Katen and Latif picked me up at 09:25. We lost 15 minutes by stopping at Cotta for coffee. Aaron and Gus were breakfasting at Stepping Stone. We hit the road, in increasing rain. We stopped at the chargers at Freddie’s in West Eugene at 11″35. at 12:10 we headed to the Metropole Bakery to meet Lucy and have lunch. We left Eugene at 13:20 and headed down I5 to Drain and turns to the coast. We arrived at Rivian charging in South Coos Bay at 15:30. we headed for cherry creek at 15:55, arriving at 16:45.
It was raining lightly. The driveway and the area around the house were overgrown with blackberries, and baby firs were invading the pastures. We could not get near the house site from the drive, but could see it was an overgrown ruin, returning to the earth from which it came.
We walked back and into first pasture to get to the house site from that side. I could walk to the kitchen back door, but it was inoperable and what was left of the house looked generally unsafe. A tree had fallen and destroyed much of the upstairs and the kids’ room. It was like visiting a personal Angkor Wat.
Gus wanted to fish the creek, so we walked down through the alders. It was very calm and like walking into the past.
I left them, went back to first pasture and walked to second pasture to the walnut tree under which Frau and Parnell were buried, and some of Joanie’s ashes spread. A lot of heartache.
I went back to meet Katen and Latif who did not want to wait for Gus and Aaron. So we left at 18:20. We drove to the Wheelhouse in Bandon for dinner, which was OK. We left at 20:45 and got to the house Katen had arranged at 21:30. Aaron and Gus had gotten in 45 minutes earlier. It was large and overlooked the entrance to the bay just West of Bastendorf Beach, quite luxurious.
Thursday 2026.09.03
We all woke around eight, organized, had coffee, etc. We made it out the door by 09:30 and went to the Pancake Mill on 101 in North Bend. Gus ate two breakfasts. At eleven we split up, Aaron and Gus heading North, while we drove to the Rivian charger in South Coos Bay. At 11:40 we were on 101 Northbound. At 13:15 we stopped in Yachats so Katen could get coffee and some fancy local cider for her party that evening. But it turned out she got a home made cherry soda and we wee on our way. At that point it became the coast on which Zita and I had spent multiple trips; and I went from deep echoes of Joan to deep echoes of Zita. We reached Electrocute America in Waldport by 14:00. We kept going North and did not turn inland until Lincoln City. we endured a lot of traffic to avoid I5, Katen’s preference. They dropped me off at home around 17:25.
And Katen had an iPhone pic of an original photograph of the Cherry Creek house as I remember it.
It was the 1.5 year anniversary of Zita’s death. Katen was up on Bainbridge and would come back to Portland in the afternoon. I had to go up to rack and stack at the Westin. I was up at 07:30, and spent the morning packing meds, making coffee, packing everything up, doing my checklist and setting the house up. I got on the road at 11:30. Kermit thought he could make it to Poulsbo with 7%, but that was a little too close for me. So I convinced him to stop in Chehalis for ten minutes to get the margin up to 15% and to use the bathroom too. We’re back on the road by 13:00. North of the Olympia I-5 Northbound became stop and go.
I made it to the Poulsbo Electrocute America by 14:45 just as Kermit had predicted. I had a fight with one of the chargers which I lost, but the second one worked out. I went into the Walmart to try to get a glasses case, but they did not have decent ones. 25 bucks got Kermit to 70% and I left at 15:15. Katen and I passed each other on route 305 as I was past Poulsbo. I stopped at the T&C on Bainbridge and got some bad sushi for dinner and some watermelon. and arrived home by 16:15. I caught up with email and worked on my IPv6 Evolution presentation until nine, when I went to sleep.
Monday 2026.08.17
I slept through the night to the alarm at 05:30; the first time I had slept through the night in forever. I dressed, made coffee, and cleaned up email. It was a foggy morning on the water.
I had breakfast, packed up, left the house at seven o’clock, and headed to make the 7:55 sailing. The queues were essentially empty. I settled in and did some reading. We boarded at 7:45; I was fourth in line. We sealed on time. The sound was extremely foggy. But we landed on time and I was at the Western by 8:35 and through security by 8:40.
