Technology

Mom & Dad, Are We There Yet?

Me and/or my 2 siblings: Mom and Dad, are we there yet?

Mom and/or Dad (sometimes simultaneously): You ask me that one more time and I am turning this car around NOW! And I REALLY mean it this time!

When all of this started, I do not know what I envisioned but I am pretty sure that I was not planning on this lasting for as long as it has. This being COE-VID. [Side note: I have a friend who has somehow made it 2 words and she has hand gestures to go with it.] We are now coming up on 7 months into this very frustrating situation and I am guessing we have another year to go before things remotely get back to whatever “normal” will be “post-COE-VID”. It’s tempting to ask the question “are we there yet” or even “are we ALMOST there yet” but that seems to be a fruitless exercise at this stage for a variety of reasons. So off we go as life goes on….

I hope this finds all of you and your loved ones relatively happy, healthy (in all facets) and sane. If you are not in a good place for whatever reason, then PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME NOW and I WILL HELP! Remember that “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

How are we doing and managing COE-VID? As regular readers of this space know, we tend to be, uhm, very sports oriented and don’t get into episodic TV. Given that it took awhile for the respective professional sports leagues to figure out how they were going to manage player safety with competition, Marc and I needed to figure out a new post-dinner strategy. And I definitely needed to create a hard barrier between work and personal given the long-term work from home situation.

One day, Marc just compiled a list of shows that he thought might be interesting to check out. We came up with a plan where he would pick a show to watch and we would watch a season, I would pick a show and then we would jointly pick a show that we were interested in. Rotate through until we finished the series. It’s been entertaining as it’s been years since I cared about a show on an episode-by-episode basis. The plan has somewhat worked out.

Marc’s choices, which have actually all been very good, were Altered Carbon (I liked 1st season better than 2nd), The Umbrella Academy (I liked the 2nd season better than the 1st), The Americans (about to start season 5 and Keri Russell might be one of the more underrated actresses of our day), Veep (as much as I love and adore JLD, I had to stop as it was making me think of reality too much), Dear White People (overall very good) and I’m probably missing something else. Next up is Watchmen.

The ones we choose together tend to be cooking or travel related. We’ve watched Ugly Delicious, The Chef Show and Great British Bake Off. GBBO has LOADS of seasons so it is going to take awhile to get through all of them. But I actually like GBBO the best of all of the cooking shows that I have ever watched. The drama is purely about the end product and if the cake will collapse or not. It’s not about manufacturing BS between the competitors. We tried to get into Somebody Feed Phil and we both found it rather annoying. Loved Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat, but technically that was pre-COE-VID.

I’m still doing the podcast thing and I continue to suffer from having too many on my rotation. This one by Scott Galloway on “Algorithms and the Threat to Democracy” was a really good listen. The podcast subjects are mostly a mix of sports, entrepreneurship, fitness/health, tech/product, food and news. Many of them crossover into some of those other lanes. I’d say my faves are as follows:

Most of the time, I am listening to pods while I am working out as long as I am not doing some intense cardio where I need to be laser focused on my pace and my timing like my OPEX “Pain/Gain/Sustain” style workouts. Those efforts, plus my weightlifting prescribed by our coach, have also been a savior for me on all fronts.

Other things (outside of work) that we have been doing to stay sane while not being able to entertain as much as we typically do is hike where possible, The recent smoke and fires over a good chunk of the month have been a real bummer as September is typically a nice weather month in the Pacific Northwest. Fortunately we have been getting out for hikes and walks here and there, so that has been helpful mentally and emotionally for me.

I’ve been trying some other things like taking a couple of online classes, which I’ll get into more detail about at a later date. I also attempted to bake, which is not something I typically do. Regular readers of this space know that the other Chez Beck household member tends to do those things and he does them REALLY, REALLY WELL! Too much GBBO, me thinks.

Bringing it all back to “Mom & Dad, are we there yet?”, I think we’re about 1/3 of the way through this. So that means being really focused on how I can ensure I get the right amount of sleep, not work too much and not stress too much about things beyond my control. Making that clean break from my office upstairs to downstairs to the kitchen and family room to relax definitely helps with me winding down before bed. Yes, I realize that I am lucky that I have that space. All of the above activities help with that. I’ll close out with, once again, if you are struggling and think you need help, please ask.

Book Report #1 - 2020

So far the year has gotten off to a good start on the reading front, even with binge listening to some podcasts. I am anxiously awaiting the release of Susan Fowler’s book “Whistleblower”, which is due to be released tomorrow. I’m wrapping up “Nudge” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Definitely some food for thought in that one.

Other books that I have read this year include “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee” by Casey Cep, “Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All of the Facts” by Annie Duke, “The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer” by Caitlin Murray and “Mission 27: A New Boss, A New Ballpark, and One Last Ring for the Yankees’ Core Four” by Marc Feinsand and Bryan Hoch. Duke’s book was definitely a great read and I’ve already been able to put some nuggets from that to good use.

My podcast listening for the most part has been focusing on listening to one on functional medicine by Dr. Mark Hyman. When I listen to his talks with his guests, this is where I hoped we could eventually get to with technology when I was at a healthcare start-up a few years ago. Much of functional medicine is about the root cause of disease as opposed to the treatment of it. And based on my own experience, I know that I know my body better than anyone so it is incumbent upon me to not just own that, but to take actions that help me live a healthier life. Much of what he says lines up with a book I referenced in an earlier blog post called “ROAR” by Dr. Stacy Sims around hormones and how much they impact everything you do.

Trying to get my overhead squat on. It’s been a long time work-in-progress.

Trying to get my overhead squat on. It’s been a long time work-in-progress.

One of the things I have been working on since mid-November has been switching my workout mix from more cardio, which includes high-intensity interval training, with some strength to more strength with some cardio thrown in. This has been as a result of reading the book above. It’s definitely a mindset shift and also impacts my podcast consumption. Some of the podcasts I listen to are more technical in nature, so it’s hard to pay attention when you are going hard in a workout.

I’ll get into a list of podcasts I listen to in a later post, but spoiler alert: IT. IS. A. LOT.

2020: Any Good Reading Recos?

I find it incredible that 2019 has come and gone so quickly. How did that happen? I have been trying to do more reading after getting completely sucked into podcasts over the past 2-3 years. I have tried audiobooks but I find that I tune out and don't stay as focused as I would like. Perhaps if I car commuted a fair amount, I might think differently. Anyway I'll list out the books that I found enjoyable in 2019, and welcome any recos you all may have for me to check out in 2020.

My favorite read this year was 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King. I am definitely not a fan of King's genre, but know he is a very talented writer. But my friend who recommended it to me said it was different than the work of what he was typically known for. It has a number of twists and turns, and I did not find the ending predictable.

A close 2nd was ROAR by Dr. Stacy Sims. As someone who likes to be active, I get frustrated by the lack of studies on female athletes out in the public domain. Most studies are done on men and you learn in this book why (hint: men didn't want to account for women's monthly cycles in their studies). It definitely gave me much to contemplate in terms of my eating approaches around my workouts, as well as the type of workouts I do. I bought this book for a couple of training buddies as soon as I was done reading it. 

