Time for a Cool Change...

It had been a very long week. Very long. This week found me in Seattle again for business meetings with Boeing.

Every day this week was endured in endless tedium discussing the benefits of Service Oriented Architectures, Enterprise Service Buses, and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration registries. Dead awful stuff. I used to enjoy software engineering, but this stuff makes my head ache.

And it lasted... all... day... long. Eight o'clock through five o'clock with little break. All week. I was ready to gnaw my own arm off if I had to endure another hour of these meetings.

We finally finished our grueling week of meetings, and were enjoying a very well deserved round of beers at the bar with our customer, when the chief engineer, Mark, asked us if we'd like to go sailing.

Sailing? You mean, in a boat?

Yes, a boat. A twenty-four foot long MacGregor moored on Lake Union in downtown Seattle.

Hell yeah!





Mark took Barry, Bruce and I out on the water, hoisted sail, and taught us the rudiments of tacking and jibbing as we meandered our way around the harbor. Important lesson: duck when the tack gets jibbed. (Or is it when the jib gets tacked? I don't know... just remember to duck.)

As we sailed, the occasional sea-plane passed overhead, and we avoided the larger yachts and ships in the harbor. The breeze was strong, and as the sun set, we tied back up at the dock feeling very much refreshed.





Tomorrow, we head back home. After two solid weeks out here, and one more week still to go, I am really, really starting to get homesick.

It will be very nice to be home. But sometimes, it's nice to appreciate the fact that we work with some really nice people.