Lillestrøm for a RIPE NCC Exec Board Meeting

In Lisbon, when I was elected to the NCC Executive Board, I was told that I should plan to be at the EB meeting in Lillestrøm on 28 June. This would normally have been a two day meeting, and during the week, but it was to be up against an IGF meeting, so was squeezed. After some discussion with Daniella, I booked it myself on Lufthansa as it had the best pricing and i could get lie-flat seats to/from Europe in one hop, avoiding US domestic cross-country. I would only get one day home after returning from the family trip to the Big Island.

Tuesday 2025.06.24

I unpacked from the Hawai`i trip, did a laundry, and started packing my small carry-on for the Oslo run.

Wednesday 2025.06.25

I was in the Lyft at 08:55. The driver had succulents planted in the console well. The car was a Kia hybrid and she said she liked it a lot. We arrived at PDX at 08:20. The airport was empty. I stopped at Air Canada check-in because the app had not given me the boarding pass for the FRA-OSL segment. There was zero queue. Same with TSA and security. My bag set off the inspection for human remains. They were kind. I grabbed a decaf Italiano at Stumptown, plugged my laptop in at the really nice laptop tables, and tried to deal with the day’s AfriNIC drama.

At 09:30 i headed to the gate and boarded. Air Canada flight 8651 was a funky De Havilland Q400 turboprop and was completely full. I took off 20 minutes late at 10:20. I slept the ride to Vancouver, where we landed at 11:10. I went through passport control and settled in the Air Canada signature lounge to have some Hamachi and steak. There was much back-and-forth in signal regarding the RIR statement supporting ICANN I had initiated. The Vancouver to Frankfurt flight was delayed by an hour and a half.

I left the lounge at 13:30 and headed to the gate. I boarded directly and settled in. Air Canada flight 838 was a DreamLiner 787 in very spicy shape. I think it was pretty full. At two o’clock we we’re ready to take off when someone decided they didn’t want to fly. So we got another 15 minute delay while they found their luggage in the cargo. We finally pushed back at 2:30, and took off at 2:45. I slept for three hours and watched bad movies. I hate the takeoff meal and the landing omelette with two cups of coffee.

Thursday 2025.06.26

We landed at 9:05 and we’re at the gate by 9:10. I had to go catch the bus over to the gates which I did at 9:20.. We were at the gate and I was in the passport queue by 9:30. I was through passport control by 9:40 and at the gate at 9:45. they were still disembarking from the inbound flight. They started boarding at ten o’clock. I was in my seat by 10:05.

Lufthansa flight 860 was an AirBus 320neo in pretty good shape. It appeared to be pretty full. I was actually pretty awake and feeling OK. We were scheduled to push at 10:15 but did not do so until 10:30. I was just happy to have made the connection given the two hour late departure out of Vancouver.

We landed at 12:16 . I was waiting for the train for Lillestrøm at 12:40 and it departed at 12:50. It was ten minutes to Lillestrøm, and the hotel was right across the road. I checked in and was in my room by 13:15. The Scandic Lillestrøm was not posh but quite adequate. Gobble said four star, I would say three, which was appropriate for a board member of a non-profit.

I unpacked, showered, worked, and napped until 18:00 when I went down to the lobby to meet Mirjam. We ran into Hans Petter, Fergal, Ukla, Karla, Ole, etc. and gossiped for half an hour or so. Then Mirjam and I walked into the Lillestrøm shopping area and to Feniqia, a Lebanese restaurant and had a rather nice vegetarian dinner. We were back at the hotel about nine o’clock, and I crashed.

Friday 2025.06.27

I woke at six, dressed, and went down to breakfast at seven. It was your basic good Scandanavian breakfast. I worked in my room until an 11:30 meeting with Athina to cover the role, duties, and liabilities of an NCC EB member. I spent three hours with her, doing the paperwork and slide deck as planned, but then going into depth on many social, political, etc. issues RIPE faces and maybe more of NCC internals than is appropriate for a board member. I napped from four to seven, and thanked everyone on Signal and iMessage for birthday wishes.

I napped from three to 18:30, showered and dressed, and worked a bit. I then went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner with the Board, Hans Petter, Athina, Mirjam, etc. It was very collegial and somewhat multi-cultural. I managed to stay fairly quiet. Piotr, who is cute in a Polish kind of way, served as the life of the party at our end. Hams Petter and I managed to gossip a bit. Mirjam and Athina left soon after ten. Ondrej, who had hung back, suddenly grilled me about my jobs at IIJ and Arrcus and how I ended up in them. I left as we were kicked out of the restaurant at 23:30, and I got so sleep shortly after midnight.

Saturday 2025.06.28

I woke at seven o’clock, dressed, and went down to breakfast. I had put on a real collared shirt, but no one noticed. I sat with Mirjam, Ole, and Fergal. At 08:30, Sander and I tried to take Athina’s advice to go across the street to the station to Garcon for good coffee, but they were closed. So I had more bad coffee with the crew at the hotel restaurant. Then to the second floor to the meeting room for the Board meeting.

The Board meeting was highly varied. Simple procedural actions were prompt and easy. But anything which took thought rat-holed. Particularly the subject of the change from Executive Board to Supervisory Board, which I thought was very simple, got seriously wrapped around the axle. And Remko van Mook, who was no longer on the board, seemed not to have gotten the memo and tended to dominate conversation. We finally broke for lunch at 12:30.

After lunch we went into more strategy, but focused on data sovereignty, AI, and other technologies. Then we went down rat-holes of various services, charging for diverse services, … What about war, regional fragmentation, climate change, etc? The work day ended with a closed meeting on remuneration of the RIPE Chair and Vice-Chair.

At 17:30, I went to my room and napped until 18:30, showered, and met folk in the lobby, took the train to OsloTheater, and walked maybe one km to XXX and had a dinner of shellfish by the harbor.

At 10:30 or so, Mirjam and I bailed and took the train back to Lillestrøm and I was asleep around midnight.

Sunday 2025.06.29

I woke at six, showered, dressed, packed, etc., and was drinking coffee in the cafe by 06:45. They opened and seven and Mirjam met me. At 07:30 she walked me to my train to the airport. I caught the 07:50 express, which was overflowing and arrived at a minute or three after eight. I walked through the automated check, went through security, and found the lounge by 08:25.

I left the lounge at 9:10 and walked to the furthest D gate.We boarded at 9:25 and I was in my seat by 9:30. Lufthansa flight 859 to Frankfurt was an AirBus 320neo in funky shape. My seat would not recline. My seat mate arrived and it was Harald. I fell asleep instantly and slept until we landed in Frankfurt. I went through the underground tunnel to the B gates, went through a very short passport control queue, and went to the Lufthansa lounge. At 12:35 when my outbound flight was supposed to be boarding, I went to the gate. It wasn’t boarding, and it was a closed gate area that was jammed full. It looked like a Covid event to me. So I sat down outside and waited for the boarding area to clear. I was the last person through passport check and I waited for the jet bridge to clear to board.

Lufthansa flight 492 to Vancouver was a 747 that looked new. It had been years since I was on a 747. I think it was completely full. The was a delay for unknown reasons. We finally pushed at 13:45, 25 minutes late. I watched Inception which was OK. It would’ve been better with less violence. They served the best airplane dinner I had had in decades. I slept about six hours and spaced out the rest.

We landed in Vancouver at 14:30 and were at the gate five minutes later. There was a bit of walk to security, but then security took 40 minutes. It was insane. I walked to the Maple Leaf Lounge, plugged my laptop in, and had a Coke strangely enough. The TV had Fox News on, in Canada!!

I headed for the gate at 16:55, boarded at 17:10 and immediately fell asleep. I woke to the landing bump at 18:45. I did the silly long walk to get a Lyft, was on the road at 19:20, and home by 19:45 to a starving cat, or so she said.

The Island of Hawai`i to Say Goodbye to Zita

Zita had asked that her ashes be spread on the Island of Hawai`i where we used to live. It was the first home she/we owned, was where we were married, and she had great attachment to it. In hind-sight, she might have been happier had we not sold it in 2017. But any time she went there, the whole of her time was spent on maintenance, there was and is no functioning medical care on the island, etc. But she definitely left a large bit of her heart there.

So the family, Katen, Latif, Salma, Aaron, Cat, and i scheduled a trip once Salma had finished the school year. Katen found an AirBnB, I booked tickets and a car, and I think K,L,&S looked forward to it. I was less comfortable as I feared too many emotional memories.

Sunday 2025.06.15

We were booked on Alaska’s non-stop Portland to Kailua-Kona. I checked in online, but they would not assign seats, and said we would get them at the gate. I did not take this as a good sign.

In the afternoon, I packed a full sized Rimowa check-on because I was carrying Zita’s and Ookii’s ashes, tennis shoes, etc. and needed the room.

Monday 2025.06.16

I woke at four, dressed, made coffee, and finished packing. At 05:10 I summoned a Lyft as Katen, Salma, and Latif arrived. The driver could not atop talking. We were at the airport by six, checked two bags, and went through security. I had a wrap for breakfast and we went down to the gate. We were due to board at 07:20 but they said the plane had a mechanical and they had a different plane for us at 10:20.

We finally boarded at 10:15. Alaska 867 was a 737-800 in newish shape. We were in the back of the plane. I had a window next to a cute three year old. I slept on and off, ate a bad banh mi I bought at the airport, and watched the landing at 12:50. We were sent to a penalty box because another plane had our gate. We finally started moving an hour later at 1:48.

We finally had the rental car at 14:40 and drove north to the AirBnB in Puako. We sorted out rooms, and unpacked. Katen checked out the local lava beach and declared it lovely. Then she, Latif, and Salma headed to the Puako General Store. Aaron and Cat texted that they had just arrived at the store. They all came back with armloads of snack level groceries.

We hung out, walked to the beach, and sat around a bit.

Salma was hungry so we went to Kawihae for diner at the Seafood Bar and Grill. OK, up market, but nothing special. We were back by eight and asleep by nine.

Tuesday 2025.06.17

I managed to sleep to 05:30 when I heard Katen in the kitchen making coffee. So I got up, dressed, had some coffee, and cleaned up email etc. Katen took a walk and ran into Aaron and Cat.

