever” in response to your needs. There is a big “Welcome” mat as you enter the lobby. There is a kaleidoscope on the desk in the room that says “Wish”.

There were plums and fancy water.

There is a fully stocked minibar with the usual drinks and snacks, but there is also clothing (shirt, short pants and a hat), Clif Bars, a W music CD, an “Ouch” First Aid kit and a “4 Two Intimacy Kit” (don’t ask).

Now, the really strange thing happened on Day 2. When I checked in there were three magazines on a rack in the room: a fashion rag and two magazines from the Chicago Social scene. When I came in the next day, the fashion magazine had been replaced by Wired. So I don’t know if they were just keeping with the “W” theme, or if they just changed it out ’cause I’m male or, and this is the scary part, did they have some kind of deep client profile system that picked out I was in tech and might like such a thing.

I don’t ask much from a hotel: a clean, comfortable room with hot water and decent broadband. I like to be pretty much ignored outside of check in and check out. So all this attention is a little uncomfortable. Heck, the week before I arrived they called to see if I needed anything special (I had ’em put a non-minibar fridge in the room).

Now, at the OpenNMS Group we try to culture a unique customer experience. We’re laid back. We have goofy names for our products. We have no full time sales people. We tell people what things cost. And I am always looking for ways to improve it.

But there can be too much over-engineering of that experience. While I won’t say I’m not ever staying in another W Hotel, in my case the “W” word that comes to mind is Weird.