Fiddlers Friends

Many many years ago, Bonnie and I started going camping with a bunch of friends, (mostly musical types). The camping trip is still going on, and is celebrated every Easter weekend in the North Georgia mountains. Not sure when it happened, but the trip has been dubbed the Fiddlers Convention.

I must admit that through our travels it has been harder and harder for Bonnie and I to make it back for the event. Unfortunately this year does not look like we will make it either, as we are on the West Coast now.

My old buddy Art (Shand) has gone out of his way to remind me that I am part of the Fiddler's family, even though I will not be able to attend (again). He started by letting me know that several of the guys will be getting together in the studio to record a special version of our theme song. So that I can be part of it all, they are going to send me files which I can load up in my home recording studio, thus allowing me to add tracks to the recording and be a part of the recording even though I will not be there.



Art also sent me some photo's from one of my trips many years ago (1992 to be exact).

Here is one more of me, I must have been really tried after cutting firewood!

A Big Time in Big Bear!

I am really starting to like Big Bear Lake; it is about 2.5 to 3 hours from our house (depending on traffic). In the winter is a very popular ski/snow board resort, in the summer the huge lake is a perfect place to spend a lazy day enjoying cocktails on a pontoon boat.

My first visit was during the summer, when Bonnie and I went to visit at the beautiful cabin of our friends Chris and Van (you can read more about this visit in an earlier post on this blog called “Big Bear” August 2008).

This time, I drove up (along with Bonnie, Martye and Van (Chris joined us later)) on December 30th and we had a great time over the New Year’s holiday. An usually heavy snow fall a few weeks ago turned the area in to a snow covered wonderland, along with slippery sidewalks and tricky driving, but it was worth it!

We spent time at the ski slopes watching our friends ski from the comfort of an outdoor deck at the base. We did not bring gear (frankly Bonnie and I do not have gear) so we did not join in. Neither one of us really knows how to ski well, but Van has offered to teach me how to snow board and I think I may take him up on it!

New Years Eve and brunch the morning after was huge fun, we hosted by Janet (a friend of Chris/Vans and now ours). What really made the evening fun was the amazing collection of people that were there. It seems that Big Bear is a magnet for unusual personalities. In no particular order there was:

- A Russian lion tamer who used to travel with Cirque de Solai

- A palates instructor who counted Sting and many other celebrities among her clients

- A partner from a San Diego law firm which is called “Mo-Fo”

- A delightful older woman named Georgette who I later found out drives one of the local snow plows

- A vocalist who has performed with musicians ranging from Huey Lewis to Bette Midler, who was also a member of the screen actor guild (SAG) and gave us the lowdown on all the new movies coming out, and who was also prone to burst into song at any moment many time sounding a bit like Ethel Merman.

Photos are below; I can’t wait to see what happens on our next visit to big Bear!

Happy 2009 Everybody!

A House Full Of Fun

We had a lot of visitors this Christmas, and they did not include Jacob Marley (or even Bob Marley). Unlike Scrooge we were happy to see our visitors.

Near the end of December my little brother Nathan and my sister in law Shannon came for a weekend. We had a good time showing them the town.

On December 14th my sister Morgan (or Martye as I call her) arrived for a multi week visit that has become part of Bonnie and my Christmas tradition.

Next came the P’s, Nate and B.J., they arrived the same evening that I got back from a business trip in Dubai. I am amazed at how much of San Diego we covered in just a weekend with them. We went to the coast, up in the mountains to see snow and to the San Diego Zoo (many people have told me I belong a zoo, now Bonnie and I are members,).

We did manage to fit on one decent sized party with 18-20 friends over, we had a great time.

The house seems kinda quiet now, but we are re-adjusting…….

Amster-DAM!

Bonnie and I had a great time in Amsterdam last weekend. I was there for work and had to stay over the weekend so Bonnie popped over to meet me.

While we were there Bonnie got to catch up with a couple of the students who had attended her program in San Diego.

And I got to see my baby sister who lives in Brussels!

All About Gustave

Hi all, things are fine with Bonnie and I. I will post interesting things soon.

Meanwhile - if you are interested in a first hand accound of what it is like to live through a hurricane, check out my fathers blog.

There is an interesting account as told through a series of emails my dad sent out to the family (read them from the bottom up!).

Big Bear

Last weekend Bonnie and I went up to Big Bear Lake and stayed at an amazing house in the mountains.

The house belongs to our friends Chris & Van; who are, by the way, the consummate host. The first night there we were treated to lovely dinner with several of their friends; (thanks goodness Van got the steak rub, it made the meal!).

The next day we took a boat out on the lake with several of the same folks, lots of sun and fun and swimming. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Bonnie actually got into the water and went swimming in a lake!

