I’m sure that you’re not particularly thrilled about the thunderstorms you’re getting tonight. While not actually claiming any sort of godlike powers, I feel that as an ethical person who takes responsibility for his actions I should apologize for bringing about this weather.
You see, there is a meeting this week at our office in Lincolnshire. I, along with several colleagues, am flying there to partake in these discussions which I assure you will be to great benefit of everyone involved. Generally, the simple act of flying to a destination is not enough to cause such a significant change in atmospheric conditions. I made the mistake this time of actually planning to meet people for dinner when I arrived tonight, and that additional selfish act can only be assumed to have caused the storm clouds to begin their formation over o’hare. My travel karma seems to degrade exponentially with the scope of planned activity at the destination.
So, to the citizens of chicago and to my colleagues stranded in airports across north america, I apologize.
This apology will be best received in person upon my arrival into your great city later tonight (or potentially tomorrow or wednesday depending on my flight status).

Dinner last night was certainly interesting.  Joel, Cheryl, and I went into downtown Munich to Marienplatz and sought out in search of traditional bavarian fare.  We walked in to a large hall where the posted menu boasted that “the best part is the offals”, with an interesting selection of miscellaneous parts and preparations of meat that I´ve never before experienced.  Excellent…

We walked inside, and the host pointed us in the direction of a table that appeared to be full.  Alas, it was only partially full with a family of three who appeared to be German tourists, one old guy who was clearly a regular, and three empty chairs for us.  After a brief glazed-over look at the menu, we had to pull the tourist move of ordering an english menu (not before snapping a few pictures of the wonderfully immature pairings of the word “weiner” all over the menu).  When the english menu arrived, the depth of just how freaky this menu was became apparent.  I personally couldn´t choose between the pig diaphragm with fried tongue, or the calf´s head.  After much debate, I settled on the diaphram meal only to be told by the waitress that they were all out.  Whether there was a huge demand for diaphram that night, or it was just on the menu to scare away tourists and they never had it in the first place I am unclear.  I tried for a different veal diaphram meal (because if diaphram´s on the menu, really how can you pass it up) and once again was denied.  In the end I settled on a mixed meat platter, with various cuts of pork, veal, a liver dumpling and of course a big pile of sauerkraut.  Cheryl got something similar, but with different random cuts of meat.  And Joel ordered a big sausage plate (…biting commentary far too easy, so I´ll leave that to your imagination).

The food was all excellent, as was the beer.  Unfortunatelz for Joel, he stepped out to the men´s room during the most exciting part of the evening.  From a few tables behind us, we heard a ruckus.  I turned around to see two men staring each other down, their noses almost touching and the rage in their eyes quite apparent.  Combatant number one was a relatively normal looking person, weighing in at maybe 175lb.  Combatant number two however was a burly man who weighed in at about 300lbs and was decked out in a clearly well worn set of lederhosen.  His legs were bare even in the freezing temperatures of a bavarian winter.  His calves were like tree trunks wrapped in wool stockings, he was drunk and he was angry.  This was not a guy who I would mess with, and he had a table full of lederhosen-wearing buddies (it was picture worthy in its abstraction, but neither I nor Cheryl dared to pull out a camera.)

Words were exchanged (no idea what they were, but they sounded serious), bar staff rushed in to separate the men, and they walked the smaller combatant out the door.  On his way out, he shouted something back in to the restaurant and lederhosen guy bolted through the crowd to take care of some assen kicken.

We couldn´t see clearly through the antiqued glass windows, but someone went into the bike racks and a small crowd had formed on the sidewalk to watch the melee.  After a few minutes, our lederhosen friend returned and everyone in the restaurant averted their eyes as he rejoined his table.

So, that was our exciting night in downtown Munich.  A story to retell for awhile for sure!

I certainly hope so, because otherwise I´ll be returning to Canada with a nasty case of scurvy.  I can´t even recall the last vegetable I ate.  Breakfast was provded at the office prior to our meeting, it consisted of soft pretzels with butter and coffee.  For lunch with had pizza.  Dinner last night deserves its own post, but for the sake of summary it was nothing but meat.  I skipped breakfast this morning, and for lunch in the market I chose between the apparent options of sausage, slightly smaller sausage, random meat on a bun, or sausage on a plate with saurkraut.  I went for the healthy option, ie the one with sauerkraut.

