What am I thinking? What are you thinking?

Airport Seats Dot Com

The life of a traveling salesman includes lots of airport seats. Have you ever really looked at airport seating? I mean really looked at it?

My good colleague David Gray had a moment of clarity one day as he sat in an airport. The result was www.airportseats.com Read about his sudden vision on the site.

David has a website dedicated to the places we sit in airports. If this sounds strange to you - take a look. It is strange. I recently submitted a photo to David and he blogged me! You too can submit photo's if you follow his photo rules.

So, visit David's site and enjoy it. He is an artist - if you don't believe me -- look at what he will do to get the right photo. Here he is in action.

Home

I spent the last day in Holzkirchen and then trained up to Munich to spend some alone time walking the streets.

OK, so it was not so much alone time, but I wasn't talking to anyone. Munich is a crowded city - and this is the City Center, Marienplatz. I turned my camera to people here. It is hard to photograph people - they are always watching you.

I took photos for a few people at this popular photo site. I really like these girls photographing themselves. This fountain is a popular meeting place - lot's of people waiting for something, someone.

Business trips are whatever you choose to make of them. This one was especially enjoyable as I chose to make it an exploration. I also learned the joy of having my small camera on my belt at all times. My SLR was being repaired so I just took my small minolta digital. I will always take the small and large hardware from now on! They each have a place.

Bavaria is a beautiful part of the world and it is possible to notice this even when you have to work.

Work is different for some people. I often feel that this kind of work would ultimately be more satisfying. But my wife points out to me often that I should be grateful for the work I do and the possibility of traveling and meeting so many people, learning about the culture in other places and having rich experiences. She is right of course. Monday I am back to "the factory" to Chop Wood and Carry Water.

David

All work and no play?

If you know Jake Dunnum you know that he is a busy guy. As product manager for ETC's major dimming lines and all of our networking products he has very little down time at work.

Here we see Jake taking a conference call from our dinner location at the Lindl, Mark vassallo's favorite place to eat. The Lindl is in a lovely location with charming service and very bavarian style food.

Mark insists that everyone eat the garlic soup - which makes for a  nice atmosphere in the conference room the next day. Just to prove that we are not all work and no play - we wound up the evening with a game of traditional Bavarian bowling called Kegelscheiben.

This single wooden lane at the Lindl has been around over 150 years - originally as a dirt lane. The Bavarian variation on the game "Holzbarteln" is very complex - involving strategies to leave certain pins up and payments of beer litres to the group for certain combinations and extra payments to the pin setter for sertain actions. We played it american style. And Jake Dunnum emerged the winner. You can see his early skills forming here on video. Don't miss Mark vassallo setting pins!

Great pains were taken to document the occasion. David Gray is truly an artist.

You can see Davids other work here.  Myself, I didn't do too badly in the evenings game.

Now here is something you don't see everyday in Germany. Gunther Weidemann has a nice ride for the Autobahn.

According to Gunther this is the only 1977 Chevy Stepside in Germany! And it is a beauty. A precision tuned 350 - 4 barrel makes this quite fun on long stretches of highway. Gunther spent the last everal months doing the final assembly. He wishes he had purchased a digital camera before he began the disassembly! Special thanks to Oskar Krogell for the video clips!

Jake and I took a decompression driving trip down to Tergernsee last night after the days meetings. Here is a slide show of my pictures from that trip.

Munchen tonite. Home tomorrow.

David

Chop wood, Carry Water

A Zen Proverb

Chop Wood, Carry Water. 

This is what we do before enlightenment. This is what we do after enlightenment.

Stacking firewood is an art in Bavaria. I noticed this the first time I ever came here - but I am now struck by how significant the Art of stacking wood is. This morning I photographed the Art.

Watch the slide show.

Have you ever attended a sales meeting?

A famous ETC marketing VP once referred to these annual events as a "blood sport."

Do these people look dangerous? No - not to a mere mortal - but to a marketing person this scene draws immediate fear!

As Anne Valentino presented her content to the sales team via telephone, I showed her "death by powerpoint" presentation locally on my PC in Holzkirchen. Sarah Clausen "skyped" me. As you can see from our chat below, after asking a few simple details about here segment of the meeting - She asks "is it bloody over there?"

Funny thing was that I was showing Anne's powerpoint onscreen so everyone in the meetnig got to see Sarah's question! Needless to say - she got a few laughs from the room.

Sarah - On video. Skype is a great application! If you do not use it - you should.

David

Off to Germany

I travelled to Bavaria on Saturday for the ETC Europe sales force's biannual sales meeting. Jake Dunnum and I flew into Munich and enjoyed a brief excursion to Nymphenburg Palace before heading down to Holzkirchen where our ETC office is located.

Munich is a great city, great museums, great sites. I think it must have been interesting to have been carried around in these little boxes. I guess I will never really know. Claustrophobia might have been a problem.

The views from the hotel near Holzkirchen are extraordinary!

The sales meeting began to day - so much for the fun - now its time for the beatings to begin. (Stay tuned to see who gets beaten!)

Here is a link to a slide show of photos.