I did some power cabling to match the documentation, connected ma1.r2.sea.rg.net to a switch, and did some other catch-up tasks. At 10:30, CJ and Arden finally showed up. I had to go down to help authenticate CJ. It took them two hours to rack vm1.sea because the needed amount of space was not originally open. So they had to re-rack vm0. They left at about one o’clock, and I cabled up vm1.sea.
I was pretty burned out so left at three o’clock. I got to the ferry terminal at 3:15 when the next ferry was at 15:50. So I went upstairs to see if I could find food and there was nothing edible. The 15:50 ferry was running about twelve minutes late. I stopped at Town & Country to pick up some sushi and some fruit and was home by 17:20.
I had a box of bad sushi, some watermelon, and some blueberries, and cleaned up the weird interfaces, e.g. vm1’s replication interface, and tried to close out as much of my homework as I could without risking breaking things given my state. About eight o’clock I wrapped up and went back downstairs to read and sleep.
Tuesday 2026.08.18
I was up for an hour in the middle of the night, woke to the alarm at 05:30, started coffee, dressed, finished making coffee, and went upstairs to clean up email. I packed up and left home at 7:05 getting to the ferry at 7:20. I was probably tenth in line. It was not foggy, but it was definitely a grey day, 15c, with a cloud layer so low it cut off the top of the buildings in Seattle. The water was so flat that the incoming ferry looked like it was floating atop it. The salt air smelled good, and almost relieved my sore throat.
I arrived at the Westin at 08:50 and was in the colo a few minutes later. I worked on the serial terminal concentrator and tried to get an ACME cert for vm1. Arden and CJ showed up at 10:15 and worked on shortening Ethernet cables. I corrected more cable documentation. They left at 10:45. I packed up and left the cola at 11:20. I missed the 11:25 sailing, so I grabbed some deep fried fish at Ivar’s, and waited for the 12:25. I got home at 13:20.
I was way too fried to drive south, so worked and managed to debug some oddities left over from the Westin: vm1 acme certificate, ma1.r2.sea remote access, etc. At six o’clock I had an IIJ call on the IPv6 paper. Romain had actually reviewed it, and it was very helpful. I went to sleep by nine.
Wednesday 2026.08.19
I woke at 07:30, having woken for an hour or so in the middle of the night. I made coffee, dressed, and went up to deal with email. I managed to get some work done, had my breakfast, and started to diagnose the security issue in Dallas with Joe. A bunch of chatter with Athina, NCC legal. I got everything packed and ready to go and then Helen showed up for two hours. I reorganized to go and actually made it out by 2 o’clock. I arrived at the Electrocute America charging station in Poulsbo at 14:25. The charger was actually cooperative. I left Poulsbo at 14:45 when Kermit said we would get to Chehalis with 18%.
There was serious traffic getting out of Poulsbo. There was a 15 minute delay in traffic in North Bremerton. The toll gate for the bridge took ten minutes because the agent was schmoozing with everybody. There was a major slow down on Route 16 in Tacoma heading for I-5 South. And another just North of Olympia. After miserable traffic I finally got to Chehalis at 16:50 at 26% charge. I fed Kermit to 78% and had a half meal at the Panda Express which I knew I would regret. I left Chehalis at 17:25 and was home by 18:45. Kaiby? claimed she had not been fed the entire time I was gone. I unpacked, took out the garbage, cleaned up email, and went upstairs to read by 20:30.
The cold I acquired in the Westin colo lasted two weeks.
The June RIPE-NCC Board meeting was fixed on the calendar, which I confirmed with Daniella. In early March, due to Trump’s Operation Epstein Fury, air fares started to go up quickly. To save money, I did the search for fares for June. Almost all were $9-12,000. Luckily I found Condor for under $7,000 so grabbed it.
Thursday 2026.06.11
I had scheduled an extra day in Amsterdam after the board meeting so I could have dinner with Fergal and family and generally socialize. Then Cristel in Louvain-la-Neuve found out and begged me to visit. So I booked the train from Amsterdam Centraal to LnL returning to Schiphol the night before my early morning flight to Frankfurt, and asked Daniella to readjust my Amsterdam hotel stay. I booked a room at the Schiphol Citizen M.
Friday 2026.06.19, Juneteenth
I woke at five and could not bet back to sleep. So I made coffee, worked a bit, and had my normal breakfast. After coffee with Hans and Christine at Stumptown from 08:45 until noon, I cleaned up email, which was light as it was a US holiday and the start of midsommar in Sweden and Finland. I did the final pre-travel laundry and started packing. As it was only four or five days, I could make it into the smallest Rimowa even with the four boxes of shortbread cookies.
