The trip on the 15th-18th had surveyed the situation at NTT and installed two PDUs, two routers (for NTT and Cogent), and a temporary switch between the routers. It was a bit painful, but eventually successful. I had spent a lot of time and effort trying to get professional help for the rack and stack in the Westin, particularly the cable dress, but with no luck. So I convinced Latif to go up with me and CJ Collier and Brad Fitzpatrick would be the main help. I spent the previous week ordering Ethernet, Velcro, and all the other goodies I thought we would need.
Wednesday 2026.04.29
I packed in the morning and took Kaiby? to the vet for a checkup. I packed the car, left home at 11:50, picked Latif up, and headed for the freeway. Bridge traffic was not too bad and the highway was OK. We got to Chehalis charging at 13:30, and left Chehalis at 14:00. Traffic was reasonable. We got to the Poulsbo Electrocute America at 15:20 and left at 15:45. We were on Bainbridge at Bay Hay and Feed by 16:10 so Latif could get a tee shirt. It took him half an hour. Then we drove down to Town & Country plugged, into the charger there, and went shopping. I was back out with Latif not to be seen. He seemed to really like shopping. We finally got home on Bainbridge at 17:30. We unpacked, looked at the garden, and I caught up with email while Latif lay down for a bit. Latif watched football
I checked out the garden, and sent a pic of the lilac to Katen.
We cooked and ate the steak we bught at T&C. Turned out Latif did not eat broccoli. We crashed about ten
Thursday 2026.04.30
I woke at 05:45, dressed, and made coffee. Latif woke to at 06:15, and we headed out at 07:15 to make the 07:55 ferry. I got a ham and cheese croissant at Commuter Comforts. We were at KOMO before nine, and ran into CJ and collected Brad. We dismantled the KOMO rack.
We loaded it into CJ’s pickup, finishingby 11:15, and headed for the Westin. We started racking from the top. Some of the rails were messy. CJ and Brad were amazing, and Latif caught on and was quite helpful. At two o’clock, Latif and I went down to the poke shop and got mediocre poke for everyone. We managed to rack everything, and I even managed to get NTT BGP up, and could access the rack from outside.
We finished at seven, and headed for the ferry. We missed the 19:30 by a minute, so caught the 20:15, the sunset ride.
We got home shortly after nine. I did the receipts, poked at routers, and gave up shortly after ten.
Friday 2026.05.01
I woke at 05:45, before the alarm, dressed, made coffee, and tried to think through some of the issues at the Westin. In mounting the three switches cold side correctly, it meant their front panels were more distant from the servers’ back ends and I suspected we did not have the needed 2m DACs. We did the same as the previous day, caught the 07:55 sailing, and were at the Westin about nine. Brad showed up shortly thereafter. After some back and forth, we reversed two of the three switches. Brad started cabling power while I started cabling data. At maybe eleven, CJ showed up having totaled his truck. He was shaken, so we sent him home. Brad finished power and was starting to play with the serial cabling when he had to go deal with kids at about 14:30. It took me a while to clean up cabling issues, bad DACs, etc. I finally got the whole Ganeti cluster up. The two connections to the SIX were dead dead dead. I spent almost two hours on them.
At 18:45, Innocent Obi showed up to take the old Juniper m7i and Cisco 3750 off our hands and ship them off to East Africa. Latif and I cleaned up and packed everything away, and caught the 19:05 ferry. We had dinner at [Hitchcock’s Bar](https://www.cafehitchcock.com/bainbridgeisland), which I would prefer not to repeat. We were home by nine, and I did paperwork and some clean-up until 22:30. Chris Caputo of the SIX confessed to not turning up the circuits yet, so he did so. The USC 1G came up. The 10G to r2 did not, I suspected because I had rolled the fiber. So It would be back to the Westin the next day.
Saturday 2026.05.02
We woke around nine, did the normal coffee and dressing thing, and left the house at ten. We went to downtown Winslow, a major mistake, to go to [Blackbird Bakery](https://blackbirdbakery.com/) and got a quiche and some banana bread for breakfast. Blackbird was so crowded that we missed the 10:25 ferry so sat in the queue for an hour to wait for the 11:35. Once in Seattle, I dropped Latif off near the Pike Street market, and got to the Westin at 12:30. I rolled the fiber for the SIX 10G connection and it came up. I noticed a bit of network nostalgia, a cart labeled Verio.
I left the Westin at one o’clock and met Latif on the street. Then it was I5 Southbound in follow mode. We arrived at the Chehalis charging station at 14:35 with 10% charge, maybe the lowest I had ever let it go. We left Chehalis at 15:10 with 72% charge. Traffic was OK but definitely not clear. I dropped Latif off at his place, and I was home at 16:40.
I had spent weeks doing diagrams, spreadsheet, and a hundred emails setting up the move from KOMO back to the Westin.
Wednesday 2026.04.15
I packed from about eleven to twelve, loaded the car, said goodbye to the house and the cat and Zita, and drove up the road at 12:25. Traffic was relatively light. I was across the bridge by 12:40 and stopped at Les Schwab in Vancouver to have my tires checked. This was a wise move. The tires were about 26 instead of 41. Back on I5, I got in the left lane and just put it in follow mode. At 13:55 I arrived at Chehalis at 43% charge. I went to the Walmart to pee and see the real America. I ate my furikake ahi poke and seaweed salad while Kermit ate. I let Kermit eat to 70% and he predicted we would arrived at Poulsbo with 13%, which seemed OK. Back in the left lane and follow mode, things were more erratic. I took the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and arrived in the Poulsbo Electrocute America station at four o’clock. The battery level was 23%. There were patches of snow or hail on the ground on the Kitsap Peninsula. Not a lot, but clearly it had snowed. I ate my banana and went into the Walmart to pee and see if America was still there. It was but not as bad as Chehalis. Kermit reached 90% at 16:45, so I headed for Bainbridge. I arrived home at 17:20 with 85% battery. It was 5C and raining and there were patches of snow and hail on the ground.
I unpacked, set up an office, and worked until 19:15. Cogent finally came through with the LOA, and NTT ordered the cross-connect in the MMR. Then I drove to Sawadty Thai for dinner. I had Shrimp Pho which was a bit tasteless, and was back home by 20:30. Katen pointed out that I had ordered pho at a Thai restaurant; so I was clearly whacked. Lizzie reported on her doctor visit; eustachian tubes can take months to clear. I did some DNS work and headed for bed.
Thursday 2026.04.16
I could not really sleep past four o’clock. So at five o’clock I gave up, made coffee and dressed, cleaned up email, and did final organization and packing for the rack and stack. I left the house at 6:30 figuring I would make the 7:55 sailing. But nobody was going to Seattle, so I was early in the queue for the 7:05 boat. It was 4c with half blue and half low cumulus, definitely a PNW morning.
When we docked I went to the South Lake Union Google campus and parked in the underground garage. It was eight o’clock and they were not open to guests until 08:30. I was cold. Finally CJ Collier showed around 08:30 and we got me badged and went up and had breakfast. At 09:30 we headed back to the car and drove to KOMO Plaza and parked in their underground.
We we walked up to Evocative and were met by Sammy. Mike was not in. I suspected avoiding me. CJ and I un-racked the Cisco ASR1001 and then had fun getting out of the colo without badges. Eventually we got out and got Kermit and beaded to the Westin
Getting badges was quite easy; NTT had set it up well. We unloaded Kermit in two trips and started racking with the PDUs. CJ did all the hard work, including replacing the molded on plugs of the PDUs. I had left the Dell rails in Portland, so racking got a bit hokey. CJ was good at that but had zero sense of cable dress.
It was all racked by three o’clock. But nothing worked at the connectivity level. I debugged until 16:30 when I decided to let CJ go. He said let’s eat. So we drove to Umi and had decent but not great chirashi donbouris. I then drove him back to Goggle and I was back in the Westin Getting by six
I found a bad SFP but the rest was disappointing. At seven I packed out and headed for the ferry. I darned near drive straight on the 19:30 sailing. It was the sunset ride.
I got home recorded the day’s events and expenses and went to sleep by ten.
Friday 2026.04.17
I woke at 07:15, showered, made coffee, and cleared email. I left home at 09:05 to make the 09:40 sailing. I could’ve left 15 or 20 minutes later as the queue was negligible. I wondered if the ferry traffic pattern had significantly changed that I could get on ferries so easily. Once aboard, I went upstairs and got a ham egg and cheese bun for breakfast. It was really bad. I could see that the boat was only half full and again wondered why the ferry traffic was so different. Rosa texted that Kaiby? had suckered her into giving her a second breakfast.
I got to the Westin at 10:30, and the access ticket turned out to only be for the previous day, as I had suspected, but Brad from NTT had denied. So I texted and emailed Brad, and sat down to wait. Brad responded that there was some sort of mistake and to have the desk call him. So she did. It all took ten minutes to sort, so much better than Equinix in Dallas. I made it into the cage, and first wanted to debug the NTT circuit. So I figured out how to swap tx/rx on the fiber and it worked, even BGP came up. Joe gave me the recipe for breaking into the 3970 switch and resetting it. That fixed that problem of local LAN connectivity, and now the two routers were talking to each other. The only problem was that I could not get to the NTT router from the global Internet. I suspected NTT had a routing issue but more likely my bug. The rack looked embarrassing.
As there was nothing left I could do, I left the Westin at 13:10 and headed for the ferry. The next ferry was at 14:05, oops. And then it turned out the ferry was running 25 minutes late. The good news was that, of the four ferries I was taking, this was the one with the schedule I worried least about. I used my phone’s WiFi hot-spot to get on net and get some work done while waiting for the ferry, which turned out to be pretty full As I was working, CJ texted me to tell me they needed me on the SIX annual meeting call to make a quorum so I dialed in.
When we docked, I drove to Town & Country. I was still on the SIX call but wanted to charge Kermit. The chargers’ credit card readers were claiming a security violation. It took me half an hour, while I was still on the SIX call, to figure out that you had to scan a QR code and put your credit card in over the web using Safari. I really didn’t like this. While Kermit was eating, I went and grabbed some dinner in Town & Country, and got a small take-away salad which I ate while Kermit was eating. I then drove home getting there about 16:45.
I caught up with email and worked with Joe trying to understand the reachability problem of r0.sea. We didn’t understand it, so I was going to have to go in to Seattle on Saturday on my way back to Portland. I spent the rest of the evening looking at configs and preparing to debug r0.sea the next day. I skipped dinner; though I had bought makings at Town and Country. I headed for bed at nine o’clock.
Saturday 2026.04.18
I was up from one to four and then slept in to eight. So a total of eight hours of sleep, yay! I showered, dressed, made coffee, packed. and cleaned up email. Hans texted to ask if there were duckies. I said a goose.
I left home at 09:35 at 88% battery. It was 10c, bright sunny, with some very light high clouds. Jake’s Truck Stop was closed, so I went straight to the ferry and was first in the line in lane one, as I just missed the 09:45 sailing. Commuter Comforts was also closed. So even half decent breakfast was not in the cards. We finally boarded the 10:25 and I was in the front.
The boat turned out to be full, which was interesting as the weekday boats were not. I went upstairs and got a chorizo breakfast burrito, which I thought I might regret. But I had to eat something because I hadn’t really had dinner.
I was in the Westin shortly after 11:15. It took me 15 minutes to cable up, and CJ showed up to try to help, with a bunch of kit we really didn’t need. He played with it while I managed to find the bug with routing, so the NTT connection became useful and I could get into the rack from the outside world. I was through and packed out by one o’clock and heading to I5 Southbound. At 13:45 I took a 15 minute detour to go to Les Schwab to have my tires checked. Back on the road I got in the left lane and went into follow mode. I got to the Chehalis charging station at 14:40 but the one available charger didn’t work for me so I queued up. By 14:55 I had a working charger. I went into the Red Panda and got a half portion of fried rice with sesame chicken. It was survivable. When I got back to Kermit, he had eaten enough to be very safe making it home. So I left to Chehalis at 15:30. I got home at 16:55, unloaded the car, and fed the starving cat.