I see a theme here…

I’ve been on the road for a couple of weeks, meeting with R&D teams at Open Text Ottawa and Chicago.  While in Chicago last week, a storm rolled through and dumped a load of snow on the city.  I must admit that I’m surprised at just how much Chicago freaked out over the storm.  It was a big storm, yes, but then again it’s not like they don’t get this sort of thing all the time.  On Wednesday of last week, the office was closed, the Mexican restaurant we tried to go to for lunch was closed, and when I tried to go shopping in the evening to get a birthday gift for my lovely wife, the mall was closed.  The city literally shut down over a foot of snow.  Odd.

When I got home, I found that there was even more snow at home in Milton.  Jodie and my neighbour Steve valiantly battled the accumulation on the driveway and several passes from the plow dumping ice at the end of the driveway.  It was deep, and still is much deeper than I’ve seen in years.  Over the weekend, the temperature rose to above freezing and turned most of what was left on the roads to slush.  By Sunday night though, the temperature had dropped to -30 (with the wind-chill) which has converted that slush into rock-solid ice.  It is dang cold!

And finally on the topic of cold, I started to get that telltale tingle in my sinuses in the middle of last week that signals to me a pending cold.  By Friday, I was coughing on everyone and by Sunday I was in bed with a fever and feeling completely run-down.  To the delight of my coworkers I’m sure, I decided to come in to the office today (Monday) because I have just too many things that I need to get done.  Maybe I’ll put up a quarantine barrier over my office door.

My father had his last day of work yesterday, a momentous occasion I call his second retirement from the medical profession.  Looks like he’s already going stir crazy.  I received the below letter at 7:30am today.

Dear Mr. Near:
Please consider my application for the position of Product Manager.
After forty years of dealing with life and death issues, I now find myself unemployed.
Since I have never worked for a software company (or any company, for that matter) I shall be able to bring a fresh and unbiased approach to the company environment.
As you can see from the time of this posting, I am an early riser, and could easily arrive at the office ahead of anyone else.  I could have the lights on and the coffee ready.
My reputation has not been made by the speed of my work. I am actually famous for my slowness. There must be a place in your enterprise for a calm slow moving presence to counter all of those people who are madly off in all directions.
It may take me a few days to get used to the nitty gritty of your software, but I can start right in with the more important aspects of the job. You must have employees and customers dealing with the ravages of workplace stress. I can offer these individuals immediate and on site help in the form of  potent prescription medications, as well as on site psychotherapy. Headaches, chest pain, and sexual hang-ups can be dealt with immediately – I am sure that you can easily see that what would follow would be a marked increase in productivity from all concerned. The effect on “the bottom line” is sure to be noticed by your superiors, and you know what that means!
While I have only been unemployed for a few hours, I am anxious to get back into the game. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
John Near

Just prior to the holidays, I was asked by some high-level executives at Open Text to consider taking on a new role.  After some research and discussions, I decided to take on this new challenge.  I have to admit I was conflicted about leaving my current role as director of North American customer support, but the encouragement from my current management helped me to make the decision.

So what is the new role?  “Director of Product Management for Livelink Enterprise Server” is what it says on the business card.  For the uninitiated, Livelink ES is the flagship product for Open Text.  It is an enterprise-class application that allows large companies to manage their documents, manage their compliance with international regulatory bodies, and connect their structured information (databases) with unstructured information (documents, emails, etc) in a meaningful way.  The Livelink product management team is responsible for for this application - setting direction and priorities for the product, evangelizing and working with customers, and connecting with our many partners both internal and external to ensure we are delivering business value to our users.

If you know of anyone in the Waterloo or Chicago areas who would make a good product manager, please let me know.  I have several PM positions that I’m hiring for in both locations, and I’d love to get some referrals.

The new job officially starts on Feb 1, but the work has already begun.  I’ll be spending most of the coming month on the road, visiting with R&D teams in Chicago, Ottawa, and Munich as well as a handful of customer meetings in various locations.Â