I suppose I should be a little depressed, but there's no time. Why? Well, coming out of Wild World of Sporks, I was confronted with the future... Lotusphere 2002, January 27-31, 2002, right here in Orlando. I should be cheered by the fact there's going to be a ninth Sphere, but part of me is distressed. If they're talking about the next one, that means this one is winding down. It is, of course.
Tonight's music is the alternate take of Miles Davis' 1959 "Flamenco Sketches," from Kind Of Blue. I don't know... I've felt like listening only to jazz since about this time last night. Miles, maybe some Paul Desmond, an old J.J. Johnson LP from 1962 I transferred to CD, even old Julie London MP3s like "Cry Me A River." Yep, ol' Nurse Dixie McCall from the old Emergency series back in the 1970s. Did you know she only died about a month ago? Both she and Bobby Troup, the guy who played the "other doctor," were lounge artists for years in southern California. Troup also wrote "Route 66."
I was up until nearly 4:30 last night, putting up pictures and stuff. When I woke up and came to the door, these damn papers (that I never read) were sitting out there again. I had predicted one or the other would have some sort of special "Beacon Award" insert, and I was right. WSJ has a big sticker on it promoting that very item. I still got up around 9:00 and immediately inventoried the parts of my body that don't work at all or don't work right. I have a rather resentful blister on one foot that won't shut up until its demands are met. I have basically no voice left. My legs hurt. My back hurts if I sit in this desk chair in the Dolphin room for too long. And, if I stay in this room too long with the air conditioner on, my head fills with snot and I have to purge it by force and snort some nose drops to function without boogerizing the planet.
This is Lisa Bynum, mentioned the other day here in the fashion context. She wasn't wearing the impractical shoes today and seemed much more cheerful.
I intended to go to some sessions today, but got sidetracked by talking to people in the Domino developer lab about a long-time bug outstanding in the Outline applet. I think I talked to the right person (thanks, Rama) and hopefully this one will get resolved. I went to lunch, because I had basically no energy left and needed some sort of nutrition, even if Disneyesque.
Today's lunch was some sort of fish stuff, asparagus, some sort of salad, and lumps of meat with red potatoes (with the sides inexplicably sanded off). I avoided everything but the meatlumps and potatoes, knowing my needs and my limits. I went through a large plateful of everything, and was propelled into the afternoon by meat-and-starch-induced flatulence. If you were behind me in the scripting session in Dolphin, my sincere apologies.
Here are some happy Disney droids bringing another golf cart load of mysteryfish and meatpucks to a tent near you.
Something else I did was to truck over to the Lotus Stuff store and pick up all sorts of shirts for five or ten bucks that I seem to remember getting for free at some time in the past. It's nice to know that if I ever screw up my blue SUPER.HUMAN.SOFTWARE shirt from Sphere'99 (the "I AM" year) I can replace it for a mere five bucks (plus the cost of Sphere registration, naturally). About a hundred bucks and some cool gadgets later, I went back to the room and dumped stuff off. I'm getting used to doing that.
Wednesday is a strange day at the Sphere. Some things are already ending (like the Product Showcase) but in some ways Wednesday marks the start of the "serious technical" sessions. I know I almost never go to a technical session before Wednesday. Seems like Monday and Tuesday are all overviews and marketing. Or, stuff like my presentation: customers bragging about the stunts they pull with Domino. 
And of course, nobody gets any serious work done after about 4:30 because they're all gearing up for the Party. I have to say that that was my case.
My cow-orkers and I all planned to meet somewhere and find a bus to the Party together. We arrived at the lobby bar in Dolphin at various times, and because we were basically blocking traffic, we had no problem running into other interesting people and learning the latest news. For example, congratulations to Captain Canada, who got his PCLP certification today. The technowaves radiating from his body were so strong I had to move away lest they erase my WorkPad or reset my pager. Way to go, Pierre! At one point I somehow ran into Tim Halvorsen, who was quite definitely looking forward to the Party. He was carrying his backpack, stuffed to the limit with who knows what.
One thing in his backpack, though, was an adorable little Canon ELPH digital camera, which he insisted on using to take our picture. In return, though, Denise had a picture with Tim. I never did see Tim over there at Wild World of Sporks. I hope he had a good time. One thing I asked him in Dolphin was why he wasn't up on the 20th floor in the nice suite with the piano and the phone above the toilet, partying with Al Zollar and the Beacon Award folks. He said something to the effect that he'd go up in a while but he wanted to hang out with people downstairs for a bit.