The next day, the four of us (me, Bonnie, Chris and Van) took a chair lift up one of the ski lifts (beautiful in the summertime), for a nice BBQ lunch on the top of the hill.

What a great weekend and just what the doctor ordered after a crazy few weeks at work for Bonnie and me!

Over The Line In San Diego

This past weekend I discovered a uniquely Californian pastime; a game called Over The Line (OTL).

OTL is so popular that the Old Mission Beach Athletic club (OMBAC) , host a major tournament every year.

The tournament takes place over two weekends and occurs in an area apply named Fiesta Island, and during the tourney more than 2,500 games will be played.

For those who are not familiar (I was not), OTL is played in the sand is a bit like softball, but there are a lot of differences:
- The field layout is completely different (see diagram)
- The pitcher and the batter are on the same team
- Each team only has three players

Here’s how it works, the pitcher kneels beside the batter and tosses a rubberized ball, just smaller than a softball up into the air for the batter to hit. The batter goal is to hit the ball over the line at the end of the diamond (about 55 feet). The ball must remain in bounds and must not be caught by the opposing team. Four successful hits over the line without being caught is a run. Two foul balls, or a ball that gets caught, are an out. 3 outs per side per inning, four innings in total.

There is of course no running, that would make it to much like a sport.......

NOW THE REST OF THE STORY:
The OTL tourney is simply a good excuse to get together in as little clothing as possible (it is warm on Fiesta Island) and drink beer and have a GIANT party. About 55,000 people attend the tourney every year, and there is lots of music, and fun. No one under 18 is allowed on the island during the tourney.

One of the objectives is to find the most outrageous names possible for your team so that it sounds funny when they announce your name over the PA to start your next game. Nothing gets banned!! The tourney was so popular that ESPN was going to televise it, but they insisted that the names of the teams had to be toned down. The folks at OMBAC said No Way (well actually had another two word response F*#K You!). So the tournament never did make it onto ESPN.

Here’s a photo of one of my favorite teams.

Needless to say, I am now a devoted fan, and I will be fielding my own team next year. Anybody got any good ideas for team names??

I've Been Everywhere Man, I've Been Everywhere...

Wow, what a ride!

On Friday night I came home from a three week road trip all across Europe. I started out in San Diego California and then went to Madrid Spain by way of Houston Texas. From there I hit: Athens Greece, Munich Germany and Berne Switzerland.

Luckily that was the end of the first week, so I got to go to Brussels Belgium to spend the weekend with my baby sister.

On Monday it was off to Bristol England by way of Frankfurt Germany. After England I headed for Dusseldorf Germany and then Budapest Hungary, and Sofia Bulgaria.

After four meetings in Vienna Austria, I spent the second weekend wandering around the town.

The next week took me to Copenhagen Denmark, Aalborg Denmark, Stockholm Sweden, Prague Czech Republic and finally Dublin Ireland.

I left Dublin to come back to San Diego by way of Newark New Jersey.

After three weeks abroad I can tell you Europe is nice but, I LOVE AMERICA!!!

National Alert System

Today, at long last, the FCC has announced a plan under which mobile telephone users will be able to receive emergency alerts via point to multi-point text message.

Any of you who know me well may know that emergency alerts, via the wireless mobile phone networks, are something I feel very strongly about.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) in use today has remained virtually unchanged since 1963. That was 45 years ago; I know because it was the year I was born!

The fact that so many lives have been lost due to lack of adequate warning is simply shameful.

It will take another two years to get the whole system put together, but today was a big first step.

You can read the press release here.

Your can read the actual rule making here.

Ciao Bella!

This week (and next week) I find myself in Rome Italy. One of my workmates (Paul Rigatti) and I are here in town lining up a house (villa) to use for demonstrations of my company's in-building cellular coverage product. I hate being away from home without Bonnie, but I guess if I have to be out, Italy is not a bad spot.....

The idea is to find a nice looking house that has some serious cellular coverage issues, put our system in the house and then invite local wireless operators in to see what an amazing difference it makes on voice coverage and data throughput. We have done this before, you can read about our testing and demos in England in Ireland in previous post.

We have covered a lot of ground this trip. There are not may highways in the countryside north of Rome, so Paul an I, in our trusty rental car (a ford fiesta) have crossed fields, forded streams, slid up and down slopes and bounced along many dirt roads.

We did find one beautiful stone house in the country, the owner, who's name is Guido, was very inviting. Unfortunately, the house had NO cellular coverage and it is is hard to improve on nothing. The house it self was so nice that I would like to find a way to take advantage of it's seven bedrooms for personal use at some point in the future.