In the evening, I was bored and had time, so I very stupidly decided to upgrade two FreeBSD 14.4 systems to 15.1. Each blew chunks in a different way. psg.com broke dovecot. This turned out to be the new OpenSSL wanted a larger Diffie-Hellman than I had generated in 2019, so openssl dhparam -out /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dh.pem 2048 fixed it. raid0.sea.rg.net had to run the upgrade twice before it stuck.
Saturday 2026.06.20
I did not sleep much at all, and gave up about 06:30. My left knee was painful, but no visible swelling, so I decided to tough it out. I finished packing and did the usual email etc. I texted with Tom Hirsch who was at 22 of the planned 35 radiation treatments for the cancer on the back of his tongue. He was at the same facility that Lynn, his wife who died, was treated.
I called an Uber at one o’clock and an electric Toyota picked me up five minutes later; the fastest Uber I had ever experienced. It was 20c and sunny. Oddly, there was traffic on the Banfield. We arrived at the airport at 13:33. I was through security by 13:40 and in the lounge by 13:45, slowed by my knee. I had some tabbouleh and salad, and then laptopped. I watched the last half hour of Germany winning over Côte d’Ivoire 2-1. And realized it was three o’clock and I had better get going to the gate. I arrived limping at the gate at 3:15, so they boarded me around the side, so I was in my seat by 3:20.
Condor DE 2091 to Frankfurt was a three year old AirBus 330-900neo in spiffy shape. I think it was pretty full. The seats were hard even with a mattress. We pushed at 15:40 and wheels were up at 15:55. I watched Dune: Part Two and had the takeoff meal. Then I slept for about four hours.
Sunday 2026.06.21
I watched something junky, had the breakfast , and chilled until we landed in Frankfurt at 10:30, directly over a plane that was taking off on a cross runway. We taxied right past the main terminal, and then halfway to Wiesbaden to a remote stand, arriving at 10:42. We were unloaded in Terminal B at 11:03, so I had the long walk and then a train to Terminal A. There was a horrifying queue for passport control that I passed on my way. At 11:25 I got to the queue for business class security. It was relatively short. My gift cookies set off the machine, but the resulting inspection was very efficient. I was through by 11:35. I passed by a queue, 150 m long at the Lufthansa Service Center and knew I was doomed. I then entered the ridiculous queue for passport control for the A gates at 11:43. I was through by 13:15. So I missed my flight to Amsterdam. Instead of going to the ridiculous Service Center queue, I went to the Lufthansa lounge where there was no queue, and the agent rebooked me on like a 16:30 flight. I had a coffee with two espressos added and drank a lot of water.
I left the lounge at 15:50 and walked to the gate. I went through the boarding pass gate and then had to go downstairs and take a bus. It was 34c. The bus did not depart until 16:10. I hobbled up the stairs to the plane at 16:20, kind of pissed off because it was at an actual gate. I suspect the gate was on the wrong side of passport control so they needed to control who and how boarding happened.
Lufthansa flight 996 to Amsterdam was a 30 year old AirBus 319-100 and almost full. We pushed at 16:28 and wheels were up at 16:38. I slept the whole way until we landed Schiphol at 17:27. We were at a real gate by 17:32.
I made the 18:07 non-stop to Centraal, arriving at 18:20. It was a cool 28c. I was in my hotel room by 18:35. I showered and put on clean clothes and was back out of my room at 19:00. I caught the 19:17 ferry to Polly Goudvisch to meet Piotr, Liman, Raymond, and Mirjam for dinner on the shore of North Amsterdam.
I had ceviche and a frisée salad. We finished dinner about ten o’clock and walked back to the hotel. I was asleep by eleven.
Monday 2026.06.22
I woke at one and managed to sleep from five to 08:30. I dressed, went down to breakfast with Liman, Raymond, and Piotr, and then walked to the office. I hung out with Mirjam and Fergal, chatted with Athina, and generally socialised. At noon, we had lunch; I focused on salads. Then we started the Board meeting. First was the usual overhead of approval of minutes, agreeing on calendar, appointing Board Chair, Secretary, Treasurer etc. for the next year. There were no changes. Then the Employee Happiness report, various activity reports, etc. The first substance was the Infrastructure Project. We did not have enough detail to make any forward decision. Then on to the Office Improvement where, again, we did not have enough detail. And Simon-Jan, the CFO made a seriously misleading presentation on how both projects would affect the financials; including such wonderful features as counting expenses as assets. Basically, the Board was going to have to bite some sort of large bullet for which there was no cash without raiding the piggy bank. Then Milton Mueller took us through his ICP-2 Stress Testing report. It would have been good if he had not gotten the history so incorrectly. Then Athina took us through the ICANN Sevilla report. And that was the end of the day.