I had to be in Amsterdam for a RIPE-NCC Board meeting Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th. Normally I would plan to fly the 24th, arrive the 25th and meet the next two days. The problem was that the PAM (Passive and Active Measurement) conference was going to be the 23-25 (online). And I had to present a keynote on the 23rd or 24th. And it would be rude not to be at the whole conference. So I asked Hans Petter’s permission to fly in the weekend before and use the RIPE-NCC offices. So I booked on the 5th of February after my Visa card rolled for the month.
I had been obsessing over my PAM presentation for a month. A keynote is much harder than presenting a paper; it is philosophy and vision, not results. I had trouble sleeping, and would dictate thoughts on it into my phone. And I learned that it was going to be over Microsoft Teams, not Zoom; and Teams is a major pain. I would never volunteer for such a thing again.
Saturday 2026.03.21
I woke at seven, dressed, finished packing, and had breakfast. I was still obsessing about my PAM talk, and had come up with some thoughts overnight. So I hacked on it a bit and cleaned up some email. The NOML told me that the TSA queue at PDX was short, so I did not summon an Uber until 08:45. For the first time ever, the Uber came before the app said it would, and we were on the way by 08:55. It was warm and sunny. The driver did not talk the whole way. We arrived at the airport at 09:20. The place was empty. I was through TSA by 09 25 and in the lounge by 09:30. They had finally opened up the direct path to the E gates. I worked a bit more on my presentation and cleaned up some email. I left the lounge at 10:20.
I boarded at 10:25. United flight 1641 to Chicago was a 737-900ER. The plane was full. They kept the doors open until eleven as they were late boarding the meal carts. We pushed back exactly on time at eleven o’clock, taxied to the East end of the runways, and took off at 11:10. The USB power was USB-C only, so I plugged my phone into my laptop. As I had not managed to get under 66kg in my month plus at home, I passed on the in-flight meal. I worked on my presentation a bit, texted Katen and Elaine, and pretended to doze. After a loop over the lake, we landed in Chicago at 16:22 and, after a long and complex taxi through a lot of construction, were at the gate by 16:39, 19 minutes early.
It was a short walk to the Polaris lounge, which was pretty, but not completely, full. I settled in and had two helpings of a mostly beet and quinoa salad; trying to be virtuous. I caught up with email, easily as it was Saturday. I felt ready to sleep the whole flight to Amsterdam, but suspected that was not going to happen. I left the lounge at 18:15 for a 18:20 boarding. Because the plane needed to be cooled, it bein 22c out, we did not board until 18:30.
United flight 909 to Amsterdam Schiphol was a recently refurbished 32 year old 767-300. It was completely full. They only had the #1 door open, and the 767 is pretty long, so boarding was messy. I ordered only the starter, so hummus, tuna, and a salad. We pushed back three minutes early at 19:07, but then taxied for over twenty minutes, taking off at 19:21. I had the take-off starters, which were about the worst United catering I had in recent years, and watched a random movie [Causeway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_(film)), a calm story of an injured vet returning from Afghanistan. Then I napped fitfully until two hours before landing. The breakfast was also noticeably bad. I schmoozed with a nice flight attendant, Wendy, out of Chicago.
Sunday 2026.03.22
At 08:46 we landed at Amsterdam Schiphol, 25 minutes early, and were docked at a hard stand at 08:55. It took ten minutes to get thestairway and bus ready. It was 8c and bright at nine in the morning. We arrived at the terminal by nine o’clock. Of course the escalator was not working. The automated passport control didn’t like my fingerprints or something, so I ended up entering an enormous cueue at 9:20. I got through the queue and passport control at 10:15, 55 minutes. and made the 10:29 to Centraal. I was at my normal hotel, the [Kimpton De Witt](https://www.kimptondewitthotel.com/en/), at 10:55. The lobby was pretty full. I was checked in and in my room by 11:05.
I napped to 14:00, showered, and dressed. Then I worked on my PAM presentation some more, incorporated a hint or two from Cristel, and ran through it once more to smooth the reading. Maybe I would never be happy with it and it would be fine anyway. I kept tweaking it past six o’clock. At almost 18:30, I walked over to the usual Koepelcafé and had an entrecôte with a salad. I had forgotten that it was tough and tasteless. I wondered if I would remember next time. I was back in my room by eight o’clock. There was some back and forth with Rob on PDUs for Dallas, neither of us being expert in the area. I texted with Katen as she and Salma were boarding in Seattle for their Newark flight.
Monday 2026.03.23
I was awake from midnight until five in the morning, and then slept until just before the alarm at nine. I dressed, packed out of the hotel, and was in the office by 09:45 without breakfast. I did have a couple of Americanos, but singles not doubles. Senior staff were all hiding in a meeting about dealing with emergencies, ones in the physical sense, such as employees getting hurt. I did talk for a few minutes with Simon-Jan about the budget, and then with Luca about preparing for my presentation at three in the afternoon. I cleaned up email and worked some. Then Stephen Seuss from RIPE Atlas user interface came to talk for a while. We walked over to Centraal Station and got some healthy food bowls to bring back to the office for lunch. We sat and ate with Robert and talked about RIPE Atlas and the horrors of American and Hungarian politics.
I got a little more work done and then grabbed a tram to the outside rent-an-office that Daniella had arranged for me to give my presentation. I had to go out of the office because of a fire drill scheduled right in the middle of my presentation. Luca met me there, and we pre-tested. At 14:30 we tested with the official channel with the PAM people. At three o’clock PAM started, and at 15:30. I did my presentation Mind The Gap or Confessions of an Internet Microscopist. It went better than I expected, and a few people wrote to me to say it worked. The lunch disagreed with me, but luckily after my presentation. I took the tram back to the office and listened to the rest of PAM until 1900. Then I walked back to the hotel, deciding to skip dinner.
Back at the hotel, I chatted with Katen who was in a sweet hotel room in New York with Salma who was feeling a little wonky. I think both of us suspected that it was anxiety about visiting colleges. Heasley and I noodled about nftables, and he was quite helpful. I chatted with Cristel about PAM, how my talk went, and how PAM was struggling from being overshadowed by IMC. By then it was nine o’clock and I needed to try and get some sleep.
Tuesday 2026.03.24
I got very little sleep. I dressed, worked a bit, and went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, a veggie omelet. I was in the NCC offices by 10:30. Mirjam showed up shortly. I was able to chat for a bit with Fergal and Ties. I had lunch with Mirjam and Hans Petter, a nice salad. After lunch, I finally got to email, and there was too much mail about the Dallas power planning. I had no useful traction, mostly due to lack of sleep. I was clearly not helping so asked Joe, Hans, and Rob to run with it. Then PAM started at four o’clock. At six I left to take the metro to dinner at Capital Kitchen. I was really cold even though it was 12c out; probably because I was tired. I had a nice dinner with Mirjam and Kees, lamb and tomato salad with preserved lemon. We left the restaurant three hours later. I got back to the hotel just before ten and crashed.
Wednesday 2026.03.25
Up at seven, I did some email and bank work, and was in the office with a ham and cheese croissant by 08:45. It was 7c and raining after all the days of sun. Mirjam showed about 08:45 and we gossiped. I remembered to give her the book I had gotten in December. Fergal appeared and we worked on all the world’s problems for a while. He felt very gated by needing decisions from the Board before trying to build community consensus. I had in-office lunch with Mirjam and Fergal, and we continued solving the world’s problems. I worked a bunch on nftables again after lunch. At three, PAM started again, and I listened while finally sorting nftables. Mirjam left before four. I texted with Lizzie who was dealing with the flu; luckily she did not get it while on holiday in Spain. Katen texted that Salma liked NYU, so we being more positive.
At 19:15 I walked back to hotel wearing rain jacket from Kees. Then got the tram to diner with Mirjam, Hans Petter, Harald, and Raymond at Pesce, a quite good fish place. One had to choose the fish and sides in a market set-up by the door. They had a wide selection of fish and shellfish.
We had oysters, which were actually quite good, a salmon ceviche which was quite tasty, and some scallops, also good. For mains we had a smoked/baked sea bass which was simple and delicious, turbot, red snapper, and more. We finally got out at 10:45 and I was back in my room at eleven o’clock, while Harald and Raymond went on in search of beer.
Thursday 2026.03.26
I woke at two, got back to sleep at six, and woke to the alarm at eight. I dressed and was in the NCC by 08:45. I had breakfast with Harald and Raymond and settled into my laptop for a couple of hours. Mirjam showed at 09:45. I could not pay my garbage bill or the Bainbridge electricity bill online because I was not in the US. The Internet was Balkanizing. At eleven, I went up to the board meeting room.
We opened with Simon-Jan’s overview of the financial situation. This was with the Works Council present, so sort of directed at them. At noon we broke to go downstairs for lunch. At the end, I chatted with Hans Petter a bit about how we talked about things with the Works council, members, etc. After lunch we mumbled around some on agenda, conflict of interest checks, review of the next year’s board calendar, etc. HPH presented his overview report. We then discussed the technical infrastructure revamp at a high level. There seemed to be agreement that this had to be done and the Board would be kept informed frequently as the plans matured over the next months. Then the office improvement or redesign was a major discussion. Fergal presented the Strategy Overview. Then Athina led the discussion of the ICP-2 and ICANN.
Katen texted to say that she and Salma got to Bard College and Salma said it felt like Katen had dragged her to rehab. It was very quiet! Salma and a fellow college sniffer from LA canceled Sarah Lawrence and decided to see more schools in New York City.
We broke up about six o’clock. I walked back to the hotel with Ondrej and then took an Uber to dinner at SheepsKameel.
It was a nice dinner, starting with a purple potato salad, a bit of baked pollock with a nice sauce, a reasonably small bit of sliced pork, and finished with a cheese plate.
We left about ten o’clock and I was asleep by eleven.
Friday 2026.03.27
I woke at five and pretended to try to sleep to 07:40. I dressed and headed out, stopping at Centraal to pick up croissants with ham and kaas. It was 3c and sunny. We started the day with all financial reports and forward planning. There was a subset of the board whose thinking was stingy, saying the Ukrainians were cheating us, employees got too much, etc. Other board members were more thoughtful. We took a break and then went into the charging scheme. I discovered that the proposed charging schemes were not charging for legacy space and that this would set a precedent that would be difficult to change. This caused much discussion and, eventually, resulted in agreement to get data about legacy distribution and come back to this soon. This dominated lunch.
After lunch we did a quick review of the arbiter selection decision, and decided we needed more data on the candidates’ nationality, job type, company type, etc. in order to select a representative body. Then on to the eternal discussion of the reorganization of the Board. We agreed to go with the one tier board with the managing director being a member. I abstained and was then coerced into approving so it could be unanimous. We agreed to publish the Annual Report. Fergal led us through the General Meeting agenda for Edinburgh. Mirjam gave the community report, focusing on planning for the May Edinburgh meeting. Then Athina led us through the issue of data retention of meeting attendee information. Hisham led a discussion of Events Risk Assessment. Florian Obser described K Root Operations; though I was not sure why. Finally, Piotr wanted to tell us his talking to ARIN folk about their election bias issues. We finished about four o’clock and took a while to say our goodbyes. I was back in my hotel room by 16:35. It was 9c and overcast.
I checked in for my flights the next day, but planned on getting paper boarding passes any way so I would be able to go through American airports patrolled by ICE with all my devices powered off. I lay down for a nap at 17:30.
Saturday 2026.03.28
I woke from the nap at five o’clock in the morning after 11.5 hours of much needed sleep. I dressed, packed, and went down to have breakfast at seven. I wasted a Lactaid not realizing that this morning there was no cheese in my omelet. Upstairs, I finished packing and cleaned up more email. I left my room at 07:50, checked out, and made the 08:10 Sprinter to Schiphol, arriving at 08:20. It was 7c and the daffodils were out. I was through security by 08:35. The queue was a bit long. I was in the lounge by nine o’clock. I had a double Americano and a horrifying croissant. I left the lounge at 10:50 and was at the gate at 11:05, supposedly for an 11:10 boarding time. It was a bus out to a stand. We were finally on the bus at 11:28 and on the plane at 11:42.