After eight or so, Katen, Latif, Salma, and I got in the car and drove to Hawaiian Style Cafe in Waimea for breakfast. It was was not the old funky place I remembered, was maybe half the size, and cleaned up in a plastic sort of way, more for the tourists. Pos-Covid I guess. Latif and Salma over-ordered, Salma vastly so. Katen and I split an omelet with fried rice, which was fine.

Then we drove into downtown Waimea to shop at the KTA, the same place Zita and I used to go. We did the whole store, with Katen shopping for an army for the week; the bill came to just shy of $400. Then down to the bread store, which looked pretty good. We were back home to the AirBnB by eleven.

We milled around until after noon. Then everyone but I got in Aaron and Cat’s car and went to Beach 69. I got in our car and drove up Akino Pule to Kapa’au to meet Sally. I went to the Takata Market, which was just the same as I remembered. Sally and I talked and agreed to meet up at the cul de sac at our old house in Maliu Ridge. We parked in the cul de sac and walked down the driveway. The house looked in great shape and had been painted a different color. Most of the big fruit trees we loved were gone, as were the coconut palms by the house. But the bananas and our wedding palm remained. And they had planted some beautiful flowers.

No one was home. So Sally and I walked to our mauka neighbor Tom and Julie, who were home. We spent a few minutes remembering who we all were. I asked about the folk who now owned our old home. They said they spent much of their time up in Alaska from where they had come. And, as it was summer, were probably up there. But they remembered that the daughter lived in Waimea and had a kid in school with one of Tom and Julie’s friends, so called them to track the daughter, Sally, down. They got the number and I called and explained. She said anything would be fine with here, but she should check with her parents so conference called them in from Alaska. They were all really sweet and said anything would be fine.

We gossiped for a while, saw Tom’s restored MG-TD which was gorgeous, and said our goodbyes. I agreed to sync will Sally when we came back to spread Zita’s ashes. She headed back down to Kapa’au, and I took the Mountain Road route back to Waimea and then back to Puako, arriving about 15:40. The family was all still at the beach. I had half dozen bites of potato salad and made decaf coffee to have with three more Island Delight macadamia nut shortbread cookies. I ate outside and picked up a plumeria flower to put on the box of Zita’s ashes.

The crew returned about five having had a great time at the beach. Katen, Aaron, Cat, and I sat around and talked until 18:30 when Cat and Aaron headed off on bikes to see the sunset. Salma made macaroni and cheese. Katen put up rice and broiled the ono with a soy, ginger, honey glaze and made a salad. We all ate out on the deck. Then we hung out in the kitchen and discussed the details of interior decorating issues in Katen’s Paris apartment. We all were asleep by 21:30 or so.

Wednesday 2025.06.18

The birds woke me at five, and I remembered how many and loud they were and how much Zita liked them. I could hear that Katen was up too early as usual. But was not in the kitchen when I checked. I gave up and dressed at seven and made coffee. Katen showed up with a bowl of yogurt and an apple banana. I made two eggs and toast. Aaron and Cat showed up around eight, but had decided against a run to the Volcano, so we let Salma and Latif sleep in. Aaron and Cat went for a bike ride.

We hung out all morning. Salma caught some rays. I reserved Bamboo for the next evening, part of the plan to spread Zita’s ashes. I Slacked a bunch on Arrcus #engineering about whether to fix a CVE in old code. Then I had some poke and cold noodle salad for lunch while others ate various things. At about 13:15, everyone left for the beach, Aaron and Cat on bikes and Katen, Latif, and Salma by car to carry the beach chairs, umbrella, etc. I tried to nap, but was tangled up in Zita, the past, and just being crazy. At three o’clock I had a research call with IIJ folk. Katen and Salma returned at 18:15. Latif passed through grabbing beer and heading back to the beach.

After the sun set at seven, folk trickled back to the house. Katen set up dinner for eight o’clock, steak, salad, mashed potatoes, ziti from the store, etc. We all ate outside. Katen headed to bed immediately, shortly followed by Salma. The rest of us cleaned up. I was in bed by ten.

Thursday 2025.06.19

I did not sleep well; my last night with the physical manifestation of Zita. I woke to Katen’s puttering at 06:30, dressed, made coffee, and hung out with Katen. I cleaned up email. It was light, as it was Juneteenth in the mainland. At eight or so, I made eggs and toast. Cat had snuck out and gone for her morning walk. Aaron appeared and we milled around the kitchen until 10:30 or so, when Aaron and Cat headed for the beach and Katen and crew went to Kings and Queens Markets to feed Salma, pick up doughnuts, etc. They reappeared a maybe 11:45, and milled about until heading for the beach at 12:15. I listened to birds outside for an hour, had another half sprouts and cheese sandwich, walked the back yard, and had a cup of coffee.

Folk returned between 14:30 and 15:30. We milled around a bit. Soon after four o’clock we took both cars and headed north toward Hawi. I wanted to stop in Lapakahi to get sea water where Zita and I got it for our wedding. But they had closed at four o’clock. So we drove to Mahu Kona and I filled the bottle from the ladder where we went in to snorkel. Then we drove up to Hawi and the crew walked the town a bit. Then on to Kapa`au where they did the same. On to Malieu Ridge to our home, where we met Sally. We walked into the property. I spread ashes at the fan palm we had planted at our wedding

and then all over the front acreage. I said the Buddhist Prayer a lot. Sally had two pikake lei, one for me and one she placed on the wedding palm. We all talked until six or so.

We said goodbye to Sally and drove down to Bamboo in Hawi The place was almost empty. I saw why they were now only open for dinner Thursday and Friday. I talked with Joan, the owner. Since Covid and Trump, there were no foreign and few domestic tourists. She said that when the Biden Covid relief money ran out, it was likely they would close. Heartbreaking. Aaron had noted that I did not go back to places I have left. It is because I have them encased in amber in my heart and mind; Joanie is still thirty and at the farm on Cherry Creek; Zita is still in our home in Hawi. Seeing them changed is heartbreaking.

We had a nice dinner. Aaron and Cat would fly back to Seattle in the morning. At about eight o’clock, we drove back to Puako. I said goodbye to Hawi. We were asleep by nine.

Friday 2025.06.20

I woke at 05:30 to say goodbye to Aaron and Cat and tried unsuccessfully to get more sleep. Katen and I had coffee, and I cleaned up email etc. After showering I realized we were not getting on the road any time soon, so made breakfast. By 09:30, Salma was having a double breakfast, and departure was not in sight. We finally made it out by 10:10. We went straight to Waimea and stopped at Waimea Coffee Company, Good Friends Bad Habits, for coffee and a breakfast burrito which we all shared. It was quite good. We grabbed gas and headed to Saddle Road which was now a fancy superhighway. We made it across to Hilo and headed down Route 11 to the Volcano National Park. First we went for a walk along the inter-lot trail to the Lava Tube and did that. Then back up to walk the trail marked to the view the current eruption across the caldera. Then to the ranger station and Katen hit the General Store for snacks. We went down the East road past all the small craters down 20 miles to the ocean and back up. Back to the entrance, we exited and drove back North. We drove the Northern route through Kappa`a to Waimea to Moa Kitchen to have some ramen and sashimi to dinner and then home by 20:30.

Saturday 2025.06.21

I slept in to seven as did Katen. I made coffee, dressed, had a couple of eggs, and cleaned up email, which was quite light due to weekend plus the Juneteenth holiday. By eleven, we all piled into the car and drove down to Kailua-Kona. Parking was not easy, but eventually we found a paid lot. The crew hit the ABC store, which was definitely their speed. We walked down Ali`i to Scandanavian Shave Ice, Zita’s old favorite, and they got one small. We sat around and observed. Traffic and craziness was very light, good for us bad for business. By 13:30, we were ready to head back to Puako, arriving at 14:45.

The gang went to the beach and I took a nap. They returned shortly after five with groceries from the Puako General Store. Katen and Salma took a short nap while Latif lounged in the garden. We had a snackish dinner, a salad Katen made, some lentil soup from the General Store, and some pseudo-sushi made with older poke. We sat around and talked, well Katen, Latif, and I did while Salma FaceTimed with Adelaide in her house. We were asleep by nine.

Sunday 2025.06.22

I was up at six and making coffee by 06;30. For once, Katen seemed to be sleeping in. She appeared at 07:30 and we had coffee. I eventually made eggs and dealt with the recalcitrant toaster. I Slacked a bunch with Rob re L3DL pre the Madrid meeting. Salma and Latif eventually woke and Katen made oatmeal. At about eleven o’clock we all packed into he car and headed to Waimea Coffee Company and had breakfast. We got gas and drove back via the Belt Road and Waikaloa, where we stopped at the KTA to pick up ahi, a steak, and some potatoes for dinner. We made it back to Puako by 13:30, did the usual milling around, and Katen and Salma went off to the beach for a while. Latif had been feeling wonky since the morning, and stayed home organizing.

Katen and Salma came back at 15:40 or so, and started showering. I was starting laundry; got a couple of loads of towels done. I got a splash of bleach on one of my favorite orange tee shirts. I took the pikaki lei Sally had given me and walked across to the lava and ocean, and placed it at the waters edge, said a prayer, and yet another goodbye.

We grilled Ahi and a steak, and had two salads and a sliced mango. Washing up took a while. Then Katen and I collapsed a bit in the living room and then were in bed by nine.

Monday 2025.06.23

I was up half the night, gave up shortly after six, made coffee, and dealt with email etc. Great fuss about the corrupted AfriNIC election. I did the main body of my packing. At seven, Katen went for a morning walk and I put another load of laundry in, sheets and towels this time. I had some toast, and put away the clean dishes.

We closed up and were in the car shortly after nine. We stopped at the General Store to get a breakfast burrito, but they were weekends only. So we just drove South to Keahole. Eliana called Katen to say that Ami, next door, had her husband die of a heart attack, which explained all the cars before i left. Tragic.

Katen dropped the rest of us off with the luggage while she returned the rental car. We checked the bags and waited for her. Then Security and to the restaurant where i had a pork sandwich which i hoped to regret less than the banh mi on the way out. We went to the gate and sat around for 15 minutes before boarding. I switched my aisle seat for a middle so an elderly woman could have the aisle. We finally pushed at 12:30, 20 minutes late.