For the record, I did not crash the cocktail hour with Al and the Beacon folks. I got there too late -- everyone was gone, even the Disneybots, so I used the bathroom, was amused by the telephone directly above the toilet, then went back downstairs and helped a couple of friends crash the IBM suite. Folks, the giant mutant shrimp are in da house.
The lineup to get to the buses was remarkably short compared to previous years. I didn't even have time to finish the excellent cocktail from the IBM suite (thanks, Tatyana) and ended up leaving it behind a pillar near the bus parking. Still not knowing what to expect at Wild World of Sporks, we rode over in the bus and I checked to make sure the videocam was charged up.
{I have to sleep now, so I'll continue this later... there's much much more to tell and a small mountain of pictures. I've shot over 300 pictures so far, many more than any previous Sphere, and you'll get to see most of the best ones.}
I'm back, and continuing the stories.
The ride over to the Sporkfest was short and pleasant. You know, I played in marching bands for years and years and I never remember getting recruited to play for 10,000 distracted geeks in Florida. The band seemed fine, but the twirlers and color guard seemed puzzled. They were loud and precise, and were followed immediate by nice people bearing trays of Heineken for our long and difficult journey into the facility.
I was impressed. I had sort of expected just wide-open fields, and while I was right in my assumption that we'd be mostly confined to big, open areas with food and beverages, presumably so we couldn't hurt ourselves or break anything, but we also had the run of a couple of buildings. Since we had beer, we quickly found some food and a table. Unlike almost all previous Wednesday night things, this one was lit well enough for you to see not only what you were eating, as well as who you were eating it with, but also interesting passers-by and nearby chaos. We chewed on burgerpucks while a couple of people tried climbing these sort of giant inflated rock-climbing things (at the upper left in the photo). One guy jetted straight to the top as the camera crew (the one that shot me the first day, thanks Bruce B.) recorded. We didn't actually see anyone fall off, though we were waiting. That never panned out, and our initial group, including Captain Canada, broke up and we all wandered away.
Most disturbing comment heard in this part of the night (there were many contenders): "Oh, god, he's wearing a thong!" (Said as one guy bent over to play the watergun game over in the "carnival games" area) His friends were harrassing him... I wasn't going to look to check one way or another. At the Whack-A-Mole, there was this one extremely hyperactive and spastic woman who was just a complete blur as she slammed away at the plastic pop-up rodents. I could only guess she was some sort of development team leader or some other high-stress thing, and she was using the game to take out her frustrations.
I never did get to meet any football or baseball legends, though I did get a nice shot of Goose Gossage. At one point I saw this girl wearing a cow-pattern skirt, and I went over and pointed and said "cowwwww skiiiiiirt!!!" She was amused... I gave her one of my cow cards, and she said "you know, you should have one of these!" I told her I don't think it'd work quite the same. Sorry I don't have a picture, but it was dark and she'd probably think I was weird. Weirder than usual.
Yes, I admit it... I was the guy walking around with two of the dab-on Lotusphere temporary tattoos... one on each side of my face. That, my friends, is dedication to the cause! I spent the rest of the night telling curious questioners where to find the things. Other people who had to repeat themselves all night were across from the tattoo ladies, at a table manned by Intel folks. "These don't work until you open them up!" they repeated over and over to people who came by to get the little light-up mouse keychains. I thought maybe it was some sort of luminescent thing where they reacted with air and lit up, but no... there was a little pull-tab you had to remove in order to let the little internal battery make contact. If you're sitting in your hotel somewhere trying to figure it out, that's the secret.
I couldn't shut mine off for a while. The damn thing had a hair trigger and I looked like I was sending Morse code into space for a while as the light popped on and off.
As I figured, the crowd had sprouted an amazing number of spouses, and more than a few adolescent or preadolescent children, but remarkably few strollers. Maybe people are wising up.
The concert was amazing. I've played in big bands, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra reminded me just how powerful a big band could be. He played everything. Everything you ever heard of and some stuff few people had heard of. I must commend him on his choice of backup singers... just the right combination of curves and vocal talent in killer black velvet dresses.
He also has good taste in fans... this is Jessica and her non-geek sister, who spent all week with her. Sandy Andre, I'll get those pictures I promised to you shortly. I don't know what it was, but all the cute women around me were just losing their minds over the band. They weren't losing any articles of clothing or anything like that (this is, after all, Disney) but damn close.
At the end of the night, I was totally unsurprised that someone I know from this site and the ESPN party ended up with possession of the large inflated Coors beer can that had been bouncing around the crowd for about 30 minutes. When it disappeared I figured it had been done in by the same girl who I caught grabbing and letting the air out of the GWI beach balls at the 
beach party on Sunday, but no, it was Greg V. He was pleased as hell with himself about it.