Air Canada flight 809 to Toronto was a 787–9 DreamLiner in very spiffy shape in three shades of gray. After much delay, they finally closed the door at 12:18, 23 minutes late. We finally pushed at 12:25, half an hour late. Eight minutes later, we finally rolled off the stand. We took off at 12:50. I fell asleep instantly. They woke me up for the takeoff meal which was not very exciting. I skipped dessert and went right back to sleep until they woke me for the landing meal one hour out of Toronto. The flight map showed that they had flown Aberdeen, Keflavik, Nuuk, trying to stay near land.
We landed in Toronto at 15:25. I made some detours getting to security and US immigration. There was not much fuss getting through security and US Immigration. So I was in the Maple Leaf lounge by 16:20. I texted Katen that I had made it. I left the lounge at 16:50, walked to the gate, and boarded at 17:10.
United Express flight 5364 to Chicago was a recently refurbished Embraer 175. We pushed back five minutes early at 17:25 and took off at 17:43. I slept the entire route. We landed at 18:07. We were at the gate by 18:25, and I walked over to the C Concourse. I was in the lounge by 1845. I had a small sandwich. I left the lounge at 19:20 and wandered to gate C25 just in time to board. I was in my seat at 19:31. Katen texted that she and Salma were flying at the same time, but to Seattle not Portland.
United flight 1541 to Portland was a 27 year old 737-700 in pretty clean shape, but antique seats and IFE. We were scheduled to push back at 20:04, but it turned out we waited for some late passengers. The door closed at 20:05. At 20:15, the captain came on to move passengers from row 34 to 7 and 8. We finally pushed at 20:18. There were at least three coughers in the small three row business class section. We took off at 20:34. I had a chicken dinner that was survivable. We landed at 22:48 and were at the gate at 22:52. I was in an Uber by 23:15. Katen and Salma had landed in Seattle. I got home at 23:40 to a cat who wanted a lot of reassurance.
The RIPE/NCC Board was to meet with the APNIC Board in Jakarta during APRICOT. I was also on the APRICOT Program Committee, and had an accepted talk on using RIPE Atlas. So I decided to be there the whole week. Booking the flight to Jakarta was hell, taking three hours. I was in Tokyo, the ANA site kept erroring out, and I finally had to spend an hour plus on the phone with an agant. Then it was another hour to choose seats on the web site. A lesson in how good the United web site is.
Friday 2026.02.06
The day before departure I recovered from my Bay Area jaunt and packed during the day. The NCC Board Signal channel was full of social chatter of the rest of the crew arriving two days before I would.
Saturday 2026.02.07
I was taking the 05:35 flight to SFO because the more reasonable 07:45 flight would have been too risky, especially considering SFO”s common flight and gate delays. So I woke at 02:29, a minute before the alarm, dressed, finished packing, had coffee and breakfast, and was in an Uber Tesla at four o’clock. We we’re at the airport by 04:25. TSA was a small bit of queue but not bad. I was through by 04:30 and in the lounge by 04:40. There was a bit of confusion because ANA had not inserted my United number in the itinerary. I left the lounge at 05:05 to go to the gate and was in my seat by 05:10.
United flight 1407 was an AirBus 319 in OK shape. It was not full; which is why, I guess, they flew a 319. We pushed at 05:30, five minutes early, and wheels were up at 05:37. My seat would not recline as the arm rest was broken. I slept most of the way. Coming into the Bay there was a very low cloud layer, as if the bay had become milk or someone had filled the bay with milk.
We landed in San Francisco at seven o’clock, 27 minutes early . We waited out in the penalty area for 15 minutes as we did not have a gate; typical San Francisco. We were at the gate at 07:21. Given the massively long walk and construction, I was not in the international lounge until 07:40. And again, I had trouble with the lounge reader not liking my boarding pass’s QR code or whatever. I was in the downstairs quiet lounge, but went upstairs to have some scrambled eggs and sausage at about 08:30. I stopped by the United agent up there to see if she could sort my United number on my itinerary, and she could not get the information out of ANA; amusing. The ANA 11;00 flight was delayed as the inbound from Tokyo was late, predictions varying between 11:35 and 11:45. The gate was way at the end of the concourse, G13, so I left the lounge at eleven, figuring I would end up standing in the mob.
I arrived at the gate at 11:10 and even managed to find a seat. They said boarding would be at 11:30 for an 11:45 departure, which seemed more Japanese than American. They started boarding at 11:30. I was in my seat by 11:40.
ANA flight 7 to Narita was a 777–300 in immaculate shape and with luxurious seating . They managed to close the doors at 11:50. Unlike other lines, I was allowed to deploy the seat mattress before pushback. And I was not admonished to put my seat upright takeoff . We pushed back at 11:55. The passenger service video was all about good manners, starting with no up skirt photography. I also said the fuselage was coated with a special film for speed and emission reduction.
We took off at 12:13, making me realize my seat was facing backwards. I then fell instantly asleep. I had the Japanese meal, which was the best Japanese airplane meal I have ever had, and then I watched La venue de l’avenir which was quite good and very sweet.
Sunday 2026.02.08
We landed on Narita oldest runway at 16:02, about 40 minutes late. There was pretty solid snow on the ground and snow in the trees. It felt a bit like coming home.
My DoCoMo SIM did not work. We were at the gate by 16:15. My outbound gate was right next to my inbound gate and the lounge was 50m away. So I went to the lounge which was exceedingly crowded. At first, the Wi-Fi didn’t work but then they fixed it. I had a little kaarage and two siew mai. I opened my laptop and used the free WiFi to catch up; as it was Saturday, the mess was minimal. Flighty told me my Jakarta flight was delayed 20 minutes and I confirmed this on the display. So at 17:30 I headed down to the gate. Flighty said gate 57A. ANA said 55. ANA was right, of course. I grew less and less impressed by Flighty during the trip. We boarded at 17:35.
ANA flight 835 to Jakarta was a 787-9 DreamLiner in rather utilitarian livery but very clean shape. The door closed at 18:00, and then we took a big delay because a passenger had not boarded and their luggage had to be deboarded. We pushed back at 18:21, but did not take off until 18:55. I slept for three or four hours, watched some crap, and had a another nice washoku meal.
We landed in Jakarta at 00:34 and were at the gate in ten minutes. I had my APEC card so walked to immigration. But they rejected it because it didn’t have a country on the back, which they said was American and not usable. So I had to walk back to Visa on Arrival, buy the visa, and then go back to immigration. At least, with VoA, it was the automatic gates. It was a bit of queue for customs, but the QR code worked. Then I went out and had to haggle for a taxi because it was late and Sunday and they made it difficult. Finally at 01:30, I was in a taxi. It started raining cats and dogs. My seat belt did not work. We were at the hotel by 02:05. I unpacked, and was asleep before three.
Monday 2026.02.09
I could not sleep past 07:30, so dressed and cleaned up email a bit. TJ told me that Dave Farber had died; so sad. I went down to breakfast where I ran into a jillion people. At nine, I went up and got my badge and then went to the join the APNIC/NCC Board meeting. We spent the morning talking at an abstract level about the global environment; no protein. I tried not to be snarky. We broke at 11:30 to go to the APRICOT opening plenary, which was a classic PowerPoint blah. Then back down to the meeting room for a shared boards’ lunch until 14:00. Then finally a joint board meeting with a bit of protein.
At four o’clock we broke to prepare for the APRICOT dinner. Mirjam and I met in the lobby and took the five o’clock bus to the Kunstkring Art Gallery. Due to rush hour, the bus took 50 minutes; it could have been much worse. Mirjam, Hans Petter, Harald Summa and I shared a table. Dinner was not memorable.
We took a 21:30 bus back to the hotel, which took 30 minutes. I was asleep by 22:30.
Tuesday 2026.02.10
I managed to sleep to five, gave up, showered, dressed, and cleaned up email. At eight, I went to breakfast with Mirjam and Athina. At 09:30, I had to go to the APRICOT Plenary and present Debugging Routing & Forwarding Using RIPE Atlas. I was not in great shape, so was unhappy with my presentation. Then, after a break being accosted in the hallways, I went into an NCC Board meeting where we spent until one o’clock discussing the same old issue of a one or two tier board. Ondrej polarized it by calling for a straw vote, so we came to no conclusion. We ate lunch for an hour than back to layer nine. We broke about six. I dumped my stuff in my room and Raymond and Maria convinced me to join them in the bar. They left for a dinner at 19:45, and I was asleep by eight.
Wednesday 2026.02.11
I woke at six, dressed and worked. I made a mistake in the knot config file on rip.psg.com, so gave myself a major manic before coffee. I went down at eight and ate with Lea, Athina, Mirjam, etc. until ten. Then I attended a bit of the actual APRICOT conference until lunch. I worked with the RouteViews folk, Philip, Nina, etc. and Maz to try and get them agreeing on how to use IIJ transit over the exchange in Singapore. I kept being cornered by folk who either wanted to talk, take a selfie, or get emotional support.
At 15:00 I went up to my room to just clear my head. Then, at 15:30, I had a zoom with Ketan Talaulikar, IETF Routing AD, on why I was done with the IETF, kind of an exit interview. Then back to the APRICOT Plenary until six o’clock. T hen at 18:30 I went to the social, which was loud and bright. I hung out with Mirjam. And ran into Veriphan.
We bailed fairly soon and wandered the mall to find a light dinner, settling on a Japanese place where we ordered sparsely. We gossiped about the RIPE and IETF Boards until 20:45, and I was back in my room before nine.
Thursday 2026.02.12
I managed to sleep to seven, dressed and cleaned up email until I went to breakfast at eight. I sat with Raymond, Mirjam, and Piotr. John Curran Signaled back and forth as he was coning in from the airport. At 09:30 I went up to the APNIC Annual General Meeting. I gossiped with various folk, saw old friends such as Nishal, and so forth. At noon, I went out to meet John Curran with whom I talked for an hour up in the Club Lounge. Then down to the side meeting room to have lunch and meet with the other RIR Boards. Of course there had to be a joint photograph.
I turned on TSIG for the Jordanian domains. At 4:30 we broke to go back to the APNIC AGM. I grabbed a coffee first. Bland reports followed by a serious attack by Jonathan Brewer on lack of fiscal responsibility by the APNIC board. The Board’s Roopinder answered Jon so poorly and stupidly that I would believe Jon paid him.
I napped from 16:30 to 18:00 and went to the all-RIR Board dinner and sat with Jeremy, the APNIC lawyer, among others. In general, I tended to like the lawyers as they were focused and on track. After dinner I ended up in the bar with Hans Petter, Maz, Piotr, Raymond, and Jeremy. Maz and I took a selfie.
This lasted until 23:30 or so, and I went up and crashed.
Friday 2026.02.13
I could not sleep past 05:30, so dressed and worked until eight when I went down to breakfast and sat with Hans Petter. At nine we went to a meeting room for the NRO EC joint meeting where I was an observer. The first discussion, after introductions, was ICP-2, especially the unanimity / super-majority / conflict of interest issues. Then on to de-recognition and ad hoc audits. Next Emergency Operator, selection, and how it is invoked. HPH noted that escrow, on which the NCC is now working, is a much smaller task than emergency continuity. There was a sudden left turn into the ICP-2 process, whether the AC approved and then sent to NRO etc. There was a short coffee break during which John Curran, Athina, and I agreed that the RIRs are responsible to their members not the ICANN and the ICANN can get used to it. HPH said wait for the letter requested from Kurtis, ICANN CEO. Then the group discussed the NRO expenses report. A forward budget was approved. Then an AfriNIC update; that two engineers and the new Chair were with us drew applause. They are hoping to have a CEO and key policy etc. positions in place in June, and elections in June or, with court approval, September. Then a discussion of security incident response, information sharing, etc. and a schedule for documenting and agreeing on this, with a target of end of June. We broke for lunch about noon.