Alaska flight 868 was a different 737-800 and in somewhat older shape. It was completely full. I just kind of zenned out the whole ride, no movie, no sleep.

The captain put down with a real thwack at nine o’clock. I waited for Katen and crew, and we went to get baggage. We caught a Lyft at 21:40. The driver was either on cocaine or had a cold, constantly sniffling. Given his erratic and aggressive driving style, I bet n coke. The Banfield was blocked due to an accident, so we took Powell, and were home by 22:20.

Lisbon for RIPE 90

As I was running for the NCC Executive Board, I had booked going to the RIPE meeting in Lisbon back in March. I was happy to be seeing friends in the last comfortable home of Internet operations; though I was not anxious to travel and to leave home.

Saturday 2025.05.10

I woke at seven, dressed, did the last bits of packing, had breakfast, organized the computer bits to pack out, and worried about what I had forgotten. I could not find my pouch of Euros, which was annoying. At nine o’clock I summoned a Lyft, and was at the airport by 09:35. TSA Pre was a long line, but at least I did not have to take my shoes and take stuff off. I headed to the United Club where Hans was serendipitously waiting; though we had not arranged to meet. He was on the same flights as I, with Christine going a different route later. At 10:15, we headed for the gate and boarded.

United 534 to Chicago was an uncomfortable 737-900 and completely full. It was old enough to have ashtrays in the arm rests; though they were screwed shut. I was glad I had taken Aleve before leaving home. Hans and I did not make the fuss to sit together, as we would probably see each other too much during the week. We departed on time. An 18 month old boy in the front row shrieked pretty much the whole flight, probably embarrassing his Chicago parents more then annoying other passengers. I managed to mark up the stultifying Governance Document for the Recognition, Maintenance, and Derecognition of Regional Internet Registries and napped. Then I watched most of No Direction Home, the recent Dylan movie.

We landed in Chicago early at 16:40. Hans and I went to the lounge right across the way for half an hour and then headed to the gate. United 265 boarded at 17:40. It was a completely full spiffy new 737-900. I realized that i did not have a boarding pass for the air Canada flight from Toronto to Lisbon. We landed in Toronto at 20:55. It was a major walk to the central transit point, and then back and forth from passport control because they demanded my boarding pass. So it was a walk back to Central where some nice agents printed my pass. So we made it through passport control and security, and then made it to the Air Canada lounge by 21:45 and decided to eat there instead of the plane. It was really good. I had a beet carpaccio salad and some fish with muscles and crab. That was also quite good. We had a sorbet for dessert, and headed for the plane. We stopped to pick up some maple cookies on the way as gifts.

Air Canada flight 810 was a 777ER in very fancy shape. I had problems storing all the fancy crap they gave me. We took off on time, I passed on the dinner, and I watched the conclusion of No Direction Home and then napped until about an hour and a half hour out of Lisbon. I ate the breakfast aside from the crunchy melon.

Sunday 2025.05.11

We landed early at 10:30, but were out at a stand not a gate. It took 20 minutes for the bus to pull up so we could get to the terminal. The computers are out at passport control and the queue was at least three hours. Very polite chaos.

Electronic Passport Control finally opened and we were out, bought SIMs, and into an Uber by 1335. We arrived at the hotel by 14:05.

Hans and I hung out in the lobby bar with Mirjam until sixish. Then we each headed to our rooms, Hans across to an AirBnB, unpacked, and showered. Then we met in the lobby, picked up Liman, and walked ten minuted to A Valenciana, an open family style market and churrascoria restaurant. I had a fish and shrimp rice stew which was pretty good. We were back at the hotel and asleep by 21:30.

Monday 2025.05.12

I woke at 07:30, dressed, and went down to breakfast, sitting with Marco and Theodoros from the NCC. The barista was open, so I managed some coffee before the first plenary. The NCC graphic designer had done a bang up job of the whole meeting space, but the stairs was the touch.

The opening talk was How to Rewild the Internet by Maria Farrell. It was absolutely brilliant; watch it. I spent the morning and lunch talking with whomever. At 18:00, I went to the BoF on Updating ICP-2. I tried to be constructive and polite; but Daniel was aggressively negative, a role reversal.

Mirjam and I joined Christine and Hans for dinner in the hotel’s outside restaurant.

Tuesday 2025.05.13

I Woke at 7:30, dressed and went to breakfast, followed by a boring plenary. It was too much BGP. Then more plenary and lunch with Anna and Carla and a bunch of folk I didn’t know. Then the CoC session, which was quick and painless and pretty content free. At 13:45 I went back to my room, napped from two o’clock to 15:30, showered, and went down for the break and then the MAT WG. I don’t know if it was just that I was tired or the content was not my cup of tea. After MAT i chatted with Cristel, Eric Vynce, and other researchers. Then we wandered up to the NREN/RACI session which was not particularly exciting, mostly pre-IMC presentations. Niall and Mirjam were wondering if RACI was worth continuing in its current form.

At 19:30, Mirjam, Cristel, Niall, and I took an Uber to dinner at Pap’açorda in Mercado da Ribeira which Niall had arranged from Katen’s list.

It was good, though not memorable. I had fish soup, a veal shank, and raspberry sorbet. At close to ten o’clock, we took a taxi to the social in Jardim Botânico in the Estufa Fria de Lisboa. The big event was that Jim Reid had fallen into the pond. Mirjam and I stayed for half an hour or so and then walked back to the hotel. I was asleep by eleven or so.

Wednesday 2025.05.14

I got some sleep, though nothing great. At 07:30, I dressed and went down to breakfast and then the Address Policy WG meeting. It started with the darned ASO Updating ICP-2 PowerPoint all over again. I wandered out talked RouteViews and RIS with Ties and Nina. Then I spent time gossiping with Warren. I had lunch with Ole and Jen Linkova and discussed why we were at RIPE and how to find safe spaces in our careers. At 13:30 I spent half an hour with the CoC Team and moved on to the NCC Services WG which started with the usual NCC PowerPoint storm. I had to enable my AT&T SIM to get a call from FreeStone to approve a payment verbally.

The General meeting started at four o’clock. First was a massive PowerPoint series recapping the Annual Report, the Financial Report, etc. etc. Then Lu Heng went to the mic threatening a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Then he threatened anti-trust action for the NCC rejecting his offering to sponsor the meeting. The PowerPoint resumed its drone. There were valiant efforts to design a new charging scheme on the fly by a dozen people. Then they did the same with the proposed amendments to the Arbitration Committee. The GM finally finished with the Executive Board candidates’ movies and the instructions on how to vote. We had fun because the AV folk borked showing my movie, it had a French singer, etc.

After the GM, Hans Peter and I went out on the patio and had dinner until eleven; talking family history, careers, and, of course RIPE NCC management gossip. On the way back to my room, I ran into Fergal and friends, and we chatted a bit. I made it to bed just after midnight.

Thursday 2025.05.15

I was up from two o’clock until five and then woke at eight. I dressed, had breakfast with Ole, coffee with Christine, and went into the Cooperation WG to sit in the back of the room and work. I could not resist going to the mic to whine about the proposal to use only RIR RPSL databases by AmsIX and DE-CIX. During the break I talked finding ROV-enabled routing with Q Lone, a researcher at the NCC. Then Ed Shrayne dragged me into he Database WG to talk about the PrefixLen Internet Draft.

I had lunch with Andrew McConachie and friends. Then I had to go to the Routing WG to hear Tim present on NCC’s ASPA and Router Key implementations. At the break I was cornered by Salam trying to drag me to Beirut. Then, at 15:30, I had a Code of Conduct Team meeting to draft the presentation for Friday’s Plenary. At 16:45 I napped until 18:45, dressed, and went down to catch the bus to the RIPE dinner. I was in a very mod place on the waterfront. But a beautiful setting.

Very pretty but loud. I sat with Mirjam and Greg and Stephanie from IETF. Greg had caught on to the major difference from IETF, ARIN, ,.. in the cooperative nature of the RIPE community. So there was much discussion as to why this was. Mirjam, Greg, and I bailed at 22:30 and took an Uber back to the hotel. I was in bed by 23:30.

Friday 2025.05.16

I woke at 08:15, dressed, and went down to breakfast. I sat with Mirjam and Niall. Then I went to the Closing Plenary. Email’s talk on the power outage was interesting, especially the topological difference between Portugal and Spain. Then Emil and his student presented on the Baltic cable cuts. During the coffee break election results were presented and I had been elected to the NCC Executive Board. There was much resulting social interaction which I survived. Then back for the Closing Plenary for the Code of Conduct report, the meeting network report, etc. Mirjam closed the meeting and then on to the Secret Working Group which is sadder and sadder as the years go by.

The last lunch had one really tasty thing, a ravioli with maybe bleu cheese filling. I talked with Constanze Buerger and Franziska Lichtblau, and then back to Greg Wood, Stephanie, and Jonathan Black from NANOG. I then took off my badge, went up to my room, and cleaned up email etc. At 14:40, I lay down for a nap until 18:00. At 18:30, I met Hans and Christine to walk down the street for a ramen dinner at a small place on a noisy road. By 20:30, I was back at the hotel. I packed and went to sleep by 21:30.

Saturday 2025.05.17

I woke at 06:30, dressed, finished packing, and went down to breakfast where I ran into Niall. We ate calmly, and then met in the lobby to share an Uber to the airport, where we arrived at 08:15. The airport was chaotic but moving along somewhat. The security queue was a dozen long zig-zags and then chaos, and it took 40 minutes. Passport control was only a mild queue as the electronic passport gates were mostly working. I made it to the gate by 09:15, one hour to traverse the airport.

They started to board at 9:35. But we queued at the jet-way for 15 minutes. so I was on board by 9:55. United flight 65 to Newark was a completely full 787 in drab shape. We pushed back exactly on time at 10:25, but didn’t get much further. At 10:40 the Captain came on the PA and said that the airport was closed because there was a drone overhead. She came back on 10 minutes later to say 15 to 20 minutes. We got in motion again at 11:05 and finally took off at 11:20. I had the takeoff meal and then slept most of the way to Newark.

