Watching Football Night in America, I’m amazed at the spectacle that is Cowboys Stadium. The stadium website is currently mobbed, so I visited the Wikipedia for particulars.
I’ve stopped by Bristol Motor Speedway, just to see the venue, when there were no events going on.
I’m sure I’ll do the same, if and when my travels take me to the Metroplex.
When it comes to football, though, I am, and I remain, an AFC West fan.
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From the Wichita (KS) Eagle:
Couple robbed while inside dumpster.
I can’t guarantee the longevity of that link, the Eagle being a newspaper and all. But it details the story of a 44 year old man and his female companion, who took refuge in a dumpster so they could be alone. While they were engaged in what the Wichita Police primly referred to as “an intimate moment”, they were accosted by a 59 year old man, and his 64 year old companion. The youngster of that pair, egged on by the geezer, proceeded to rob the amorous ones of a wallet, shoes, and jewelry.
But all’s well that ends well. The police managed to round up the old-timers, and all property, with the possible exception of the lover’s pride, was recovered.
I haven’t posted much of these slice-of-life episodes for a while. But when one has such a story and a snappy title like this here post, one must hit publish.
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One of the attractions at Red Hat Summit was Marco’s Booth, a place to interact with the people from Red Hat’s Global Support Services. It is called Marco’s Booth after Marco Bill-Peter, the head of GSS at Red Hat.
I dropped by the booth to relay my personal thanks for the services of our Red Hat TAM. I somewhat facetiously say that the trick here is to lay on the kudos thickly enough so that Red Hat is aware that our TAM is doing a great job, but not so thick that they promote him to a higher position, forcing us to break in a new TAM. Actually, this very thing will happen someday, and we’ll congratulate our TAM as he moves on to greater challenges, and welcome a new person to service our account. That’s the way this business works; I just work together well with our current person, and want that relationship to continue.
While I was at Marco’s Booth, I saw a demo of the upcoming Red Hat Support Portal, wherein all your trouble tickets, downloads, knowledge bases, and Atom/RSS feeds are all gathered under a common web umbrella; it should make it much easier to find things on the RH website. It’s all there now, but navigation is somewhat problematic; I have 3 or 4 Firefox bookmarks which take me to different parts of the RH site. I am looking forward to this enhancement. That isn’t Marco showing me the portal demo; I think his first name was Patrick. Conferences have a way of reminding me how bad I really am with names. Anyhow, Patrick was enthusiastic and most helpful, and dutifully noted my praise for our TAM’s service, and promised to relay it to him when he got back to Raleigh.
Oh yeah, and this is the first time that I know of that I was captured on camera at a conference; the picture is on the Flickr.
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The last photo was never intended to descend into the post below it, though I think it turned out rather thematic.
I have much to learn. May I be granted the time to do so.
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Of all the things I missed in Chicago, primarily because I pulled up lame had a sneezing, coughing, chilling fit on Saturday, this would be the one I regret missing the most.
Hat Tip to MLB, who quietly extracted the camera from the laptop backpack last Saturday, for the photo.
A bucolic statue, for a bucolic man,
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MLB and I arrived home late (10:45 PM or so) last night, after navigating 5 state’s worth of toll roads back from Chicago.
The Red Hat Summit was another outstanding affair; the sessions were well-attended, the food good and plentiful, and I’ll attend again next year. The event is just that don’t miss in my book.
MLB was well-entertained; I had some initial trepidation about how she’d fare during the conference. My concerns were unfounded; the presence of a college bud who’s temporarily between positions helped out; he squired the missus around for one day while I was at the conference; she spent the other day lounging about the pool of the Hilton, and doing some solo sightseeing.
After the conference broke camp on Friday, and we spent the balance of our time at my friend and his wife’s condo. They have lived in Chicago around 20+ years; they love the place, and are excited when out-of-towners arrive; they are also excellent tour guides in their own right.
My only regret was that I missed the tour bus/trolley trip around the Windy City on Saturday; several days of conference attendance combined with unseasonably cool1 Chicago weather and the stindeen-frosting temperature of the session halls to send me into a sneezing, coughing, chilling fit on Saturday. And so it was, that MLB, our host and hostess went on the bus/trolley sightseeing tour, whilst I wrapped up in a quilt and slept. I got up around 1PM and watched NCAA football until they got home. An excellent steak, grilled on their 16th floor balcony, an evening of conversation, in which we solved nearly all the world’s problems, and I was feeling pretty human again.
Then Sunday, the big drive, and home. I’m glad to be back; I guess the back-of-the-mind pressure of not wanting to be on the road on Labor Day compelled us to make the ~700 mile journey yesterday.
And it’s great to be back. Now, we can watch the rest of the world, as they wend their way home, on the teevee tonight. On the 11:00 news. Which I’ll miss, because I’ll be in bed.
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