Eventually we found another house on the shores of a large lake that provides most of the fresh water to this section of the country. This is large, atrractive and has areas with OK wireless coverage and other areas with no service at all. Just perfect for us to demo our product.

Bonnie was not at all happy with me spending two weeks in Italy without her. When I told her about my upcoming trip, she lovingly told me "you suck!". She reminded me of this several times as I was preparing to travel. However as soon as I get home, we are going to sneak away for a three day weekend together!

One other woman in my life, is my trusted travel agent Muriel. This long suffering lady constanlty puts up with me calling at the last minute and asking for impossible international arrangements at the lowest possible rates. She was very vocal about me wandering all over Italy drinking excellent red wine. I told her I thought I would be working almost the all the time, but that I would try and find an opportunity to lift a glass in her honer. So Cheers to you Muriel and all the rest of my family and Friends!

On The Road Again

Willie Nelson has nothing on me (Ok, Ok, except that he can sing and play guitar much better than I can)

Once again I find myself on in a foreign country without Bonnie. This time it is in Spain, and I am here to attend the mother of all trade shows; “The 3GSM World Congress”. I am writing this update from a tiny little hotel in the historic district of Barcelona, which I consider myself lucky to find. Each about this time, the population of Spain takes a significant increase for the days of this show.

The show used to be in Cannes France, and since at that time Bonnie was a lady of leisure, she used to go with me. This year however, she is busy making arrangements for the 30 lucky students that have been chosen to receive scholarships for the 3 week summer conference on Conflict resolution that she now coordinates. How things change. If you are not familiar with the program, you can find out more here.

So being away from Bonnie is no fun, but what is fun I getting to run into folks that I have worked with over the years as we traveled the globe during telecom start ups. This year is also kind of fun because I get to go out an tell people all about the new products that we are building to improve indoor coverage for cellular systems. OK, maybe not that exciting unless you either;

• are involved in a startup that makes these products like I am;
• or you have terrible cell coverage in your house!

More as it happens!

A Little Piece of California

With each passing day, Bonnie and I settle a little more into our life as Californians. Today for instance, we closed on the purchase of a cute little house in University Heights.

It took us almost a year to get over the sticker shock and begin to look seriously at homes. We had thought that we would start looking in earnest somewhere around February, but we started visiting the open houses in our neighborhood of choice.

As luck would have it, we found a home we both loved a couple of months ago and we will move in tomorrow.

The house is what locals refer to as a craftsman style. It was built in somewhere around 1916 to 1920. The good news is that it was completely refurbished by a couple of guys with a real eye for details. We are very pleased.

The moving truck shows up at our old apartment at 8:00 in the morning. Time to get to work!

Catching Up

As usual, I am behind on my blogging, so I will attemtp to catch you up on a great load of things that have happened since my last update.

November was all about product testing an demonstrations for the company I work for. Interestingly enough, the testing and demos needed to take place in Europe since that is where our first product release is targeted. Planning for this has been going on for some time. As a matter of fact I enlisted the help of my friend Iain's sister (Jane) and his dad (Jim) to help scout for locations while I was at Iain and Ruth's wedding (see earlier post "Talkin Turkey").

With Jane and Jim's help, we did find three great locations, one in Ireland and two in Windsor (just outside of London).

I arrived in Ireland during the last week of October (delayed one week by the fires having closed our offices in San Diego). I was the advance team to make sure everything was set up and as you can see from the photo I worked hard! I worked in a quick trip to England to help make sure the locations were all ready for the customer demos.

After two weeks of testing I Ireland I headed back to Dan Diego for a week. It was great to see Bonnie (in passing). I got home on Friday and she left on Sunday morning to head for Atlanta to prep for Thanksgiving.

I did make it to Atlanta for a quick Thanksgiving; I took a red eye out of San Diego and arrived at Bonnie’s parents (Barbara and Jerry) in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning. W had a great time and it was great to see everybody; Sharon and Doug, Sam, Isabella, Becky, Leslie as well as the clan from Madison Wisconsin – Uncle Michael, Allisanne, Mandy and Molly. The trip was short I headed back out the next morning for England.

I arrived in England to find a team from my office already hard at work. We did product demos in two locations: a house in old Windsor, and a flat in Windsor. The house was on the grounds of what used to be a mental hospital, and it was done up very nicely.

The flat was in a converted convent and was one of the most unique locations I have ever seen. Among its other features was a stone carving of Saints above the over sized fireplace.

I am pleased to report that not only did both locations show very well, but the product demos to date have also been quite a success.

It is the weekend now; on Friday my friends Iain and Ruth were in town so they came over to the convent where I was staying for a visit, it was great to see them again.

We also got to see his family for dinner on Friday evening.