Before landing, I disabled all biometrics on my phone, laptop, watch, etc. We landed Newark at 13:15, deboarded fairly quickly, and I walked to the Global Entry Kiosks. Passport control was trivial, and we were dumped ground-side. We were in Terminal B and I asked where a Polaris Lounge was and they sent me to Terminal C, so I took the AirTrain. TSA Pre was easy, but Security was chaotic. And they decided to inspect my bag as Joanie’s ashes had set off the x-ray. I was in the lounge by 14:45.

The lounge was enormous and very crowded. I managed to find a soft armchair, got a bit of lounge food and an Americano, and helped Amol sort out a restic restore problem back in Arrcus San Jose. I tried to get to the most urgent email, but did not have the focus to sort through the mass. I did get details for the Oslo meeting at the end of June from Raymond.

At 17:30 I walked to the shuttle bus to Terminal A and walked down to Gate A14. I decided that I was insufficiently impolite and aggressive to deal with Newark or New York in general. I boarded at 17:55 and found my seat. United 1184 to Portland was a pretty new AirBus 319, and seemed quite full. We pushed and took off on time at 18:30. The meal was inedible. I cleaned up more backlog and then watched The Godfather, which I had never seen. We landed at 21:11. I did the long walk to grab a Lyft at 21:35 and was home at ten o’clock. I comforted Kaiby?, unpacked, and went to sleep.

San Jose to Visit the Arrcus Mothership

Tuesday 2025.04.22

Nalin Pi convinced me to sneak into the Arrcus San Jose mothership to hang out with him, learn a bit about the developments in networking for the AI datacenter world, and to just be sociable. So I booked a day trip for Thursday of the following week.

Wednesday 2025.04.30

I used my iPhone to check in for my outbound flight the next day to San Jose. Easy peasy. But that evening, when I tried to check in for the return flight, the app would not let me. It showed the check-in button, but gave an error. I obsessed about this for many hours.

Thursday 2025.05.01

I woke at 03:30, dressed, made coffee and fed Kaiby?, packed my computer bag, and headed out by 04:40. I arrived at 5 o’clock and left Kermit in short term parking. I queued up at Alaska check-in because of being unable to check in for the return flight. I told the agent that the meeting in San Jose was optional but being back that night was not. She did magic and gave me a paper boarding pass for the evening flight. I saw only one other masked person.

I was in the TSA queue by 05:20. I had forgotten to leave my pocket knife at home, but it made it through security. After security, I went to Oven and Shaker and had a bad omelette with potatoes too disgusting to eat for breakfast. As opposed to the United Airlines space, the C concourse was new and open and airy, quite nice. On the other hand, after breakfast, to get to the B gates one walked through United-like ugly, temporary, tunnels. I was at the gate by 6 o’clock, for a 06:30 boarding. I Slacked with Rob about the DNS servers in San Jose.

At 06:30 i scanned through the gate and did a five minute walk to the farthest outdoor boarding gate where I re-scanned. Alaska 2210 was a Horizon Embraer 175 in spiffy shape and completely full. We took off at 7 o’clock on the dot. We landed at 8:30 and I walked to the office arriving about 910. It was pretty empty. I grabbed an empty desk and verified that the espresso machine still produced an acceptable brew.

At 09:30 Keyur appeared exactly on time. We talked Arrcus customers, prospects, bugs, engineering etc., and then some strategy for IETF/LSVR/L3DL for the meeting the following week. At 10:40 we wandered out and I got grabbed by Sandy who gossiped family stories for twenty minutes.

Nalin and I talked Bluefield and squashed VDR from eleven to 12:30, went over to Gateway to grab cheap lunch and continue, and then came back to the office. Back at the office I chatted up a few people, saw old friends, and met with Nalin and Nithyesh over the two node flattened VDR hack. I shared some RPKI clue with Sonal and Larry. Then contacted Hery to see if he would be willing to come back to Arrcus if we could protect him.

At 17:30 Nalin gave me a ride to the airport. I got off at the start of terminal A because I did not remember where the sushi place was. TSA let me through with my pocket knife again, and a helpful shopkeeper told me the sushi stand was all the way at the other end of the terminal down almost to my gate. So a 15 minute walk; i needed the exercise. I got a rainbow roll, ate it there, Slacked with Rob about a getty problem, and headed to my gate.

Alaska 3002 was an Embraer 175 in SkyWest livery and completely full. I could not sleep, but spaced out the whole ride. We landed at 20:45 most of the way down the distant B Concourse. I walked to Kermit and headed out. Traffic was rather bad considering the time of the evening. I got home at 21:30, and immediately fed Kaiby?.

A Short Visit to Bainbridge Island

I had been wanting to go up to Bainbridge for some weeks, so just plugged it into my calendar; leaving Wednesday and returning Friday. I invited Liz along for the company, and arranged to go via Seattle to see Aaron, Sam, and Marshie, as Aaron planned to leave for Shaw Island on Thursday.

Wednesday 2025.04.25

I spent the morning dealing with normal work and then at 10:30 started packing and headed out by 11:30. I had to pick up Liz, where I arrived at 11:45, and we’re on the road by 12:15. We took the I 205 bridge, and traffic was quite easy. We stopped at Chehalis at 13:35 to feed Kermit who was at 45%, and arrived at Aaron‘s at about 15:45. I gave a banana to Marshie. Aaron and Sam were home. Aaron and Lizzie took a walk and Sam and I got to talk some. Then the three of us went to dinner at Taurus Ox, mediocre Lao food, but it was close. We left at about seven and Lizzie and I made the 7:30 ferry, the sunset ride.

We arrived home about 8:30. We unpacked. Lizzie had to make her upstairs bed. And I think we were both in bed by 9:15.

Thursday 2025.04.24

The noise of the gardening hose woke me at 7 o’clock. I made coffee, but Lizzie beat me to the shower. So I cleaned up some email and eventually showered and dressed. I had forgotten the laptop charger in Portland, which was a bit of a pain. Soon after ten we headed to town to try and feed Kermit and get breakfast at Streamliner Diner. There was quite the fiasco trying to feed Kermit because employees were parked in the charging spots. Town & Country management said park next to them, but that would’ve stressed the cables. So I gave up. We had an omelet at Streamliner Diner, and then drove up to Poulsbo. I dropped Lizzie off to cruise town and went to Walmart to the Electrify America station and fed Kermit

I picked Lizzie up a the Kitsap Library, and we headed back to Bainbridge to shop at T&C and then go back home. I walked the garden, took more pictures, sat in the Adirondack chair in which Joanie used to sit, etc. At sevenish, we wet to Heyday Farm for dinner. I had a spinach salad and crab cakes, pretty good but not life changing. We were home and asleep by ten.

Friday 2025.04.25

I woke at 06:30, made coffee and dressed, and cleaned up email. Lizzie woke at 7:30 or so. I ate breakfast and went up the hill to see if I could meet the new neighbors. No luck, but I talked with the electrician and did warn of the septic field. Liz and I washed our sheets and towels and packed slowly.

We left home at noon, drove to the Electrify America in Poulsbo, and fed Kermit to 69%. Traffic was amazingly heavy. Then it was on down Route 3 to below Shelton to Taylor Shellfish Farms where we had bad clam chowder and bought some mussels for Katen. The next stop was Chehalis to feed Kermit up to 69% again so he could make it home. We took I 205 down to Division St. and stopped for Vietnamese Noodles at Ch? Em Mekha Grill so neither of us had to scrounge at home. I dropped Lizzie off at about 18:15, went home, fed Kaiby?, unpacked, and settled in. About eight, Katen came by to pick up the muscles, some bread, etc.

Bangkok for IETF 122

Wednesday 2025.03.12

I had decided, against many inner feelings about leaving our home, to go to the Bangkok IETF. So I started packing. United wanted me to check in for the flight, which I did. But I could not seem to coax boarding passes out of the bleeping app.

Thursday 2025.03.13

I woke at 05:30, dressed, and finished packing. I had breakfast and double checked my travel checklist. At 07:40, I summoned an Uber as it was $20 cheaper than a Lyft. It arrived at 08:07, and we were at the airport by 08:30, traffic being non-existent for some reason. TSA was a bit crowded, but not too bad. Navigating the new terminal was a bit messy as it was still under construction, so there was a quite long walk to United gates. I was in the lounge by 08:45, an hour before boarding.

I went down to the gate and boarded at 09:40. Being Global meant I could get my carry-on in the overhead, otherwise no chance. I got out my laptop and realized I had removed my YubiKey in the Lounge and left it there. This might cause significant pain. To add insult to injury, neither of the small GaN wall warts I had in my bag to charge the laptop were sufficient, and I suspected I was not going o find USB-C power on the Pacific segments.

United 5463 was an Embraer CRJ175 in spiffy shape. We pushed back at 10:05 exactly on time. I slept the whole way to San Francisco. We landed at 11:45, and were at the gate exactly on time at 11:55. Things were under construction, so there was a sort of long corridor into the F gates. My flight was boarding when I got there so I walked right on, and was in my seat by 12:15.

United flight 869 to Hong Kong was a DreamLiner 767 in very clean shape. I think it was pretty full. We pushed back at one o’clock, exactly on time. The flight WiFi was not working, which put a serious dent in my plans. I tried to stay awake and watched the number of junky movies

Mid-flight, I wanted to deal with email etc. I could associate with the WiFi, but the captive portal did not work on phone or laptop. It seemed others complained, so they reset the entire infotainment system to no useful avail.

Saturday 2025.03.14

We landed in Hong Kong on time at about 19:20. It was the usual long walk to passport control and security. I almost had a crying jag when I realized I wasn’t going to buy a present for Zita from Hong Kong. I took the train over to the 200 gates to get to the Hong Kong Airlines lounge, arriving about 1945. The food had gotten crappier in the year since I had been there. I had some noodles and made the mistake of trying a ham and cheese sandwich. At 21:40 I headed out for the long walk to the gate. Boarding was scheduled for 21:55 and actually started at 22:10. I texted Katen that all was OK.

Hong Kong Air flight 779 to Bangkok was an AirBus 330 in red and gray and quite spiffy. We pushed back at 22:50, which woke me for a moment. I went back to sleep.