I finally got around to reading The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual by Kirsten Grind. Given that I worked there during some key events in the book and followed the bank closely after, it definitely got into the nitty gritty of how the bank ended up where it did. I went through it pretty quickly, although not as quickly as Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, which I read in 2018.

Probably the most disturbing read of the year came in from Jon Krakauer - Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violet Faith. It's about a true story about a young mother and her child that were murdered by family members. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it gave me nightmares, but it reminded me of the depravity of some people in this world.

If you're into food, whether as an amateur chef or just someone who loves consuming it, Ruth Reichl's Save Me The Plums was a really breezy read and very enjoyable. It was about her time running the helm at Gourmet (RIP). As a fan of the Pivot podcast, I was keen to check out the work of one of the co-hosts, Scott Galloway. The Algebra of Happiness is a decent read that I wouldn't say provides any new insights, especially if you listen to him on the pod or are on his email lists. 

Michael Ovitz, who was one of Hollywood's 1st 'superagents', wrote a memoir predictably titled Who is Michael Ovitz? What made this a fun read was reading the behind the scenes stories around some of the most popular movies ever made were put together in terms of casting, funding, storylines, etc. 

After listening to the Recode Decode podcast with Kara Swisher interviewing Kai-Fu Lee, who is the author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order, I decided to read the book. Many takeaways, but the biggest one was gaining insight into how China does business and thinks about entrepreneurship compared to the West.

As a Product Manager, I had been following Marty Cagan for awhile and decided to read Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love. It is a solid read on why so many products fail because of a lack of customer understanding. Like Galloway, if you subscribe to Cagan's email lists, you'll find much of the same information in the book. Another good read on this topic is The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank.

I forgot how this book ended up in my Kindle queue but The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore was an interesting read. Montefiore talks in detail about the different personalities of each of the rulers such as Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and Nicolas II. Lots of really intricate stories told in this book.

Lastly, I read Ray Dalio's Principles. It was a dense read, to say the least. While I think the book has many good concepts, it is a lot to take in and put into practice. I think that since I read this, Dalio has released a higher-level version of the principles he outlines. 

If you have any good reads for me to check out, I'm definitely game to hear your suggestions.

Happy 2020 to you and your loved ones!
  

Day 15: Galápagos Islands (Isla Baltra) —> Guayaquil, Ecuador —> Bogotá, Colombia.

Today is mostly a long travel day. Bags were pretty much packed for phase 3 of ‘Operation Cincuenta’ last night. Got up, had breakfast, enjoyed the last views of the islands, chatted with our new friends, and then we all took our final zodiac ride to land to head to the airport. The lounge at the Baltra airport was a hot, sticky mess. We were joking around with our fellow passengers. A few were continuing on with their adventures. Most were heading home. 

When we got to Baltra on 12/15, we were immediately told that the WiFi on the boat didn’t work. I got in touch with 5 groups of people immediately to tell them how to reach us in the event of an emergency and that was it. And when I was able to re-engage on 12/21 after we docked in town for a day of tortoise watching and an afternoon of shopping, nothing had changed in the world. 

I mean - the political situation is still a cluster. My New York Giants still suck. I’m still getting the crap kicked out of me in my weekly pick ‘em NFL pool. Nothing new. Yes, lots of drama going on in the world and stuff did happen this week that I would have normally kept tabs on, but did it matter when I reconnected 7 days later? The lack of internet also caused something amazing - people actually engaging with each other. WTF? Mind blown! Anyway.....

For Marc and I, the size of the ship was perfect. 40+ passengers — so not overwhelming in terms of lining up for excursions, food, or whatever. You were able to get to know your fellow travelers and also have your own downtime, if you chose to do that. We had a pretty social boat and people mingled about even if they came on with a group. The bar *MIGHT HAVE* been running so low on provisions that the crew needed to restock when we got to Santa Cruz on Friday to get us through the last night of the cruise. Don’t judge.

In addition to celebrating Marc’s 50th birthday, we had a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with their daughter and their son-in-law. Another couple was celebrating their 35th anniversary. All goes to show you that you should always embrace the positive and “eat the damned cupcake”. Good role models for the Becks’.

So we landed in Guayaquil, and had about 3 hours before our next flight to Bogotá. The lounge here was an utter oasis compared to the one in Baltra. Air-conditioning, plenty of chargers, decent WiFi to upload the 600+ pics we took in the Galápagos and a shower, which was lovely since we were literally landing in Bogotá and heading straight to dinner. 

When Marc and I landed in Bogotá and while taking the car service into the city, I was struck by the Christmas lights that were up all over the place. John, one of the guys from our trip, gave us a heads-up about this and he was right. It was really pretty. Based on what I was able to discern in the dark about the skyline, I was excited to see what the city looked like during the day knowing it is surrounded by the Andes.

We had dinner at Restaurante Leo, which came highly recommended. Let’s just say that
while the food was very good, it was definitely on the esoteric side. Literally bugs and worms esoteric. The kitchen offered Marc an opportunity to see the worms up close after he said the momojoy dish “wasn’t bad” and he politely declined. While at dinner, a couple got engaged and we applauded. Our server informed us that the gentleman is a regular at the restaurant and is a native English speaker. Most of the back of the house staff come out to congratulate the happy couple. His new fiancée speaks Spanish. Neither knows more than maybe 500+ words in the other language. Whatever works, right?

That said, Marc had a local coffee liqueur at dinner that we literally started investigating while still at the restaurant if we could get it at home. If not, clothes are going to be left in Colombia to make room in our luggage. Make no mistake about that! Tonight is also the night that we start the 15-day cycle for our malaria pills, which I am not looking forward to. I’ve heard nothing but unpleasant side effects when taking these pills. Let’s hope these are kept at a minimum for the both of us.

Day 14: Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island (Galápagos)

Most people live on this island if they live in the Galápagos. This is the home of the National Park Service as well as the Charles Darwin Research Station. They keep young tortoise hatchlings for 4-5 years of the 10 remaining species until their shells are thick and hard enough to withstand most attacks and then methodically release them appropriately. Some live over 100 years and some still die for various reasons including as prey.

We bused up to the highlands to see wild giant tortoises on some property the family shares with the Charles Darwin Research Station. The tortoises roam across many properties freely navigating from the beach (laying eggs) to the highlands (hanging out most of the time). They had us all put on mud boots which I was quite thankful for once we started walking. The turtles just sit in a lot in mud puddles to regulate temperature. The boots got tons of mud and poop all over them. There were so many turtles to look at and then after our walk we got to climb out of the boots and leave them to be cleaned. Our shoes were perfectly clean.

We bused back into town to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station. They raise tortoises from each island for about 5 years and release them when their survival rate will be extremely high. The younger ones shells are not tough enough to withstand some predators and so many were taken from the islands before it became a national park that they are trying to get species per island back up to levels before humans intervened. Humans also brought non-native things like goats, rats, and more that altered things considerably. They've tried to eliminate as much as possible.

We stayed in town for a couple of hours for a long lunch that had WiFi. It was actually kind of nice to be free from outside communication while touring the Galápagos for a week. This helped everyone mingle more after activities rather than stare at screens in silence.