Thirteen of us had a large dinner at Cecconi’s Amsterdam. It was family style, good but not memorable.
I left at 22:30 and was asleep by eleven.
Tuesday 2026.06.23
I woke at one in the morning again, and was sick and vomiting a bit. I did not know why. I got back to sleep at about five and slept to the alarm at 07:30. I dressed, packed up completely, and headed to the NCC office. The rest of the crew slowly wandered in. We had pastry breakfast and started the meeting at nine. We spent an hour on the board structure yet again. It went on and on, twice the allotted time. I got email from Tim Griffin who seemed to be interested in IPv6 Segment Routing. I pointed him to Kireeti’s MPTE and Ratul’s RNG work. Hans Petter proposed to postpone Budget for a few weeks until he had better data. Then Fergal presented the plan for refactoring the Activity Plan and Budget. Next was the review of the planned five year Strategy. Then Simon-Jan led is through the Financial Report. Then Fergal gave a review of the May General Meeting in Edinburgh. There was much discussion of the process, voter turnout, the Charging Scheme vote, etc. Then Athina presented the problem of choosing six of the twelve applicants for the Arbiters’ Panel. We made a 45 minute rat hole of that.
We all had a nice lunch, and I focused on salad again. Athina took a sarcastic picture of me.
Then we went through Amendments to the LEA Requests Procedure, Amendments to the Due Diligence Procedure, Amendments to Management Regulations, Resolution to de-register the Dubai branch, the report of the RIPE NCC ME FZ LLC, and Adoption of the Financial Report 2025. We were ahead of schedule so took a 15 minute break so Ondrej could watch his son play football or something. Then Mirjam did the RIPE Chair report on RIPE 92 in Edinburgh.
We finished over an hour early. So we said slow goodbyes. I went down to the 3F and chatted with Fergal about Research. We were joined by Mirjam and then Hans Petter. At 15:30 I headed out for Centraal, and caught the 16:10 EuroStar to Brussels Midi. It was 18c. I had a 40 minute layover in Brussels Midi and then caught a StopTrain, i.e. local, to Louvain-la-Neuve, arriving at 20:00. It was 30c. Cristel, Lionel, and Justine met me and we went to the city center and had a light dinner. I had a tropical salad, citrus, pomegranate seeds, mango, lettuce, some unlabeled seeds. It was pretty good. They drove me to the [Ibis Hotel](https://all.accor.com/hotel/2200/index.en.shtml) and I checked in and disassembled at 22:15. There was no aircon. There was a fan. It was down to 24c and I had the door wide open. I pushed the edits to Cola’s IPv6 paper I had done on the train, and made it to sleep by eleven.
Wednesday 2026.06.23
I slept to two and then from five to the alarm at 07:30. It was 24c. I dressed, packed, and Cristel picked me up a 07:15. We drove to the University and grabbed coffee. We settled in Cristel’s office and various researchers came to chat, including Olivier. A lot of chat about transport, Multicast, BGP over TLS, etc. Camille joined us at noon, we walked 100m to a cafe, and I had a half a club sandwich. Back at the office, Justine and Lionel showed up, and Camille left with them. As Cristel was leaving to hear a Masters Presentation, Samuele and Abbas came in. They were doing interesting work with RPKI Manifests. And we also descended into BGP and other signals and instabilities and frequency analysis. I napped on the floor of Cristel’s office from 14:10 to 15:50. Then Cristel came back, and two more transport students came to talk. It was 34c and the sun was coming in the window. At 18:45 we headed down to town and stopped at a Le Pain Quotidien for a meat pie and some water, but also to indulge the air conditioning. Then we walked to the train so I could take the 19:41 StopTrain to Brussels Midi. It too was air conditioned.