We landed at 00:30 and taxied for 10 minutes. There was a long walk to the APEC line, but it was a zip through when I got there. I picked up a TRUE eSIM in baggage claim and summoned a Grab. I was in the grab by 01:25 and arrived at the hotel by 01:55. I had to queue the register at two in the morning.

I managed to get to sleep by about 02:45. The damned air conditioning was way to strong. I tried to turn it up to 25c, but that did not help. I finally shut it off and managed to get sleep.

I woke at 07:45, showered and dressed, and went down to join Christine for breakfast. She had to rush off to see important people and things. In a novel attempt to deal with jet lag, I had only one cup of coffee. I went back to my room, cleaned up the basic email flood, and then went down to the Code Sprint to meet with Russ Housley. IEEE had filed a “Do not do L3DL,” which we would have to decide if it is serious. As I was not coding, I left the Code Sprint and tried to find a place to sit. The Terminal Room had been renamed Shared Workspace, but did not exist on Saturday. And the WiFi failed in the 7th floor lobby; so I went back to my room to work and finally cleared the email backlog.

Russ emailed me that there was a lot of extra food in the Code Sprint area and to come down; so I did, We talked L3DL some more. But I was unable to find Paul Congdon’s amazingly complex LLDP service discovery picture which I really needed to make the point. I took a nap from 14:30 to four o’clock.

At 18:00 i accepted Christine Runnegar’s invitation to walk across the back park to the enormous gl!tzich Gourmet Food Court.

It was interesting to walk through an enormous bright and flashy emporium following a picky vegetarian trying to find an acceptable dinner. We all have styles of how we survey and select. She eventually chose Indian, and I had an OK mutton masala plate with nan. We finished by 19:30 and walked back to the hotel and headed to our rooms to crash. I was asleep by eight, expecting trouble sleeping as it was the second night.

Sunday 2025.03.16

I slept exceedingly poorly. Second night. I gave up at 06:30, dressed, and went down for breakfast where I ran into Christine. I ate excessively, not sure why, but mostly healthily, scrambled eggs, siew mae, and a decent bread. And I had a second cup of coffee. I worked in my room for a bit and then went to the IEPG meeting which was only mildly interesting, the best being Geoff Huston’s talk on ECN adoption. At noon, I went back to my room and napped until two o’clock.

I hung out in the Shared Workspace, née Terminal Room. Adrian Farrel came and chatted about L3DL. Some folk were setting up a demo as they had actually implemented 8+8 20 years ater. It five, I went to the IESG area and had a meeting on RPKI-Rtr and L3DL with Russ, John Scudder, Warren Kumari, and Med Boucadair to bring the latter up to speed as the new Ops AD replacing Warren. Then I wandered to the reception, grazed a pretty good field of Thai food, chatted lightly with a few people, etc. At seven o’clock I was overloaded and went back to my room and worked a bit.

Monday 2025.03.17

I slept from nine o’clock to 01:30, and then small snatches until 06:30 when I gave up. Christine texted to go to breakfast, so I showered and went down. Being an Ozzie, she sat outside where it is 29c and 200% humidity. I had scrambled eggs, siew mae, and toast. We were joined by Ole Jacobsen, and he and I talked for a long time after Christine headed off to be a diligent worker. At 08:30, I went back to my room, cleaned up email, and did some hacking on the 8210bis RPKI-Rtr Protocol draft.

At 09:00 I went down to the Security Dispatch meeting and spent the time starting a presentation for Thursday’s LSVR meeting. It ended early, so I went to the Terminal Room and sat with Pensri and Patama. Then John Scudder grabbed me for lunch in the in-hotel Thai place to discuss the 8210bis issues and sidrops in general.

After lunch I went to the start of the OpsAreaWG meeting as Oliver Gasser’s Prefix Length draft of which I was co-author, was first up. It went well, almost ready for WGLC. I then went to the IDR WG which did not really interest me, so i went over to CFRG which did. And then I slacked with Rob, who had stayed home but was dealing with meeting NOC chaos remotely. The break had mango with sticky rice in which I seriously overindulged.

I went into DNSOPS to avoid GROW. I realized that I was burning out and just went up to my room. I napped from 16:30 to 20:00, worked a bit, and went back to sleep without dinner.

Tuesday 2025.03.18

I woke at five o’clock, having finally caught up on sleep. I texted with Katen and cleaned up email until breakfast opened at six. I was just finished when Christine came down. So I went outside to keep her company. At 07:30, I went back up to my room with an Americano to go.

At 08:30, Ketan asked to meet; so I went back down to the restaurant and we talked for much of an hour. Essentially he was the new Routing AD and was worried about L3DL/LSVR and then fished for getting clearer vision for IDR. At 09:30 I grabbed my laptop and went to the NASR BoF, which was a nuts SION culture joke. The BoF actually decided not to go forward, yay!

At 11:30, John Scudder, Job Snijders, Ben Macdison, and I met in the lobby and came to a compromise agreement on the 8210bis draft issues. Then was the SIDROPS WG meeting, which was pretty much filled with nothing consequential. I then went to SUIT, Software Updates for Internet of Things, which i had tracked because it is a technically interesting problem. What was even more interesting was that the room was exactly 50% women attendees, and two of the three chairs were women. I would love to understand why.

I then went up to my room, napped for an hour, showered and re-dressed, and went down to meet Derek, Mahesh and wife, Ebisawa, and Keyur to walk a km or so to an Arrcus dinner. The restaurant, Baan Kanitha, was mediocre Thai tourist food. The hotel Thai restaurant was better for Monday lunch. After the walk back, I had to take another shower. I worked a bit and was in bed by 21:30.

Wednesday 2025.03.19

I woke at 05:00, dressed, and worked until breakfast at 06:15. Katen texted pictures the architect had sent of the Paris apartment; it looked really good. On the way back from breakfast, I stopped at the front desk to ask for a tech to come fix the air-con which was always on. He appeared ten minutes later and spent 20 minutes working on it successfully. A significant life improvement.

For the morning session, I went to the SKEX, symmetric Key Establishment and Exchange, BoF, which was a bit brutal a la NASR. Then I got dragged into another Acee/Keyur drama when Acee pushed an LLDP discovery draft for adoption in IDR. I took a nap instead of lunch, and then went to PRIVACYPASS, which was proceeding along in its quiet way with some interesting use cases.

At three, I had a meeting with Russ and Keyur to explain to Russ why L3DL did wonderful things LLDP could never do. Then I hung out with Bill Fenner talking about how we were feeling about and dealing with the death of our partners/wives. Not well; though maybe as well as one reasonably can. Then we grabbed snack food and went to the Plenary. The big deal was about the inappropriateness of the scheduled San Francisco meeting. Afterward, Karen O’Donoghue and I walked over to the big food court and had wonton and noodles. I was back and in bed by ten o’clock.

Thursday 2025.03.20

I woke at 06:30, dressed, and went to breakfast. I had an eight o’clock meeting with Ketan to discuss how to finish L3DL. My impression was that he was a bit over his head as a new AD. Before the first session I ran into Erik Klein, who was heavy into satellite and space delay tolerant and SDN control networking; fun stuff. I tried to watch IRTF ANRP talks, but I had already read the papers. At 10:15, I had a small meeting with the new Ops AD, Med, to discuss SIDROPS dysfunction. Unlike Ketan, he seemed very clueful, had a plan, and would execute. It turned out he is Berber from Maroc; so we gossiped a bunch about Marseilles, Latif, … I then went up to the RTGAREA meeting to see some silliness and some satellite routing.

For lunch I went to hear the Host Talk by Kireeti Kompella who tried to merge ECMP and TE. I ran into Pensri, Padama, and Nan and we gossiped for a bit. Then I met with Alexander and Rüdiger to try and resolve Rüdiger’s issues with the ASPA Validation draft. I attended TIPTOP, Taking IP To Other Planets. It was not credible, ideas based on zero actual experience or even solid emulation.

Then the LSVR meeting, the main reason I came to the meeting, There was a bunch of confused talk about the IEEE liaison statement. Then I did my L3DL presentation with an accent on layer 3 and routing. It drove the nail half way home; but we expected the IEEE would be stubborn. I dashed out at 17:45 so I could change before meeting for dinner.

At 18:00, Bill Fenner, Matthias, Thomas, and I took a 40 minute taxi ride to Small Dinner Club in the center of the old part of Bangkok. The place was counter seating for maybe twelve in modernist black. The meal was many courses of deconstructed Thai food, but nothing one would recognize as Thai food. It was quite an adventure, delicious, and well presented. We had fun and a great meal. We made it back to the hotel by ten o’clock, and I was asleep by eleven.

Friday 2025.03.21

I woke at seven, dressed, and had breakfast. At nine, I went to the NOC’s explanation of the IPv6-mostly network experiment and then the 6man WG. I hung in the IETF Reception area for a bit, and had a make up talk with Stephanie with whom I had been estranged since the 2019 Prag meeting. I then went to SSHM, SSH Maintenance, where they were reviewing the Terrapin Attack and future mitigations and changes to the protocol. Then reinventing certificates, with no ASN.1 X.509.

I had tom ka gai and satay at the break. Bangkok IETFs raise a high bar for break food, as I pointed out to Jordi for Madrid. Then I wandered into IDR. IDR ended early at four o’clock. I went up to my room to leave my laptop and try and get a bit refreshed.

I had a mediocre Chinese dinner with Kanchana, Pensri, Nan, Padama, and crew.

At 19:45 I went up to my room and napped. I woke at ten, showered, dressed, packed, and checked out in the lobby at 22:45. At eleven o’clock I was in a Grab heading for the airport, well trying to head for the airport. The traffic in Sukomvit was more insane than usual; Friday night. It rook over 15 minutes just to get out of Sukomvit 22. At 23:35 we finally hit the freeway. The driver was watching videos on his phone at 120kph. We finally arrived at 23:55.

I was through check-in, security, and passport control by 23:15 but the long walk to the lounge took until 23:30.