I originally wanted to be on the smallest tour boat here which is typically 16 guests. There are pros and cons to that over what we got (41 guests on boat that maxes at 48) or the 100 person boats.

The 16 guest boats can anchor closer to things to get to shore landings and snorkeling stuff spending less time in zodiac unless that is the activity for morning or afternoon. You get to know everyone really well on those boats. One thing I didn't realize is that the certified naturalists that must accompany everyone in the national park areas can deal with at most 16 people. This is why those are the common size. You only need one naturalist on board. Hopefully they're really good because you're only going to get their perspective. We have 4 of them on our boat - it could get away with 3 but we go in max groups of 12 on our zodiacs. We get different perspectives from each of them and it's been interesting learning from them all. I like the size we ended up with not feeling too crowded as 100 would likely make me anxious waiting in line for every zodiac excursion.



Day 9: Galápagos Islands (Isla Rábida and Isla Santiago), Ecuador.

I downloaded a bunch of books to my Kindle in anticipation for not having WiFi and having lots of downtime. A miscalculation on my part and I’m talking about the having lots of downtime. The boat serves breakfast at 7am on most mornings and then the last activity ends at roughly 10pm. Now none of these activities are mandatory, but most seem pretty interesting so why wouldn’t you try to maximize your time here?

Our boat has a max of 50 passengers and we are at 41. Everyone has been incredibly friendly and inclusive. We all seem to acknowledge that we may forget someone’s name and no one is going to care. Just be nice and positive, and no one is going to give a crap. With the exception of a lovely couple from Germany, everyone is American. The boat has a crew of 22 people, and they all seem to be very busy between keeping our rooms tidy, maintaining the boat, cooking us endless amounts of food and ensuring our safety. 

Other than the WiFi not working so we could ensure our photos are secured in the event we drop a phone/camera in the water, we don’t need much of anything. Note that when Marc and I went on a tour of the bridge of the boat, we saw a whole new satellite system that was supposed to rectify the WiFi problem. Honestly I just want my photos off of my local devices. Whomever really needs to get in touch with me has a way to do just that.

After breakfast, we went on a walk on Isla Rábida where we saw lava lizards, flamingoes, sea lions (no, they are NOT seals) and a couple of marine iguanas. It’s pretty warm but I would say that even though we are hovering right near the Equator that it is not excessively hot - that whole being on the water thing. Then we went on our 1st snorkeling expedition from the beach. We saw some colorful schools of fish, a spotted eagle ray, and starfish. It was pretty cool. 

After lunch, we went to Isla Isla Santiago for a little hike. Marc and I had the opportunity to see more Sally Lightfoot Crabs, a few more marine iguanas and a number of unique birds. Plus more sea lions. It was super cool. Those crabs have a red color, which really stands out against the black lava rocks.

Marine iguanas didn’t always know how to swim. They learned to swim in order to survive. They are vegetarians and learned to hold their breath for an hour so they can graze on seaweed, since the Galápagos didn’t have much vegetation for them to graze on. Too much seaweed for the iguanas leads to another issue - too much salt. So they have massive “sneezing” salt capabilities. FROM. THEIR. BLOOD. Yes, you read that correctly. 

We came back, showered, ate with the group and then had the overview of activities for the next day so we could choose our activities. Then they showed us a video on the animals of the Galápagos. By the time we went to our room, it was 10pm. Something tells me I won’t be making much progress on my reading list.

 You can find more photos on Dropbox here. Note: We have already have A LOT from the Galápagos chapter. You have been warned.

Day 8: Quito --> Galápagos!

The day we arrive for the primary purpose of this adventure Jill has dubbed Operation Cincuenta.

Despite getting up @ 6am to head to the airport, it's still mostly a travel day even when starting in the same country as the destination. The Galápagos National Park charges $100 per person when you arrive on the islands. This we took care of with our tour company long ago. We didn't know that each person also must get a transit control card for $20 that contains passport info and allows you to enter and leave based on when you say you are returning. Insane process that nobody at the airport in Quito seemed to understand. We got it refunded to us when we arrived because we had in fact already paid that too!

We got on a shuttle bus to board the plane. 3 open doors letting people on the bus. To get off though everyone had to plow through the middle door only as they apparently want to control deboarding chaos in some sinister manner.

It appears that all flights go to the Galápagos from Guayaquil, Ecuador so we had a quick stop over before heading out over some Pacific Ocean to actually get there. We stayed on with about 1/2 the plane full and then more joined us before departing for real destination.

Once we landed in the Galápagos I was so stressed about making our boat. Our flight was 30 minutes late and we had under an hour to "be checked in" (which felt nebulous). We had bags to collect and customs to go through and I didn't know how close it would get. We were the first two up the sidewalk to the airport and someone came out of the VIP lounge at the perfect time with our boat company sign. We walked in and were reassured that there was another plane still in the air so we were ahead of the crowd! I felt so much better immediately.

We then got word to contact anyone now because the boat has no internet. We were told just lots of time to enjoy nature for the next week. While sitting at airport waiting for later flight, we both wondered after an hour why our phones were still on mainland time. The Islands are equivalent to Central Time but are taking "island time" to switch... Our boat told us they just stay on mainland time by clock even though it isn't that time here. It's definitely light later.

We got on board and had "lunch" at like 4:20-4:45 then saw presentation of Black Turtle Cove - Santa Cruz Island. We were given 5-10 minutes to get hats, jackets, sunscreen, cameras and come back for Zodiac ride to see this. We were the first two people on the first departing Zodiac. I was READY!


We saw so many creatures in this cove area including the black turtles, Sally Lightfoot crabs, brown pelicans, rays, sharks, and blue footed boobies. Even though boat got a late start to the day, they pleased us before going over tomorrow's morning and afternoon walks/snorkeling and serving us dinner. They're going to keep us busy all week. They said we'll be tired by the end and need a vacation.

Black turtle cove by zodiac...



Day 7: Quito, Ecuador.

Today Marc and I got off to an early start because we were going to be heading south of Quito to Cotopaxi National Park to hike near the Cotopaxi Volcano. For context, Quito is situated at an altitude of 9350 feet so that’s pretty high for the Becks’. Our travel medicine clinic advised us to bring altitude sickness pills for this part of the trip and a future part of the trip. Due to some of the other meds we will be taking (i.e., malaria pills at a minimum), we were hoping that because our stay in Quito is relatively brief that we could skip them for this component of the trip. 

Marc and I met our guide, Carlos (wearing a Yankees hat so I knew we would get on just fine), at the park entrance and he took us to a few sites along the way to head up to where we would do our walk. The weather definitely improved from a viewing perspective as the morning progressed. We saw other volcanoes such as Rumiñawi and Sincholagua, as well as Laguna Limpiopungo. You can still see lava rocks from the 1877 eruption along the way to Cotopaxi.

 Cotopaxi tops out at 19,347 feet and is the tallest active volcano in the world. It is part of the Andes mountain range. For comparison, Rainier tops out at 14,411 feet. The parking lot for the Cotopaxi Volcano itself is at ~15,000 feet. Maybe the highest altitude I had hiked previously was around 10,000+ feet.

