new company goes live with Google Apps

I started using Google Apps for email, calendar, and online documents back in January. My last company, JPR Wood Consulting, migrated over in March. That was quite painless with a 5 person company. And it made a lot of sense for a small company that is working from various places. The online collaboration is great. Well right after I got pulled in to my new company they had email issues. I suggested we use Google Apps. Shockingly about 2 weeks later I migrated the whole company over. Its a 21 person organization and they are pretty much all non-technical. I ran in to a few limitations; there are some basic enterprise functions that are lacking and would be nice. Its great having the whole company using it and it was a fun little project that allowed me to do something different.

my own independent wine consultant

My sister is an independent wine consultant. No matter that I probably know more about wine than she does and I admittedly know nothing about wine. She put on her shindig at a friend's place in Fredericksburg, VA so I went down to hang out. It was interesting to see her do her thing. And of course since the party started at 3pm we never stopped drinking and were mostly passed out at midnight.

Brew @ the Zoo

The last few years I've wanted to check out this Brew at the Zoo event but it always sells out by the time I hear about it. Not this summer. It was expensive though at around $55 each I believe. They had lots of breweries and some very good food, even a band. The lines were super long for everything. They did give you a nice full size glass mug (with a 4 oz fill line at the bottom). 

While in one long line a little armadillo runs by. People started freaking out and taking pictures. Someone from the zoo had brought it out. Apparently it likes crowds unlike its brothers and sisters. It would scurry around and then start burrowing in the grass. Cute little guy. Sarah dug it.

See crappy cell phone pics.

Kirby saving the world

So I had just started dating this girl gal and she takes off on a secret activist mission in a foreign communist state with the intention of getting arrested. Its the Olympics in Beijing and China has been cracking down on human rights as opposed to opening up. Students for Tibet had actions going on all throughout the Olympics. Kirby was there for a week preparing with a "team". With a few exceptions the protesters were getting deported within a day. One of the first guys got punched, put in stress positions and seriously interrogated. Some of the later ones were held in prison for a week.

Here is the post about her "action".

And here she is speaking for the activists from DC when they arrived at the airport and were received by the local Tibetan community.

spectacular tunes

On 7/25 Kirby and I saw Stanley Jordan at the Strathmore. I've seen Stanley a few times and am always amazed, but this time he went a step further. He played both guitar and piano at the same time. One hand on the guitar playing his tapping style, and the other on the piano. And its not as if he was playing the same thing, he was playing two different complementary parts. Then he would switch hands. The guy is unbelievable.

Then on 8/1 I found a ticket to the sold out world premier performance of the BSO playing the Dead Symphony # 6. I've got a few albums of orchestras playing Led Zepplin, The Doors, and Pink Floyd and was very excited to see this live. Being a world premier didn't hurt. The composer was there and lots of VIPs like Jerry Garcia's wife. A short description:

Dead Symphony No. 6—the No. 6 signifies that it is Johnson’s Sixth Symphony—dedicates separate movements to Grateful Dead hits "Saint Stephen," "Here Comes Sunshine," "Mountains of the Moon," "Blues for Allah," "Sugar Magnolia," "To Lay Me Down," "If I Had the World to Give," "Stella Blue," "Bird Songs" and "China Doll." The work also features a symphonic jam session during "Stella Blue.” In keeping with The Dead's performance style, Pro Video Group of Baltimore will recreate a psychedelic video display behind the orchestra during this performance.

VP no more :(

The prime contractor at work decided they wanted our mobile computing project and told us they are taking it over. They want me and the team of course because they have no one to do the work themselves. Officially its because Robie isn't around and they need someone with gray hair to run the program. But in reality we know that miss VP of Sales needs a technology project to attempt to sell her wares. So they killed my company and offered us jobs. We were damn close to being ready to pitch our own thing but we weren't fast enough. JPR Wood Consulting is no more. My current employer is Innovative Solutions Group (ISG).

RIP