Saturday 2025.03.22

I Left the lounge at 01:10, and was on board by 01:20. Hong Kong Air 780 was an AirBus 330 in grey and red livery. Mark Kosters turned out to be two seats in front of me. We pushed back exactly on time at two o’clock, and I slept until we were approaching Hong Kong. We landed at 05:40, and were at the gate 05:55. I caught the train to the right Hong Kong airport sub-city, and went through passport control and security. I could not find the United Lounge. This was because it was closed. I walked back to the core of the concourse, went into the Sapphire Lounge to ask directions and they said come on in and so I did. I had a bit to eat and then found a back corner. It was pretty empty with comfortable chairs and it had a power with an American plug. I cleaned up email etc.; but what I really wanted was to be in the airplane seat and asleep.

I left the lounge at 8:30 and did the long walk down to gate 28. Boarding looked chaotic, but I think they were just making many separate queues. I got the express line and was in my seat by 8:45. But then there was chaos because one of the seats wasn’t working and the person to whom it was assigned was not happy about that. But they eventually sorted it somehow.

United flight 862 was a 777 DreamLiner in pretty good shape. The captain was a woman; first time I have seen a woman in the left seat on a 777. Yay! We pushed back exactly at 9:30 and wheels up was at 9:50. I went to sleep, but then woke up to watch Oppenheimer and have a fish dinner. Then I went back to sleep. I woke for the landing meal, which was kind of shrimp and grits. It was actually pretty good.

We landed in San Francisco 06:15. As it was San Francisco, of course our gate was not ready. And then we got the worst possible gate, all the way at the end of the G Concourse. The Global Entry line was easy. I exited International and walked to the Global Services entry to go through TSA pre and was in the lounge by seven o’clock. I had some scrambled eggs and a black eye, cleaned up email, chatted with Katen, Hans, and Rob, etc. A four hour layover after a trans-pac flight is tiring and disorienting.

At 09:50 I left the lounge and headed to the gate. Boarding was delayed five minutes, but I made it to my seat and settled in. United flight 2115 was a Boeing 737 max and completely full. They were begging people to gate check luggage. We pushed at 10:35. I slept the whole way. We landed at 12;10 but had a ten minute delay deboarding due to a (not serious looking) medical evacuation. Then the ridiculous 15 minute walk to the Lyft pick-up. I was in the Lyft at 12:40 and was home by 13:15. Kaiby? and I took a nap.

Bainbridge and Seattle for Dr Marsh and ICANN

Friday 2025.03.07

With Zita’s absence, her rabbit, Dr. Marsh, was even more lonely than before. I negotiated re-homing him with Aaron’s also single rabbit, Sophie, a Dutch Flop, in Seattle. I timed the trip to coincide with my spending part of a day at the ICANN 82 meeting in Seattle. I planned to drive up Saturday, deliver Dr. Marsh, spend that night and Sunday night on Bainbridge, and drive back to Portland on Monday afternoon or evening.

I had not traveled in a long while, so spent time organizing and doing a preliminary pack. My travel accoutrements were scattered hither and yon.

I realized that I was not that comfortable, let alone excited, to be traveling again. So I started to consider canceling the trip to Bangkok for IETF 122 the following week.

Saturday 2025.03.08

I left home at 11:30. Traffic was light, even over the bridge. I stopped in Lacey to charge at a Walmart, and reached Aaron’s at 15:00. We introduced Dr. Marsh to Sophie. They were friendly, and Marsh explored the pen and house, but they weren’t cuddly or anything. We kept checking on them.

I hung with Aaron until 17:30 when I headed for the Hyatt to pick up Russ Housley to go to Tamarind Tree for dinner. It was nice having time with him. It had been a long while. We finished at about 19:30, and I dropped him off at the Hyatt, and headed for the ferry, arriving at 20:00. There was supposed to be a 20:10 sailing, but the queue was almost empty, so ferries were running late. We actually sailed about 20:30. It was not one of the big ferries, but a smaller one the Chimacum. Later Helen told me they were alternating large and small; no one knows why.

On the boat and on the drive home, I was quite nauseous. And on the drive I had a serious sneezing fit with like twelve or more sneezes in a row. It quickly went away, whew!

I arrived home at 21:30, plugged Kermit in, unpacked, and set up my laptop. I checked in with Aaron on the condition of Dr. Marsh, and was asleep by 22:30. I kept worrying about the poor guy because he had never been outside before.

Sunday 2025.03.09

I woke at 08:00 thinking it was 07:00; welcome to daylight savings. I made coffee and worked a bit. At 09:30, I met Helen at Coquette Bakery and had a quiche and gossiped. We ran into Toby, the architect who had interviewed Al. At 11:30, I grabbed a downtowner at Blackbird Bakery, shopped at Town and Country, and went home. I loaded Kermit with all the junk mail and, for $13, got rid of it all at the Dump. Aaron reported that Dr. Marsh must have hidden in the burrow to escape landscapers. I took a nap from 13:30 to 15:00 and became more and more worried about Dr. Marsh. At 18:00, Aaron reported that Marshie had come out of the burrow. I was greatly relieved.

I spent an hour cleaning up the itinerary for my Bangkok trip, returning a day earlier, and trying to fix the hotel reservation. Marriott had completely hidden their email and phone number, and their web site did not recognize my confirmation number.

At six o’clock i drove into town and got a bowl of poke at Hi Life. Eating early was smart; I did not remember that they closed at seven. I tried to fix the RIPE Atlas probe, 25909, by redoing the USB hack, It seemed to work; though how long it would last is anybody’s guess. I went to sleep at nine o’clock.

Monday 2025.03.10

I set the alarm for 5 o’clock, made coffee, dressed, packed, said my goodbyes and was up the driveway at 5:50. I expected to join a big queue on route 305, and miss getting the 6:20, and catch the next boat. But 305 was empty and the ferry terminal was just starting to fill up. So I made the 6:20 easily. I kept thinking about Marshie, and about picking him up and taking him home to Portland. But I decided I was thinking more about myself than his happiness.

I texted with Aaron and Katen, docked in Seattle, and drove to the Hyatt. I walked a couple blocks to the Spruce Cafe and had a mediocre mushroom omelette. I made it back to the Hyatt and started running into people: Wes Hardacker, Hans-Petter Holen, … It went on and on. I had not expected to know so many people at ICANN, where I had not been for over 20 years. I found a seat next to Karen Rose and Maria Hall for the 09:00 opening and pretended to be friendly to Theresa Sweinhart. Kurtis came over and did a very friendly greeting.

Kurtis’s opening talk was honoring Zita, and he reminded me of things I had forgotten, e.g. that she was the first ICANN Secretary and Treasurer, etc. Things went on to the 10:30 break where I was cornered by a gang from Guinea, chatted with Steve and Wendy Crocker, ran into Liman, etc.

I left the meeting by eleven, and headed south on I5. I arrived at the Chehalis charging station at noon, plugged in, and walked to the Panda Express to try to have something that was not too poisonous. I left Chehalis at 12:40 and arrived home at 14:00.

Bangkok for APRICOT

My RIPE 87 talk was sufficiently well taken that I was invited to give a similar talk as a keynote at APRICOT in Bangkok the at end of February. I probably should have booked it with a stop in Tokyo to clean up the bank mess. But APRICOT was big in Maz’s world and he would not be in Tokyo to help clean up the mess. So I booked a six day round trip, and Molly booked the hotel in Bangkok.

Thursday 2024.02.22

I took Zita to Trader Joe’s to shop for some frozen food in the hope that she might provide for herself while I was gone for seven days. I also started packing.

Friday 2024.02.23

I woke at 04:00, dressed, and finished packing. I worked a bit, had breakfast, set things up for Zita, kissed the sleeping woman goodbye, petted the cat, and called a Lyft. The driver arrived at 06:10, and we were at the airport by 06:30. TSA and security were essentially no queue, and I was on the concourse by 06:40 and headed to the lounge. The bad news was that SFO was down one runway, and we were going to be late. Global services and the lounge agent were optimistic i would still make my connection. But predictions out of SFO are wobbly. It was not by accident that I had a spare day of slack in my schedule. I could go to the Arrcus mothership for a day if I did not make the connection.

We boarded at 08:30 which made me optimistic. United 1999 was an AirBus 319 and quite full. Boarding finished by 08:50 but we stayed with the door open until 08:55. But i thought i heard the captain say 09:30 which would put my connection in perilous condition. But we pushed at 09:00. Then we parked in a penalty box until 09:25 and we took off at 09:30. I read SciFi for the run to SFO.

We landed at 11:10 and were at F1 as close as one can get to International. I walked calmly to G5 and checked in at 11:20 just as they did last call. They has everyone look into a camera for ID check. I asked if it was mandatory and the agent just waved me through. I unpacked into my seat and went back to the SciFi. United 869 to Hong King was a B777-300 due to folk missing connections due to the SFO mess, there was a sprinkling of empty seats. We pushed at 11:40 but the SFO runway chaos had us in two long holds out at the active runway area. We finally took off at 12:12. They are in the middle of the dinner service when we hit very serious turbulence; the crew had to sit down for 15 minutes, and we bounced quite a bit. I finished dinner, read some more, the iPad battery was running low so I slept for three hours. I read some more, slept a little more read some more, and then have a congee breakfast ran until we landed at 18:45 and de-boarded at 7 o’clock.

Saturday 2024.02.24

It was a 10 minute walk to passport control, which is automated passport scanning face recognition. But the queue to have your bags inspected was over 20 minutes. I had asked where the lounge for my flight was and they said to go upstairs I got there and they sent me to gate five which was 10 minute walk and was Singapore Airlines. It turned out my ongoing flight on Hong Kong air was not star alliance. They redirected me out to gate 201, which was a set of escalators to the bowels of the Earth, a train ride to the end and then up the escalators to gate 201. I made it to the Hong Kong lounge by 8 o’clock I settled in I had some noodles with chicken and black bean sauce, and waited for my next flight.

As we were due to board at 10:05 I left the lounge at 10 o’clock and walked to the gate. We didn’t actually board till 1015 but I managed to find my seat and settle in. Hong Kong Air 779 was a AirBus 330 in good but used shape. Business was maybe e 1/3 full but the back looked pretty full. We pushed at 2300 and were airborne seven minutes later.