Given how high the summit is, people who are climbing to the top generally get to the park a few days early to acclimatize themselves. We did not have that option. Our goal was to hike to the refugio from the parking lot. This refugio is the last point hikers can take shelter before they attempt to summit Cotopaxi. The hike was less than a mile and went up 1000+ feet.

The only catch for what seemed to be a short hike was that we were starting at 14,765 feet and hiking to 15,960 feet where the Refugio Jose Rivas was located. It was cold. I still had a decent amount of layers and felt slightly “Michelin-man” like. Truthfully, were not as properly prepared as we should have been from a clothing perspective. That added to the challenge of being at such a high altitude. 

 I took lots of breaks, and did a fair amount of huffing and puffing but we made it there in roughly 50 minutes. I was gassed and I definitely felt the altitude. Of course, I forgot the aforementioned altitude sickness pills and left them at the hotel. DUH! Lonely Planet called this hike a ‘lung buster’ and, yeah, that would be an accurate way to describe it!


Fortunately we took plenty of pics on the way up because as we were coming down, Cotopaxi definitely started to hide behind some clouds. I also saw a guide with a Red Sox hat - glad he wasn’t our guide! We decided that we were going to skip lunch and have our driver, Mario, take us from Cotopaxi straight to the “Old Town” area of Quito. 

 As Marc mentioned yesterday, traffic in Quito (and in Lima, for that matter) is pretty bad during the day, especially at rush hour. Since both cities do not have any kind of real mass transit, everyone drives or takes a taxi, which is essentially the same as driving. You also get to breathe in lots of toxic fumes while sitting in traffic. So we timed our return to Quito for the middle of the day to avoid traffic, which still was pretty bad by US standards (yes, even Seattle standards). 

Mario walked us around “Old Town”, which had some impressive architecture. We started at Plaza Grande, which has the Presidential Palace and the Metropolitan Cathedral. We then walked to the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, which had some pretty jaw dropping designs on the ceilings and the walls. Construction on the church began in 1605 and didn’t finish until almost 1800. We also walked through the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco.

Then we checked out Casa del Alabado. The focus of this place is around pre-Columbian
(not Colombian) artifacts. Some of them were made as far back as 4000 BC! The artistry and handiwork on these items really blew us away, especially the detail on the really small pieces (think the size of your thumb). We have all of the pics, along with some descriptions on Dropbox here.

Walking back to the car in the public garage, we kept hearing car alarms going off. I don’t even know if people really pay attention to car alarms anymore. I feel like 20 years ago (when I was living in NYC), they went off so much that people just were desensitized to them. But they go off constantly. As a matter of fact, we had car alarms going off constantly near our hotel until about 3am last night!

On the way back to the hotel with Mario, I observed that Quito has their own version of “squeegee guys” - anyone who lived in NYC in the 80s/early 90s knows what I am talking about. We saw lots of people selling various things like fruit and water along the side of the road, but then we saw one guy who was juggling machetes in a “very liberal way”, which was a Marc quote. Go figure. 

We did some laundry (yay for upgrades that have a washer/dryer in the room), packed and had dinner at Zazu. Excellent local ingredients that were well prepared and great service. Tried some wine from Ecuador, which was good and a first for us. I submitted my football picks for the next 2 weeks and hope that the lack of a working injury report won’t kill me any more than when I do have one to reference in my “pick’em pool”.

 Marc and I are ready to head off to the next phase of our adventure, which is the main event for Operation Cincuenta - the Galapagos. We may have internet. We may not. In the event we don’t post for the next week, we will stockpile our posts and upload them when we are back on land. 

Day 1: Seattle —> LAX —> Lima.

This post won’t win any awards for excitement as it was a travel day but I’ll lay the ground work for this latest iteration of ‘Marc and Jill take on a different geographic location’.
Marc and I got up at 3:30am (PT) to catch the 1st leg of our trip to LAX. Other than having to check a bag for the first time in almost 2 years, it was pretty uneventful. LAX is an adventure on a good day when you need to transfer, and it was good we had plenty of time. We landed in a “satellite terminal” and took off from a different “satellite terminal”. In that time, Marc really prepped for the long haul flight by finding all of the chocolate in the lounge. I’m guessing no one is shocked by this behavior.

 The flight to Lima was just under 8.5 hours and landed on time, which was amazing based on previous flight history (yay internet!). Then I figured landing at midnight, going through Immigration, picking up checked bags (did they make it?), passing Customs and finding our car service would be a goat rodeo on to its own. I couldn’t have been more wrong. From when we landed until when we were in the car, it took 30 minutes. WHICH. WAS. AMAZING.

 We got to the hotel, scored an upgrade with great views and pretty much crashed..... after Marc had some more chocolate that the hotel left for us as a welcome gift. Oh, and we were informed last night that no alcohol is allowed to be served anywhere in the country through Monday morning because of national elections happening on Sunday (tomorrow). Uh, what? This is a thing?

 So we will be in Lima through Thursday, and then off to Quito for a couple of days before heading off to the Galápagos Islands for a week. Then we head to Colombia where we will be hitting Bogota, the Coffee Region and the Amazonas province. We’re going to have a little bit of everything on this trip in terms of scenery, culture, food, beverage, climate, etc. We’ll be doing some hiking and hopefully meetIng up with friends in Bogota. That said, the goal is to come back with most of the meds that comprise the “walking pharmacy” in my pack.

Thanks for tuning in. And we have discovered the hard way that Google hasn’t made any significant updates to Blogger in years, so updates from the road will be a challenge.... looking at app options now.

On The Road Again....

Mixed marriage time:
Broncos vs. Giants in Denver
Well, gosh. It has been awhile. I mean, really. Much has happened. Since the last post, I took a job at a healthcare technology company called Change Healthcare, and have been on the road quite a bit. It is not an exaggeration between work and personal travel to say that I have travelled 150,000+ miles in the past year alone (mostly for work, but a couple of trips to Europe interspersed in there). Pro tip: Once you hit 40,000 miles on Alaska Airlines, they give you free chocolate. Who knew? 

 So what else is new? Well I am anxiously awaiting Game 7 of the ALCS tonight where my Yankees are taking on the Astros. Really hoping CC Sabathia brings it along with the offense. We went to Denver last weekend to see Marc's Broncos take on my Giants, and the completely opposite outcome happened that we were expecting (Giants won). Speaking of Marc, I'm doing my best to make him a Yanks fan for this fall.
Yanks visit Seattle
Let's Go Yankees!

I said farewell to Facebook on Thanksgiving, 2016 as I felt it was way too toxic for me from a political perspective. I felt all sides were too vitriolic for me and the time spent on the platform just left me feeling negative and pissed off. You can find me on Instagram though where I get to look at pictures of beautiful places, funny people doing great things and whatever else my peeps like posting - although anything political gets an unfollow. 

