When Lee Dirks asked me to represent the Microsoft Research Connections team at a Digital Public Library of America meeting at Harvard Law School in Boston, I immediately checked my calendar. The DPLA folks are starting a wonderful new journey of defining a platform for digital libraries so they needed input from industry Software Architects.

This is Tony Hey‘s group so I am always wiling to help if I can. Also, Lee is such a great guy so it’s difficult for me to say “no” 🙂 I checked my work calendar to make sure that I didn’t have any meetings before committing to the trip. Then the following two occurred:

• I changed roles within Microsoft (yes, again! :-)*. My new boss was more than happy for me to help out MSR, so all was good.
• I checked my personal calendar and realized that I had bought tickets for the Winter Warmth concert with Florence and the Machine on the night I was supposed to fly to Boston 🙁 I was really looking forward to seeing them live again but I couldn’t let Lee down. So what is a concert-going geek like me to do?

I knew I was going to be already pumped by the “Deck the Hall Ball 2011” the night before so I had to figure something out 🙂

I now find myself at the Logan International Airport in Boston, Saturday 6am, waiting for a flight to San Diego. I got tickets for the “91X Wrex the Halls” festival over there. Oh, it’s going to be awesome.

My Wed-Sun schedule:

• Wed: Deck the Hall Ball. It was amazing: Young the Giant, Foster the People, Cage the Elephant, Death Cub for Cutie, Mumford & Sons.
• Thu: Flight to Boston. In the evening I crashed the CHI 2011 Program Committee meeting and went out for dinner with them since, by complete coincidence, Mary happed to also be in Boston 🙂
• Fri: DPLA meeting at Harvard Law School. Met my friend Renata in the evening after a long time.
• Sat morning: Flight to San Diego via Dallas.
• Sat evening: 91X Wrex the Halls. Cage the Elephant, Death Cub for Cutie, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, and of course Florence and the Machine.
• Sun afternoon: Flight to Seattle.

Next time I will try to cover all four corners of the US! Now I am looking for the right place to make a donation in order to offset the resulting carbon footprint for this trip.

 

Crazy eh? I love it! 🙂

 

* I am super super excited about the new role but I am not going to say anything else until the new effort sticks and delivers to its huge potential. Given Microsoft’s investment and the caliber of people involved, I am extremely optimistic 🙂 I am having a blast so far!