After lunch they discussed long range strategy review and planning. This degenerated into omphaloskepsis of whether the NRO should have and maintain a written strategy and plan. Next was a discussion of what the goal of the RPKI program was and should be. The RPKI users’ experience should be more consistent across RIRs, ease transfers, align documentation, etc. Suddenly John proposed a goal of having the Continuity aspect of the yet to be finished Internet Number Registry (ICP-2) document, with escrow and emergency operator, and periodic and ad hoc audits, by 2029. Discussion of who/what could be an emergency operator somehow forked into negotiating control of the process with ICANN. A long discussion ensued of the implications of the size, scope, and possibility of having emergency operations possible at all. There is a clear difference between having a recovered RIR be a static snapshot as opposed to an ongoing operation where members could join, maintain under policy, etc. Then a long discussion ensued of how the NRO & RIRs relate to governments.
We broke at six o’clock, and I went up to my room to dump my laptop and start organising for departure. At 18:15 I headed down to the dinner restaurant which turned out to be an Indonesian seafood restaurant. The food was good and I overate. After the meal, John Curran obsessed loudly and repeatedly at Athina, Jeremy Harrison, APNIC lawyer, and me that the separation of open policy making from board approval in the RIRs was crucial to the ability of the RIRs to claim an open multi-stakeholder process. Athina and Jeremy managed to convince him that this held well in RIPE and APNIC; but John said AfriNIC, LACNIC, and ARIN were not reasonably conformant and work must be done.
I made it back to my room by 22:15, cleaned things up for fifteen minutes, and went to sleep.
Saturday 2026.02.13
I woke at 02:45, dressed, packed, checked email, and headed down to check out of the hotel. At @3:30 i was in a Grab. Traffic was a very light. My phone complained that my laptop‘s AirTag had been left behind, but I could feel on the seat beside me. Light shows were starting to come out for the lunar new year. We arrived at the airport at 4:05. I was checked in by 04:10, through security by 04:15, through Immigration by 04:25, and in the lounge by 4:35. I wondered if things would have been that efficient at other than four in the morning. I cleaned up email, processed hotel and Grab receipts, and had an Americano
I left the lounge at 05:50 and headed to gate 8, as instructed by the check-in counter. It turned out that flight at gate 8 was to Haneda. Flighty did not have my gate number, so I looked it up on the sign and did the half a kilometer walk to get to gate A2 and boarded at 6:05. Even though I was still quite early, everybody else had boarded, and they closed the doors behind me.
ANA flight 836 was a 787 DreamLiner in new shape. The passenger service announcement was still fully full of Pokémon. I ordered the washoku. We pushed back at 06:18, two minutes early. We taxied very slowly, and then stalled for a few minutes as we entered the takeoff queue. The weather was foggy so they were being conservative in takeoff timing, and we were like fourth in the queue. At 06:39 we finally took off into the fog. I was asleep instantly. The flight attendant woke me for the meal which was mediocre. I slept for three or so hours. We landed Narita at 15:27, darned near at the gates, and we were at the gate by 15:31. I went to the ANA lounge which was actually being run by Turkish, and had some eggplant and rice. I left the lounge at 16:20 and went to the United lounge near my departure gate to check that my whole itinerary was on my United number. I accidentally forgot my mask in the Turkish lounge, sigh. I left the United lounge at 16:40, and boarded right next door at 16:45. I was sitting backwards again.
ANA flight 8 to San Francisco was a 777–300 in perfect shape, probably the same one I had flown out on. Associating my iPhone with the in-flight entertainment system did not work, I suspect because of lockdown mode. We pushed back at 17:08, eight minutes late. As they spun up the engines the whole cabin vibrated. We got the closest runway and took off at 17:28. I had to takeoff washokou and watched Relay and Now You See Me and slept for three or four hours. We landed in San Francisco at 09:28 and parked in the alley for 15 minutes while waiting for a gate. We finally got on at 09:47. I was through immigration at 10 o’clock. There was an early Portland flight so I called Global Services. They got me on it, but it was way at the other end of the terminal and I darned near had a heart attack getting there.
Flight 487 to Portland was a 737-900 in comfortable shape. We finally pushed at 11:05, 20 minutes late. We took off at 11:15. I slept the whole route. We landed at 12:38 and I was in an Uber Tesla by 13:15. I was home by 13:45, unpacked, and took a nap.
Arrcus CEO, Shekar, really really wanted me to show my face to the Fujitsu visitors, especially Moribayashi san. So I agreed to have dinner in San Jose the night of the fourth and fly back the next day. San Jose flights were more expensive and less convenient than San Francisco, so I reserved the latter. Overnight at the San Jose DoubleTree was $550, so I reserved at an SFO Holiday Inn for $250.
Wednesday 2026.02.04
I did not manage to sleep past 06:30. I packed in the morning , and cleaned up email etc., arranged remote hands on in Dallas for mid month, and dealt with a minor security incident at Arrcus colo . I took only a small computer bag as I was staying just one night. I was in Kermit by 11:35 and at the airport by noon. The lot was pretty full so I had to park on the very top level. Security was a walk-through, and I was in the United Club by 11:20. The attendant said there were seven Globals in the Club, which I guess was unusual. I had a small c turkey and cheese sandwich to hold me over. I kept checking Chase Visa, waiting for it to roll over for the month so I could book my March Amsterdam trip. At 12:55, my electronics told me to go to the gate, so I obeyed, albeit slowly. I walked to the gate and boarded.
United flight 776 was a 737-900 in new livery and seeming pretty full. The doors closed at 13:25, we pushed at 13:28, and wheels were up at 13:42. I pretty much slept the whole way to San Francisco until the flight attendant woke me up to put my seat upright. We landed at 15:20. I picked up some sushi and was in an Uber by 15:55. This was a mistake. HOV was now three people minimum and traffic was becoming a mess. The driver was from Kyrgyzstan, so we gossiped central Asia for a while.
We arrived at the office at 17:10. I said hello to Cori and a bunch of engineers, some of whom I had to introduce myself. I grabbed an empty desk and cleaned up email etc. I worked until 18:30.
I left the office at 18:35 and grabbed an Uber to Fleming’s Steak House, a chain suburban monster in a California outdoor monster shopping experience. The other folk were there when I arrived on time at seven o’clock. I made good manners with the Japanese crew from Fujitsu, led by Moribayashi san, who I knew from Verio. Takagi Maki, also ex-Verio was also there.
We gossiped a lot about old times, and tried to explain to Shekar and Keyur. I learned at dinner that the reason the San Jose hotels were so expensive was that SuperBowl was to be there that weekend. The food was mediocre at best, though trying to appear extravagant. Towers of not so tasty seafood and steaks they were heavily pepper seasoned to cover they they were poor quality. The braised brussels sprouts were good.
We kind of finished at 21:20 and milled around outside. I had picked up the backpack Keyur had forgotten. I was in an Uber at 21:30 and at the Holiday Inn Express San Francisco Airport South by 22:05 and checked in to my plebeian but cheap room. The WiFi was abysmal.
I woke to the alarm at 07:30, dressed, packed into my computer bag, and had a very bad cheap hotel breakfast at eight. I caught the courtesy bus at 08:30 and was at SFO United by 08:45, almost Katen timing. The bus dropped me off some distance from global services, but I was still through security by 08:50. On the other hand, the line at Peete’s coffee was 15 minutes. I was in the United Club by 09:05 and found a comfy corner, unfortunately with weak WiFi. Because of massive attachments, I was not sure my email would download before I had to go to the gate.
I had some scrambled egg with chorizo, which was actually edible. As Flighty said the flight was 16 minutes late, I waited until 10:10 to leave the club and do the short walk to the gate, only to find that the inbound was still deboarding. I texted Keyur and said that next time I get to choose the restaurant. We started boarding at 10:15, not bad considering. United flight 2363 to Portland was a totally full 737-900. The LineSpeed boyz were on the flight. A few people were masked. They closed the door at 10:37, managing to pretty much get back on time. Flighty said were were delayed 15. Then the captain confessed that they were still loading luggage. We pushed back at 10:52. and took off at 11:08. I mostly slept for the flight. It was a gusty landing at 12:20, and we were at the gate four minutes later.
The parking ticket machine would not accept my parking ticket. I tried three of the machines. So I was in Kermit by 12:40 and had to go to the cashier at the exit who had to hand enter the ticket because it wouldn’t read for her either. I got home at about 1310. Not bad.
I had to fly to Amsterdam for a two day Board meeting at the Governance Academy. A lot of travel for a questionable amount of protein.
Friday 2026.01.16
The day before leaving, I started packing just to feel I was making progress. I went to check in to KLM, and their app was soooo broken. Though they had sent me a message telling me to check in, opening the app and trying to check in said you have to check in at the airport. But I could dive into my itinerary and then check in. But as KLM’s web is so screwed up, it did not have my TSA Pre info despite the fact that I had entered it online multiple times. So I was going to have to check in at the Counter.
At nine in the evening, I went to see Princess Mononoke with Gary, Elaine, and Lizzie at OMSI. Though I still think it’s Miyazaki’s best, I was put off by the continual violence. Also, they bragged about it being 4K; but while 4K is wonderful on a 27 inch monitor, not so much on a 27 meter screen.
Saturday 2026.01.17
I slept in to eight, dressed, worked a bit, and finished packing. I was still fighting with postfix. Katen picked me up, and we headed out at 11:30. I was at the airport, checked in, and through security by noon, and headed to the Delta Lounge which was quite empty. I had some Hawaiian macaroni salad and water, checked email, and slacked with Rob. At noon I headed to the gate and boarded at 12:10.
Delta flight 3802 to Seattle was an Embraer 175 in spiffy shape. it may have been the first time I had flown Delta since the 2002 panic run back to Seattle for Joanie’s illness. There were a lot of Amsterdam passengers on the flight. I wondered how many of them worked for Nike. The flight was completely full. There was some fuss getting everybody’s carry on stowed. We pushed back at 13:27, three exciting minutes early, and took off at 13:33. We landed at 14:03 and were at the gate at 14:15. I had to take the train to the A gates and walk all the way to the end. I boarded pretty immediately.
Delta flight 142 to Amsterdam was an AirBus 330–900 in very clean shape, but the seating was not really as comfortable as united, kind of cramped; though they did have a seat cover mattress. It looked as if it was a full flight. As we passed departure time, they kept fueling and loading baggage. And the flight deck said they were behind and had to load up the computers. I started watching Anatomy of a Fall. We were due to take off at 15:10, but did not push back until 15:43 and took off at 15:57. They made me take the seat cover mattress off while taxiing and the in-flight entertainment did not work. On the other hand, the Puget Sound was as pretty as ever. After takeoff they had to reset my IFE. The takeoff meal was edible. I slept for four hours and read a little. For the landing meal I had a quiche which was suspicious but caused no trouble.
Sunday 2026.01.18
We landed at 10:17 and were at the gate shortly thereafter, a half hour late. Those with connections were a little panicked. We were at the far end of the D gates. I was at passport control by 10:40 and waiting for the train by 10:55. I caught the 11:09 to Centraal. We arrived at 11:20 and I walked to the Kimpton De Witt. I was in my room by 11:45. It was an enormously large room, but unfortunately on the first floor over the noisy street.
I cleaned up some email and napped from 12:30 to 16:30. Then Mirjam said we should meet at 17:45 at Koepelcafé. Raymond kept Signaling about where to eat dinner. Mirjam and I talked in the Koepelcafé until we saw Raymond and Maria enter the Italian across the way Savini Ristorante Italiano and we wandered over to join them. We were joined by Hans Petter. I had the ravioli a funghi, which was good but not life changing. I got talked into ordering gelato, which came with a ton of fake whipped cream and strawberry sauce; not good. We broke up around 22:30, and I was asleep by eleven or so.
