Back in Chicago…

The past week I was in Minneapolis attending the IETF meeting. Although network access was plentiful there, I was so busy I didn’t have any time to update my journal. It was a good meeting, though. A lot of good stuff got done. The two teams who had been proposing competing “son-of-IKE” proposals have agreed to work together toward a combined proposal. I announced the results of the nominating committee, which means my job as nomcom chair is pretty much done (thank goodness!). All-in-all, it was definitely one of the more personally satisfying and productive IETF meetings in a while.

I added two additional books to my “to-read” list. The first is “The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition” by Caroline Alexander. The IETF social was at the Minneapolis Science Museum, and we got to see an IMAX movie about Sir Shackelton’s amazing antarctic journey. The fact that he was able to bring all of his crew back after his ship was trapped in the ice is simply amazing, and after seeing the movie, I want to read more about it.

The second is “Black Hawk Down”, by Mark Bowden. I haven’t see the movie, since I’ve been sorely lacking in a social life the past two years, but someone I was chatting with during the IETF meeting was raving about the book, and his descriptions interested me enough that I want to find and read it.

Anyway, I’m back in Chicago now, and I’ve been helping my dad and my sister with the estate. My mom took care of all of the investments, so we’ve been helping my dad to assemble all of the investment information, so we can go meet with the lawyer on Monday, and to start activating my parent’s living trust plans. Of course, I also have a huge amount of work to get done, so I’ll be working (or at least trying to work) this week as well as taking care of family business. At least in theory, one of the nice things about working from home is that it’s possible to work from other locations, as well. We’ll see how well the theory actually works in practice…