By the time we got to Nerdstock ...

The sun has broken through, revealing a landscape that is as bleak as it was when the weather was cloudy. These are flat lands where, as the saying goes, you can watch your dog run away from home for two days. There are small ponds by the sides of the roads, created when the roads were builts. The ponds are covered with ice, but there's no snow to be seen.

So, we are crowded in small conference rooms, everyone straining to get their power cords and network cables plugged in, as though to breathe. The people are smart, very smart, jaw-droppingly, head-spinningly smart. Most of the language isn't words, but acronyms and other abbreviations: GPON, TDM, WIPM, etc. I keep a notepad full of these things and when no one's looking, I use Google to find out what they mean. One person asked for the definition of an abbreviation. He got the answer, but someone in the room laughed. No one has asked since.

The meetings last from eight or nine in the morning until five in evening. Our hosts provide lunches for our noon break. In all, there are about 500 people attending these meetings, including the five of us from our company. On the first day, we were late getting to the table where they handed out the box lunches. All that was left was a stack of vegetarian lunches. We weren't going to let that happen again. Yesterday, 200 people were lined up at 11:20.

After the sessions close, I go to a local supermarket to buy something for supper and go back to the hotel. The others go out to dinner and likely hang around for drinks afterwards. I have other work to do. I can get a lot done on the Blackberry, but I can't edit large documents.

I am scheduled to come here three more times in the next few months. I'm glad that I'm here. I'm getting to learn the business and the technology in ways that I couldn't otherwise. This amount of travel, however, is hard on us all, particularly on special days.

Happy 10th Birthday, Krista.