The train arrived at Brussels Midi a couple of minutes late, and I had a ten minute connection time. Then, after I had gone down and up three flights of stairs, they changed the track on me, so I had to do the three flights of stairs all over again. I made a note to tell my cardiologist. The 20:49 InterCity was mostly empty and was air conditioned. I could associate with the WiFi, but the captive portal did not work, blank page.
We arrived at Schiphol at 22:49. I did the long walk to the Citizen M Hotel and did the fully computerised check in. I was in my room by 23:10. It was 24c, a big relief from Louvain-la-Neuve.
Thursday 2026.06.25
I managed to sleep ’til 04:30, packed out, and was walking back to Schiphol by 04:55. It was the long walk to the other end of the terminal, so I was not in the security queue until 05:15. I was out of security by 05:30 and in the lounge at 05:35. Except I had to walk up the stairs because the lift was broken. I had a piece of bread with ham and cheese and only one coffee. Katen texted to see if I had made it through Frankfurt yet. I caught up with priority email.
I left the lounge at 07:15 and headed for the gate. I sat there for 15 minutes and we boarded at 07:40. Lufthansa flight 1003 to Frankfurt was an AirBus 321–100 in good shape despite his age. We pushed at 08:04 and wheels were up at 08:19. I tried unsuccessfully to sleep. We landed at about nine o’clock, 10 minutes early. But once we landed and taxied almost to the terminal, we had to wait for fifteen minutes to get our gate. We finally docked at 09:15, but there was no jetway driver for another five minutes. Surprisingly, Passport Control was almost a walk-through, and I was on the correct Concourse by 09:28, and in the lounge by 9:35. They had good bread and geräuchertes shinken, but mediocre cheese. I progressed a bit more catching up with up email, and eventually left the lounge at 11:10. My watch said it was 32c out, another hot day in Northern Europe.
It was a bit of a walk to the gate, where I arrived at 11:15. And then a massive room in which to queue to get on a bus. I took a seat and waited for the crowds to die down. To minimize my exposure to the heat, I waited for the last bus. I made the mistake of getting on it too early because its air conditioning was not really blasting. But I survived without breaking into a sweat. We didn’t really get to the airplane until 12:10. And the plane was due to takeoff at 11:55.
I boarded at 11:20. Condor flight 2090 to Portland was a two year old AirBus 330-900neo in spiffy shape. Wheels were up at 12:06. they woke me up for the takeoff meal, but I only had the starters I went back to sleep for four or five hours, watched a 1997 Clint Eastwood movie, and napped a bit more.
We landed at 14:17. A long taxi and the jet bridge was a ten minute wait. Immigration was almost a walk through. I was in a Tesla by 14:52. Traffic was quite heavy. I was home at 15:30, hugged the cat, unpacked, and set up the computer.
RIPE 92 was in Edinburgh with OARC on the preceding weekend. The best fare I could find was KLM through Amsterdam, with the non-stop PDX-AMS both ways, which was nice. The few days before, as a Board member, I had to review the formal presentations by the NCC. I also did packing preliminaries such as meds.
Thursday 2026.05.14
I had done most of my packing Wednesday afternoon, but did the final meds, bathroom, etc. I cleaned up as much work as I could. I forgot to vote in the primary election. Ah well.
I said goodbye to Kaiby? and was in a robin’s egg blue Mustang electric Uber by 10:50. It was 12c and cloudy. We arrived PDX at 11:12, and I was through doc check, TSA, and in the lounge by 11:30. I had a glass of water and cleaned up email, then left the lounge at 12:20. It was a bit of a walk to the gate. We boarded at 12:30, and I was in my seat by 12:35.
KLM flight 616 to Amsterdam was a 787-10 DreamLiner in clean shape. Despite my choosing the language as English, the IFE gave me Chinese in half the menus, which I found amusing. The captain came on the PA to say a sick passenger had deboarded, so there would be a fifteen minute delay to find and remove their luggage. As the flight was going to be half an hour early anyway, this should not be a problem. We pushed at 13:20, fifteen minutes late as predicted, and took off to the West at 13:38. I slept until the mediocre meal, watched a silly movie, and slept for three or four hours
Friday 2026.05.15
I watched another silly movie, had the breakfast, and spaced out until we landed at Schiphol at 07:15, thirteen minutes early. We were at the gate by 07:20, and I was in the lounge by 07:45. Somehow being on net on my laptop and doing normal systems maintenance felt comforting; a taste of home. I had knakerbrodt with ham and oldish gouda, and another cup of coffee. About twenty minutes before I was going to leave the lounge a cougher comes and sits next to me, and then starts a very loud phone conversation. I moved. I closed down and left the lounge at 10:50, half an hour before my boarding time two concourses away. Gate D31 was quite a long walk. I got there ten minutes before boarding. It was the only boarding area I had ever seen where people weren’t queued up. We finally boarded at 11:25, but it was a little chaotic due to the smallish plane and a lot of people.
