Robin Reports

Australia Day Party

2009-01-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

For anyone who is (or will be) in Southern California in 3 weeks...

January 25th in the US corresponds to Australia Day (actually a day later Down Under) so we'll be celebrating in our home with a selection of fine South Australian wine, some tasty food, and lots of good cheer.

So how do Australians celebrate with their family and friends? Try to translate this:

Pop over and chuck a few snags & prawns on the barbie, knock a few coldies down, bring some softies for the nippers, park your bum and have a natter, it will be a ripper of a day.

Basically, this means, "Come over and enjoy a BBQ, have some drinks and soda pop for the kids, and stay awhile for a chat."

If you have a favorite drink, feel free to bring that as well. If you're a wine drinker, see if you can find an interesting Australian wine to contribute.

So what's "Australia Day", you ask?

That was the day in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and the first governor of New South Wales, arrived at Sydney Cove. The raising of the Union Jack (British flag) symbolized British sovereignty over what eventually became Australia. In 1901, Australia established its own parliament, becoming somewhat independent of British rule, and decided to keep the same date to celebrate that event. (So it's sort of like Independence Day.)

Nowadays, Australia Day is a time for people to get together and celebrate, with various festivities and sporting events all around the country. For more information, visit http://www.australiaday.org.au

The details:
Sunday, January 25th, any time between 12 noon and 8pm.
4618 Saloma Avenue, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Phone 323-855-7814

Please add a comment to let me know if you're attending. I hope to see you here!

Ovation Awards

2008-11-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

Once again, Vicky Jo and I assisted at the Ovation Awards last night. Our role was to wait backstage and escort the winners to their photo session and interview. We got to meet some interesting people...

Neil Patrick Harris

Zachary Quinto

The IBM office in Sao Paulo, Brazil

2008-09-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

Quite a modern building, with an employee lounge at the back of the building. In this lounge, they have a gallery of old IBM equipment, including an IBM 1401 computer.

I remember it was March, 1968, when I wrote my first computer program (in Fortran) and it was compiled on a 1401.

In those days, I filled out my code in pencil on pre-lined "coding sheets" and they were sent off to the data centre for card-punching and processing. About a week later, the resulting report would be sent back.

Any bugs or typos were corrected on the coding sheets, and they were submitted again. Can you imagine waiting a week between successive attempts to make a program run?

What's interesting is that, up until today, I'd never seen a real 1401 -- just pictures. So it was quite a connection to my past!

The employee lounge here also has a piano and guitar that anyone who's interested can play. Every lunchtime, there's beautiful music wafting through the whole floor as people settle down to play a solo or duet. It's very charming!

Sao Paulo, Brazil

2008-09-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Gloomy Sunday -- drizzling rain -- cold and damp. My first impressions are that Sao Paulo has a European feel to it -- a bit like the seedier parts of Paris, but with lots of high-rise buildings. After a well-deserved nap, I ventured out to a nearby monastery, which boasts the largest pipe organ outside Europe, and where they perform Mass with Gregorian chants several times a week.

The original monastery was built in the 16th century, and has been renovated and/or rebuilt several times since then. The current building was constructed in the 1920s and is supposed to be somewhat faithful to the original.

So I attended the Mass and it was a wonderful experience! The combination of the organ and the combined voices chanting Gregorian-style was very moving. I came away feeling spiritually refreshed.

Magic in action

2008-09-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

At a recent Share Conference, I had the opportunity to demonstrate a couple of my magic tricks.

One was an example of mind-reading. I had a guy think of a card and I named it for him!

Another was where I got two people to select cards at random from two different decks. They chose the same card!

(Sorry the video is incomplete -- the camera ran out of memory space...)

Extraverted Thinking example

2008-01-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

So here's something I enjoy...

Sometimes, when I'm travelling on business, I like to use frequent flyer points to bring my wife with me.

But there's a catch -- my employer has an online travel booking system that only allows certain flights on certain routes, and frequent flyer redemptions are limited to certain flights by the airline. Getting them to match is a challenge, but one I enjoy.

So here's what typically happens... I'll hunker down and open half a dozen browser windows -- one for my employer's travel system, and one each for the frequent flyer redemption page of each airline. And now the fun begins!

First, I book flights through the company system, with a 4-hour travel window. This gives me a list of approved flights, usually with 2 different airlines. Next, I visit each of these airlines' websites and see if there are FF redemption seats to be had on those flights.

Now, all of this has to happen quickly, because the company travel system has a 5-minute timeout. So I need to cross-check very quickly. It's rare that I find a match first time, so I'm usually flipping back and forth, adding dummy hotel bookings to the company system to keep the session alive, while exploring FF seat availability on the airlines' sites.

Often, I find that the only FF seats available are a day earlier or later, so then I have to consider the cost of accommodation. My company will only pay for nights directly related to the work I'm doing -- I'm responsible for any extras.

So if I find a flight match that requires an extra hotel night, I next crank up the different hotel chains frequent stayer programs and see how many points it will cost me to stay that extra night.

Now, all this time, I may have put a "hold" on my paid flight with my employer, as well as the FF redemptions with 2 or 3 airlines. All of these systems have timeouts -- some only a few minutes.

Eventually, I find a combination that works, so I confirm the FF redemption first before confirming the company booking. Why? Because experience has shown that sometimes buying a seat on a flight will take away the availability of FF redemption seats on that same flight.

Once it's all confirmed, I do the finishing touch -- seat allocations. Again, I log on with two separate windows and allocate a window seat for me and an aisle seat for my wife. People tend to avoid the middle seat, so we often end up with 3 seats to ourselves.

Even seat allocation can be problematic. Since I'm a gold or platinum member with all the airlines, they like to give me premium seating. But since my wife's booking is done with FF redemption, it's usually economy with no perks. Sometimes there's an opportunity to use extra points or pay a small fee to upgrade her to match my premium seating, but more often, I have to override the system upgrade for me so I can sit with her.

It's also worth pointing out that Te for an INTJ represents the "Good Parent" archetype, and it's easy to see from this example how I'm "parenting" my wife using this function.

My First Blog Post

2006-11-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

Look how easy it is to do this. I can do this. I can add pictures and there are all kinds of formatting tools. Wow.

As soon as you "publish," it will send a copy of the post (formatted html) to the email address you designate. (So keep it a draft until then.)

When you publish, you can forward the completely formatted email to whomever you wish! Woohoo!

Mwuhhh!