Monday 2026.01.19
I could did sleep past four, gave up at 05:30, showered, dressed, packed, and cleaned up email. I had a mediocre go at the in-room coffee machine. I texted a bit with Katen about cosmetics from Schiphol, and she and Carrie were talking about getting live-aboard canal barges here in Amsterdam. I worked in my room until 07:55, went down and checked out, and went to meet Raymond in the breakfast restaurant. I ate hurriedly and met Maria in the lobby at 08:30 as agreed. We walked to Centraal and caught the 08:54 to Driebergen.
We arrived at 09:35 or so and took a taxi for the twenty minute ride to the Governance Academy at Leersum and found a place to hang at Parc Broekhuizen. It was on the order of Schloss Dagstuhl, a conference center, a hotel, and a Bistro in a large park; very classy.
Our rooms were not ready, so we were escorted to a small lounge bar so Maria could do her conference call and I could suck packets over the WiFi. I wrote up a topology problem of Nordic cable cutting attack strategies and sent it to Matt Roughan.
By lunch time, most of the crew had arrived and we went to the Governance Academy next door. The Governance Academy folk led a long discussion of what strategy is and how we develop and execute.
We had lunch in the Bistro, open faced fresh fish on very crusty bread. Good but hard to deal with. Then back in the conference room where the secondary Governance Academy lecturer droned on repeatedly and boringly about the difference between the Board’s current structure and a one or to tier structure. He was amazingly repetitive, but missed major differences, e.g. the one tier had the CEO voting although the CEO was not elected by the members. I tried to ask two questions, but was blocked for half an hour, which really threw me.
At seven, we broke up to check into our rooms. Mine was stunning, in an old stables.
Then off to dinner in the Bistro, which was tasty, but I was wiped.
We were social until 22:30, when folk went to check in and I went back to my room and crashed. I could not be suckered into the WiFi as it was not working all night.
Tuesday 2026.01.20
I was pretty much up by 02:30 or three, but tried to get back to sleep until I gave up at seven, showered, dressed, packed, and made a cup of in-room coffee. At 07:50 I carried my bag down to the Bistro for breakfast. Turned out that the Bistro was closed and I was supposed to eat in the main/hotel building. It was elegant but not very exciting. At nine, I grabbed my luggage and we all headed over to the Governance Academy building and started the meeting.
A young CPA spent twenty minutes telling us his history and then fifteen more telling us basic Enterprise Risk Management. Hans Petter finally interrupted him to say the NCC had already been through all this, had SOC-2 certification, and the goal was how the Board interfaces to ERM. Then we did sub-group exercises to identify threats, how they are monitored, and how they might be mitigated.
At 12:30, we went to the Bistro for lunch, an open faced pumpkin and bufalo sandwich, celeriac soup, and pasta with pesto.
I spent some time talking with Hans Petter and Athina. Then the afternoon started with the non-stop talking Governance Association lawyer leading us in discussion of the role of the Supervisory Board. This lasted to 16:30 or so, and we then did our somewhat chaotic good byes.
Sander drove Maria, Raymond, and me to the train station and we caught the 17:22 to Amsterdam Centraal. We met Piotr and Ondrej, and the boys were going out for a beer. I declined, and was in the Kimpton De Witt and asleep by seven o’clock.
Wednesday 2026.01.21
I managed to sleep in until four, showered, dressed, packed, checked out, and left the hotel at 05:45. It was misty raining slightly. I caught the 06:03 to Schiphol. While waiting for the train to depart a conductor came around and actually scanned tickets, well, chip cards. I suspect a lot of homeless people try to sleep on the trains. I was through security by 06:45, but the passport line was 10-15 minutes long. Finally they opened the automatic machines. I picked up the cosmetics Katen had ordered, except for the Waleda, and was in the KLM lounge by seven o’clock. I had two ham and cheese on bread and cleaned up email. The lounge, which had been pretty empty, really filled up by eight o’clock. At 08:50, the WiFi went belly up. It recovered ten minutes later.
I left the lounge at 09:30 and walked all the way to the end of the concourse to gate E 21 where they wanted me to go through document check again, and then put us on a bus to a very far stand. I finally boarded at ten o’clock
KLM flight 615 was a 787-900 DreamLiner in quite clean shape. It was pretty cold; I kept my coat on. They came on the PA and announced that there were many open seats in economy so people could switch. The door closed at 10:20 but air traffic control put us on a short delay. We actually pushed back at 10:35, ten minutes late. I ate the takeoff meal and watched Guillermo dl Toro’s The Shape of Water which was quite good, slept for three hours. etc
We landed at 10:50 and taxied slowly to the gate. Then there was a long wait for the jetway driver to connect to the plane, but I finally made it through customs along to the bus by 11:10. I was in an Uber by 11:30 and home shortly after noon. I took a four hour nap.
I had to fly to Amsterdam for an NCC Executive Board meeting with a follow-on NCC Winter party and then socializing with EC and whatever in Amsterdam for the weekend. I would have flown back immediately after the board meeting, but the fare would have been thousands more. December fares are very high. I did decide to try the KLM non-stop Portland to/from Amsterdam, as they had been so kind bailing me out of the flight cancellation in September.
Monday 2025.12.08
I was pretty much packed the day before. I received a text from KLM that WiFi would not be working on my PDX-AMS flight. This ws not a major concern, as I hoped to sleep. The KLM online boarding pass did not show TSA Pre, which meant I would have to stop at the counter to get a boarding pass. Between the funky web site and this stuff, I was not impressed with KLM infrastructure. Kaiby? knew i was packing so would not leave my lap.
I finished packing, said goodbye to Kaiby?, Katen picked me up at 11:30 and, despite traffic due to serious downpour, we were at PDX by noon. I went to the KLM counter to get a boarding pass with TSA Pre, and went through Security by 12:20. It took me a bit to find the Delta Lounge. Their WiFi sucked.
There was no boarding announcement, so I left the lounge at 13;50 and walked down to the gate to find most people had already boarded, and it was quite the queue. I was in my seat by 13:00. Oops! I was in the wrong seat, 7A as opposed to 6A. But the woman in 7A was accommodating.
KLM flight 616 was a 787-10 Dreamliner in pristine shape. I think the flight was fairly full. Indeed, the onboard Wi-Fi was not working; one could associate with it, but there was no connectivity. At 13:25, the scheduled departure time, the captain came on the PA to tell us some passengers had some security issue, and we were waiting for them, which was easier than offloading their luggage. At 13:35 they withdrew the jet bridge and the captain said they were mucking with the luggage and we might take off in 10 or 15 minutes. The purser welcomed us and asked us not to take photographs of other passengers without their consent. Indeed, we pushed at 13:50 and wheels were up at 14:01.
The cloud layer was so all the way up to cruising altitude. My in-flight entertainment didn’t work so they reset it. I had the takeoff meal. The salads were excellent. The chicken was horrifying. I then got about 2 1/2 to three hours of nap, but couldn’t get back to sleep. I watched junky movies.
Tuesday 2025.12.09
I had the breakfast crepe, meat plate, oatmeal, and drinkable coffee. We landed in Schiphol at 08:05 and we’re at the gate by 08:20. It was a fair walk to passport control where there was only one agent so a 15 minute queue I did not get through until 8:50. The SIM store had been disappeared. I caught the 09:09 Sprinter to Centraal, arriving at 09:25. I was in the NCC office by 09:40.
I chatted with Lea who had taken a three week holiday with her sister to tour China. Mirjam arrived and we dove into RIPE/NCC Board issues and IETF LLC Board issues. The parallels were interesting. At noon, we went to the in-house lunch and sat with Daniella and Hans Petter. Discussions got serious. Mirjam dropped out for a one o’clock call. Hans Petter and I kept going to two. I went back tot he work desk and cleaned up more email, read logs, and gossiped more with Mirjam.
Mirjam left at four o’clock. By 16:15 or so, the NCC offices thinned out. Hans Petter and found ourselves in the coffee area and chatted for an hour or more. At 18:30, I finished working and walked to my hotel, the Kimpton de Witt as usual, and checked in. I unpacked in my room and worked a bit and was asleep by 20:30.
Wednesday 2025.12.10
I did not sleep well after about two o’clock. At eight, I gave up and dressed. I walked to Centraal to get a croissant with ham and cheese, ans was in the NCC offices at nine. I had my croissant with half an Americano, left a box of Baker and Spice cookies on the counter, and went up to the board room to work while waiting for everybody. Mirjam showed up quite soon, and we got coffee and gossiped. By 10:30 others started to show.
The Board meeting opened with discussion with the Works Council, kind of like a proto-union. They were concerned with maintaining communication if the Board structure changed and about ongoing salaries. The day chugged on through the long agenda. Hans Peter did the Acting CTO presentation and was very direct. It was scary. The NCC technology had been swept under the carpet for years. Then back to boring but competent reports. Then all but Board and HPH left, and we discussed the Managing Director’s performance, both against goals agreed at beginning of year and new issues such as the deep engineering issues.
At 18:00 we broke up. Piotr and I walked back to the Kimpton talking about or differences on the issue of a possible NomCom. We actually converged. I went upstairs and dumped my bag etc. At 19:15 I did the 15 minute walk to the Restaurant-Café In de Waag on Nieuwmarkt, guided through heavy tourism and the red light district entirely by iPhone. The food was good, nothing special.
Mirjam and I talked seriously with Athina much of the eve. At ten o’clock Mirjam and I left, she to walk home and I to walk back to the de Witt. I was in bed by eleven.
Thursday 2025.12.10
I could not sleep past about 04:30. I gave up at seven, dressed, cleaned up some email, and left the hotel at 08:20. I got to the NCC offices in time for breakfast with the rest of the Board. At nine, we started the Board meeting with things running sloppily over time. We went down some fairly deep rabbit holes on Mirjam’s RIPE Meeting Report, Risk Appetite, and the Charging Scheme, We zipped right through the Activity Plan and Budget, which struk me as odd. Then Fergal presented the five year Strategy plan. Then I presented my The RIR System: A Longer Term Gedankenexperiment, which caused stunned silence and then chaotic brainstorming through lunch. After lunch we had a few hours of the Governance Academy organising Board omphaloskepsis. I found it mildly useful. Then we did an hour or so on ICANN and other RIRs, APNIC, AfriNIC, … And then at last it was a wrap!
I hung out in the board room to help Daniella clean up the dirty dishes. I looked up one of my fave restaurants, Slouizer, for Piotr, and found out it was permanently closed. I imagine it did not survive Covid. At seven, I met Mirjam, Kees, and Athina at Gió Cucina Italiana for a nice dinner. No work chat. I was back in my room by ten and crashed.
Friday 2025.12.12
I slept to eight!! It was wonderful. I went to the office, where I found Mirjam. Anna arrived around ten, as did Daniel. I worked the morning, and booked my train tickets to Louvain. Then the four of us ferried across the way to a soup and sandwich lunch. We talked openly and heavily of Board and senior management issues. Anna had to go back to get her partner, while Mirjam, Daniel, and I went back tot he office and continued the omphaloskeptic discussion until four o’clock or so. Then Daniel and I walked to the Kimpton, and I got a hour and a half nap, interrupted by Board folk Signaling each other and a text from Lizzie. At 18:15, I met Daniel in the lobby to walk to the party at NEMO. There was a fun Rube Goldberg reaction/dominos event,
a bad meal (burgers and fries), and some blah blah. I dressed as Pikachu
Then the live band of NCC staff, which was fun.
Then Hans Peter, Daniel, and I huddled for a long while while the dance floor did its thing to a DJ. We headed for the door around midnight to find that a Board member had insulted the DJ who was now sulking outside. I apologized for the Board and left Hans Petter to mollify his staff. The three of us walked back to the hotel, and I was asleep by one o’clock.
