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Lately, I have been watching a lot of classic TV series on Netflix Streaming.  Lots of fun, although it did highlight that my cable modem is ancient and needs to be replaced with a DOCSIS 3.0 box, to prevent hiccups.  

One show that I have been cruising through is Hawaii Five-0.  The early episodes are remarkably cheesy.  Hopefully they get less ridiculous as the seasons go on.  

But, one thing I noticed is that there is never a rainy day in Honolulu.  I will keep a vigilant watch, but I suspect that we may never see any precipitation on the big island.  I know from my trips there that some of the wettest places in the US are on the islands.

I will take a bullet, and keep watching for a crappy day in Five-0

This morning I got my second crown.  Both upper rear molars are now crowned.  

The first one I got ~ 20 years ago.  I ate a hard candy and the tooth completely crumbled.  Getting fitted for the crown was a bit arduous.  Two impressions (before and after grinding of the teeth), followed by three weeks of wearing a temporary crown awaiting the porcelain and stanless.  Then, it took some fine finishing to get it all to fit.

This one was much easier.  Numb the mouth, grind the tooth, do an impression, and send in the information.  2 weeks later (plus a few days since I was unable to get in last week) it is back, and it literally took 20 minutes to install.  It was a perfect fit, and no adjustments were required.

What is different?  Well, the fact that digital 3D imaging and modeling software, coupled with high precision mills, and the result is a much better fit, first time around.  

Do a search on “dental implant measurement” for a quick dive into the technology to make this all happen.  Way cool stuff.

Talking about “Why people who make things should learn Chinese” and this snippet of a comment really got me smiling this AM.

“I’m sure there was a time not long ago when the people of England and France were saying “Those Americans…we’ve got to keep an eye on them or they’ll end up being almost as powerful as our Roman Legion and Spanish Armada and then we’ll have to deal with them”. But of course, the British and French had gay sex and created Canada, and that did something, I’m not sure what, but they sure like their hockey up there. Hell, they fucking riot when they’re behind in the second period“.

Hats off to PopeRatzo for making me laugh this AM

Today, while projecting for our iteration planning meeting, my google talk client popped up a notification on a new email with the title “Regarding the job opportunity xxx”  Oops.  Didn’t really want the team to see that one.

Sigh, one more application to shut down prior to meetings.  

When you are joining a conference call, and you are prompted to speak your name and press pound or hash, you suddenly have to cough, sneeze, burp etc?  Never fails…

I know that in a perfect world, all the presence and meeting tools would obviate the need for business travel.

However, if you live in the real world, and you are a product manager, you realize that some significant fraction of your time needs to be spent on the road.  Be it visiting customers, technology partners, or pressing the flesh at events (roadshows, tradeshows, conferences, etc).

In the new world, where the airlines are consolidating, reducing the number of seats, and working to maximize their revenue generation potential, any flexibility and perq’s you used to enjoy as a frequent flyer are about as rare as hen’s teeth.  As a Gold (or 1K) level member on United, I used to enjoy early boarding, priority baggage (not only free but with the magical flag in the tag to get your bags spun first), about 90% of the time an empty seat next to you (really nice in coach on an international flight), and a pretty liberal upgrade policy (like auto 1st class upgrades domestically).

Now, with every flight sold out, you get none of the upgrades or open seats.  The baggage still gets the priority tag, but the ground crew pretty much ignores the priority.  Upgrades are pretty much reserved for the 1K members, or global services.  And the real clincher, there are so few open seats, that you can’t book mile sponsored tickets to any desirable destination, or on convenient dates.

Add to that a plethora of canceled flights (I suspect to keep the open seats on other flights non-existent), oversolf flights, airplanes that aren’t cleaned (if you find used tissues, orange peels and banana peels in seat back pockets, well, ick).

There really aren’t any good aspects to business travel.

If you had an early eveneing flight, and got done early, you could go to the airport and have a reasonable chance of flying home earlier on Standby?

Yeah, those days are gone.  Too full flights, and the mentality of nickel and diming passengers to death have killed this little bit of flexibility that us frequent travelers used to enjoy.

Sigh, as I contemplate a trip this week.

So many great topics that are languishing in my head:

Marketing: Momentum is a bad thing – because we always have done it doesn’t mean that we should continue in perpetuity

Marketing/Product Management – Data – Use it to decide whether to continue in, or enter a business

Marketing/Product Management: Is it too much to ask Business Development for even a cursory business case with their proposals?

Product Management: A year and a major release under Agile.  The good, the bad and the ugly (ok, not so much ugly)

Living with the iPad 2 – Why did I ever consider it frivolous?  

Product Management: Tool roundup part II (or is it III?  I forget)

Can we just drop the pretense? Cars with primer on the road. They are NEVER get a real coat of paint.They are destined to be rat cars until they hit the wrecker

than driving behind a Hybrid car that is “hyper-miling”*?

Following behind an ginormous SUV hyper-miling.  Seriously, you bought a 12MPG land yacht, so why do you try to stretch your gas milage to 13MPG by taking 1/2 mile to get to 35 MPH?  Seriously, you need a cranial examination

*Hyper-miling – the practice of trying to get the last distance out of each gallon of gas.  Slow to start & accelerate, even slower/longer deceleration.  High inflation pressure (reduces rolling resistance, but is very dangerous) and other tricks you share in the internet