 The business travel has been a lot. I know, many of you know me from when I used to do that a lot, but I was much younger. Plus I really like being home, spending time with Marc and keeping to a routine. It is really hard to eat well and keep working out at a regular cadence when on the road. I put some pretty hard rules in place for my business trips when I started the role around exercise in to mitigate the impact of eating out all of the time. Yay for being a runner and for doing CrossFit! Lots of #viewfrommyrun pics posted on Instagram.
On top of Mt. Si. with Rainier
in background

Last summer was fairly insane with travel from Seattle to Augusta, Maine every other week, so this summer, I decided to wrestle some control back. This has led to Marc and I getting in some hikes in a number of gorgeous places. Some were pretty technical and on one of them, I was just dreading going down because of how treacherous the trail was [spoiler alert: I survived but it took longer to get down than to go up].

 In other news, I continue to brush up on skills around R, Python and SQL because it falls into that whole 'trying to suck less and challenge myself more' thing? While I have no intention of becoming a software engineer, I find taking the time to focus on this kind of thing helps me as both a Product Manager and a Program Manager. I'm reading a book on Submarine Design because someone told me it would be a great way to understand multivariate design as a whole. I'll let you know how that works out but this might fall into 'you can't make this stuff up'.
Top of Lone Cone in Tofino, BC

 Marc and I decided to dust off our golf clubs, and the best thing about that from my perspective is that I didn't kill anyone at the range.... yet. 

 We will see how long it will be before I post again, but in the meantime, thanks for tuning in and GO YANKEES!

Trying to Suck Less and Challenge Myself More.

Trying to suck less....
Sometimes you just get complacent in life. It could be at home, at work, with your family/friends, etc. It happens and what do you do to combat it so you suck less when the need arises for you to "step up"?

 Just over 2 months ago, I read an article on LinkedIn's CEO (Jeff Weiner) talking about it's recent stock price drop. Within that article was a video of the talk in which Jeff Weiner talks about the pace of change in technology aka "the 4th industrial revolution". 
"Historically when there are new innovations, it creates new opportunities, new levels of productivity, new jobs that are created. Historically, though, the rate of change was much slower. People had plenty of time to retrain and retool to take on these new opportunities. Today? Not the case. The world has never seen innovation moving at this rate and is outstripping our ability to train the workforce for the jobs that 'are' and 'will be', and not just the jobs that once were."

 Now he was talking about it in terms of LinkedIn's value in the marketplace, but I had a different takeaway. Mine was around my current skillset and what did I need to learn now to position me for the next phase of my career. 

 So in taking what Jeff W. said, I thought about 2 tangential areas related to Product Management - human-centered design (HCD) and data science. You see more and more job postings around user experience designers and data scientists, and I feel as though they are playing larger roles in helping to launch great products. 

 Human Centered Design

 The HCD course was free, which was a bonus, and took place online over 7 weeks. What was also attractive about it was that the course was being offered in partnership with IDEO.org, which is a known leader in HCD.

 I wouldn't say HCD came naturally, but it was much easier for me to learn and apply the content without tons of extra study outside of the coursework. Much of the interviewing involved in HCD was similar to the type of work I do as a Product Manager. I had teammates from New York and Brazil, and we completed our project around "Products and Services for the 70-year old". It was a relevant challenge for me, given that my folks are in that demographic. I enjoyed the work and the people I partnered with on the project. 

 Data Science Specialization

 The Data Science Specialization was not free, but it was attractively priced. It actually is a group of 9 online courses plus a final project. This certificate program was being offered via Coursera through Johns Hopkins - Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU).

 With the exception of the 1st course, all of the coursework required programming in "R". Programming, software engineering, writing code, whatever you want to call it.... not my thing. I'm married to someone that does that very well for a living. I might work in tech, but lots of roles exist that do not require you to "write code". 
Troubleshooting Mom and Dad's PC and mobile phones

 Here we are... outside of the proverbial comfort zone. Marc doesn't know "R", so while he could have learned it to help me out, I decided to just tell him about my progress and not ask for help on general "coding stuff". Does such a thing exist?

 I created a Github site (please go easy on my coding skills), completed assignments, used coding tools and leveraged sites such as Stack Overflow. Thank goodness for that site!

 The programming work brought on a fair amount of apprehension and dread. The course would say that the assignment should take 30 minutes. Well, I took on average of 3 hours per submission. The pic just above is a good indicator of my frustration while completing these.

 Part of the Coursera model is that you "grade" your classmates (after you complete your assignment) so you get a scoring rubric to use for evaluation. When I compared my submissions to my classmates, some of them really exceeded the expectations of the assignment. I just tried to focus on hitting the minimum requirements of the exercise.

 With the exception of one assignment, I passed each one on the 1st try. You would think that would build some confidence. But I still always worried about if I passed it once I submitted my work. 

 Do I see myself coding much as a result of this work? Nah. I learned that while I enjoy working with engineers and have always respected their talent, I do not enjoy programming. Banging my head against my keyboard while trying to troubleshoot code because I didn't leave a space in the right place in the syntax... NOT FUN.

I found out that I passed my final project and received my certificate from JHU/Coursera. It was a huge relief. It also taught me that I could push myself to do something that is very much not in my comfort area, stick with it and see it though to completion. So I'll give myself a pat on the back for sucking less and challenging myself more. Onwards and upwards.

Why I DETEST Buying A Car.

[This is a long one. And it's a rant. You have been warned.]

It’s fair to say that negotiating is a regular part of life. Some people do it for a living and some people avoid it at all costs. I’m probably somewhere close to doing it for a living based on different roles that I have had over my career, not to mention when I was negotiating for a later curfew in high school and in college.

Background
My Dad negotiated my first car purchase when I was 19. Before that, I drove a hand-me-down that varied between whatever car my brother trashed along the way. Then I moved into Manhattan and the need for a car ceased until I had a temporary stint in the Bay Area in 2000. I got creamed when I leased my BMW in Palo Alto. No doubt about it. Spanked. Hosed. Bamboozled. You name it. I didn’t know enough about the mechanics about how car sales worked. Fortunately, when my stint in NorCal ended prematurely, BMW wanted my car so bad that they essentially paid me to get the car back so they could resell it for an exorbitant price. Whatever.

Fast forward to 2003 when I moved out to Seattle and needed to acquire a car. I didn’t want a BMW because even though I loved it, I felt they nickeled and dimed on so many of the packages. I mean this is a luxury car brand and power seats weren’t included in the base?! So I went to Volkswagen. They assigned me a female salesperson and truthfully she was as much of a shark as anyone else, even with me reading “Car Buying For Dummies”.

I wanted to lease (mistake) and committed pretty much every other dumb error you could do (i.e., this is what I want to spend per month). The worst part was the signing process where they said it would take an hour and it took three. I had already returned my rental car and Marc had dropped me off at the dealer so I was on an island, or so I thought back then.

The Finance team at Carter VW in Seattle jerked me around with delay tactics and other BS. I would complain to Sales while I was waiting and I didn’t exist anymore. I was passed over the wall. I could tell you that I had my Jetta for almost 10 years. I LOVED that car and yet I still tell people that Carter VW sucks and doesn’t respect your time.