We landed at 00:40 it was a 2km walk to immigration But then i go the fast lane, so was in the limo by 01:10. It was 25 minutes to the Athenee Hotel. I checked in and was given a fancy room. The thermostat was at 19c; i turned it up to 22c, and unpacked. I checked in with Zita and Katen, and was asleep by 02:30.

Sunday 2024.02.25

I woke at 07:30, dressed, and went down to breakfast. I had a brown rich congee, some har gao, and a not too bad croissant with some fruit. I had worn a jacket in case there was aggressive air conditioning, but it was not needed. I went over the the APRICOT area and ran into George and we spent some time. Then up to the Secretariat room, and hung out with Maz, Brian Candler, and a bunch of folk. I texted a bit with Zita,a and she seemed OK. Then Phil Regnauld, Hervey, … arrived. In the meantime, the APRICOT network was severely broken. Maz had insufficient access, so we were poking with traceroute and ping while waiting for Nan. No one was wearing a mask. I became socially overloaded. I went across the way to get coffee at Blue Chéri; it was OK but not great. By the time I got back, Nan had showed up and he and Maz had found the bug.

We all had lunch in the lobby and nearby room. Then it was back to the Secretariat. I could not decide between getting more coffee and going to take a nap. Of course, I did neither. We worked on debugging the network until seven o’clock. Then Maz, Patama, Nan, and I walked across the way to an up-scale Thai bistro and had a quite tasty dinner. I made it back to my room before nine, and was soon asleep;

Monday 2024.02.26

I could not sleep past seven. I worked and then dressed and went down to breakfast when I ran into Khun Kanchana. After brekkie, she went to her meeting. I went to the Secretariat to hide and work. I soon went across the way to Blue Chéri to get am Americano; with an extra shot it was better than that of the previous day. Zita texted me that she had whacked herself contesting right of way into a stall with the horse. She was not seriously damaged, but sure could have been. I kept working on my presentation for Tuesday and debugging a pfSense upgrade in Ashburn.

At one o’clock I went to the mass lunch. I know more folk here than I do at NANOG. I had to listen to Barry Greene blather on at the table, trying to impress TWNIC folk. Phil and I went to Guss Damn Good Coffee, which I thought a bit better than Blue Chéri. Back at the venue, I ran into Nishal. Aside from being great to see him, he reported that Sara and her family were safe in the UAE. So I went back to the Secretariat texted a bit more with Zita, and gave her my famous yuzu recipe. She did not report the results. The Puget Sound Electric bill was due, but they blocked access from Thailand so I had to use a VPN to pay it.

At 15:30 I headed to my room to try for a nap. I did get some rest, but not a nap per se. So at 17:00 I was back in the Secretariat. At seven o’clock Molly herded Philip, me, and a few others to the Vendor Social in a nice venue next to the sixth floor garden. Good light food was served, including mango and sticky rice. A very grown Maya Huter was there as a tag-along with Steve. I ran into a lot of friends, some I had not seen for over five years. As things thinned out, Philip and I chatted A/P and APNIC politics for a while. Then we drifted out at the end. Back in my room Zita texted with pictures of a light snowfall, as did Katen.

Tuesday 2024.02.27

Mad Slacking by Hery and Rob woke me up at seven o’clock with a stupid mess in San Jose. I dressed, went down for breakfast, and came back to my room to work for a bit before facing the crowds. I FaceTimed with Zita. At ten I went down to a special seating and coffee tasting with Khun Kanchana, Philip, and Steve Huter for the Thai Barista Champion. It was a bit over the top, but quite good. Then I hung out with George and spoke with a bunch of old friends, Xing, Akinori, … Then back to the Secretariat.

I had lunch with Thacorn, Patama, and Thomas Wirtgen from UniStra who showed up. We researched the various ripeness of mango with sticky rice; go for the darker. Than a bit of coffee and on to the opening plenary which started with somewhat cheesy dancing; not the quality we had seen in formal performances. Rona Jaber of QMUL opened describing IOT technology to monitor vehicular traffic. I gave my Social Contract talk, but I did not flow it as well as I did in RIPE. I saw some friends in the break. Then there was an Ops meeting, opening with Geoff Huston on the serious progress in transport encryption. Massimo Candela presented BGPalerter and the RPKI monitoring. Lastly, Lia Histina described RIPE Atlas and RIS.

I went up to my room to get a break. At 18:30 I went down to the Social. It was crowded and screamingly noisy. There was a puppet show with Hanuman and Sita, but the noise and flashing lights made it unwatchable. I ate from the buffet, chatted Rona Jaber, who turned out to be Lebanese, obviously smart, and interesting. I hung out a bit with George and Massimo, went upstairs at eight o’clock, and was asleep by nine.

Wednesday 2024.02.28

I woke at 07:30. Breakfast was a bust; the congee was cold, there was no har gow, and so forth. I went to the APOps meeting and heard Geoff, Doug Madory, and Thomas Holterbach. I texted with Zita, who said she was a bit out of it was was going to sleep early (for her). I was then cornered by a German social researcher, Knoblauch, from TUM who wanted my view of the social physics of the various regions etc. At 12:30, Molly led the way for some of us to start an early lunch. At one, I went upstairs to try to nap but did not succeed.

At six o’clock I went up to the sixth floor to the BKNIX 10th Anniversary celebration. There were a fair number of folk from the years I had spent in Thailand. In one sense, it was yet another hotel function, in another a feeling of continuity and accomplishment. I had saved the cheap table napkin drawings of the BKNIX design from a decade ago, and Khun Pensri had them framed. And they seemed to be a big hit when I presented the frame to Khun Kanchana.

At eight o’clock, Khun Kanchana, Khun Pensri, Nan, Patama, Viraphan, Philip, and I went to Nahm, a fancy Michelin Thai restaurant and had a very nice meal. Sadly the acoustics made it hard to hear folk. We were back at the hotel by ten, and I managed to beg Nan to organize sending the various gifts I received by post so I did not have to carry them. I was asleep by eleven.

Thursday 2024.02.29

I woke at 03:30, dressed, checked mail, and packed. I was in the car at 4:30 and we were at Suvarnabhumi by five o’clock. I was fast tracked, so I was in the Thai lounge by 05:30. I had some baked rice and chestnut, and an Americano. And a second Americano. Zita was not answering texts which was worrisome.

At 06:35 I headed to the gate and queued to board. I was in my seat by 06:50. ANA 806 to Narita was a 787 DreamLiner in very spiffy shape. I think it was pretty full. We pushed exactly on time at 07:10 and were airborne at 07:27. I had the washoku meal which was quite good and, like the orderliness of the plane, made me realize how much i missed Japan. I read trashy SciFi and tried to stay awake; planning to sleep the transpac leg.

We landed at 14:25 on the back runway, so it was the long taxi. We docked next to transfer security. But I got hung there for 15 minutes while they found my pocket knife in my luggage. I need to remember that Narita Security costs me a pocket knife. The United Lounge was not crowded, but the upstairs Global/First was closed, it looked pretty permanently. Zita finally answered texts, and was feeling better.

I headed for the gate at 16:10. The lounge was right next to it and they were boarding Global, so I walked right on and took my seat and settled in. United 838 to San Francisco was a slightly used 777. We pushed at 17:00 and took off at 17:10. I read science fiction, and had the Japanese meal. After the AMA version, United was pretty pathetic. The mango mousse was good, so i had a second. I slept until they woke us an hour and a half out. The landing meal was no better than that of departure.

We landed pretty much on time, but had the typical San Francisco delay of 20 minutes. I zoomed through global entry. It’s a passport scan and picture ID now. They did not even have a baggage queue for declaring or not. I made it over to the global services entry through TSA pretty easily. I grabbed some sushi and headed for my departure gate, arriving on time for the schedule boarding. Then the captain came out to the gate area and said one of the lavs was broken and maintenance would fix it. Ten minutes later he came out and said they were deferring the maintenance and we could board. I was on board at 10:25, the scheduled departure time.

United 2669 was a funky and completely full 737-800. We pushed at 12:05, 30 minutes late. We taxied for a while. SFO was a mess we finally took off at 11:35. W landed at 12:50 and were at the gate at 12:55. I grabbed an Americano at the stand and summoned a Lyft. I waited at C and he texted from D, so I walked over. We were on the road by 13:20 and arrived home at 13:45.

A Road Trip to Bainbridge Island

The network had gone out on Bainbridge, so I went up to fix it.

Friday 2024.02.16

Zita left for piano, I packed. I took dirty laundry, as I was out of clean clothes and I could wash on Bainbridge. I said goodbye to Kaiby?, and left at 11:45. The car was 95% charged. I went into Northwest Portland to Tactics, and picked up the snowboard that Aaron had ordered. I left there at noon and headed North on I5.

I got to Chehalis at 13:15 with 45% charge and plugged into EVgo. I went into the Walmart to buy a cable modem, as my guess was the modem was the issue on Bainbridge. I had never seriously walked into a Walmart. It was as if one was in Amazon, infinite and with an endless array of things. And it was very real America, overweight people and all. I was happy to escape with my modem. Back at the car, at 75% the charging rate had dropped to 61 kW per hour; so I bailed at 80% which it hit 13:45; the cost was $14. And I was back on the road.

On Salma‘s recommendation I stopped at Burgerville, and saw a little bit more of America. I was back on the road at 14:10. There was was snow covered ground north of Chahalis most of the way to Olympia. I took the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I tried to charge in Poulsbo, but it was EA, half the chargers were out of commission, and the one available rejected me. I got an Americano at FourBucks and drove to Bainbridge. I stopped at HiLife to get a poke bowl, and got home by 16:40. 330km and the battery was at 26%. I plugged it in to 110v, started laundry, and went up to debug the internet.

The new modem I bought at Walmart while charging the car in Chehalis claimed to have all happy signals, and the router got a DHCP address from Comcast, in fact the same old one it had before the outage. But I could not ping the gateway address Comcast gave me or anywhere outside. From when I activated the Portland circuit, I had a phone number for Comcast Activation stashed, so called. The agent tried hard for almost an hour to activate the circuit and failed. Round and round. So I went back to the phone app. It wanted me to do the whole activation dance. I did it. It said bad modem. I told it to retry and went to fold laundry etc. I came back and I had internet!!! This was 21:15; four and a half hours.

