jfunson.net Blog

Well! We helped Dee celebrate his 40th birthday by indulging in a little bit of spa treatments. We stayed at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess.

Oy – I’m not looking forward to my Atlanta trip now. I’ve bumped into a few people here at work who have lived there for a bit of time, and they say it’s really dysfunctional, from a social point of view. In spite of it trying to be a cosmopolitan city, it is still very insular in its thinking, from what I understand.

For example, they said the Olympics was such a big joke if you were there. One of the folks who I chatted w/ sad that a famous news commentator remarked “These were good games” as opposed to “These were the best games.” This commentator only said it about Atlanta in all the years that he’s been covering the Olympics. Talk about a diss!
Dee and Leonie even told me their experiences – it wasn’t the best. Think promdi but w/ a US context – redneck hicks, small world thinking.

OK – I think I’m setting the bar lower now. We’ll see when I get back…

Ah, it’s great when I can leverage business trips to visit friends and family all over! In this particular situation, it was the Agile 2006 conference, held in Minneapolis, MN. I used this opportunity to visit Dee over the weekend after the conference had ended.

It was pleasantly warm in Minneapolis at the onset, but by the time the weekend rolled over, the heat setting turned up a bit!

I had a blast catching up w/ Dee. He never ceases to amaze me w/ his comments, insights and challenges. You can read more about our discussions here.

In the meantime, enjoy some photos! (If you see a pic that’s interesting, click on it!)