KLM flight 927 was a 25 year old 727-800 and it looked its age. The flight was completely full. I didn’t understand passengers boarding towards the tail of the queue with significant luggage; where the heck were they going to put it? But somehow they did. We pushed back at 12:01, rushing to make a narrow slot allowed by air traffic control. We taxied at 60 kph to get to the active on time, and took off at 12:18. Two flight attendants managed to do a box meal service on a one hour flight. On the other hand, the meal was a spicy corn and bean salad with plant based beef. I hoped I was not going to regret it. We landed at 12:25 and were at the gate by 12:30.
It was a stairway not a jet-bridge, and then up another stair. Then Passport Control which was fast moving because of working automatic gates. I was out by 12:45. It was a fair walk to Uberville, and the Uber took almost twenty minutes to arrive because I had asked for an EV. The Uber driver was interesting. Had been a Turkish grad student learning programming and part of EARN, back in the day, but burned out. Traffic was a bit of a pain as it was Friday afternoon. We arrived at the Moxy Edinburgh at 13:48. The Moxy was one of those funky hip places. The room was reasonable, but no real desk/chair setup. I unpacked and answered Katen’s text asking if I had arrived.
I cleaned up email etc., took a nap from three to five o’clock, showered, and went back to my laptop. Katen texted and was having me explore Scottish Textiles Showcase and started selecting yarn, a scarf, etc. At seven o’clock the fire alarm went off, so I evacuated. By the time I got the lobby, the alarm turned off. Someone had generated too much steam when ironing clothes. In the lobby, I ran into Hans Petter and his SO, Portia, and he suggested we go to dinner. So they put their suitcases in their room and we walked down Grove St. to end up at the quite mediocre Vietnam House Restaurant where we ordered too much. We talked to after nine, and walked back to the Moxy. I texted a bit more with Katen and went to bed by ten.
Saturday 2026.05.16
I managed to sleep to eight o’clock, ten hours of sleep! I dressed and went down to a pathetic breakfast, grabbed my kit, and went across the road to Not Just Coffee, grabbed an acceptable take-away Americano, and walked to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and into the OARC entrance, intending just to say hi to old friends. At 09:30, I went next door to the nascent RIPE meeting set-up, planning to settle in the organisers’ room and attend OARC remotely. But the RIPE Meeting WiFi network was not yet up. So I went back to the OARC side to attend in person for a while. I sat with Liman and gossiped a bit.
I sat at lunch with Warren Kumary, Jen Linkova, and Peter Koch, and then we went across the street to Brekkie for acceptable but not great coffee. Then I went to the RIPE meeting staff room to hang out and listen to OARC online. It was not socially comfortable, but I survived. At 17:30 or so, I headed back to my hotel. In the lobby, I kind of got stuck with Raymond and a random Norwegian guy. I got a chance to talk with Peter Koch for half an hour. Over the next hours more folk accumulated, including Mirjam, Keira, Hans Petter, and more. I finally made it to bed sans supper by 22:30.
Sunday 2026.05.17
I did not get much sleep. The upstairs neighbor started thumping at 03:36 and kept going. I kept trying to pretend until I gave up at eight, dressed, and went down to breakfast with Mirjam and Peter Koch. At nine or so, Mirjam, Hans Petter, and I grabbed a coffee across the way and walked to the OARC side of the venue. We sat in the social area all day, chatting with various folk, procrastinating about work, etc. At 14:30, I was quite tired and went back to the hotel and napped until 19:00, showered, and met the Board crew in the lobby to Uber to dinner. We went to Montrose Restaurant for a really nice dinner.
Mirjam had gone with the OARC folk, so Athina and Daniella were stuck supervising me. We were back at the Moxy by eleven.