Today is Sunday and one of my wok colleagues an I are headed into London to o touristy things, like brunch in China town and Christmas shopping at Harrods.

Now you are all caught up.

Look for news about my baby sister (Martye) visiting in December in my next update!

Fire Update 2

A quick update.

The fires are pretty much out of our immediate area now. Most of the mandatory evacuations have been lifted.

The friends we had staying with us were able to get back into their home last night, and luckily suffered no damage.

Life is settling back to normal.

Thanks for all the calls, texts and emails!

San Diego Wildfires

Greetings from smoky San Diego – 9:00 am Wednesday Oct 24

Thanks for all of the emails and calls folks checking to see if we are O.K.

Bonnie and I are just fine, they have closed the University where she works, and my office shut down for a couple of days. But luckily our apartment is not in an area that had to be evacuated.

We know many folks who were not so lucky; we have a couple staying with us at our apartment that still does not know if their home and car made it.

The fire continues to spread. I will post updates here when I can.

Top Up

Just a quick update.

Well, it finally happened; for the first time since I bought my new convertible several months ago, I had to put the top up when I drove it to work today.

It was misting, (East Coasters would not actually have called it rain), and so I stopped and put the top up.

This ends a steak of about 130 days, since I bought the car. To date every day that I drove to (and from) the office, I have done so with the top down.

In truth, until today, the only time I have ever really put the top up was to wash the car.

Ah well, it had to rain sooner or later.

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I often heard this kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girls don't they warn ya
It pours, man it pours

Albert Hammond

Talkin Turkey

Bonnie and I recently traveled to Bodrum Turkey to attend the wedding of our friends Ruth and Iain, yes that is a kilt! You can find a link below to Ian's blog below.

We felt proud to be invited to the wedding, and even more special to be invited to join several family and friends that tagged along for the honeymoon on board a wooden sailing boat where we enjoyed four days crusing, eating, drinking, laughing and singing. Somebody found a guitar somewhere, so we had a lot of sing alongs - although it may be some time before I play American Pie again :-)

Martye (Morgan) popped over from Brussels and joined us for the week, it was a treat to see her.

While we were out of town, we closed on the sale of both our boat an the loft apartment in Atlanta. Then we came home to great news about Bonnie's sister Sharon who had a wonderful three month checkup with her doctor. This has been a really good Month for us!

I am making this posting via a hotspot in the airport in Washington D.C., I am on my way to Cannes France for the week to attend a trade show. Check back here oftern to see where we are this week.

CONGRATS IAN & RUTH

Bye Bye BlackSheep

It was a bittersweet day last week when we closed on the sail of our boat the BlackSheep. While we are happy to be rid of the expense and upkeep, I will certainly miss owning a boat.

What they say about the two best days of a boat owner's life being the day they buy and the day they sell is not at all true. An while I cannot say exactly which day was our best day as a boat owner, you can be sure it was a day on board with our friends!

Bye bye BlackSheep, you will be missed!

A Tennessee Squire

When I look back at my life, there will be milestones that I remember. Among them the day that I was invited to become a Tennessee Squire. I was invited into this exclusive organization by an existing squire and new friend Beth Herman.

I was serving drinks at our house one night and asked Beth what I could get her. She replied Jack Daniel's (and I knew would be fast friends right away). When I asked her if she preferred Black Jack or Gentlemen Jack she was impressed and then told me she was a Squire. She later offered to submit my name for membership consideration.

Several weeks later I got 'the package' in the mail. I have passed the review, I am in! I now have my own plot of land on the Jack Daniel distillery property.

Now as the squires before me have done, I am proud to toast....

May the sand in your joints turn to butter, May the ache in your back disappear, May your legs stay strong when the day grows long, May your shooting eye hold true and clear.

May you hunt every fall with your friends, And with Jack, drink a toast to your peers! May your game bag never be empty, And your season stay open for years.

Ramblin Man

Well it looks as if I will end up spending a lot of the rest of this year on the road.

I am writing this blog update from England. I will be here for the rest of the week (with a quick pop over to Ireland for a day).

Then I am home for 3 days before Bonnie an I had off to Bodrum (Turkey) for our friend's - Iain & Ruth - wedding. You can see more about the wedding and Turkey on their wedding page.

I will be back home from Turkey for one day before I leave to go to Cannes (France) for a trade show.

From there I am back home for a few before traveling to Virginia for another wedding -Bonnie's cousin Scott and his delightful fiance.

After that there are the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays, both of which I am afraid, are going to be overshadowed by work.

I will let you know more about those dates as they get closer.

Check back in a couple of weeks for photos from Turkey!

Lord I was born a ranblin Man

Just Trying to make a livin an doin the best I can

So when it's time for leaving, I hope you understand

That I was born a ramblin man