Saturday 2025.12.13
I woke at 06:30 and pretended I could sleep until I gave up at 07:30. I dressed and packed an overnight into my knapsack. I was out of the hotel by 08:15 and in Centraal by 08:30. I ate a ham and moz sandwich and a double at an Illy place, Julia’s. I caught the 09:11 Eurostar, 2nd class, to Brussel-Midi, found the free WiFi, sent a report of the ugly event of the last eve to the Board Chair, and tried to catch up with backlog. The Illy was pretty good. Past Rotterdam, the track improved and the Thalys moved right along. The WiFi remained usable. We got to Brussel-Midi at 11:06 and I managed to find track 14 to catch the 11:32 IC toward Luxembourg. Brussel definitely looked funkier than Amsterdam.
I arrived Ottignies at 12:15, and Cristel, Camile, and Justine met me on the platform and we walked to the car to meet Lionel. We drove a far bit to a nice restaurant where we all ate an excessive lunch. I had tuna tataki on a bed of stir fried veggies, and it was good. Then we drove to drop Camille off at a friend’s and then on to Cristel & Lionel’s home. It was still being renovated and had moving boxes galore. But it was really nice. We sat in the kitchen and talked shop, AI, etc. They made a fresh pumpkin soup for dinner
which we had with some smoked ham and sausage from Lionel’s home area. We played a fun game, No, Merci!, talked more shop, and went to bed about 22:20.
Sunday 2025.12.14
I woke a number of ties and gave up at seven o’clock. It turned out that Lionel and Cristel were up and in the kitchen. Two cups of coffee and two croissants later I took a shower and packed up. Once Justine woke, we went for a walk around the neighborhood and through the woods and a small field. Then a lunch of sauteed ground beef with onions over rice with steamed legumes. We talked a bunch. At 14:30, I slouched in a lounge chair until four o’clock when we packed out. Lionel drove Cristel and me to the Ottigenes train station. We caught the 17:44 to Brussel-Midi, an hour earlier than I scheduled because Cristel had to catch the train to Lyon. So, when we got to Brussel-Midi I said goodbye to Cristel and tried to get on an earlier train; no chance. So I went into the Cafe and had a salade aux chevre which was actually quite good. I then wandered the station ontil I could board my scheduled 19:55 IC to Amsterdam. Not the Eurostar/Thalys, but perfectly fine. I boarded it 20 minutes early because it was far warmer than the station. And it was mostly empty. We departed on time. We arrived in Amsterdam Centraal at 22:05. I walked to the De Witt, was in my room by 22:15, and asleep by eleven o’clock.
Monday 2025.12.15
I could not sleep past five o’clock, so dressed and started packing. I cleaned op email and organized my mess. I. checked out of the hotel at 06:50 and caught the 07:18 from Centraal. We arrived at Schiphol at 07:36 and I wandered up to security. The queue wasn’t bad for priority. I was through by 07:55 but then passport control was chaos, and took 15 minutes. Yet another escalator wasn’t working, that was two of three. I found a pharmacy and they had Katen’s cosmetics. The KLM lounge was right across the way, so I went up and had a mediocre coffee with a slice of bread with ham and cheese. I caught up on email, sent thank yous to Daniella and Hans Petter. I left the lounge at 09:40, as KLM said boarding had started at 09:35. It was a fair walk to the gate, but when I arrived at ten o’clock it was not yet boarding. I finally made it on board at 10:10 and found my seat.
KLM flight 615 to Portland was a 787-9 in rather funky shape. And I suspected it was full. They actually finished boarding at 10:25, but we were delayed 15 minutes by ground staff for unspecified reasons. We pushed at 10:45 and took off at eleven o’clock.
I had the takeoff meal which wasn’t bad. I read a little, then napped for 3 1/2 or four hours and then read until we landed at 11:25. It took five minutes to get to the gate and then another five minutes figure out how to get the jet bridge attached to the plane. I was through immigration by 11:40; but then I had to board a bus and wait for the bus to fill before I could get a ride to the main terminal. Only half a dozen people were on the bus so we left five minutes later. Uber took a while. So I was not in the Tesla X until noon. I was home at 12:30. I reassured Kaiby? and unpacked.
The previous trip to Tokyo had left the SMBC situation far from resolved, and they said that I needed to come back for seven contiguous business days. So at the RIPE meeting in Bucharest I worked with Maz to coordinate schedules between his travel and Thanksgiving, and found a narrow window.
There was a lot of sturm und drang in the national news about flight cancellations due to the US government shutdown over the fight with Trump over Medical Care. Flights looked OK a week before. And then two New England supposed Democrats sold their souls and the American people to Satan.
In all the craziness, on the tenth, five days out, I realized that I had forgotten to book a Tokyo hotel. I spent hours finding that almost all hotels were booked, except for a few expensive ones still two train stops from the office. Finally, Kitamura san figured out that I could ping pong between the two Iidabashi APA hotels, and booked for me.
Friday 2025.11.14
I checked in using my iPhone the day before the flight. But the web site on my computer showed not checked in. And then I got a text saying “We’re sorry about the changes to your travel plans …” and offering a free meal voucher. So I called Global Services. We concluded that United’s computer was having a bad day.
Saturday 2025.11.15
I woke at three o’clock, did the last touches of packing, had breakfast, called an Uber at 04:25, and the Tesla arrived at 04:35. We were at the airport at five o’clock. Security was a walk-through and then there was the long walk to the E gates. I got to the gate five minutes early and boarded.
United flight 1164 to San Francisco was a 737max-9. It looked pretty full. My seatmate had the sniffles. A s usual, I was one of the few with a mask. I texted a bit with Tom Hirsch. We pushed back five minutes early at 05:55 and took off at 06:10. We landed in SFO at 07:35. Our gate was still occupied, so we sat in a penalty box for a bit and docked at gate E13 at 07:45. The walk to the G Concourse took me 20 minutes. I settled in the Polaris lounge.
I left the lounge at 09:20 for the long walk to G12 and boarded by 09:35. United flight 875 to Haneda was a 777-200 in so-so shape. and the FAs said it was completely full. I filled out the automatic immigration form and got my QR code. The doors closed at 10:05, we pushed at 10:10 five minutes early, and the wheels were up at 10:25. It was a bumpy ride for the first 3/4 of an hour. I slept through it. Then they served to takeoff meal; I had the washoku which was OK.
Sunday 2025.11.15
I slept for four hours or so and then watched a Chinese movie called “The Wig“ which was pretty good and then had the landing meal. We landed in Haneda at 14:07 and were docked by 14:20. There was the long walk to Immigration as usual. But I was through Immigration by 14:35, and in an Uber by 14:45. It was mostly sunny and 14c. The Uber was a Tesla again. traffic was light, and the driver liked having a zoomy car. We were at the APA Iidabashi Ekiminami by 15:15 and I was in my room by 15:25.
The room was a bit bigger than the last time. It had a luggage rack, but I did not think there was really room. I unpacked the computer etc., and cleaned up some minimal email. To stay awake until a reasonable hour, I watched junk until eight o’clock.
Monday 2025.11.17
I did not really sleep past two o’clock. I obsessed about bank bureaucracy and that I had not brought a copy of the revised death certificate. So I prepped Katen to FedEx one. At 07:40, I walked across the street to the machine udon shop and had a ¥700 bowl of udon with an egg; pretty junky. Amusing noise from outside as the construction workers received their morning instructions and pap talk.
By nine o’clock, I was ready to go back to sleep. But, of course, Maz was soon to arrange to meet to go to SMBC. What I needed was coffee.
At 10:15, I went to Doutor because I did not remember just how bad their coffee was. It was a beautiful 22c day, as if it was early autumn. I hopped the Tozai Sen to SMBC and met Maz in the Lobby at 11:00. They gave us the papers to be notarized, I filled them out, and we grabbed a taxi to the Japanese notary over the other side of Marunouchi to catch them before they closed for lunch at 11:30. We did the signature dance quickly, and they said for us to come back at two o’clock to pick up the papers.
We went down to the basement and ate in a saba restaurant. I had saba with miso, which was actually good. Maz wanted to go shop for a Christmas present for Kaede, so I took the Yurakacho sen back to my hotel to get a half hour nap. Maz met me at 13:30, and we took the Yurakacho back to the notary in Marunouchi and picked up the papers. Then a taxi back to SMBC. They drowned us is an amazing mass of paperwork until four o’clock, and told us to come back the next day for more. Maz headed back to Mitaka to pick up Kaede, and I took the Tozai sen back to Iidabashi to the IIJ office.
Of course I had missed Cola’s presentation of our work.
I spent time with an American Waseda grad student intern Yoshi, from Westchester, whose research was trusted environments. Then I spent time with Cola on the v6 topology work, and gossiped with other folk about v6, RPKI, security etc. I worked some and cleaned up backlog. I left the office at 18:45, and picked up some konbini food on the way back to my hotel. I worked until eight and then went to sleep.
Tuesday 2025.11.18
I woke at 03:30 which sounds bad, but it was seven and half hours of sleep. I wondered if it was not drinking coffee all day except for the bad one in the morning. I lolled around trying to get more sleep, but gave up at 06:30. I dressed and packed, as I had a discontinuous hotel stay and would have to move to the other APA Iidabashi around the corner for one night. There was a com.lb zone file issue with rip.psg.com being out of date. I looked at it, was confused, and begged Rob to take a look.
At eight, I left my luggage at the front desk and walked to Café de Crié down the street and had a ham and tomato with gloop breakfast sandwich and an Americano with an extra shot that was drinkable. At 08:30 I took Tozai Sen to Otemachi and did the long walk to the SMBC main office. Maz was a few minutes ahead of me. We went in when they opened at nine and spent an hour doing more paperwork. I wrote my home address for the nineteenth and twentieth times and stamped a lot of papers. I even used their iPad to specify the details of the transfer. We were out by ten, which was amazing. They said they had what they needed to do the transfer. I should watch, and when it was received, come back, or go to any branch to finalize closing of the account. It was 15c and a clear day, but not the previous day’s warmth. I got on Tozai Sen back to the IIJ Lab, arriving a bit before 10:30. The place was pretty empty.
I chatted with Romain about the Lab in general and some ideas for getting graduates back to visit. A gang of us wet to lunch at Charcoal Grilled Dried Fish Restaurant Echigoya Kamemaru, and I had my favorite miso gindara as usual. Then some work on the com.lb zone problem, finally hacking around it. At 15:30, Pascal and Thomas presented on using City Community Tagging to detect anycast; it was muddy and not conclusive. I reviewed a few APRICOT submissions. I resisted checking whether CitiBank had received the transfer. In reality, my guess was Thursday. I chatted more with Romain and Yoshi.
I left the office shortly after seven. I grabbed two o-nigiri at the konbini, and got my bag from the APA Iidabashi Ekiminami, which had no room that night (big concert at Tokyo Dome), and went to check in at the APA Iidabashi Ekimae two blocks away. The check-in was a big computer thing, which was as difficult as paper. But I made it. It was 80% more than the Ekiminami, and was maybe 10% larger. But it was only one night, and not a lot of choice. I unpacked, ate my o-nigiri, cleaned up some email etc, and tried to get to bed by 20:30, as it had worked the previous night.
Wednesday 2025.11.19
I managed to sleep in, with breaks, until 07:30. I began to believe this no coffee after noon thing. I showered, dressed, and packed up. I ignored email, as I assumed I would have plenty of time to deal with it in the office. I checked out of APA Iidabashi Ekimae at 08:30, dropped my luggage off back at APA Iidabashi Ekiminami where I would check in that evening, picked up a katsu sandwich at the corner shop, got a great coffee at the little place next to IIJ’s building, and was in the office by nine. It was 8c and clear blue, a pretty Tokyo fall day.
I cleaned up email until ten. I removed the ProxMox backup server work from raid0.dfw.rg.net as Rob and Hans were pushing just staying on restic. Then Rob dragged me (and a silent Hans) down a couple of DNSSEC rabbit holes. I tried calling an eyeglasses place recommended by Kitamura san, Ogura, but they did not speak English. George Michaelson talked me into trying PhotoStructure.app. So I loaded it up and let it start finding photos on my laptop.
