Monthly Archives: October 2005

Getting ready to Present – a lot.

I’m getting ready to head out for my various meetings and presentations. I have just had another session added to EDUCAUSE – a joint presentation with Tom Barton of U. Chicago on Identity Management and Governance issues. I’m also presenting with Michael Gettes of Duke University on Identity Management and the work that Internet2 and the NSF Middleware Initiative are doing. Michael and Tom are both a kick so that sessions should be entertaining as well. It will be good to be through the next couple of weeks though. My schedule is pretty packed and things keep filling in the holes that I do have.

I guess this is what I get. When I first started working here at UW-Madison, I wished that I would get to present at these national meetings not just attend. My fairy goddog (I’m sure I have a goddog not a godmother) must have been watching and she waived her magic tail. Now I’m off to present at the Wisconsin Higher Education PeopleSoft User’s Group (WHEPSUG) on Wednesday, the CIO Council on Thursday, eInfrastructure on Friday and three times at EDUCAUSE next week. Six presentations in two weeks – that should keep me busy.

Oh, and they don’t have a hotel room for me at EDUCAUSE… yet.

Wheee.

– Jim

Sleepless Presentation Planning

I woke up last night at 1:30 AM with my mind suddenly racing over all of the presentations that I have to give. I was wide awake all of sudden thinking,”Okay. How many presentations am I giving in the next couple of weeks and am I ready for them?” This was literally the first question into my mind upon waking. I had to go through and list them all and match them to slide decks (Keynote slides that I have) or demos or white board exercises. I laid in bed and went through the list just like below

> Let’s see:
>
* Tomorrow I have the demo for the Tech Directors and I’m ready,
* Next Tuesday I have the Service Oriented Architecture Migration Strategy, I’m mostly ready though I should look through that deck once more;
* Thursday is the CIO Council presentation – that is a white board explanation and I’ve got that down,
* Friday is the demo for the eInfrastructure meeting and I have that down,
* A week from Wednesday, that is the Folksonomy talk at EDUCAUSE – I’ve got that down,
* Also that day is the Internet2 Identity Managment talk – I need to talk to Keith about that slide deck but I know the stuff in general
* Then there is the Wisconsin Digital Summit – when is that? I have the slides I need
* There is the SOA Summit – I have those slides prepared.
>
> Are there any more coming up? I think that it is. I feel like I’m missing one. What could it be? Should I get up and look at my calendar and see if there are any others out there I’m forgetting? No, I think that it is.

As you can see, work is busy and bit hectic and scattered. Most of these talks are over the next 2 weeks on four different topics. It doesn’t help much when I’m running on half a night’s sleep. What’s amazing is that my schedule will fling me through to the end of October. From there, it is a rush on through Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, New Years. When I look at the schedule of things above I suddenly see January peering over the edge of the horizon coming at me quickly.

Here is to a good night’s sleep.

– jjp

Projects 05 Oct 2005

Every so often, I need to list all of the things that I’ve got going on just so I can get a handle on them. This is that list:

Continue reading →

Internet2 Collaboration Tools Phone Call 4 October 2005

### Attendees: George Brett, Steve Olshanski, John-Paul Robinson, Jim Phelps

George: Opening comment about presentation “Identity 2.0” at OSCON 2005

### Shift in Identity discusion

Students provide a lot of personal information on Facebook but they also turn on the FERPA flags to protect their information from “the institution”. Steve asked about Linked In.

Movement towards people being responsible for their own attributes and expression of their attributes.

### Agenda:

1. Review the notes from I2FMM on Jim’s blog.
2. Follow up from the I2FMM – what are the next steps.
3. Using the I2FMM and Internet2 tags.
4. Spring Member Meeting – a set of tags.

Continue reading →

Confirming our World View

We have a 15 month old Labradoodle named Lola who sleeps on the floor in our room. We are watching Sushi for our friends who are house hunting in North Carolina. Sushi sleeps in the TV room which is directly below our room in her crate.

Last night Sushi woke up at 2:30 AM and began to cry, whimper and whine. Ena and I waited patiently for her to stop crying. The last thing I wanted to do was to reinforce that crying gets her attention. She had woken up when Ena got up to use the W.C. as they say over the pond.

We listened for about a half an hour to her plaintive cries. Then I said to Lola, “Lola. Go take care of Sushi”. Lola got up, padded down the hall and down the stairs and through the kitchen. Sushi’s cries let up and quite returned to the house. A couple of minutes later, Lola padded back through the kitchen and back upstairs and back to bed.

“Siiigh” wag wag wag kerplop, Lola went back sleep on the rug.

Ena and I were amazed. “She did it!”

This just confirmed our world view that Lola is the smartest and best dog in the world. Further proof!

– Jim

Friend Clouds

Good friends of ours; Julian, Marilyn and Darien Lombardi; are moving away to North Carolina for new jobs at Duke. The opportunities that they were offered sound wonderful and I can’t blame them at all for accepting their offers. I was thinking about how friends move away and how unstable our society is now.

My parents got married during World War II. When the “boys came home”, they went off to college at University of Utah with their friends. All of them lived together in married student housing. After graduating, the whole gang moved to Salt Lake City into the same neighborhood – Rose Park. This group was friends for the rest of my parent’s lives – 50 years I would guess. They got together for dinner and parties. They went through the bridge craze of the 70s and the original tiki party phase. They were together for almost their whole lives. They could talk and compare their life trajectories and the changes and shifts in their beings. They had people who knew them when they were “young” and whom they watched grow old. The had partners on this long path we walk.

I have friends from my childhood: Brian Durney who I first met when I was 4 years old, John Millsaps who I met at 15, Bill Lockhart (who is my brother’s wife’s brother) who I’ve known since I was 12 or so. I occasionally see these people. We have been scattered to the winds… well, John didn’t scatter too far – he is still in Salt Lake and Brian did scatter to the winds but he has returned to Utah, Bill is off-and-of in Utah. OK. I’ve been scattered to the winds. There. I confess.

I had a tight group of friends in Palo Alto, California. Jen is now in L.A.. Michelle is in Hawaii. Kat has disappeared but is rumored to be in Woodside, CA. Lisa works in L.A. and lives in Mountain View (that crazy kid). I have had off-and-of contact with Michelle and Lisa via chat (instant messaging). Jen has sent Christmas notes. But, that group was also scattered to the winds.

Ena and I had tight friends in Corvallis, OR. Peggy was killed in a car wreck. Others moved to Seattle. We moved away.

And now here in Madison. We had formed a good circle of friends. Mairead and Sharon, Julian and Marilyn, Keith and Kathleen, Scott and Gloria. Two of the pairs have separated. Julian and Marilyn are moving away. Scott took another job that has kept him very busy so we lost social contact for the Summer.

It seems that the circles of friends form and crack like ice on the rivers. We gather and have strength. We tighten and can carry each other then the heat comes and everything cracks and chunks flow away.

I envy the elder generation who had those lifelong friends to share their aging and growing, who saw each other’s children grow, who were there when times were tough or delightful. When I think back to all of the weddings in our family – the same crowd was there on the Phelps side. I saw the same crowd at the funerals for both my parents.

We may be upwardly mobile in our carriers but what a deficit we have wrought upon friendships.

We will miss you dearly Julian, Marilyn and Darien.