Monday 2026.05.18
I slept from eleven ’til two and then from five to eight. Having eaten a large dinner, I skipped the Roxy’s bad breakfast, picked up coffee at The Coffee Cave, which was better than Not Just Coffee, and walked to the RIPE meeting. I registered, got my badge, and went down to the Global Cyber Alliance meeting on Residential Proxies. It was not deep or exciting. As it went on, it turned out they wanted a brilliant new idea that could be rolled out in 6-9 months. I decided they were desperate to justify their existence. At Lunch it ended.
There was an NCC Board lunch up on 1F. But we had to go back down to -1F to get food.
Lunch was essentially reviewing and getting everybody on the sane page for the two Services WG meeting, the Infrastructure Build-out and starting the discussion of PI space, legacy, and multi-LIR. Then it was back down to -2F for the opening Plenary. There was the usual bumph and then Sasha Romin gave a brilliant presentation of the bugs she found to collect the bug bounties. I ended up in the hallway for break, and was cornered by various people. Then I was cornered for over half an hour by Michael Abuelo and John Sweeting of ARIN on the shocking state and behavior of the ARIN Board. This caused me to miss the two Plenary talks that actually interested me; but I went in for the last half of the post-break Plenary.
Then I stood around in the hallway for ran hour being an open and available Board member. This continued from seven to ten in the Meet the Board social, Daniella chased us out at nine, and I walked back to the Roxy and was in bed, without dinner, by about eleven o’clock.
Tuesday 2026.05.19
I could not sleep past two o’clock. I gave up at seven, dressed, and went down to breakfast where I ran into the NCC Senior Management. After breakfast, Geoff, Joao, and I went across to the Coffee Cave while Mirjam got her kit, and then we walked to the EICC RIPE venue. I settled in the back of the Plenary room, drank my coffee, and cleaned up email. Lunch was upstairs again with the boards of all RIRs. The focus was on AfriNIC and Lu Heng, which was better than ARIN governance. After lunch I spent a good while with my old friend Hank Kilmer, introducing him to various people as they walked by. The NCC Board had a group photograph. Then some time with Athina, and some with Desiree on the issue of EU relationships. Then the MAT Working Group, and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion BoF, which started with slides on the problems of a toxic workplace. The starting slides were spot on for Arrcus.
It was Mirjam’s birthday, so she, Fergal, Anna, and I wet out to dinner at Barry Fish, which was informal but pretty good. Mir and I split a halibut crudo and asparagus on romesco, and I had a smoked Cod with celeriac, sapphire, parsley sauce. Mir and I split an excellent rice pudding with plumb and cardamom for dessert. We all made it back by 22:30 or so, and I tried to get to sleep by eleven.
Wednesday 2026.05.20
I managed to sleep until eight o’clock. I dressed, went to The Coffee Cave, walked to the EICC, and had my coffee in the back of the Open Source WG. It was actually interesting. Then the Board had to be photographed and NCC Comms wanted a new head-shot of me.
The Cooperating WG was not exciting. I had lunch with Warren, ran into Anne Johnson, etc. Joao scored me an Americano from Brekkie, but I was not impressed. Then was the NCC Services WG, followed by a short break, and then th Annual General Meeting. It was a mixed bag with one very embarrassing incident, AV cutting off Marco Hoenewig from the Dutch Government.
After the AGM, Mirjam, Hank, Patrycja (Hank’s +1), and I grabbed an Uber to Heron to meet Matthias, Thomas, and three students for dinner.
It was good but not great. At 23:30, we Ubered back to the Moxy, and I was asleep soon after midnight.
Thursday 2026.05.21
I slept in until nine, dressed, grabbed an Americano and a croissant from the Coffee Cave, and headed to the EICC for the meeting. First I settled in the general area and cleaned up backlog. The Address Policy WG was the normal updates from the NCC followed by Tony Li wanting an allocation for outer space. I kind of worked while politely pretending to listen to it all. I had lunch with Niall O’Reilly and discussed legacy space. He wanted examples of ancient allocation documents, so I dug RAINet and OreSoft up for him. I missed a bunch of the second Address Policy WG as I was talking with Hans Petter and with Desiree on how we relate to governments. Hans Petter did admit that he finally understood that the community was poorly positioned, and we started to talk about what to do about it going forward. At the Community Plenary, we had to listen to ICP-2 yet again, Athina on Anti-Competition Law, etc. Robert gave a talk on the issue of organising your data, credentials, authorisations, etc. for continuity on one’s demise. We closed on a stupid presentation by Remko on his plan to hang on to the Secret WG for some more years,
At six o’clock Athina and I walked back to the Roxy. She went to meet with important people, and I went up to clean up email etc. I worked a bit and then showered and dressed for the RIPE Dinner. I visited the Board in the rooftop bar for fifteen minutes and then went down to meet Mirjam to take the bus to the RIPE Dinner at Dynamic Earth.