They would call, email, etc. I’d tell them why I’m not interested each time and they would say that things are different. Yeah, right. Car dealers are nothing if not predictable. They still use the same crappy tactics. And they are in denial that the model is changing…. Maybe they should talk to yellow cab drivers who thought their model was unassailable.

Trade-In Current Car
Fast forward to the past couple of weeks. We decided to trade-in our Ford, which had incredibly low mileage and was in top condition for a 2012 car. We sold the VW to a friend a few years ago who was in a bind. We received a letter from Ford, which I also verified with our dealer, that they were willing to pay up to 110% of Kelley Blue Book (KBB) for our vehicle.

I make an appointment and show up with the car. I did my research on KBB and NADA with conservative estimates for what Ford could offer me. I also had a trade-in value estimate from where we were buying our new car. I figured out the tax implications, etc. Bottom-line, I knew the number Ford had to give me to make the deal happen.

Of course, they lowball me. I expected that. What I didn’t expect and what caused me to just walk out with saying “thanks for your time” was that when Bill Pierre Ford gave me the number they wanted to pay, I grabbed my phone because I had NADA and KBB pulled up. The salesperson says:

"Don't bother getting the information from your phone. The info there is always wrong. What I have from Kelley from my machine is correct."

 Oh really? I get that you weren’t going to go with the number that KBB said on the higher end but to call KBB’s website into question with the hopes I wouldn’t check it and just accept your number? Wow. I guess this intimidation tactic must have worked before? I tweeted at KBB and of course they politely said that the salesperson was full of crap.

The end result of that was that we didn’t dislike our Ford. We just wanted something different and until that salesperson, we had nothing but positive things to say about Ford. Yeah, not anymore. The trade-in happened at an attractive price where we bought the car, so all’s well that ends well - more on that in a bit. But Ford is dead to us.

Buying The New Car
I was pretty confident about what I wanted to buy – make, model and most of the options – but I wanted to test drive it obviously. One of our close friends recommended test driving a competitor so I did that first.

I went to BMW after making an appointment. The salesperson kept trying to tell me on the test drive that the options that I was interested in were not that important. Oh ok. Thanks. I guess I don’t know what I want at all because “you know what I want”. Maybe it’s because you have the perfect vehicle in the showroom for me to buy with the options already in place. Gosh, I'm so smart (not really).

I told the salesperson I would follow-up as I was checking out the nearest competitor. He responds by saying that the car I “want” is priced at XXXXX MSRP. Hmmm. I ask is that what he is offering the car at because his email is vague except for the dollar amount and MSRP. The response is “Oh, of course I wish I could sell cars at MSRP but that isn’t realistic so we sell the car at MSRP with X% discount.” Ah right. Make me pull stuff like this out of you. Don’t just give me a number to negotiate with. Now we’re done because you actually attempted to sell me a car at MSRP and you want to sell me a car with features that I could care less about. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE BUYING CARS. NO RESPECT FROM DEALERS SO IT’S CONTENTIOUS, DEFENSIVE, OFFENSIVE SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!

Now off to test drive the car I want. I had put in some data and was already quoted an “internet discount price”. It’s getting close to the “end of the year” where new models are coming in for 2016 plus we’re close to the end of the month. We get a price on the trade-in, which was probably helped by Ford’s “strong interest” in my car. Get some things negotiated and within 24 hours, we have a deal.

But it’s not smooth sailing because our salesperson tells me that even though we (THE CUSTOMER) have a time crunch that he may not be able to get us through Finance as quick as we would like because they can’t predict “end of the month” traffic. More BS. So then I go on Twitter to warn our new dealer what happened to VW when they screwed me on my signing time frame.

Magically, everything gets sorted but our dealer wants feedback and to make the survey say “10, 10, 10”. I say that when someone has an appointment and you don’t honor it that it is unacceptable. He gave me a bunch of excuses why that happens but ultimately it is the typical “You’re making your internal logistics problem MY problem. I don’t care. Fix it.” Stop worrying about your survey scores. It was almost as nauseating as a former manager at Microsoft telling the team how to fill out the annual MS Poll. Yes, this happened.

Takeaways
I still have a couple of things to sort out but ultimately this ended up pretty well for us. That said, I feel like buying a car is like signing yourself up to fight with someone because ultimately car salespeople aren’t interested in a win-win. They are interested in doing whatever they can to rip you off. That is what I learned. 

I'm not saying that I am an expert in buying/selling cars but I can tell you that the whole process was exhausting/frustrating and that's what these dealers count on. This time, I was more prepared, secured a better deal, etc., but these people just want to extort what they can from you. We encountered a bait and switch situation with Lexus in Bellevue, so we will never buy a Lexus from anyone again.


When Tesla and other companies like Beepi start gaining more momentum, I can’t wait for this business model to go down. Kind of like yellow cab drivers extorting passengers and having horrible customer service. J

12 Feb: San Pedro de Atacama (CHI) --> Santiago (CHI) --> Buenos Aires (ARG).

Today was mostly about travelling to Buenos Aires. We said farewell to Rocco and Alex, and caught our flight from remote Atacama to Santiago. We picked up the bags that we stored on Monday, checked in for our flight to BA and had plenty of time to grab lunch. Only we had basically 4 choices in the international terminal: Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, Subway and Ruby Tuesday's. A couple of local options existed but they were wine bars or pastry shops (not the good kind), so we settled on Ruby Tuesday's. The portions were absurd. Glad to know that the American influence is all over the place.

On the flight to BA, Marc somehow managed to telepathically inform the flight attendant that he is a chocoholic and snagged more "bon bons". A truly proud moment. As we were filling out the customs form, we were literally asked what kind of mobile phones we have along with any accessories. An odd request, but things became more clear later on. Our guide, Ana, was waiting for us after we cleared customs and we were off to the hotel.

As we head into Argentina, I'll share with you a couple of news stories that we are following. One is around the murder of Alberto Nisman, the lead prosecutor who was about to have the President of Argentina arrested for corruption. This is in relation to President Kirchner's alleged participation in a cover-up related to a bombing of a Israeli center in 1994. I just finished a spy thriller called "I Am Pilgrim" and let's just say that what is going on in relation to this murder investigation rivals the book I just read (which is fiction). And we have a winner for "you can't make this stuff up."

Another story that we need to keep tabs on is around the general economic situation of the country. Argentina is experiencing severe hyperinflation and a significant black market exists for currency exchange. Even in Argentine Pesos, much counterfeiting exists so we need to be careful. Lots of protests taking place in Buenos Aires these days around Nisman, Kirchner's regime and some of the bad blood still associated with the war with Great Britain over the Islas Malvinas in 1982.

I remember on my last visit thinking that BA struck me as a cross between Madrid and Paris with the layouts and the architecture. It still holds true. While the country may have some serious problems, BA still remains a beautiful city. Marc immediately noted that the lanes on the motorways are rarely, if ever, adhered to. Ana's response was that "well, it seems to work for us." Heh.
We checked into the hotel and had to clean up quickly for dinner. We went to Oviedo, which was in a neigborhood that reminded me of the West Village. It was an old school kind of place with exquisitely prepared food. They kept it simple in terms of ingredients and everything was just super high quality. To cap off the evening, I even ordered dessert wine in Spanish and was able to be understood. A proud moment for me since Marc is the "Spanish Speaker" on this trip.