I made it to bed by eleven. The bed was cold all night.

Saturday 2024.02.17

I woke at 08:30, dressed, and made coffee (I had brought beans with). We still had Internet! The Volvo was at 50%. Helen came over for coffee from ten to eleven. We gossiped about the Island, some things needing done on the house, and navigating bureaucracies. I had breakfast; having difficulty finding familiar things in the kitchen. I worked all afternoon, and gathered some books for Gus. I had “The American Practical Navigator” for Sam. I upgraded MacOS on my laptop!!

Left home at 4 o’clock to make the 16:40 ferry. The battery was at 56%. The ferry queue was backed up all the way on route 305; a major holiday queue. So I cheated did U-turn and jumped the queue. So I was up front for the 16:40 sailing, but the boat was running 15 to 20 minutes late.

We docked 20 minutes late and I drove to the restaurant. Turns out I should’ve left an extra 15 minutes for parking. But I still got there five minutes before Aaron, cat and Gus. We ate at Kilig a Philippine place that was good, but not highly repeatable. We were there from 6 o’clock till 19:45, then I gave them the snowboard, a bunch of books for Gus and a copy of the American Practical Navigator for Sam. I would’ve made the 8 o’clock ferry, except ferries were running late. I texted with Zita a bit. The eight o’clock ferry sailed at 20:45. We landed at nine o’clock and I was home by 21:20 with 42% charge.

Sunday 2024.02.18

I woke at 8:30, dressed, had breakfast and slowly packed up. At 10:45 I said goodbye to my home and left. The battery was at 62%. At noon I arrived at South Tacoma EVgo, with the battery at 27%. I had a difficult discussion with the charger, but eventually we worked it out. There was nothing useful in the area; Round Table Pizza was the most upscale offering. I wanted to make it all the way to Portland with spare so the computer told me to charge it to 86%.

At 13:40 I stopped at Chehalis to grab a FourBucks Americano and top off the charge at EVgo. It was at 61% but I wanted headroom when I got to Portland because Zita wanted to go to the ballet pretty immediately. I left at 1400: at battery level 77%. I arrived at our Portland Home at 15:30 with 25% battery, exactly as the car had predicted.

Rome for RIPE87

Saturday 2023.11.25

I really needed to go to the RIPE 87 meeting in Rome. So, despite serious qualms leaving Zita, I took my second trip in almost four years. I had pretty much packed the previous afternoon, and just had small details. I said goodbye to Zita who was asleep.

The Lyft picked me up at 06:10. It was just freezing, and the road was not great. We made it to the airport by 06:35, and I was through to the United Lounge by 06:50. I was also trying to deal with the mess in Seattle, vm4.sea.rg.net had reported memory errors, so I was evacuating it. I headed to the gate at 07:10, and boarded. United 163 to Newark was a completely full 737max. We took a delay at our scheduled departure time, and actually pushed after 08:20 an took off at 08:30. During the delay, the CO2 meter climbed to over 5,000! Once in the air, I could not sign in to the WiFi!

I had the breakfast, slept for a couple of hours, and then worked a bit. But it was hard without WiFi. What was weird is that I received a Signal chat or two. We landed at Dulles about 15:50. I went to the D lounge as my next flight was on D and it was a long walk to the Polaris Lounge. The CO2 was 1,700; not bad. And I could get a bit of WiFi. People were still on holiday, I guess; not much traffic. I texted Katen, and Zita was not answering her texts. I asked her to go over and check physically. I was sitting near a bunch of immunologists en route a conference in Cape Town. After one left, the woman to my left whispered that he had a Nobel.

At 17:20 I left the lounge and headed to the gate. This time I wanted to board last to minimize my time in high CO2. They were waiting for me, and it was ten minutes before United app told me boarding would end. I was embarrassed. And, to top it off, the CO2 on board was 994; good ventilation. United 884 to Roma Fiumicino was a 767-400. They closed the door at 17:40, pushed at 17:50, and wheels up was at 18:10. The WiFi worked! Katen had woken Zita and fed her some oatmeal. Zita texted me a bit. I had the dinner, almost a Japanese fish, sauteed mushrooms, asparagus, salad, and carrot cake. The WiFi was extremely sluggish and would drop ssh tunnels.

Sunday 2023.11.27

I had the fritata breakfast. We landed at 08:25, walked to immigration, which was a computer gate. It wanted to argue with me, but we both survived. I was out and in a local taxi to the Sheraton Roma Parco de’ Medici in 20 minutes. The taxi tried to rip me off for €50 and I gave him €20. I could not check in, and they wanted to put me in the 1km distant secondary anyway. So I went to the lounge where Sandra found me and said she would fix it. I hung out talking with, well listening to, Hisham until 13:30 when I checked in. When I went to shower, I found out that the hot water did not make it all the way down to my room. I had cold showers the entire time.

I cleaned up some email and then went down and played social. At maybe 18:30, Mirjam and I went to the Cinema Mall 200m down the road and has mediocre paste and pizza. Then back to the hotel. I made it to bed by ten.

Monday 2023.11.27

I was awake from 04:00 to 06:00 and then woke to the alarm at 08:00. I was cold, and the shower was tepid at best. I went down to breakfast at 09:00 and sat with Mirjam, Daniel, and other old dogs. Cristel showed at ten. After breakfast, we tried to work, but I was fried with jet lag and too much espresso. I napped from eleven to 12:30 and then went down for lunch. I realized that I was being overwhelmed by the number of people and the feeling that they all wanted something from me. This was bit ego-centric. At 13:30 I headed to the plenary hall to get some good seats up front at a table. Maz found me and we hugged a lot. I really missed him and Iz.

At 02:30, I had to give my presentation on the RIR Social Contract. It seemed to be well received. I spent the break saying hi to Maz and chatting with Mirjam and fending off folk who wanted to talk politics after my talk. Then was awarded the Rob Blokzjil Award, run my Jan and Franziska. And I gave a short talk about Rob and wanting to grow up like he. Then we hung out for the rest of the final plenary session. Hung out and chatted in the break, and I worked through the BoF and BCOP session.

Maz, Cristel, her post-doc Thomas and I found the evening social, but it was way too loud to talk. We tried to go to the hotel restaurant, but it was not open. So we walked to the Cinema complex and ate at the same pizzaria at which Mirjam and I had eaten the previous eve. I had the carbonara. The food was no better than the previous eve; at least it was cheap. We were back at the hotel by 21:30. I requested a blanket be sent to my room, and went up to check Slack, email, and journal the day. I was asleep by 22:15.

Tuesday 2023.11.28

I woke at two AM to read of the Dallas cluster being hosed. I dealt with that and then called United to move my flight up to Thursday. I chatted with Katen a bit. I finally made it back to sleep at five, and slept to the alarm at 07:45. I had breakfast with some NCC friends and Cristel. I spent half an hour trying to get flowers delivered to Sandra Gisen of the NCC who had the meeting organization dumped on her and had been very helpful. I went to the Plenary Session. At about 09:45, the network went wonky. When the NOCcers are on their phones, it is not a good sign. The day was all Plenary presentations of varying quality.

At 15:30, the Code of Conduct team met for half an hour. The only issue was an informal whine that a large Eastern European male had been rude to event staff. I had a chat with him, likely only marginally successful. Then the Measurement WG met, and it had useful content.

Mirjam, Cristel, and I escaped for a real dinner. We took a taxi into Rome and ate at Ristorante Babette, a quite and semi fancy place for which we were under-dressed. But they treated us very well and we had a really tasty meal. I had a seafood soup that was wonderful, and lamb chops which were quite good. We shared a plate of cut fruits for dessert. Food is quite affordable in Roma; and we escaped for about €50 each. They called a taxi for our return to the burbs, which turned out to be a bit complex as a major football match was ending. We got back to the hotel quite late, and I was asleep by around 23:00.

Wednesday 2023.11.29

I woke at 02:30, worked a bit, finally made it to sleep at 06:30, and woke to the alarm at 07:45. The morning was the Address Policy WG, and I wandered in and out of it. Cristel, Thomas, and I had a walk and talk through the olive trees and grass and sun, and talked BGP signaling.

Lunch was the usual somewhat organised chaos followed by a chat with Arnold Nipper to fish for a job, but he did not bite. Then more BGP research discussions, the CoC break meeting, which was quite boring which is good, and then the General Meeting. I complained that the voting email had a one pixel tracker.

I said goodbye to folk, chatted with Hans Peter a bit, and went up to my room and ordered room service. I was fried. Zita chatted me up and said she had to catch Marsh for a vet appointment the next day. I packed mostly, and was asleep by ten.

Thursday 2023.11.30

I woke at 02:30, worked until four, and slept until the alarm at 06:15. There was hot water for the shower!! I finished packing and cleared the room by 06:50. Zita reported she was fine and was amazed how much rabbit poop there was every day. Check out was easy, and the taxi arrived in four minutes as seemed to be mandated. Check-in, security, and passport control were almost walk through. Finding the lounge was a major issue. I could not find it before the train, and the one out on the concourse was closed. So I took the train back and went through another baggage security. I ate too much honeydew melon because it was ripe and tasty. At 09:05 I took the train back out to the gate and waited to board pretty much last.

United 41 to Newark was a 777-200, which felt slightly less roomy then the 767 on the way out. I settled in and watched “The Matrix” which I had never seen. It seemed overly violent and a bit dated; the latter a bit odd for a 1999 film. I then slept until awakened for the landing meal, probably six hours later. We landed about 13:45. The Global Entry line was messy. I took the train to Terminal C and went through Security, though TSA Pre was a bit of a line. I was settled in the Polaris lounge by 14:40, got an Americano and a glass of water, and decided to get on WiFi. Katen was thinking of cat sitting in London for Christmas, and was worried that Salma’s passport only had six months on it.

At 15:00 i headed for the gate, and boarded at 15:10. The jetway was full and uncomfortable due to lack of ventilation. But I made it and settled into my seat. United 2107 was a 737max and completely full. We pushed at 17:30 and I fell asleep to waken for the landing which was half an hour early. As I only had carry-on, I managed a quick exit to the new transit area to meet Lyft, and was home by 21:00. I unpacked and then slept the whole night.