I hung out with Daniel, Mirjam, and John Crain. The food was horrid. Patrycja took a picture of Hank and me so I could send it to Ed Kern.
Mirjam, Daniel, Julf, and I escaped and took the 22:30 bus back to the Moxy, arriving at eleven. It took me half an hour to sort and crash.
Friday 2026.05.22
I was awake from two to seven, and woke to the alarm at eight. I dressed, got coffee and a croissant at the Coffee Cave, and went to the EICC venue. I cleaned up email and then hung out until the final Plenary started. There was a somewhat interesting Happy Eyeballs measurement presentation and then meh. The voting results were announced. At least Maria stayed on the Board, and Liman replaced Harald. But the charging scheme chosen was the same old flat rate, which was a bit of a shock. Then a final bit of plenary followed by the Secret Working Group, followed by lunch. I chatted a bit more with Daniel, said goodbye to a lot of friends, and headed back to the hotel.
I dumped my stuff in my room and took an Uber to the Scottish Textiles Showcase to pick up Katen’s order. They did not have the jacket Katen thought I should wear in my size. I took a taxi back to the Moxy. Raymond was outside taking an Uber to a memorial for Feargas McKay, so I went along. It was at the [Royal Forth Yacht Club](https://www.royalforth.org/), and we go t there around three.. I sat with Merike and Cathy Almond.
There was deep fried finger food and a toast remembering Feargas. It was clear that Raymond was not going to be ready to leave for a while
so I snuck out at five and was back at the Moxy by 17:20. I tried to clean up email etc, but was nodding off. I gave up at 18:30 and went to sleep.
Saturday 2026.05.23
I woke up at three o’clock, after 8.5 hours of wonderful sleep. I dressed, packed, and was in the lobby by 03:45. Rapinder from APNIC was causing chaos at the checkout desk. The Uber was slow and picked me up at 03:55. It was sunny and 12c. We arrived at Edinburgh Airport at 04:15. The queues were massive and looked like chaos. I would’ve guessed at least an hour to get through security. But they really knew how to run them, and I was through by 04:30. I got a croissant and an Americano at Pret a Manger and went to the Aspire lounge to hang out. I had a banger and a little bit of egg. I left the lounge at 05:15 and did the bit of a walk to the gate. The flight was already boarding so I checked through. There was no explicit passport control. Three flights of stairs down and then up a stairway to the plane. I did not understand the stairs because there was a jet-way. I was on board by 05 27.
KLM flight 922 to Amsterdam was a brand new AirBus 321neo in clean shape. I think it was pretty full. There was a cougher right behind me. We pushed back at 05:48 and took off at 05:56. We landed at Schiphol at 07:58, and were at a distant D gate at 08:10. I did a bit of a walk to the KLM Lounge. I had too much apple pear juice and cleaned up daily email. I had another snack and spaced out until 09:55 and did the walk to gate D10, arriving after boarding had started. I was on board at 10:10, and settled in. I found that I had left my condom-USB-A-to-USB-C in the hotel room. I wondered if it would be easy to find and order a replacement. I did not seem to be able to get the free WiFi that I should have as a Flying Blue member.
KLM flight 615 was a 787-10 in good shape. We were told that American authorities asked us not to congregate in the aisles, and especially not around the toilets. We were also told that departure would be delayed due to the late arrival of the aircraft from LA. We pushed back at 10:43. I watched a really bad movie and had the take off meal. I then slept for five hours, waking two hours out of Portland. I had the landing meal and spaced out and watched the flight map. We landed at 11:17 and were at the gate by 11:20. But it took in another ten minutes to get the jet-way attached to the airplane. I was through Immigration and on the bus by 11:40, and in an Uber Tesla by 11:50. It was 16c and sunny. The driver was silent, which was fine with me, but did not help with my luggage. I arrived home at 12:20, properly greeted the cat, unpacked, set up the computer, showered, and the cat and I took a nap.
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.