For the oenophiles, we also learned of a new varietal - Torrontes. It has 3 types and I tasted the Rianjo version, which tasted like a Gewürztraminer. It was pretty good and I look forward to trying more of this.

As for why we were asked on the customs form for what kind of mobile phones we have, we later found out it is because smartphones are so expensive in Argentina and citizens typically buy them outside of the country to not pay the taxes associated with those purchases. For example, Apple doesn't even have a store in BA because of the costs associated with running the operation and the pain for consumers. All of their business is done via resellers.

 A long day for the Becks, but we feel we should be set up pretty well for our stay in BA.

Wait, Jill Is Doing Yoga And Liking It?

Over the summer, I noticed a couple of my friends trying out the new yoga studio in the neighborhood. Now these friends are people that I workout with at CrossFit so I was intrigued. Yoga and CrossFit? Running too?

As a runner, I have always known that yoga could help me because I may be the most inflexible (hey now, I was talking physically!) person on the planet. But the one time I tried it in 2003 just made me feel like a loser with no hope of making progress due to my rheumatoid arthritis.

Last October, I asked my friend, Lissa, about it and stressed that "I wasn't into the whole kumbaya thing. I just wanted to stretch and stuff." As good friends typically do, she agreed to meet me at the studio one morning and she showed me the ropes.

The instructor that morning was one of the owners and was briefed on my very novice status. He was gracious and helpful, but made it easy for me to understand in a full room of participants. I sweated in class. I looked like I went swimming in my workout clothes. Rookie mistake was not bringing a change of clothes because it's hot yoga. But I was intrigued.

What if? What if I gave it a fair shake and tried to use it to get warmed up before a lifting session across the street at CrossFit? What would happen?

Well I started enjoying that I had to totally focus when executing poses. I liked that the instructors would come over & subtly give me a modification to help me get more out of a pose. I am still adjusting to the non-verbal interaction in the practice (aka class) so I need to remember questions to ask afterwards.

Oh, I started to lift more weight. I crushed 6 previous PRs at CrossFit that I had trouble working through in 2014.


And then some of the yoga instructors would talk trash before/after class even though they are Canadian (that's for you, CP).

I never thought I would be a person who would look forward to the silence & focus of yoga, but here I am. I'm one of those people. But I still love running with my friends and I still love lifting weights. It's fitting it all in that is the problem!!!

Next week, Marc and I are off on another adventure. It won't be as long as the Australian Walkabout but we're hoping it will be just as fun! We're fortunate enough to do these things every once in awhile. It's also the reason for dusting off the blog. I'm trying a new tool for blogging from the iPad.

Go try something new & test yourself. You may not love it. That's fine. At least you could say you tried it. Then again, you never know what you can get out of it if you give it a go.

Nah-mah-stay.

 

"Green" by R.E.M. is 25 Years Old.... Wha????

Yes, that awesome album/CD/tape (whatever format you had when it came out) is now 25 years old. How the heck did THAT happen? Wow. It's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? Of course I will age myself some more and indicate that this brings me back to the years of Massapequa High School... Oy!

 Many of our regular readers are baseball fans. And almost every baseball fan complains about how absurd the scheduling is for their respective team. Great little "30 for 30" on the husband and wife team who did the scheduling by hand.

 I wouldn't say that I am a huge NBA fan. I lost interest in the Knicks thanks to the idiocy of James Dolan and his blind loyalty to Isiah Thomas. I know some of the players, particularly the ones on the marquee teams, like the Miami Heat. I was pleasantly surprised to come across this article by Chris Bosh in WIRED about the virtues of being able to write code. He also mentioned an interesting non-profit called 'code.org', which has some really interesting ideas about incorporating programming into education. Check it out.

 Remember the adage "don't run 1/2 marathons on back-to-back weekends"? You don't? That's probably because most people do not need someone to tell them that. They just are smart enough not to do it! Unlike moi. Yep, ran the Snohomish River Run the week after the Nike 1/2 Marathon and let's just say it was a fight the whole way. Legs had no mojo and missed my PR by ~40 seconds. A bit disappointing, but given that I was sick for most of October and the hard 13.1 the previous week (even though it wasn't race pace), I can't complain too much.

Final races for the year seem to be a 5K in about a week and a 4-miler about a week later. Then I think I will be good. I look forward to spending some time building up at CrossFit and working on a project that has been in the works for a few weeks.

 We have been doing some fun things on the home cooking front. Picked up a new cookbook from "Gramercy Tavern", a long time favorite of mine in New York. Then I do some experimenting with a cookbook from a wonderful place in Sydney that we ate at called "Quay". 

 One of the birthday gifts that Marc picked up for me was "Modernist Cuisine At Home". Interesting take on cooking because it is written as if cooking is more about the science as opposed to some of the art involved. I like a little bit of both. We actually went to an exhibit currently showing at the Pacific Science Center showcasing some of the photography used in the book. Definitely unique.

 Even with all of the science, I have been able to use the cookbook on a few recipes over the past couple of months and look forward to using it for a dish in celebration of a close friend's birthday. Lucky me!

Title IX, Microsoft, Yahoo! and JDRF...

It's that time of the year where we shamelessly plug our annual JDRF dinner being held at Chez Beck. It's on Saturday, September 28th. Feel free to drop me an email if you are interested in attending. It's a multi-course dinner paired with wines with ALL proceeds going straight to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. If you cannot attend and are interested in donating, feel free to donate using this link. BTW, we are already halfway full so snag your spot(s)!

 For those of you who are interested in Title IX or the advancement of women in the sports field in general, I have been catching up on ESPN's series called "Nine for IX". People like Pat Summitt, Lesley Visser, Mary Decker Slaney, Katarina Witt and Venus Williams are profiled. It's well worth the $10 to download the series off of iTunes and watch the episodes. The different shows have been educational, cringe-worthy (in terms of how much some women put up with) and humorous. Note that one or two of the episodes may be a bit graphic for younger viewers.

 It's brought back some great memories, particularly watching the '99ers (1999 US Women's World Cup Soccer Team) due to catching those games with Lisa, my sister, and a good friend, Keri back at Giants Stadium. The final was absolutely riveting and I remember watching with Lisa, and by the time overtime came around, the very packed sports bar switched from watching baseball to the women's final. Absolutely awesome.

 As I was catching up on some reading, I stumbled upon this profile of Marissa Mayer in Business Insider. It's a long read, but I found it engaging and well written. It doesn't say Mayer is a savior, but I also find that it doesn't go the typical "well the woman is a b***h because she is forceful with what she wants". That said, the title of the article is more salacious and infers it is some kind of big expose. No, I haven't seen the Vogue spread yet. She's rich, relatively young and very successful. Mayer will be well presented in the magazine.

 I found I was more intrigued by Mayer's style and her career outlined in the article than by Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" circles advocated in her book. Sandberg's statements did not resonate with me at all as she seemed to say you had to either be a mother of children or completely dedicated to your career to be 100% fulfilled. Plus what did she actually do in her highly influential positions at Google and at Facebook to make those companies more equal in terms of pay for men and women? Or being promoted to higher positions? I don't begrudge her success but she could have led by example which would have been way more powerful. Don't tell me. Show me.