I had lunch with Kitamura san, which was really nice. We went to a real soba ya over in Kagurazaka, Kagurazaka Kuzuryu Soba, to which I had not gone since living in Tokyo. Very tasty. We talked about her twelve year old, Annie, who was very over-sensitive, noise, social, …, but bright. And I told of Salma’s difficulties. Of course we also talked about the Lab sociology.
Back at the Lab, Kitamura san called the recommended optical/glasses shop for me, and they said it would take a week to ten days. So much for that. I chatted for a while with Pascal, an Anja Feldman graduate who had been a visitor for a few months and was going to DE-CIX. The afternoon is a quiet email time in Tokyo as the States is going to sleep and Europe has yet to wake; and the Lab was pretty empty.
I tried to reserve my flights to Jakarta in February for APRICOT but the ANA web site let me get all the way to the end and then failed with an error code. I tried three times. And I could not call them, as the English language version of the web site assumed I was in the States.
I left the office at 18:30. It was down to 10c. I stopped at the konbini and got one o-nigiri, checked back in to the APA Iidabashi Ekiminami, and unpacked. I managed to get rid of the big stack of the ¥10,000 notes I had been carrying for six years or whatever. I worked, ate my o-nigiri, and was asleep before nine o’clock.
Thursday 2025.11.20
Though fitful, I managed to sleep until 06:30. I worked for a bit, dressed, walked to the sandwich store, up the hill to the little coffee shop, and to the office by nine. I ate my sandwich, drank my coffee, and cleared a bunch of backlog. Eventually, Malte, Pierre Luis, and Romain showed up and we chatted about various research work, IIJ Lab server infrastructure, and other fun stuff. Eventually Cola showed up and we worked with him on the IPv6 topology growth work. At one o’clock, everyone went to lunch while I joined the APRICOT PC call.
As I wanted to be sure to get a good fare to APRICOT, I spent an hour on the phone with an ANA agent and actually managed to get a reservation and pay for it. As I was calling from Japan, I had to pay in JPY. But it looked as if the base rate was cheaper than the USD quote on the web site; so maybe, with the exchange costs, it came out in the wash. It took me another hour to select seats on the web site from hell. I could not select the seat on my last leg, SFO to PDX, as the site would error out.
I chatted with Christof Visser for a while. He was doing a lot of infrastructure and redundancy work in the Pacific Islands. I Then chatted international politics with two interns, one from China and one India. It was a bit sophomoric. I Left the office at about 19:30, stopped at the Konbini for minimal food, I was back in my hotel by 19:45. I worked until after nine and went to sleep.
Friday 2025.11.21
Katen and Helen woke me at four o’clock with pictures of the Bainbridge septic field work. Great progress and looked horrifyingly professional. I went back to sleep until Katen woke me at seven to ask about the bank transfer; no visible progress. So I dressed,left the hotel, got my breakfast sandwich and my sole cup of coffee (snif!), and was in the office by 08:30. It was sunny and 8c.
In the office, I ate my katsu sandwich, had my one cup of coffee (snif), exchanged RIPE political email with Mirjam, reported on the result of moderating coffee intake to a bunch of friends, cleaned up email, and wrote to the septic guy to say thanks. I worked through the morning, and made lunch dates with Emiko and Kempei (Wednesday) and Zita’s friend Peggy (Monday).
At one, five of us went over the Kagurazaka hill to Tonkatsu Kenshin, regular but good. After, Romain, Cola, and I discussed the IPv6 growth research, with an eye to a possible presentation at APRICOT; though Mark and Philip had yet to encourage me. Kitamura stopped by to say goodbye; though we might meet Wednesday morning. Pascal showed me some new interesting results on his and Thomas’s measurements using city community tags to detect anycast prefixes. I suggested RIPE Atlas traceroutes to validate anycasted sources.
I left the lab at 19:45 and headed back to the hotel. There were a lot of folk out in the side streets, eating, walking, whatever. The konbini was out of o-nigiri. As I was still not hungry after a large lunch, I took it as a sign. I stopped at the shrine, but it was a bit busy so I was not comfortable. I got back to the hotel, worked to 21:45, and went to sleep.
Saturday 2025.11.22
I woke at 03:30 to find that the bank transfer had completed. I texted Katen and went back to sleep. By 07:30 I had decided to get the hell outta Dodge, and leave closing the bank account to another trip. So I rebooked United for the same flights but on Sunday, saving three days. I wrote to Emiko apologizing for cancelling lunch with her and Kempei; a bit of a bummer. I also wrote to Peggy telling her I was bailing early. I dressed and went down to the lobby and spent 15 minutes dealing with the early departure. They were kind. I grabbed my usual katsu sandwich at the corner and headed up the hill. The favorite coffee shop, Aomi Coffee, was closed until ten o’clock, so I had to settle for FourBucks; half as good, almost twice the price.
In the Lab, I emailed Kitamura san and Romain about my bailing early. A RIPE/NCC email conversation with Mirjam got pretty serious. At eleven, Peggy called on the phone and we agreed to meet for soba at 12:30. I kept working until 12:15 when I walked to Kagurazaka Kuzuryu Soba to meet Peggy, who was 20 minutes late as usual. I did not have to hold up my end of the conversation to say the least; nary a word in edgewise. We finally broke up at 15:15, and I was back at the office by 15:30. It was a gorgeous day, 17c and clear.
In Second Life, a neighbor offered to sell a piece of land we had always wanted. We started discussing price while I looked in all our accounts for land tier. When I went to look in Zita’s account, it was suspended!! I wrote to Aiyana to ask what the heck was up. Per Rob’s suggestion, I started to installing forgejo to migrate git.rg.net. That lasted until seven in the evening when I gave up and walked back to my hotel. There was a complex exchange where they had left a note asking if I would please return the original receipt as I was checking out early and it would change. It was in my room and the room key did not work. So it was a few elevator rides. I read until eleven and went to sleep.
Sunday 2025.11.23
I woke at seven, dressed, and started packing. Fergal had great comments on my long term view presentation. So I incorporated them and sent it off to Hans Petter. Fergal and I exchanged a bunch of email about the usual. I finished packing by 09:30, and went down to check out. I left my luggage as I did not want to haul it up the hill to the Lab. It was finally cloudy, and a warmish 10c. On the way up, I stopped at the konbini for an o-nigiri, and arrived at Aomi Coffee just as it opened at ten o’clock. I chatted once more with Fergal and hacked some more on the forgejo conversion. A co-researcher at the Lab, Thomas Krenc, pointed me to a podcast on Tokyo micro-scale, The Magic of Tokyo, which I found a good description and explanation.
At one o’clock, I headed out of the Lab and walked back to the APA Iidabashi Ekiminami to pick up my luggage. Having had no lunch, I was tempted to stop for another o-nigiri; but one may not eat while walking or in the train. The streets were full of people and the shrine was totally crowded for Thanksgiving. I wondered if this was the last time I would see Tokyo and missed Zita a lot.
I got my luggage from the hotel and walked the one block to the Tozai Sen which I took to Nihonbashi to change to the Asakuka Rapid Express for the thirty minute ride to Haneda Terminal 3. I got a seat on both trains. I arrived in Haneda just after two o’clock. I went to check-in for the doc check, and decided to not check my bag. I walked through security and Emigration, and was in the ANA lounge by 14:15. As I had eaten little, I had three pieces of spicy, for Japan, Korean karaage and some rice. I cleaned up some final email and pretended to work.
At 15:30, I waked down to the gate and played the Global card to cut through boarding. United flight 876 to San Francisco looked to be the same 777-200 as I flew in, and was in OK shape. I think it was full. Because I had booked late, I had a non-window; no big deal. We pushed back at 16:25, exactly on time, and took off at 16:45. The captain came on the PA and was a woman. I watched Rocky Horror Picture Show which I had never seen. I was impressed. Acting, choreography, music, production. No wonder it remains a classic. The washouku was OK and I indulged in a citrus cake and watched Goodfellas. Then I slept for maybe three to hours until the landing washouku, which was much better than that on the same flight in September.
We made the softest landing ever at 08:50, taxied for 15 minutes, and were then tugged to the gate. I was through Immigration by 09:15. but, due to the construction, to get to the domestic terminals, put us outside a long walk, and then a partial walk back to get to global services entry. then security claimed I was randomly selected and they wanted to wipe my cell phone. I powered it down and let them do it. I watched and all they did was wipe it with the Kleenex. I was done by 09:45. The United Club was standing room only, but the agent said Global flying business, go to the Maple Leaf Lounge which was roomy and comfortable. I worked with Rob and crew on forgejo and texted with Lucy. Without thinking, I had a small bit of chicken in a cream sauce; and this was 30 minutes before I needed to head to the gate. So I hung around the lounge for an extra twenty minutes and then headed to the gate. Despite their computer telling me that the plane was about to board, when I got to the gate the equipment wasn’t even there. At 12:35 I sat down and watched the plane arrive. We finally started boarding at 12:55.
United flight 1668 to Portland was a 737-900 in very new shape. The plane was full, but some standbys made it on. They closed the door at 13:20. Wheels were up at 13:37. I slept the entire way. We landed at 15:06. Then there was the long walk, and I was in an Uber by 15:33. The Uber came in one minute! It was very grey, foggy, with a misty drizzle, and 14c. I got home at four o’clock. There was much petting of the cat as I unpacked. She claimed Katen and Latif had not fed her the entire time I was gone.
To be able to make an Exec Board video call on Friday the 15th, I had scheduled to fly the previous Wednesday. Eventually, I realized that this was crazy as it would stick me in Bucharest for four extra days. But I could not change it online as Air Canada said no alternate flights were available. I had great trouble reaching them on the phone with ridiculous wait times, and they dropped a call after thirty minutes on hold. I finally go through on Thursday 2025.09.11, and managed to change it to leave on the Friday late enough to make the video call first.
Friday 2025.10.17
I had a midnight to 02:00 NCC Board zoom which whacked me for the whole day. Jet lagged half a day before my flight. Liz had stayed over to avoid a neighbor’s roof construction, so the morning was less simple and ritualistic than usual. Once Rosa finished with the upstairs, I packed. It took about 45 minutes, half of which was meds and so forth. I worked most of the day. Lizzie took about as much attention as Kaiby? :). Lufthansa texted or whatever to tell me the Vancouver to Munich flight would be forty minutes late. I suspected there would be further slippage. The Internet said the TSA queue time at PDX was eleven minutes, which seemed good to me.
Liz offered to drive me to PDX. We left at two o’clock. Traffic was heavy; I had underestimated Friday. But we were still at the airport by 14:30. I stopped at the Air Canada counter for a doc check and to pick up a paper pass for that missing third segment. TSA was a bit of a pain as I set off the alarm; but made it through quickly. I was in the United Lounge by 14:45. I had a half of a bad sandwich to hold me over.
i headed for the gate at 15:30 for a 15:35 boarding, and then sat in the boarding area for ten minutes. i was on board by 15:50. Air Canada 8653 was an old de Havilland Q400 and completely full. We pushed exactly on time at four o’clock and took off at 16:15. The flight attendant was sniffling and I was the only person wearing a mask. It was supposed to be a 45 minute flight but took 55., landing at 17:10 and at the gate at 17:15.
I did the walk to automated passport control and had fun finding the Air Canada Lounge. I had some udon and checked email. At 18:25 I headed to the gate, and was on board by 18:40. Lufthansa flight 477 to Munich was an AirBus 350-900 in spiffy shape. I imagine it was pretty full. The flight was captained by Stefanie Schwartz. Yay! It pushed 30 minutes late at 19:10 and took off at 19:30. The meal was OK. I did some work, watched Godfather 2, and slept for a few hours.
Saturday 2025.10.18
I woke 1:45 out of Munich, but skipped the breakfast and just had a bad cup of coffee. We landed at 13:30 and were at the gate by 13:35. It was a short walk to Passport Control and a short line. I was through by 13:45, took the train over to the G Concourse, settled in the Lufthansa Senator Lounge,and had a bite to eat, a double espresso, and picked up email.
