It’s pleasant being in my own timezone. I got to bed at a reasonable hour and felt appropriately ready to sleep, and morning didn’t come exceptionally early today. I even had a chance to work out a bit before breakfast — I thought it was too dark to run along the Bay Trail (it was a very pleasant run yesterday afternoon, though!), so I used the exercise room at the hotel instead. It was crowded, mostly with other IBMers.

The IBM Academy of Technology annual meeting officially began a few minutes ago; IBM’s CEO will be talking to us at 8:45, so I think I’d better close the laptop and pay close attention to what he says.

I spent most of last week in Boulder, Colorado, enjoying the beautiful weather and great food. The reason I was there was to do a field study of help desk folks — we gathered much good data, and, with any luck, will be able to make good decisions based on that data (and maybe even write a paper).

I actually stayed at the Hampton Inn in Longmont, which was a fine place to stay — free wireless and free breakfast always make a hotel more appealing. And Longmont has at least two good brewpubs; the food was better at the Pumphouse, but the beer seemed better at the Left Hand Brewing Company. Of course, I only had limited time to try them out, and more opportunities to evaluate both the food and the beer at both would be worthwhile. And, despite my preference for the beer at the Left Hand, I would happily drink more of the Kiltlifter at the Pumphouse (but not if I was going to drive — it’s 8% alcohol by volume!).

This week, I’m at the IBM Academy of Technology meeting at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, California (the meeting was billed as “San Francisco”, but we locals know better!). Again, there’s free wireless and free breakfast — also free lunch and free dinner — but I’m going to be awfully busy this entire week (since I’m on the Technology Council, I have to stay through Friday afternoon). My trip here was uneventful and easy (there are some advantages to being nearly local), and packing was a breeze, since I didn’t have to limit myself to a carry-on suitcase.