 As for the latest with Microsoft and SteveB leaving, I have no idea who will replace him. The recent re-org does present an interesting question for the CEO candidates. Are they going to have to commit to the strategy that he spent over a year working on, or will they be able to create their own strategy? SteveB's departure was long overdue, and clamoring for other unpopular execs (but popular with Steve) to leave has started in earnest. Guess who? :-)

 But I do wonder how employees feel given that they were still trying to figure out how things were going to shake out for them in the recently announced re-org, and now will wonder what a new CEO will want to implement? I am sure Kara Swisher of AllThingsD will have her sources working overtime to find out the skinny.

 SteveB: Since you made around $800 MILLION yesterday just because MSFT soared due to your retirement news, how about you save the taxpayers of Seattle some money and just pay for the arena for the Sonics yourself? Thanks!

21 March : Port Douglas & The Reef

We are now close the the Great Barrier Reef which is made up of many, many reef systems all up and down the coast here. It goes right up to the edge of the continental shelf. The further north away from the population the clearer the conditions. Also being out further and next to the continental shelf helps bring in some fresher, cooler water currents.

We booked the Poseidon which carries up to 90+ people of mixed scuba and snorkeling although on our day it was 50-60. +Jill and I were picked up from our hotel along with others at other hotels on the way to the marina. It was raining which was softening the mood as people got on the bus.

We arrived on the boat and checked in which included a picture and removing shoes. We hung out as other people filled the boat and then received our safety briefing while leaving the harbour. Once that was over with, we went upstairs for our snorkeling instructions and equipment. By the time this was all done, we were more than halfway out to Agincourt Reef which is a huge 10km by 5km reef on the outer portion near the continental shelf.

The divers entered immediately upon mooring and we slipped in shortly thereafter. This was so cool and amazing to swim around in! We rented a nice underwater camera due to the fact that I've managed to drop the non-GoPro multiple times and lost at least one of the sealing doors. The downside to this company is that they BURN our photos onto a CD. Who carries around something to read those with?

Our boat took us to two other mooring sites on Agincourt because the weather out there was superb with little wind and much sun. I found our second site to be the best of the three. We took so many photos that the guy had to burn 2 CDs for us (which he deserves for forcing these things upon us). We had a blast on the boat and this was a day I've been waiting for since we set foot in Australia (and many years before)...

10 March : Fraser Island

This was a relaxation day. We slept in as much as we could and had a leisurely breakfast. We spent some time organizing the vast amount of photos we've decided to save (as opposed to taken, which is even more) and added to our "best of" album. This is at about 20% of the 2500+ photos we've saved and we'll make another editing pass on this when we get home.
We also spent a few hours by the pool which likely included a nap by me. This is the earned relaxation period after the "go, go, and then go some more" tourism we have done prior to now. We will see some things, ahem, like the Great Barrier Reef, but we are now trying to enjoy it and relax some too.

2 Feb: Adelaide (SA).

Semaphore Beach, Semaphore, SA
We got to start off the day Skyping with our nephew, niece and +Marc's parents to wish Mason a Happy Birthday. He opened the present we got for him and we got to catch up on what is going on in Brea, CA. Unfortunately Tanya was at work so we couldn't chat with her. Nice way to start the day. 

We had a couple of quick errands to take care of before we set off for the day, which was going to include a fair amount of walking by the time the day was done. We needed a good walk after all of the craziness of the past 2.5 weeks, which didn't really include much exercise over that period of time.

Marc wanted to head out to Semaphore Beach and of course I should have known the significance of the word 'semaphore' being married to a software engineer and all, but I didn't. If you don't know, Google it. It was more of a locals beach, as opposed to one of the more touristy beaches like Glenelg, and we got to walk around the pier, have some brekkie, etc. Good stuff.

1969 and 1971 vintages of
Penfolds Grange in this case
Then it was back to the apartment to drop off the car so we could walk to the Penfolds Magill Estate just outside of Adelaide. It didn't look too bad - about 5 miles each way, but I didn't plan for a pretty steady uphill with the temperatures increasing. We got to Penfolds about 15 minutes late (argh!) but were still able to join the tour and tasting. The tour was very interesting as this estate (as opposed to the facility in Barossa where we were at on Wednesday) was where Grange and Penfolds all began.

No one will notice if a barrel of
Grange is missing, right?
We saw many of the underground tunnels where wines are still stored today plus some of the keepsakes acquired over the years from producing Grange and other well-regarded BINs from Penfolds. Finally we got to sample ground up oak from American vs. French barrels to understand the differences in texture. 

Marc ready to try some wine!
We had a tasting where we tasted very similar wines to the ones we tasted on Wednesday, but different vintages. It was interesting for Marc and I to compare and contrast which ones we liked more on Wednesday vs. Saturday (today). Age and the type of vintage make a big difference. Also even though the Magill Estate is very historical in nature, wine is produced there including the very excellent Magill Estate Shiraz. Some Grange grapes are also sourced from the Magill Estate. We also got to try some of their tawnys, which were very good. Another informative tour arranged by +Erik.

We walked back to town and the sun was shining, which felt good. We were able to finally see Adelaide in the sunshine and snapped some photos. It is a very well planned city and very bike friendly. Loads of parks as well. On the walk to/from Penfolds, we were able to walk through a couple of neighborhoods that one could call "high rent districts", which had some really nice homes. 
Outside of the Magill Estate at Penfolds

At 6:30pm on a Saturday, we were pretty surprised at how quiet Adelaide was except for Gouger Street and a couple of other streets where restaurants and bars are located. We couldn't get into Marc's choice for dinner, Gauchos (as a tribute to his UCSB roots), so we went to another well regarded place, Wah Hing. The server recommended one of the house specialties - Sang Chow Bow, which were basically lettuce cups with chicken, garlic, ginger and a boatload of other goodies. 

Enjoyed dinner and headed back to pack up as we have an early start on Sunday (4:35am wake up call) for our flight to Tazzie. Good times in Adelaide and surrounding area though.

Jan 1 : Sydney

Double Bay: Locals call this "Double Pay"
So +Jill arranged a great night at Aria Restaurant on New Year's Eve right on Circular Quay. She wrote about this for Dec 31 but I must say that the food was fantastic and our sommelier was great and answered so many questions about Aussie wines. In addition, we were there hanging out until 1:30 on Jan 1. They brought us extra glasses and we had a blast.

 We slept in a bit (8:30) and then ate breakfast and looked at our 500-ish photos. Many were deleted but that was the plan.

Lighthouse at South Head at Watsons Bay


After that, we took a ferry to Watson's Bay & hiked South Head (looking at our destination of North Head from a couple days back). We then walked to Nielsen Park (with Shark Beach for a swim -- netted off) and then onto Rose Bay to eventually get back on a ferry to downtown Sydney. We covered another 10 miles of walking which does not do wonders for my feet.
Marc taking a dip in Shark Bay in a Sydney suburb

A long day but a great way to start 2013...