The only downer was that the evening was over remarkably soon. Stupidly, I managed to somehow drop my badge out of the holder somewhere at the concert site, but when I left my cameras with Michele and Beverly and Gary D. and ran back to look for the thing, it had vanished. The cleanup crew was busily looking for beer cans and there was nothing card-shaped anywhere around.
No worries... Ragan Folan, who had actually pointed out that my badge was missing, insisted, "no, we'll get them to get you a new one." That didn't abate my feelings of idiocy, but I did feel a little less worried I'd starve at lunch Thursday. We all meandered back to the buses, and complete chaos ruled on the bus I was on. Adriana, why was that guy with the Canada shirt giving you shit about losing at air hockey? I was trying to imagine what possibly could have been that bad about it, but failed. If anybody can tell me what the joke was, go for it. I'm probably unintentionally compounding it by reprinting it here.
Ah, so what? That's what I'm here for. What good is coming here if you can't be publicly embarrassed about your air-hockey skills on the Gonzo Page?
Now I'll bet she never comes back.
I went in and got to join the usual Wednesday night lineup waiting for the World's Least Efficient Bar Staff. I don't mean to pound on these guys, but they -- no, wait, yes I do. Sorry, there's no other way to put it: service at the Copa blows big, wet donkey dongs and it has for YEARS. As I've said before, it is physically impossible to get wasted AT the Copa (you have to do it before you arrive) because most people will ingest and completely metabolize their drink before they'll make it to the bar and actually get their next one. If you're only there to dance, that's one thing, but...
I totally missed Al Zollar. People told me he was out there boogying down, and he left about ten minutes before someone told me he had been there. (that comment on Thursday at the closing session about "last call for alcohol?" now you know why) Cindy Of The Large Chest was on hand for a while, looking more stable than on other nights, but still wearing dangerous-looking shoes.
After a while I noticed this guy asleep in a chair at the edge of the room. As soon as I saw his "All Access" sticker I figured he was crew and needed the rest, but his cow-orkers (Tina, that means you!) couldn't resist harrassing him and asking me to help. These pictures were the result. Eventually the guy, Gabe Gilligan of the network crew, woke up, moved one chair away, and went back to sleep again.
The curtain went down on the last full day of the Sphere, and I came back here to attempt to get all this stuff down before I forgot it. Somebody tell me if I failed, OK?
There will be more tomorrow, as I attempt to dig my way out of the mounds of images and tons of stories. If you have stuff you think might be interesting, let me know, I'll be happy to take contributions. This means YOU, Marie Britton!
(Side note: what's it like hanging out with the Lotus people? Well, in a lot of ways it's underwhelming... you are rather immediately surprised at how... normal most of them are. I say "most of them," because there are, in fact, a few extremely strange individuals who work for Lotus and Iris, but they're not people you'd move away from on the bus or anything. Nope, they hang out, they have their little inside jokes, they mostly enjoy good beer, and a higher percentage of the guys can dance (and not embarrass themselves or others) than most large tech companies. They are so different from IBMers that the distinction is obvious. That's why Zollar has to work there... he dances too much and too well to work at IBM any more)
In past years, Day 4 has been the day I wake up with a sudden sense of urgent duty, like I should make up for all the missed sessions that week by going to a huge clump of sessions, even dumb sessions like marketing stuff to beings from other planets or something, just so I feel like I wasn't a total slug. When you couple that with the usual habit of having an enormous hangover, Day 4 is usually not something to look forward to.
Not this year. Aside of the chronic exhaustion, partly a function of staying up until 3 or 4 every night this week (mostly writing this site), I was fine after the Copa, except for a vague sense of disappointment. People told me later about missing Zollar boogying down, but I could deal with that.
So, here we are on Thursday. Most people were wandering around the Rotunda in rather subdued mode, and I saw a few people flashing those little Intel mini-mouse flashlight things. Mine wouldn't shut up... it had a hair trigger on it and was attached to my badge holder, providing a very limited disco-light accompaniment as I stomped in pain over to the "killer Domino apps" session Maureen Leland did. Good session, actually... though a bit depressing because I'm not using most of those stunts yet. One of the least-talked-about aspects of the Sphere is how depressed you can get about your own work the previous year... most of the time it's not as cool as any of the stuff you see in the sessions, and for me, some years it's so bad I want to go back to writing dBase or something. No, not that bad...
The traditional Pick On The Developers session was packed as always. I don't know about the rest of you, but Halvorsen was more evasive than I've ever seen him as far as avoiding straight answers to "are you working on this" or "when will this be done" questions. I guess when you're in his situation you have to cultivate that talent. Hrmmmmmm. And by the way, if you're the guy who asked the question about clickable category titles, I was quite serious when I got up and said that you can share my code for doing it. It's a PITA to set up but what's this place about if not sharing (and drinking, and freebies, and who knows what else)?