At three o’clock, I walked down to the gate waited about three minutes and then got to walk down four flights and stairs to get on the bus for a long ride to a distanct stand. I was on board by 15:25. Lufthansa flight 1652 to Bucharest was an AirBus 319–100, and a bit funky. I think it was full in back but not in front. At least three people had kitties in carriers. We pushed at 15:55, 20 minutes late. Then taxied for 20 minutes and took off at 16:10. We landed in Bucharest at 19:05 and took a tow to the gate. It was a long walk to the exit. I ran into somebody I knew and I agreed to share a ride and then he disappeared. I waited twenty minutes. The airport Wi-Fi wasn’t working and I was having a hard time raising Uber. I was finally in an Uber at 19:45. The driver had to take a detour through town because there was a very serious accident on the freeway. We arrived at the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel at 28:30 and I was in my room by 20:45. I unpacked and was asleep by ten o’clock.
Sunday 2025.10.19
I woke at 02:30 and asked Katen about the No Kings March, which evidently went quite well and non-violently. I slept in to 08:30, dressed, and went down to breakfast. The spread was OK, but not great. I sat with some Swiss/French friends. It was a pretty day with a pretty view.
At 10:30, I went to the Secretariat office to settle in and work and listen to the staff gossip. At 12:30, I went across the street to a chicken shawarma joint with the networking crew. There was nothing else close. And if one ordered carefully, it was almost healthy. I worked until four thirty and then napped until seven.
At 19:30, a bunch if the board and NCC management met in the lobby and we walked a half hour to Hanu’ Berarilor Casa Oprea Soare to have dinner for fourteen of us. It was a fancy beer hall with a large menu, two bad signs. I teamed with Mirjam and had a bunch of vegetarian starters etc. Then the stuffed cabbage, which was luke warm and mediocre at best.
At 21:40, Sander and Mirjam said it was time to go, and Sander got us an Uber back to the Marriott. I was in bed by 22:30.
Monday 2025.10.20
I woke at two and slept fitfully at best until 07:30 when I dressed and went down to breakfast. I sat with some NCC folk and had scrambled eggs, a pork sausage, and some fair bread. Then I wandered the lobby and talked with folk. At 0930, the Global Cyber Alliance had a two hour side meeting about measurement. It started pretty much in outer space thanks to ISOC, but gained focus as time went on. I had to leave early as I had to attend the Newcomers’ Session. I had a short chat with Fergal about the charging scheme and then went to lunch where I accidentally sat with a bunch of NCC staff. Athina and I chatted and tried to recruit NCC Board candidates. Then we had a short chat with Constanze and Andrei regarding the ICP-2 document.
Then the first real Plenary with the usual prelude, but including a set of welcome dancers by the Bucheresti local host.
The first technical presentation was by Maz on IPv6 scanning. Then gNMI and other semi-interesting things. The Plenary ended at 17:00 and at 17:30 we had a long session on ICP-2 which segued into a small conversation with HPH, Athina, Constanze, Andrei, Herve, etc. Then we all had to attend the Opening Reception with Meet the Board etc. At 21:00, the board, Mirjam, and assorted NCC staff retreated to the in-hotel steak house for a dinner that lasted until 23:30. I was asleep about midnight.
Tuesday 2025.10.21
I got very little sleep. Essentially was up by three. At seven I dressed, cleaned up a bit of email. I had an eight o’clock breakfast with Laura, Mirjam, Niall, and Anna regarding how to accommodate under age (18) fellowship applicants and attendees. Niall had a 17 year old local who he wanted to invite to the May meeting in Edinburgh and Laura, an NCC super retentive bureaucrat was freaking out. Detente was reached with some effort, but with humor and respect. Then I wandered into the Plenary which did not impress me. Talking to Matthias after, he was horrified,
Lunch was in a private room with the NCC Board, two Board folk from ARIN and their lawyer, three from LACNIC, and two from APNIC, one of whom was Maz. Instead of exploring how we could cooperatively improve the Internet, the ARIN folk dominated the meeting for over an hour explaining how the ARIN banana republic structured itself to protect itself from the proletariat. Then I had time with Andrei and Constanze from the NRO ICP-2 team, followed by an NCC Board group photo shoot, which seemed a bit silly. The last technical session of the day was the MAT (measurement) Working Group., which started with Geoff Huston on Network Measurement in the Dark, i.e. when the data are hidden by surveillance prevention. Then the Italian IP blocking disaster. Then DNS measurements.
I gossiped with Hans Petter for a bit, attended the Diversity session, and went up to my room to dump my stuff and get a jacket, Then I met Matthias and Mirjam to go out to dinner at Kaimo, where Matthias had succeeded in getting a reservation. At 19:30 we had a delicious dinner, and did not get back to the hotel until 23:30. I went to sleep.
Wednesday 2025.10.22
I slept to five, and gave up and worked. I had a nice breakfast with Liman. Then I talked with Rüdiger and Hans Petter in the hallway before I sat in a bring Connect WG session and cleaned up email. There was some EB faffing because of the slime NRO/NC candidate scam from Germany. I had a calm lunch and then cornered Michael Abejuela, the ARIN lawyer, who seemed somewhat sensible.
I had to attend the NCC Services WG, which was repetitive and boring. Then there was the NCC Members’ General Meeting, which was totally boring PowerPoint bombardment. I had to be on the stage and managed to stay awake for most of it.
I took a one hour nap and then met Mirjam and Anna to go to Aubergine which was funky but tasty. We got back at 22:30 and I was asleep by 23:30.
Thursday 2025.10.23
I was up from 01:00 to 05:00 and then woke to the alarm at 07:30. After breakfast, I hung out in the hallway to be open and social. I had a conversation with Tim B and then HPH about a single RPKI root for a cooperation between APNIC and RIPE. Then more corridor time followed by the Address Policy Working Group. There was an interesting presentation on RIPE document history, and Marco did a great job on Registration Services.
I had lunch with Rüdiger and a German contingent and then went back to the boring second half of Address Policy. After Address policy, I had lunch, napped until 17:00, and then went to the Shaping the RIPE NCC’s Strategic Direction BoF. Then I changed to smart but informal and queued for the bus to the dinner. I sat with Mirjam, Anna, Hans Petter and wife, and a gang of others. The food was sub-mediocre. There was a performer who did silks quite well.
We left before closing to catch an eleven o’clock bus. I slept the whole way back to the hotel and was in bed shortly after midnight.
Friday 2025.10.24
I got four and a half hours of sleep, woke to the alarm at eight, and had breakfast with Mirjam, Anna, and Niall. Then coffee and sitting with Maz at the morning Plenary. I reserved my Tokyo flights for November to deal with the bank mess. The rest of the Plenary was not exciting. Constanze won the NRO election by a landslide. And the Secret Working Group was sad. I had lunch, said goodbye to Mirjam and Anna, and went upstairs to take a nap.
I woke at five o’clock and showered. Maz texted to meet in lobby at six. We decided not to leave hotel. Neither of us had the energy to go out, so we went to the hotel Italian restaurant. It was, shall we say, tolerable. But we did get to hang out for two hours, chat, come up with some constructive ideas for APNIC/RIPE cooperation etc. I was back in my room at eight, cleaned up email, chatted with Hans and Cristel, and organized to depart early in the morning. I was asleep by shortly after nine.
Saturday 2025.10.25
I could not sleep past two o’clock. I texted, well signaled, with Lucy who fell out of the trial to attack her blood disease. Packed. Checked out by 03:45. We were on the road by 03:40. My phone said I had left my laptop behind, but I was sure it was in the boot. Bucharest had worse potholes then Portland. They also seemed to have a serious medical and dental tourism business. We arrived at the airport by 4:05. I was checked in by 04:15, checking my bag as it was homeward bound. The security queue was quite long. I was through by 04:35. It was a bit of a walk to the Lufthansa lounge, which was shall we say funky, with broken coffee machines, little place to sit, etc. With much effort, and a long queue, I managed to get a double espresso. And I actually found a seat. The Wi-Fi was unusable. Boarding was supposed to be at 05:35 so I headed to the gate at 05:25, to find the boarding it already started and was a little aggressive. I was on board by 05:45.
Lufthansa flight 1423 to Frankfurt was an AirBus 321-200 and completely full. We pushed on time at six o’clock. We taxied forever and took off at 06:15. I ate the mediocre breakfast. We landed in Frankfurt at 07:33, taxied to a stand, and were bussed, arriving at Terminal A at about eight. We went through the tunnel to the other terminal, and up to passport control with no queue. Dave wanted to use the Air Canada Lounge, so we did, and were settled in by 08:20. While the Air Canada Lounge was more comfortable than Lufthansa’s, it did not have quite the same spread, particularly geräucherter schinken. So, at 09:00, I dragged Dave and went to the Lufthansa Senator Lounge. They had no shinken!!! At eleven, Dave headed out to his flight and I walked 1km to the Senator Lounge at the advice of the Biz Lounge attendant. It was much emptier, had same food, and a German, not an American, shouting into his phone.
I left the lounge at 12:30 for the long walk to the other end of B Concourse, arriving while there was still a crowd. I boarded anyway as there was no uncrowded place to hide. I had found my seat in the nose of the plane at 12:45 next to a macho South Africaaner. i watched them load my luggage using FindMyIPhone.
Lufthansa flight 492 to Vancouver was a 747-400. We pushed back at 13:28. It was raining. wheels were up at 13:45. I had a small nap until the take-off meal, watched Blood Diamonds, and slept until the fuss of the landing meal which I did not eat.
We landed at 14:55, followed by the usual long walk to security and US Passport Control. I settled in the Maple Leaf Lounge by 15:20, checked email, and had some rice with mystery meat. We were due to board at 17:05, so I left the lounge at 17:00 to find they were already boarding. Air Canada 8654 was an old de Havilland Q400 and completely full. So I did. I slept the whole way until we landed at 18:37. I did the 1 km walk to baggage claim arriving at 19:05, and baggage was still not up. We had the luggage at 19:15 and I walked out to Lyft pickup. It was a five minute wait to 19:21, and I was home at 19:45.
I had been procrastinating about just about everything. So i thought I would try to break the cycle by just doing one of the thinks i had been postponing, visiting Lucy and Joel in Eugene.
I did my normal morning, actually sleeping in a bit. As it was just a day trip, it needed no prep, packing, or other logistics. Maybe I should have fed Kermit fully, but he was at 73%, so what the heck. I poured the last of my coffee in my thermos, asked Katen to feed Kaiby? in the evening, and managed to get out the door by noon.
The drive was relatively easy, traffic most of the way, but not bad. It took two hours, and I arrived just before two o’clock. Joel had a Level-2 cable to feed Kermit; though it took me an hour to remember to tell Kermit it was OK to eat off power saving schedule.
I had never been to Lucy’s before. Her place was small, close, warm, and stuffed. But they were remodeling a second adjacent space, and together it would be downright modern but cozy. And the site was definitely old Eugene and very wooded. We spent the afternoon talking: Lucy’s illness, Joel’s doing construction, my state and work, etc. etc. We went for a walk, maybe 1km, around the neighborhood.
At 17:30, we rode in Joel’s Tesla to Domek, an Eastern European restaurant with a modern twist. We had starters of potato trout coquette (quite tasty), golden beets & cream, which was tasty but classic, deruny, delicate and delicious, and garlic pork sausage which had some killer spinach and other tasties. All in all, it was a bit chaotic and slow, but delicious. I would rate it above Katchka in Portland.
At maybe 19:30 or so, we drove back to Lucy’s. Kermit was at 30% or so, and I headed North. Kermit was not going to make it without a charging stop. The computer suggested Albany, which turned out to be a 60kw Hundai dealer very close tot eh freeway. So it was a bit slow to get to the 50% the computer said would give me a good margin to get home. I arrived before 20:30, unwound, and went to sleep.