After the Pick On The Developers session, the Sphere always seems to be rushing to a vortex. Everyone runs for the good seats in the big hall, and... waits. I managed to get a decent seat even though I'd gotten in there somewhat late. I was amused that Al Zollar quoted me in his little media-buzz section.
Nobody knows who the hell I am by "real name," but I was amused anyway. It's a little thing, but just the fact that Al Zollar gabs less at the beginning of the closing session (relative to Jeff Papows, who could sometimes go on for a while when you really just wanted to cut to the fun stuff) makes me like him more. And, as I said before, he can take a joke. The Umbilical Brothers' opening bit about pulling Al's brains out was funny as shit and I was laughing so much I probably screwed up the videotape I shot... it's probably bouncing up and down. In fact, most of the video I shot of them probably looks like I shot it while upchucking. That's one of the hazards.
And then it was over. AGAIN. Shit. The endgame of Lotusphere is incredibly, blindingly quick. For those of you who either don't go to the closing session, or who book right out the door at the end, within 20 minutes a lot of the chairs are stacked, and in less than an hour you can barely tell what just happened there. For as long as it takes to set Lotusphere up, it's depressing how fast it can be torn down. It's like spending all day making a cake, then serving it to hungry goats.
It's eerie, really. I stayed, got a better picture with Al Zollar and others, talked to Sandy Marcus and Ragan Folan, and then just sort of looked out at the room while it almost visibly melted before me. All the chairs vanished, the guy unhitched the smoke tank and hauled it out, the lights came up and it went from being Lotusphere to looking like your typical large conference hall with goofy stuff on the walls, all in a matter of minutes.
Tomorrow, there'll be a pharmacists' convention in there. The planet will continue to rotate.
I went up and dumped stuff in the hotel room, then came back down and looked for familiar faces. I found some of my cow-orkers at the lobby lounge, and we eventually decided to go to dinner together. This is a lot different than previous years, where I use Thursday dinner as a way to start the process of rejoining the rest of the world, I process I really have to do alone. Nevertheless, we went over to Charley's and had absurd steaks and talked about everything that happened all week.
One thing I told them, something that really touched me because it was unexpected, was that when I handed in my evaluation at the desk, they gave me... a Lotusphere "staff" shirt. I could not have been more pleased. I never did get my regular T-shirt, as a matter of fact... but the "staff" shirt is incredibly cool and it meant a lot to me that they set one aside for me. For all the hell I've put Lotus staff through this year, this was a nice thing to do.
I'll be impossible to live with for the next month or two.
There was one last piece of unfinished business for the week. When we got back from dinner, Denise mentioned that "well, we still haven't gone up and visited the fish on the roof."
"Not yet," I told her. "Meet me in front of the Copa at midnight."
I went back to the room, changed into suitable clothes, got my MagLite and the digital camera, and through a carefully prescribed path that led to us to our intended target. I won't go into much more detail than that. Email me next year if you're interested. Suffice to say that after the adventure cold Jagermeister shots were in order and we had to go sit down in the lobby on the couches until we calmed down.
We did run into Chris Reckling, Bev DeWitt, Gary Devendorf and Stephanie Stack, who'd apparently all gone to Pleasure Island (I assume they weren't on the roof there) and we showed them the pictures. Bev's comment: "Turtle, don't you have any pictures that don't have women in them?"
Well, no, actually. At least, not many.
So, it's over. AGAIN. Dammit, I knew this would happen. It all whipped by so fast, and I know I didn't really do everything, see everything, talk to everyone. I knew going into this I wouldn't, and even then I sorta hoped maybe I'd come closer this year.
But it was good. It was better than I expected. I have the recharge, I can feel the recharge that's gonna get me through the rest of this year, and maybe I've helped pass that charge along to lots of other people. The instant roving community came together again, it mixed itself together and flashed, and then everyone went back out into the world again. I watched it all happen, made some of it happen, and had one hell of time doing it all.
I just wanted more.
I want to thank everyone who said hi, who helped out, who said or did nice things. We all work well together, even if it IS only for five or six days. I apologize to everyone whose names or stories I forgot or never knew or misspelled. You can email me directly and tell me your stories, I invite you to send pictures, and you can all talk to me anytime you think I can help with anything. The virtual door is open. I'll be adding more pictures to this site as I find space for them, and will be adding memory to this tale as I remember it all.
And I will see all of you back here in fifty-four weeks.
Love,
Turtle
Here ends The Lotusphere Diary, 2001.